[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation launches tenth-annual online fundraising campaign to support Wikipedia
(This press release is also available online here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_announces_tenth_annual_fundraising_campaign Wikimedia Foundation launches tenth-annual online fundraising campaign to support Wikipedia and increase access to free knowledge (San Francisco, California) 3 December 2013 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today announced the launch of its tenth-annual year-end fundraising campaign. The online fundraising campaign aims to raise $20 million, while the remainder of the Wikimedia Foundation's funding will come from individual gifts given outside the year-end campaign, and from foundation grants. The overwhelming majority of the Wikimedia Foundation's funding comes from individual readers giving an average of $15. The Wikimedia Foundation's online fundraising brings in the resources needed to keep the Wikimedia projects freely available to everyone around the world in their own language, and guarantees that Wikipedia will never have to rely on advertising. Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server infrastructure, improve and simplify the software that runs our projects, support initiatives around the globe to increase the number of project contributors, and make Wikipedia accessible to billions of people who are just beginning to access the internet. People donate to Wikipedia because they find it useful, and they trust it because even though it's not perfect, they know it's written for them. We aim to tell the truth, and we can do that because of the millions of people who donate what they can each year, said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. The average donor is paying for his or her own use of Wikipedia, plus the costs of hundreds of other people. The support of so many people keeps us independent and able to deliver the world's knowledge for free. Exactly as it should be. Every year, as the number of Wikipedia readers and donors grows, the Wikimedia Foundation is able to shorten the duration of its end-of-year campaign. We thank all our donors for their support. We also want to thank the volunteers who help make our campaign a widely localized and internationalized endeavor. In 2012, for example, more than 1,000 people translated the fundraising banners into more than 100 languages, which prompted donations from nearly every country on the planet. The 2013 year-end fundraising campaign builds on the success of previous years and will run through the end of this year. To make a donation, click the banners at the top of Wikipedia, or go directly to donate.wikimedia.org. About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 530 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property worldwide (comScore, October 2013). Available in 287 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 30 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Press Contact Matthew Roth Spokesperson, Wikimedia Foundation +1 415-839-6885 ext 6635 (San Francisco) mr...@wikimedia.org To be removed from the Wikimedia Foundation press release list, please reply with unsubscribe in the subject. ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] WMF sends cease and desist letter to WikiPR
The Wikimedia Foundation has published a blog post announcing that we have sent a cease and desist letter to WikiPR. The letter demands the firm cease editing Wikipedia sites until it complies with the conditions of the Wikipedia community's ban, as well as any further conditions that might be set out by the Board, the community or the WMF. Read more on the Wikimedia blog here: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/11/19/wikimedia-foundation-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-wikipr/ thanks, Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://blog.wikimedia.org https://blog.wikimedia.org* ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation announces Wikipedia Zero partnership with Telenor in Myanmar
(This press release is also available online here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Telenor_Wikipedia_Zero_extension_Myanmar ) Myanmar to get access to the world's knowledge through Wikipedia Zero (Fornebu, Norway, and San Francisco, California) 7 November 2013 -- Telenor Group and the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, today announced Myanmar as the latest country to be included in their existing agreement to bring Wikipedia Zero to Telenor customers in Asia and Europe. Telenor is supporting the country's ambition of connecting its 60 million people. Through this agreement, Telenor's future subscribers in Myanmar will be able to access Wikipedia's vast knowledge base free of mobile data traffic charges when Telenor begins services in the country. The Wikimedia Foundation imagines a world in which every single person has free access to the sum of human knowledge. By working with Telenor, we are able to put this knowledge in the hands of the masses, helping to close the knowledge gap between developed and developing countries. Today's announcement will pave the way for Telenor to offer all the knowledge that comes with Wikipedia Zero to its customers in Myanmar, said Carolynne Schloeder, Director of Mobile Programs at the Wikimedia Foundation. The partnership between Telenor and the Wikimedia Foundation was established in February 2012, and was founded on a shared commitment to bring Wikipedia to Telenor customers free of data charges. The initiative is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mobile strategy, which focuses on reaching the billions of people around the world whose primary opportunity to access the Internet is via a mobile device. Following the agreement, special versions of Wikipedia for mobile phones were launched in Thailand, Malaysia and Montenegro. In addition, Telenor aims to launch Wikipedia Zero in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Serbia in 2014. Access to high quality telecommunications tools and affordable services plays a substantial role in empowering societies. To Telenor, this partnership enables us to provide a strong support to local communities by promoting the exchange and sharing of open knowledge. Offering Wikipedia free of traffic charges also helps introduce internet to mobile users, often for the first time. I am very satisfied that our cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation will now include Myanmar, said Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO of Telenor Group. On 27 June 2013 Telenor was announced as one of the successful applicants for a telecommunications license in Myanmar. Following the process described in the auction guidelines, the company is now in discussions with the Myanmar authorities regarding the final terms and conditions of the license agreement. Telenor aims to launch services in Myanmar within eight months after the final license agreement is signed. The extension of this partnership was celebrated today in Oslo when Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, met with Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO of Telenor Group, and Rolv-Erik Spilling, Head of Telenor Digital, to participate in an event announcing the expansion of service. Jimmy Wales was also a keynote speaker at the Digital Winners conference hosted today by Telenor Digital at Telenor Headquarters, where he shared his views on crowdsourcing for the common good. About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive 500 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property worldwide (comScore, September 2013). Available in 287 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 29 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact: Matthew Roth Communications +1 415-839-6885 ext 6635 (San Francisco) mr...@wikimedia.org About Telenor Group Telenor Group is an international provider of tele, data and media communication services. Telenor Group has mobile operations in 12 markets in the Nordic region, Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia, as well as a voting stake of 42.95 per cent (economic stake 33 per cent) in VimpelCom Ltd., operating in 17 markets. Headquartered in Norway, Telenor Group is one of the world's major mobile operators with 161 million mobile subscriptions in its consolidated operations per Q3 2013, revenues in 2012 of NOK 102 billion, and a workforce of nearly 34,000. For more information about Telenor Group, please visit www.telenor.com Telenor Press Contact: Glenn Mandelid Vice President Communications Telenor Group Mobile: +47 92 66 13 00
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcement for WMF Chief Communications Officer
Forwarding this announcement from the Wikimedia blog: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/31/wikimedia-foundation-chief-communications-officer-search/ Announcing the search for the Wikimedia Foundation’s Chief Communications Officer A few weeks ago, Jay Walsh stepped down as head of Communications for the Wikimedia Foundation. I was sad to see Jay leave — for nearly six years he’s guided WMF communications activities with unerring judgement and poise. He’s been a trusted colleague and a good friend to the movement. Today, we’re announcing an international search for his replacement: a Chief Communications Officer (CCO) to lead the WMF’s small communications team. It’s a unique job. Wikipedia is super-famous and the press and general public are highly interested in us. We’re likelier to turn down press opportunities than to seek them out. Unusually for an organization representing a famous brand, we tend to speak freely, rather than aiming to restrict access to information about us, and we do it in collaboration with a decentralized global network of volunteer spokespeople. We don’t try to significantly control or shape people’s perceptions of Wikipedia because we believe brand perception emerges organically out of users’ day-to-day experiences with a product. People love Wikipedia, and so do we: that means we’ve got no reason to be overly controlling about our public image. We want a CCO who believes in the WMF vision and shares our values. He or she will manage communications at the WMF and across the projects we operate, ensuring a fast and easy flow of information in multiple languages, both internally within the Wikimedia movement and externally with the press, readers, donors and general public. The full CCO job description, including required qualifications, can be found here. To help in the recruitment process, we’ve engaged Chaloner Associates, an executive search firm specializing in communications roles. If you’re interested in the role, or want to suggest potential candidates, you can write to Amy Segelin (a...@chaloner.com) or Kassie Wilner ( kas...@chaloner.com) at Chaloner. You can also apply online here. If you’re a Wikimedia community member, please say that in your application since it’s a plus for us. Also please note we don’t discriminate on the basis of ethnic origin, nationality, religion, political perspective, sex, age, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation, and we particularly value international experience and fluency in languages in addition to English. We expect to begin interviewing candidates in December, and hope to have a new CCO in place in January. Please join me in thanking Jay for his many years of service to the Wikimedia movement, and please share this post with your networks. Thanks, Sue Gardner -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org https://blog.wikimedia.org ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Airtel Partners with Wikimedia Foundation, joins Wikipedia Zero program
This release is also available online at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Airtel_joins_Wikipedia_Zero_partnership_with_pilot_in_Kenya Airtel Partners With Wikimedia Foundation to Bring Free Access to Wikipedia to 70 Million People in 17 Countries Partnership will introduce innovative ways to access Wikipedia on mobile devices in Sub-Saharan Africa * Airtel customers to access multilingual content on Wikipedia mobile site free of data charges * First-of-its-kind pilot initiative in Africa will provide free access to Wikipedia via text messages (SMS and USSD) Nairobi, Kenya and San Francisco, California, October 24, 2013 -- Airtel, and the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia, today announced a strategic partnership to provide Airtel's customers access to the knowledge and information available on Wikipedia through their mobile phones free of data charges. This partnership is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikipedia Zero program, which focuses on reaching the billions of people around the world whose primary opportunity to access the internet is via a mobile device. The partnership between Airtel and the Wikimedia Foundation will help provide Wikipedia to 70 million new users in the region, starting in Kenya. Airtel customers with Internet-enabled handsets can now access the Wikipedia mobile site on their mobile browsers without incurring data charges by going to m.wikipedia.org For customers who do not have Internet-enabled handsets, Airtel will offer Wikipedia by text message as a pilot program in Kenya. This unique service will allow customers to search Wikipedia using a plain text menu, without the need for a mobile browser. The service, available for GSM subscribers, utilizes USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) technology and allows users to dial *515# to search Wikipedia and receive article summaries via SMS. We are thrilled that Airtel has joined us in removing two major barriers to accessing Wikipedia on mobile phones. Not only are we making it freely available on the mobile web but we are are also launching our first Wikipedia via text service that will allow people without data enabled phones to access Wikipedia, said Kul Takanao Wadhwa, Head of Mobile, Wikimedia Foundation. Improving access to the Wikimedia projects in Sub-Saharan Africa is a strategic priority for the Wikimedia Foundation and this partnership is another step forward in our mission to enable everyone on the planet to access free knowledge. Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Africa said Airtel is committed to using its infrastructure to expand knowledge across the countries that it operates in. Due to the fact that most of the population has access to a cell phone, it is the best way to reach out and educate our communities. We will offer this service free of charge to our customers to enable access to all. About Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 276 million customers across its operations at the end of August 2013. To learn more, please visit: www.airtel.com. Airtel Africa media contact Michael Okwiri Vice President Corporate Communications Airtel Africa (Nairobi, Kenya) Email: michael.okw...@airtel.com About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive 500 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, August 2013). Available in 287 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 29 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Wikimedia Foundation media contact Matthew Roth Communications +1 415-839-6885 ext 6635 (San Francisco, California) mr...@wikimedia.org To be removed from the Wikimedia Foundation press release list, reply to this email with unsubscribe in the subject line. ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Statement from Wikimedia Foundation's Sue Gardner in response to paid advocacy editing and sockpuppetry
This statement is also available online:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Sue_Gardner_statement_paid_advocacy_editing
Statement from Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation,
in response to paid advocacy editing and sockpuppetry
Editors on the English Wikipedia are currently investigating allegations of
suspicious edits and sockpuppetry (i.e. using online identities for
purposes of deception). At this point, as reported, it looks like a number
of user accounts -- perhaps as many as several hundred -- may have been
paid to write articles on Wikipedia promoting organizations or products,
and have been violating numerous site policies and guidelines, including
prohibitions against sockpuppetry and undisclosed conflicts of interest. As
a result, Wikipedians aiming to protect the projects against non-neutral
editing have blocked or banned more than 250 user accounts.
The Wikimedia Foundation takes this issue seriously and has been following
it closely.
With a half a billion readers, Wikipedia is an important informational
resource for people all over the world. Our readers know Wikipedia's not
perfect, but they also know that it has their best interests at heart, and
is never trying to sell them a product or propagandize them in any way. Our
goal is to provide neutral, reliable information for our readers, and
anything that threatens that is a serious problem. We are actively
examining this situation and exploring our options.
In the wake of the investigation, editors have expressed shock and dismay.
We understand their reaction and share their concerns. We are grateful to
the editors who've been doing the difficult, painstaking work of trying to
figure out what's happening here.
Editing-for-pay has been a divisive topic inside Wikipedia for many years,
particularly when the edits to articles are promotional in nature. Unlike a
university professor editing Wikipedia articles in their area of expertise,
paid editing for promotional purposes, or paid advocacy editing as we call
it, is extremely problematic. We consider it a black hat practice. Paid
advocacy editing violates the core principles that have made Wikipedia so
valuable for so many people.
What is clear to everyone is that all material on Wikipedia needs to adhere
to Wikipedia's editorial policies, including those on neutrality and
verifiability. It is also clear that companies that engage in unethical
practices on Wikipedia risk seriously damaging their own reputations. In
general, companies engaging in self-promotional activities on Wikipedia
have come under heavy criticism from the press and the general public, with
their actions widely viewed as inconsistent with Wikipedia's educational
mission.
Being deceptive in your editing by using sockpuppets or misrepresenting
your affiliation with a company is against Wikipedia policy and is
prohibited by our Terms of Use. We urge companies to conduct themselves
ethically, to be transparent about what they're doing on Wikipedia, and to
adhere to all site policies and practices.
The Wikimedia Foundation is closely monitoring this ongoing investigation
and we are currently assessing all the options at our disposal. We will
have more to say in the coming weeks.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.orgbr/
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive 500 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most
popular web property world-wide (comScore, August 2013). Available in 287
languages, Wikipedia contains more than 29 million articles contributed by
a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San
Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Press contact
Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415-839-6885 x6635
mroth{{at}}wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from the Wikimedia Foundation press release list, reply with
unsubscribe to this email.
___
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed
to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more
information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
___
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia France] Welcome to Nathalie, our new ED
Welcome, Nathalie! On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov dimitar.parvanov.dimit...@gmail.com wrote: Welcome to the Movement! Sure you will fit right in! Dimi 2013/10/1 Christophe Henner christophe.hen...@wikimedia.fr Hi everyone, We have the great pleasure to announce Nathalie Martin is starting today as the new Executive Director of Wikimédia France! Her hiring is the tipping point of a process we started last January when we hired a HR firm to audit our organization and support us in finding the right person for this key role. With a background in political science and organizations strategy, Nathalie has a deep experience managing several associations of similar or bigger size as Wikimedia France. Even though she is not from the movement, we believe she'll adapt quickly to who we are. She came to Wikimania in Hong-Kong, and some of you may have had the pleasure to meet her. By coming to Wikimania she had the luck to experience in 3 day what Wikimedia is at large, to meet wikimedians from all around the world. I'm happy to say that she too suffered from PWD (Post-Wikimania Depression). If you need to contact her, her email address is nathalie.mar...@wikimedia.fr. Please keep in mind that it's her first day within our movement and she still will need few days to adapt to our awesomeness Please join us in welcoming Nathalie! Best, PS: please keep her in copy of your answers :) Christophe HENNER | Vice-chair --- › Mail : christophe.hen...@wikimedia.fr › Mobile : +33(0)6 29 35 65 94 › Tel : +33(0)5 62 89 12 01 › Twitter : @Wikimedia_Fr - Wikimédia France | Association pour le libre partage de la connaissance | Visitez notre blog http://blog.wikimedia.fr ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://blog.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] access to journals
, or high schools, not-for-profit digital library JSTOR has launched JPASS, a new program offering individual users access to 1,500 journals from JSTOR’s archive collection. The move follows the March 2012 launch of JSTOR’s Register Readprogram, which allowed independent researchers to register for a free MyJSTOR account, and receive free, online-only access to three full-text articles every 14 days. That service has since attracted almost one million users including independent scholars, writers, business people, adjunct faculty, and others, and JSTOR plans to continue offering the service in its current form. However, in a recent survey, many of Register Read users expressed interest in an individual subscription model that would offer enhanced access, encouraging JSTOR to move ahead with JPASS. http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/09/digital-libraries/jstor-launches-jpass-access-accounts-for-individual-researchers/ JSTOR Launches JPASS Access Accounts for Individual Researchers [Library Journal] ___ WikiEN-l mailing list wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://blog.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia blog moving to WordPress.com
On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 9:54 PM, Greg Grossmeier g...@wikimedia.org wrote: I can't think of one off the top of my head that is in that category (they don't usually advertise that they're wordpress.com-hosted) to test/suggest. Here are a few: http://wordpress.org/showcase Greg -- | Greg GrossmeierGPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | | identi.ca: @gregA18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D | ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation 2013-14 Board of Trustees announcement
(This press release is also available online: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/WMF_Board_Election_August_2013 ) Wikimedia Foundation announces 2013-14 Board of Trustees and elected officers at Wikimania in Hong Kong Hong Kong -- August 8, 2013 -- The Wikimedia Foundation today announced recent additions and elected officers for the 2013-14 Board of Trustees. Every year at Wikimania, the annual gathering of Wikimedia contributors from around the world, the Wikimedia Foundation Board appoints its officers for the coming year. This year's appointments were announced in Hong Kong, where more than 1000 conference attendees came from nearly 90 countries. This year, Jan-Bart de Vreede was appointed Chair of the Board and Phoebe Ayers was appointed Vice Chair. De Vreede works at Kennisnet, the Dutch public educational organization that supports primary, secondary and vocational institutions in the effective use of IT in education. I am honored to have been chosen to chair the Board in the coming year said de Vreede. I want to thank Kat Walsh for her service on the Board and for the year she served as Chair during a critical stage of the organization's development. We look forward to hearing her wise voice as she continues to engage with our projects, community and mission. This is an exciting year and I look forward to using my energy to ensure a successful transition of our Executive Director and to helping our newer board members to be able to contribute in the best possible ways to our mission, de Vreede said. The next twelve months promise to be significant for the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia movement and I'm excited to have the opportunity to lead the Board. There are 10 seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board and according to its bylaws, three members are elected by the Wikimedia community, two are selected by the Wikimedia chapters, the Founder seat is held by Jimmy Wales, and four members are appointed by the Board itself to provide additional, specific expertise. The Board expressed its great thanks to former Board Chair Kat Walsh. Walsh, a long-term participant in the Wikimedia projects, has been a member of the Wikimedia Foundation Board since June 2007. Her leadership has strengthened and nurtured the growth of the worldwide Wikimedia movement. It's been a pleasure to serve on the Wikimedia Board for nearly 7 years and as Chair over the past 12 months, said Kat Walsh. During my time as Chair, the Wikimedia Foundation has worked with the global Wikimedia community to introduce the simplified editing interface, VisualEditor, and to support the growth of the Wikipedia Zero program to give free access to our sites on mobile, helping us reach our goals of increased reach and participation worldwide. We've also begun an innovative, volunteer-led grantmaking program to ensure sustainability for our movement and our projects. Our Board has diversified and strengthened over the past years, reflecting the diversity and strength of our community and enabling our colleagues to accomplish remarkable things; I am proud of what we have been able to do. The Wikimedia Foundation is happy to welcome its newest member of the Board, Maria Sefidari, a Computer Science Ph.D candidate at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain. She has been an active Wikimedian since March, 2006 and is a founding member and former Vice President of Wikimedia Espana, the Wikimedia chapter in the country. She has served as a member of the Affiliations Committee and the Individual Engagement Grants committee. She lives and works in Madrid, Spain. The Wikimedia Foundation is also happy to welcome Phoebe Ayers and Samuel Klein back to the Board as the other two members elected by the volunteer Wikimedia community. Ayers is a reference, instruction and collections librarian at the University of California, Davis, specializing in computer science, physics and engineering information resources. Klein is a long-time Wikipedian and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Every two years the worldwide contributor community elects Board members from among its peers to participate on the Board and help steer the Wikimedia Foundation as it fulfills its mission to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Wikimedia Foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors that serve the mission. The Wikimedia Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees for 2013-2014: *Jan-Bart de Vreede, Board Chair *Phoebe Ayers, Vice Chair *Jimmy Wales, Founder *Maria Sefidari
Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: Communication plans for community engagement
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:38 AM, David Cuenca dacu...@gmail.com wrote: Erik, if the WMF is supposed to be a global organization there is no need to concentrate all (physical) resources in SF, unless the WMF is acting as the US chapter, then it could be understood that it has to restrict its geographic presence. As I see it, for example there is no impedement to have a WMF Asia in any chosen country of that region with an engineering department dependent on the WMF. I would like to hear from the legal team what are the challenges of having a distributed presence. It is not a new problem, many international organizations and companies have gone through the process, so there should be no need to invent new solutions. I'm not a lawyer, so I won't pretend to speak expertly to the legal situations, but in my time on the Communications team I've seen several concrete examples of where it's very valuable to be far from a conflict physically and situated in the U.S. There's the disputed Kashmir maps in India issue (Google and other outfits with offices in those countries have given in to demandshttp://www.businessinsider.com/most-controversial-places-on-google-maps-2013-5?op=1from local authorities to alter maps in a number of cases). What kind of pressure would we get for this file if we had offices in India? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:India_disputed_areas_map.svg The most recent example was with the DCRI in France. Had we had offices in France, I'm not sure the outcome would have been the same; I imagine our leverage would have been compromised. Of course, there are significant challenges with U.S. laws around copyright, so it's not a panacea, certainly. But I do think it's a very complicated issue. As you say, there is international staff already, the only thing missing would be a space to attract even more talent while keeping the costs down. Not everyone wants to work from home. Obviuously an external assessment would be necessary to establish what is the size necessary for that to happen and if the benefits outweight the costs. As for chapters building engineering capacity I see it as something positive, unfortunately only at the reach of the biggest chapters, and with a very local (contry-level) organizational focus, which doesn't help in creating an international work environement. Micru On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacu...@gmail.com wrote: I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it is true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF. Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge. We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated. So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity? Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Etiamsi omnes, ego non ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Staff Images
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 9:33 PM, L. Tuxwell Anonanon t...@linuxlover.orgwrote: Roary, please know that I was not distressed by any of the earlier comments in this thread. I see a vanguard of my relatives already quietly oversee the Wikimedia offices. We are a sociable clan,[1] and accept your proffered paw of peace. We find felines make fine company, with your flexible nature, thick skin and tendency toward deep furry naps. You seem to be quite warm; I hope to get to know you more closely.[2] We are working on ways at managing consistency in house at the moment and appreciate your feedback and patience. More photos coming soon enough. Meal All this talk of feed consistency makes me hungry too. I find the best-tasting feedback involves collaboration over a squid.[3] Love and Wikiwiki, Tux [1] http://bit.ly/12EeYcR [2] http://bit.ly/15HZHgi tut tut, Tux. Bitly shortener? http://ur1.ca/ :) [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/**wiki/File:Gentoo_Penguin_** feeding_its_chick_(6063656750)**.jpghttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gentoo_Penguin_feeding_its_chick_(6063656750).jpg __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.orgwikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=**unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Snake on a magic towel... help needed transforming a shitty logo into something wonderful
winning!! I think I overheard the legal department say something about this being original and probably not infringing anyone else's marks :) On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 4:11 PM, David Cuenca dacu...@gmail.com wrote: Hi! This morning I presented a submission (if you can call it that...) for a Wikivoyage logo... actually it flies and it's alive :) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivoyage/Logo_2013/Submissions#Option_19_-_Snake_on_a_magic_towel It promised not to eat Rory nor Tux... yet :) If only someone could make it look at least as good as Brandon's profile pic! It would be amazing Feel free to change anything you want. It can't get any worse! Micru ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Staff Images
On Sun, Jul 14, 2013 at 9:47 AM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 July 2013 00:44, Lucas Teles salvadore...@hotmail.com wrote: Is that [1] the photo? I was expecting something worse per the opening of this discussion. It seems to be fine for me (in a manly way of saying a photo of another man is fine), expect for the removal of Brandon's fingers. --Teles [1] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Brandon_Harris_courage.jpg Its not fine. Look at the colour blotching under the arm. I wouldn't expect that from the 5DII even at ISO 640. Looks like its been pushed a bit too far in post. That said looking at Matthew 's other photos the camera seems to be struggling to get the light levels right when that EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro lens is used. Not sure why though since thats a pretty good lens camera combination. Perhaps if the WMF is going to insist on taking photos of people indoors under ambient light they should get him a EF 85 mm f/1.2L II. I find this to be a terribly sexy proposition. I would urge geni to become the new manager for equipment approvals. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] How I got addicted to Wikipediocracy…
On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 4:14 PM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tom...@twkozlowski.net wrote: … writes Amanda Filipacci, the writer behind the recent Wikipedia novelists sexism scandal: http://blogs.wsj.com/**speakeasy/2013/07/10/my- **strange-addiction-wikipedia/http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/07/10/my-strange-addiction-wikipedia/ . I'm not sure if it's still funny or maybe already depressing. Which part, the essay or the absence of an editor at WSJ? 3500 words does not a blog post make. -- Tomasz __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.orgwikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=**unsubscribe -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia in jail!
On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 2:13 AM, Charles Andrès charles.andres.w...@gmail.com wrote: Hello and thanks Bishaka, We planned two type of post about this story, today or tomorrow we should publish a short one about the genesis of the project and the relation volunteer/staff. Charles, If you're inclined, I'd be happy to syndicate your post on the Wikimedia blog, or however you might want to approach it. I think it would be great to get this as much attention as we can. If you're interested, we often draft on Meta wiki here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Drafts Please also let me know if you're doing social media messages about it, as we can repeat/share/retweet etc from the Wikip/media accounts. -Matthew As president of Wikimedia CH I'm very proud of the work accomplish by Emmanuel and Chantal, and we would like to share more about this aspect of the project. The second post will arrive later this year with more information about the project itself and its usage. Thanks too, SJ, unexpected refers more to there eager of the newspaper. It's really rare, if not totally absent, to read positive things about prisons. In this way, the public expect bad news when talking about prison, and when a nice story about prison arise, it's unexpected. :-) Sincerely ___ I use this email for mailing list only. Charles ANDRES, Chairman Wikimedia CH – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch Le 18 juin 2013 à 10:52, Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.com a écrit : Fantastic - and fascinating. Would love to see a blog post by someone from the chapter or by one of them. Bravo for reaching out to forgotten people. Bishakha On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 11:05 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Charles - How beautiful. Thank you for doing and sharing this. In what way was the partnership unexpected? Did the Bellevue prison approach Wikipedians? Here is the announcement page w/PDF from the WM-CH site: https://www.wikimedia.ch/%5Bi18n-termpath-raw%5D/wikipedia-jail SJ SJ On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 10:29 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: Now THIS is seriously clever! Well done WMCH - that is a truly innovative way to provide access to knowledge to a community who is often forgotten. Can you link to the press release here, please? -Liam / Wittylama wittylama.com Peace, love metadata On 17 June 2013 14:15, Charles Andrès charles.andres.w...@gmail.com wrote: Wikipedia for prisoners – an unexpected partnership between a swiss prison and Wikimedia CH Following an initiative from Emmanuel Engelhart, with the support of Wikimedia CH CAO, Chantal Ebongué, since March 2013, prisoners who request can have an access to Wikipedia offline (Kiwix project). The idea is to stimulate or to support the interest for education of prisoners who were, for a large majority, condemned to long-time sentences. After three months of pilot phasis, the project is successful : Among the 36 prisoners of the Bellevue’s prison in Gorgier, 18 possess or rent a computer. All of them requested the upload of Wikipedia offline on their PC. For security reasons, swiss prisoners have a very restricted access to internet. More informations in the press releases (ENG, DE, FR, IT) that was sent today to the swiss media Regards, Charles ___ Charles ANDRES, Chairman Wikimedia CH – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Office +41 (0)21 340 66 20 Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Swedish Wikipedia reach 1 million (with support of bots)
We just published a blog post from Lennart Guldbransson on the Wikimedia blog about this milestone: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/17/swedish-wikipedia-1-million-articles/ On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 7:12 AM, Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com wrote: The use of wikidata instead of a bot is a good practice to provude good contant to all wikipedias because larger communities can control and fix errors instead of providing content by a bot and keep it outdated. Il giorno 17/giu/2013 15:53, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com ha scritto: Hoi, Please consider there are over 280 Wikipedias in as many languages. In many languages we have few articles. Providing information is our mission. We aim to provide well written articles. The argument is that we do not succeed at that. Actually it is not an argument, it is a fact. When the Germans feel they do not need bot generated articles, more power to them, when they assume that their example is to be copied I truly wonder if they understand the lack of resources in so many languages. It is fairly easy to find articles that are considered relevant to a sizable group of the German populace that are missing.. I am working towards providing this information by using Wikidata. The best part (for the Germans) is that I urge them to make sure that these articles exist and are well written .. in German. Thanks, GerardM PS I blogged about how this can be done several times in the past On 17 June 2013 15:43, Dimce Grozdanoski dimce.grozdano...@gmail.com wrote: On 17.06.2013 12:36, Nikola Smolenski wrote: On 16/06/13 15:24, Johan Jönsson wrote: 2013/6/16 Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com I think that Anders is saying that the result of Wikimedia Swedish is due to a work of bots and to a work of people. It means that this result is contrary to the WMF strategy which would have more people and more contributors. The next millions of articles will be reached by Polish Wikipedia but also by cebuan Wikipedia and by Warai-Warai Wikipedia. May be it's the time to have only bots to write in Wikipedia? I hope that in future the number of articles will be counted considering at least a small content ad not only a template in a page, because the use like this will discourage the communities of editors. I would say our experience is that it doesn't affect the number of human editors at all in any way. A couple of people run bots that create very short articles about taxons or other stuff that, to be honest, probably wouldn't have been created otherwise. These articles have very few readers. Why on Earth would this discourage us? Our main problem is that browsing Swedish Wikipedia using the random article button isn't as fun as it used to be. That's probably fixable. I am again using the opportunity to remind that all of this will soon be completely unnecessary since it should be possible to generate the articles on the fly from Wikidata data. you mean to generate on the fly only articles of this kind, not any article. __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocking of HTTPS connection by China
We have had contact with the authors of the blog and they have said they will publish our response to their article, though I'm not sure when or in what format. This is the content of our response: The Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t hold any readers of our projects in any less regard than others. Our mission is to bring the knowledge contained in the Wikimedia projects to everyone on the planet. There is no strategic consideration around how we can make one or another language project more accessible or readable in one part of the world or another. We do not have control over how a national government operates its censorship system. We also do not work with any national censorship system to limit access to project knowledge in any way. It is worth noting the blog post makes some incorrect assumptions about Wikimedia culture - including incorrect titling of some Wikimedia Foundation staff (e.g. Sue Gardner is the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia -- Wikipedia is written by tens of thousands of volunteers and has no director and no hierarchy of editors). There is also an incorrect assertion that Jimmy Wales has a direct role in working with our staff in making changes to core infrastructure. Of course Jimmy plays a role in the conversation, but he is participating in the conversation along with anyone else from the volunteer editor community. On the larger topic, the implementation of HTTPS by default across all Wikimedia sites for all readers and users is non-trivial, and a conversation is ongoing within the Wikimedia Foundation and within the community about how we might make this possible. We do have plans to eventually enable HTTPS as the default, but it's difficult and we're taking steps toward this goal over time. Our first step is to force HTTPS for logged-in users. The next step will be to expand our SSL cluster and to do some testing on a wiki-by-wiki basis with anonymous HTTPS. At some point later we'll attempt to enable HTTPS for anons on all projects. Then we'll look at enabling HSTS, so that browsers know they should always use HTTPS to access our sites. We've only had proper native HTTPS for about a year and a half. We attempted to force HTTPS by default for logged-in users last month and rolled it back. We'll be attempting this again soon. So, it's something we're actively working on. We've also hard-enabled HTTPS on all of our private wikis and have soft-enabled HTTPS on a single wiki (Uzbek Wikipedia), when it was requested by the volunteer editor community there. On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 6:50 AM, shi zhao shiz...@gmail.com wrote: https://upload.wikimedia.org also blocked Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/ My blog: http://shizhao.org twitter: https://twitter.com/shizhao [[zh:User:Shizhao]] 2013/6/7 Benjamin Chen bencmqw...@gmail.com: Hi, Since 31 May, China's Great Firewall has blocked the HTTPS connection to all language versions of Wikipedia, by blocking port 443 on two of our IPs. I was also told that service to Wikimedia Commons may be affected. Other projects, such as en.wikisource are not affected by this block (but they may still be subjected to keyword censoring on HTTP). Compared to the previous short-lived half-day block, this time the block has been in place for a week and as usual no one knows if it will last for long. Here is an article that has some explanation, some comments, and (their) opinions and suggestions for the Foundation. https://en.greatfire.org/blog/2013/jun/wikipedia-drops-ball-china-not-too-late-make-amends Regards, Benjamin Chen / [[User:Bencmq]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocking of HTTPS connection by China
Hi all, I wanted to share a clarifying email from Ryan Lane in WMF Ops. He's working through the challenges of HTTPS from the Foundation's end. Please see below for more details: -Matthew On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Ryan Lane rl...@wikimedia.org wrote: How does it impact people? Short answer: it shouldn't. Long answer: It may make the site slightly slower due to increased network latency, and it is slightly more computationally expensive, which may make the site slower on computers that are underpowered. How does it impact the WMF? It depends. For enabling it for logged-in users, or for those that use HTTPS-anywhere? It doesn't affect us, because that's the state we're in right now. For making HTTPS the default for anonymous users? We need to change how our infrastructure works. We may need to buy additional hardware. We definitely need to do some engineering work. How does it impact the government's ability to apply censorship? Short answer: it doesn't. It affects their ability to eavesdrop on people. Long answer: It depends on how sophisticated the government's censorship program is. In some countries the government's censorship program can be totally bypassed using HTTPS. China's program is very sophisticated. The best HTTPS is going to help the Chinese is to give them a reasonable amount of protection against eavesdropping. It's still possible for China to eavesdrop, even when users are using HTTPS, if China has subverted any of the Certificate Authorities trusted by our browsers. Are there negative sides of each choice? Yes. Not providing HTTPS means that users will always be subject to eavesdropping, which in very authoritative countries could mean they are imprisoned or killed for reading or editing Wikipedia, depending on what they are reading or editing. Realistically not making HTTPS the default is similar to not providing it for all intents and purposes. Search engines will bring people to the HTTP version of the site, not the HTTPS version so the vast majority of users will still be able to be eavesdropped on. Making HTTPS the default also has negatives. A very small minority of users don't have HTTPS support, or their computers are so old that it makes the site unusably slow. That's a *very* small percentage of users, though. Additionally, it makes the site slower for everyone, which may cause a decrease in viewers and/or editors. This is likely the most non-technical way I can explain things. I hope it helps! On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Benjamin Chen bencmqw...@gmail.com wrote: On 8 Jun, 2013, at 12:24 AM, Matthew Roth mr...@wikimedia.org wrote: We have had contact with the authors of the blog and they have said they will publish our response to their article, though I'm not sure when or in what format. Great. That's really fast response. On the issue itself, we haven't seen any large scale blocks for years (around the time since last time Jimbo visited some Chinese official more than 4 or 5 years ago I think). The secure.wikimedia domain was blocked long ago, but they waited till now to block HTTPS, after 3 years? (I can't remember when it was enabled). I wonder how long it took for them to realise. It is suggested that this could be a long term block similar to how secure.wikimedia was blocked - for HTTPS they have no control over content, so they are simply blocking it all. For HTTP they are still performing deep package inspection (means content censoring), so since they can filter what the Chinese people can see, it's likely that they'll leave HTTP alone. Regards, Benjamin Chen / [[User:Bencmq]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director search
This press release is also available online here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/The_search_for_our_next_Executive_Director The Wikimedia Foundation announces search for new Executive Director to lead the Wikimedia movement SAN FRANCISCO, California -- 22 May 2013 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, has kicked off its global search for a new Executive Director to lead the organization through its next phase of innovation and growth. The new Executive Director will lead a thriving international organization that operates the number five most-popular web property in the world. The Wikimedia Foundation operates free knowledge projects used by more than half a billion people. Wikipedia contains more than 25 million volunteer-authored articles in 285 languages. The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual, educational content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. About six weeks ago, the Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner told us she will be stepping down from her role, said Kat Walsh, Chair of the Board of Trustees. We're really going to miss her, but I'm happy to say she'll be staying on until we find her successor, and we're now ready to kick off an international search to find that person. The Executive Director provides the leadership and strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation and manages its day-to-day operations and activities. He or she is responsible for modernizing the user experience and nurturing, growing and diversifying the community of people who write our projects. He or she also ensures that our grantmaking supports innovation across the Wikimedia movement and enables contributor growth in underrepresented demographics and geographies. To support the process, the Wikimedia Foundation has retained the search firm m/Oppenheim Associates to assist in finding and screening candidates. The search process is expected to unfold over the next three to six months, with a new Executive Director targeted to be in place October 2013. The Executive Director opportunity can be found at: http://jobs.wikimedia.org For more information about the opportunity please email info(at) moppenheim.com. About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 517 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property worldwide (comScore, March 2013). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 25 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Wikimedia Foundation media contact: Matthew Roth Communications +1 415-839-6885 ext. 6635 (San Francisco) mroth(at)wikimedia.org Reply with unsubscribe in the subject line to be removed from the Wikimedia Foundation press release list. ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia first million
If you do a blog post to announce it, please let me know and I'll translate to English. Or if you can give a rough English translation, I can clean it up. Would be happy to publish on the Wikimedia Blog. On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 5:50 AM, Osmar Valdebenito os...@wikimedia.org.arwrote: Congratulations to all of us who have worked all these years to make this possible :D The change in the count is very innapropiate (someone said on our Village Pump it was like preparing for New Year's Eve and falling sleep in the counting and waking up the other day), but it doesn't take the credit of all the work that has been done. By the way, can someone update our logo for the celebrations? According to this poll [1], the logo should be https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-es-millon-vector.svgbetween May 16th and June 16th.Also, the link should go to https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Anuncio_del_art%C3%ADculo_1_000_000 Thanks, *Osmar Valdebenito G.* ** Director Ejecutivo A. C. Wikimedia Argentina [1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votaciones/2013/Conmemoraci%C3%B3n_del_mill%C3%B3n_de_art%C3%ADculos_de_Wikipedia 2013/5/17 Shlomi Fish shlo...@shlomifish.org Hi all, On Thu, 16 May 2013 19:19:45 -0500 Salvador A salvador1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi folks! Maybe many of you have it already noticed. Nevertheless, spanish speakers wikimedians want to share with you our joy of that the spanish version of Wikipedia has surpassed the million of articles. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Estad%C3%ADsticas Thanks and congratulations to all volunteers that make it possible. That's great! Thanks to all volunteers/admins/etc. . Regards, Shlomi Fish -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Summerschool-at-the-NSA/ Mothers used to tell their children stories about XSLT to scare them. — http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/XSLT/ Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] movement blog, not WMF blog, was: Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
wow, what a weekend to go camping :) I'll also reply to Casey and Alex on the other thread, but I was the one who changed their user rights from Editor to Contributor, which in our WordPress setup limits some of their abilities, like approving comments, uploading files and editing posts written by other people, among others. I was cleaning up old emails from previous WMF Communications interns/volunteers, staff members and others I hadn't seen active in the two years I've been here. It was easy to see who was former staff (@ wikimedia.org emails), but not as much with volunteers who had been given access in the past. I should have been more careful and I'm happy to reinstate Editor rights for anyone else I inadvertently moved (and upset). I'm sorry Casey and Alex for the confusion. I'm not the right person to say it categorically, but as far as I'm aware, there haven't been any non-staff Admin level users on the blog, at least for some time (again, I've only been at the Foundation for two years and I'm qualifying this statement in case there were exceptions). As I understand it, because the blog is on the cluster and it could potentially be a security concern, there aren't volunteer admins. Right now the admins are the 5 people in Communications manager positions at the Foundation, plus Jay Walsh and a bunch of Ops folks. I don't imagine that will be changing, but that's above my level of understanding security and our other sites. As mentioned, if I bungled anyone else's permissions, please let me know. thanks, Matthew On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 5:02 AM, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonew...@gmail.comwrote: On 13 May 2013 12:00, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: Actually, you were the only volunteer removed at that point in 2011 - there were at least four volunteers who I think are still on the list. As indicated in the part of my email that you chose to quietly suppress, a main reason to handle your case differently was that you were at that time indefinitely blocked by the community on more than one wiki (to cite the block log entry from nlwiki: Abusing multiple accounts: general project disruption and cross-wiki disruption; trying to evade bans on other projects, running unapproved bots and so on. block per RfC and cu evidence. ) Thanks for clarifying why Huib had his blog access revoked Tilman. Please could you clarify why Casey and Alex (who haven't been socking, at least not to my knowledge!) had their access revoked without notification? -- Thehelpfulone https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Wading into the water here. I hope we can separate the blog issue out a bit from the Foundation wiki issue, at least in terms of the user rights part. I was the one who changed a whole slew of user rights from Editor to Contributor, which in our WordPress setup limits some of their abilities, like approving comments, uploading files and editing posts written by other people, among others. I was cleaning up old emails from previous WMF Communications interns/volunteers, staff members and others I hadn't seen active in the two years I've been here. It was easy to see who was former staff (@wikimedia.org emails), but not as much with volunteers who had been given access in the past (and there were a number of them with zero activity in years). I should have been more careful and I'm happy to reinstate Editor rights for anyone else I inadvertently moved (and upset). I'm sorry Casey and Alex for the confusion. I've moved your accounts back to the Editor rights category. If I bungled anyone else's permissions, please let me know. thanks, Matthew On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 7:43 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ruwrote: On 13.05.2013 14:07, Tomasz W. Kozlowski wrote: This isn't a comment aimed at anyone in particular, so I'm not going to quote anybody, but can we please stop hijacking this thread, and posting about how Wikimedia Foundation staff are also humans and how the WMF was badly organised X years ago — which are valid discussion for a different time — and get back to the bottom of the topic? Here are some questions that I asked, and which haven't been covered at all: 1) Who made the decision to remove adminship from all community members? 2) Why did you make this decision now? What changed? 3) Who precisely (what department) is responsible for the maintenance of the wiki, and why didn't they perform their roles before? And a question that I think someone else asked: 1) For how long has the decision of removing adminship from those community members been discussed behind the closed door of the WMF, and who participated in that discussion? If I read the e-mails correctly, 1 and 2 were covered. 1 is Gayle, and 2 is that it was on her to do list for a long time, so apparently she decided to perform this on Friday afternoon since it was not pleasant and had to be done anyway. I am not sure though pursuing these questions is very much constructive. I personally would be more interested in 5) what measures are to be taken to exclude this in the future, and 6) how can we continue assuming good faith and be nice to each other. FT2 tried to relegate these questions to a separate thread, but so far unfortunately without much follow-up. Cheers Yaroslav __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *http://blog.wikimedia.org/* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Train Wikiexpedition in Poland
I'm also replying to say how awesome this initiative is! I only wish I had the flexibility and disposable income to come over and participate :) Have a great time with it and kudos for organizing such a cool trip. I need to see if Amtrak would be nearly as accommodating over here in the U.S.! -Matthew On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 8:03 AM, Erik Zachte ezac...@wikimedia.org wrote: Wow, what a great initiative! I'm not applying, just want to say this is another great example of how the world gets to recognize more and more what we have to offer. And who knows, Polish wikivoyage might benefit too? Erik Zachte -Original Message- From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tomasz Ganicz Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 4:19 PM To: chapters-cultural-partn...@wikimedia.ch; Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Train Wikiexpedition in Poland Hi, We are about to organize a wikiexpedition devoted to train infrastructure in Poland. It will be officially co-organised with Polish Railways. Polish Railways will provide us free tickets for traveling across Poland using any trains and special passes to legally enter and photograph rail tracks, workshops, rail yards, cargo railway stations, museums belonging to Polish Railways etc. In order to get the pass it will be obligatory to undergo a special basic one-day railtrack safety training which will be provided for free by Polish Railways employees. Actually we don't know what time it will happen - for sure during summer, but it is actually to negotiate. It is possible to have several 2-4 people teams. The requirements will be just: *being devoted wiki-photographer ready to submit photos to Wikimedia Commons under free licences *being highly crazy about railways stuff - i.e. be ready to travel across Poland using mainly slow, local trains which stops on every tiny station, sleep in low cost hostels, feed yourself for 32 PLN a day :-) *You don't need to speak Polish - we can try to organize a mixed teams fro both training and expeditions. If there is anyone ready for such a wiki-safari - just drop me an E-mail... -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29title=tomasz-ganicz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Train Wikiexpedition in Poland
and Tomasz, I do hope you'll consider a blog post about this for the Wikimedia Blog. Certainly at the end of the event, but if you are hoping to publicize the opportunity, you might also consider it before the event happens. More info on submitting material for the blog here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog Or feel free to get in touch with me whenever you like. thanks, Matthew On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Victor Grigas vgri...@wikimedia.orgwrote: Awesome Project - I used to work at a railyard, I advise to please take the safety training seriously :) On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 10:29 AM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 26 April 2013 18:25, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: National Railway Museum in york is free. LOL, but they have yet to match free tickets for traveling across sPoland/s the UK! For a railways related job interview, I once had travel-anywhere ticket (they were red back then) for free travel for the day anywhere in the UK, but that was in the days of a more unified railway system. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- *Victor Grigas* Storyteller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knv6D6Thi0 Wikimedia Foundation vgri...@wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839-6885 x 6773 149 New Montgomery Street 6th floor San Francisco, CA 94105 https://donate.wikimedia.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New account creation and login ready for testing on all projects
and here's Steven's blog post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/25/try-new-login-accountcreation/ On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Steven Walling swall...@wikimedia.orgwrote: Hi all, Today the Editor Engagement Experiments team has ported our new designs for account creation and login to the current version of MediaWiki core, meaning it is now available for testing on all Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects. The main purpose of starting with an opt-in testing period is to iron out any last minute bugs and wait for localizations to catch up before we turn it on by default. Testing instructions and background on this project are available in our blog post,[1] and we're holding IRC office hours this Saturday at 18:00 UTC to discuss things.[2] I'm in the process of posting locally to Village Pumps as well, targeting the top ten Wikipedias and the English version of all other projects. Help spread the word if you can. :) -- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/ 1. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/25/try-new-login-accountcreation/ 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Question: How do we define lobbying?
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 8:37 AM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: In a workshop in the Milan conference, there was a break-out discussion led by Iolanda (WMIT) on lobbying. There is a lot of interest in finding ways of supporting change in copyright legislation and open knowledge access in as many countries as possible. One of the interesting features of the WMF agreement when providing funds under the FDC process is that this money should not be used for lobbying. During the coffee break I had a quick chat with Garfield (the WMF CFO) about a possible clarification. My understanding from that chat was that if there were valid reasons for lobbying in support of our cause, this should be a separate grant for traceability reasons, it is not intended to imply a blanket ban, but traceability is needed to satisfy the IRS. If a chapter has separate income from the WMF, then there is no concern as this is a matter for the individual chapter board and membership to worry about. I think this is a useful clarification, and this ought to be followed up as an action from our workshop. I would welcome any comments from the wider community on what sorts of lobbying as a movement that we definitely want to support, encourage and possibly provide funds for, and if we could come to a clearer definition of what lobbying is (such as political protest) and things we do as a community that is not quite lobbying, even though it may relate to government legislation (such as publishing a white paper with our summary of the benefits of changes in copyright law). As a former employee of a non-profit/NGO who lobbied at the state level in the U.S., I believe that there should be clear guidance in each country about what constitutes lobbying and how much of it an employee of a non-profit/NGO can do. This may not be the case everywhere, but there were very specific prescriptions on how much time/money a non-profit could spend on lobbying (defined as advocating or opposing legislation at a local, state or national level). It was a very small portion of the work we could do legally before we would lose our non-profit status. -Matthew Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Tweet this page from some or all sites???
On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Brion Vibber bvib...@wikimedia.org wrote: Note that desktop browsers are in some cases gaining similar capabilities; for instance Apple's Safari in latest versions includes a Share button similar to iOS's, with access to a couple hardcoded services. Nearly all browsers that I know of support sharing a link over email directly through a menu item, and those supporting extensions can install various social network goodies. Happy that Brion brought this angle up, as I am perpetually vexed by how incompatible social networks are with CC licenses (mostly with BY-SA). The browser plug-ins bring up an even bigger problem for our projects and the licenses. First, note that most of the really popular social networking sites have boilerplate language in the Terms of Service that are incompatible with CC-BY-SA. See Michelle Paulson's legal analysis related to Facebook here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/CC-BY-SA_on_Facebook You cannot post 3rd party CC-BY-SA licensed images to Facebook (and likely most other social networks) because you will be violating the sublicensing section of the CC license, and arguably the ToS of the social network. This isn't a small matter. If you look at a number of the Wikimedia movement partners and Wikimedians who use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. they are posting images that violate the license. We were doing the same at WMF until Michelle produced her guidance. We've tried to find all instances where we had uploaded images, instead replacing them with links (the auto-generated thumbnails are not a concern, legally). Although the legal team hasn't published formal guidance on the other social networks, a survey of their terms of service show a very similar sublicensing clause. I'm not super optimistic that we can participate fully with them, so that's why we have not had an active presence on, for example, Pinterest. They make such heavy use of images in their pins and I don't see a workable way forward at present, despite how much I like their site aesthetically. I would love to find a solution to the problem from a licensing standpoint. IMO, using images on social networks is a fantastic way to promote the projects and hopefully encourage more people to participate/contribute, but I don't think it's something we can reasonably do at present. -Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal to use the internal wiki more
I don't know that anyone else really wants another example, but I'll offer a couple thoughts. On a personal level, I'm happy that my contact information is not public, but I'm also happy that the other staff members have access to it if they need to get in touch with me urgently. The primary benefit of a closed wiki that I see from my work perspective is for upcoming press launches with partners when we need to embargo the information prior to the release date. The most common example is Wikipedia Zero. We regularly prepare documents, like the QA that goes with the launch, on Office Wiki and then copy it to Foundation Wiki once the press release is public. We could just do it in Google Docs, but we do need to keep this information private until the launch (obviously, we wouldn't be able to manage the story if the press got to it before we wanted them to). Our PR work is often also part of the contract signed with the partner and is one of the primary values they see in the partnership, so they are usually quite concerned with keeping a tight lock on the info until the release date. There are also a number of password registrations to the various social media accounts we manage, the various admin keys for the press release distribution list and to the various lists like Wikimedia Announce-l that would also need to stay private in some capacity. Office Wiki proves useful for that, but theoretically there could be another arrangement, I'm sure. Of the other material that is in the Communications corner on Office Wiki, almost all of it is links to public wikis, so it doesn't do much more than provide an easy location for organizing the links. That could happen just as easily on Meta or elsewhere. -Matthew On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.comwrote: Oliver Keyes, 10/04/2013 22:43: Are you speaking of yourself here? :) As opposed to, speaking as a staffer? Well, I work for Product Development. So the chances of me giving binding policy statements on privacy issues are slim to none :). No: as opposed to, a staffer that is also not a very active editor. :) The part on personal identifying information is one I understand and that's why I asked about it, but I don't think it should be on officewiki either; the other part on editor background I didn't understand, and I think staffer or editor is the same for that. Speaking personally: I can't think of a single good reason why Victor's stuff should be released. [...] Neither I do. I only asked if they *require* the compartmentalisation that e.g. Tom described – otherwise they could as well happen in a slightly different context (like for instance use the internal wiki more, given that's the thread we're in). An illustration here would be: I've got my engagement strategy for what became Page Curation on officewiki. It's a place where I can write and rewrite it, my bosses can check it for stupid, and if there *is* stupid we catch it before it causes problems. This is fine. Way better than Google Docs shared with few people and then quickly lost! Someone looking at that in isolation would go this should totally be public! It's about engagement and deployment timetables,and we should be transparent about it. I really can't imagine who this naïve someone could be. :) And we are transparent about it - because the document later became public, in an altered and finalised form. But the two aren't necessarily linked together, which makes this rather opaque. There are totally some docs on office-wiki that could do with more publicity. But there are far more that are private - fully private - for a good reason, and I'd imagine some of those that look ready for public release were, in fact, released. Again, I'm not the one arguing for a bias towards putting information on public wikis for the sake of it, in this thread. ;-) I know that some things are always going to be private, and I also think that we're not a totalitarian state, so even we officially disallowed anything to be private then people would just hide better (e.g. documents on private gdocs rather than private wikis; or the good old local hard disk + private email). Nemo __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] French intelligency agency forces removal of a Wikipedia article
This is where the discussion is happening on-wiki: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Bulletin_des_administrateurs#Secret_d.C3.A9fense On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 10:52 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Hard to know what was involved from the information you provide. The problem is there is classified information that amounts to nothing and then there is classified information release of which can cause serious damage. Defiance will eventually result in serious trouble. Not that we should knuckle under to nonsense. Fred Hi there, I guess you might be interested to hear that Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, DCRI), a French intelligence agency that reports directly to the Ministry of the Interior, has apparently forced a French Wikipedia administrator to delete an article that in their opinion—as I understand it—revelead classified information deemed very harmful to the French national defence (compromission du secret de la Défense nationale). Interestingly, they contacted the WMF legal team with a request to remove (delete? suppress?) this article a couple of weeks before that, but were refused after failing to provide further information on why the article should be removed (in the words of a Foundation legal counsel). Undounted by that, they approached the said administrator — who operates under his real name, so I guess it was pretty easy to track him — and asked him to delete this article, a request which he obliged. (The article has since been restored by a different administrator). As far as I understand, the version of the article they wanted to have deleted was https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=81104004. I guess that when an intelligence agency asks their citizen to remove information from Wikipedia citing the penal code (article 413-11 of the French penal code in this case), it is something worth sharing (no harm intended). Further reading in English: * https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prevoldid=91703508 * https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=91705235 -- Tomasz W. Kozłowski a.k.a. [[user:odder]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] French intelligency agency forces removal of a Wikipedia article
WMF Legal Counsel Michele Paulson has added a statement to the discussion on fr.wp here: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Bulletin_des_administrateurs/2013/Semaine_14#Wikimedia_Foundation_elaborates_on_recent_demand_by_French_governmental_agency_to_remove_Wikipedia_content . It is also repeated on Meta here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Statement_on_France I noted on the Communications Committee list that everyone can feel invited to send press inquiries to me at the Foundation. I'm happy to clarify what we know of the chronology of events and answer questions reporters might have. thank you, Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 8:02 PM, Mathieu Stumpf psychosl...@culture-libre.org wrote: Le vendredi 05 avril 2013 à 13:44 -0600, Fred Bauder a écrit : Somehow it is important... Streisand effect writ large. Unless somehow it was just a mixup, or a deliberate attempt to put a false target forward. Or maybe just a test to see how hard it could be to do. Who know. ;) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal to use the internal wiki more
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 3:34 AM, Michael Peel michael.p...@wikimedia.org.ukwrote: Hi all, # Press releases. When there's an upcoming significant press release from a Wikimedia organisation, then it should be good practice to share it with the other movement partners prior to its release, so that they are aware of it, can provide feedback, and can plan around it. Some of this already happens on wmfcc-l, but not consistently - much more could be done here. I really hope we continue to use the Communications Committee list for this purpose. I think if anything, more groups could share more of their press releases and information there. We try to do it with every press release at the WMF. It is an active part of our communications strategy for announcements. It's even something we explicitly state when we first liaise with press reps from the big telecommunications companies for Wikipedia Zero announcements. They probably aren't super comfortable with it, but we insist that the community who works in press will be given the embargoed release before it is public. # Domain names. There is a list of these on internal already, which is actually being maintained by some people. Tackling squatted domain names and keeping track of who owns what is a global problem that should be done collaboratively, but in confidence, rather than just by individual organisations. # Contact information for the various organisations. Some of this can be done publicly, but not all, and it would be good to have a central place for this information anyway. # Notices of sensitive activities. E.g. if there's an upcoming risk of law suits, infrastructure difficulties within organisations, etc. then it would be good to be able to share these and ask for help without publishing them to the world at the same time. That doesn't need a mailing list - it can be done on a wiki. # … and I'm sure there's more examples that can go here, this isn't trying to be a complete list! So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other? Thanks, Mike (Note: this is a personal viewpoint, not necessarily that of WMUK.) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Ellie Young as Conference Coordinator
I hear 2014 will be a very busy year in Brasil Some sport thing with a ball and a large green pitch :) On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com wrote: She has been to every country in Latin America and the Caribbean except Brasil. Why not Brasil? :'( :p welcome, and come to Brasil!!! On 28 March 2013 23:06, Everton Zanella Alvarenga t...@wikimedia.org wrote: Good point, Florence. Is it like if we hired someone for a education position to work during one school term for only 6 months. Tom On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 10:37 PM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote: Welcome again Ellie A question came to my mind when I read the description of the job. - making sure there is good continuity and knowledge-transfer as the conference moves to new hosts year-over-year. Yet, she is taking on the role as an annual contract. Is there not a contradiction here ? Flo -- Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom) A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com +55 11 979 718 884 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Good governance lessons from UK review
Wikimedia Foundation General Counsel Geoff Brigham has written a new blog post on the Wikimedia Blog that examines several points from the recent Wikimedia UK governance review, which he argues are useful for all Wikimedia movement groups and individuals. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/movement-governance-recommendations/ The recent UK report and movement governance Posted by Geoff Brigham on March 19th, 2013 As part of the Wikimedia movement, there are entities such as chapters, the Wikimedia Foundation, thematic organizations, and user groups, established to support our shared global mission of freely sharing educational content. With the growth of these organizations comes a need for “good governance” — a recognition that movement entities are stewards for our contributors, donors and developers, who generously donate their time, expertise and money to promote the Wikimedia movement. Our organizations are called upon to use resources efficiently and carry out official positions for the benefit of the community. When they do not, they hurt the trust of the movement. Last month, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK announced the release of the final report and recommendations regarding the governance of Wikimedia UK. The review was conducted by Compass Partnership, a noted management consultant company with particular expertise in evaluating nonprofit organizations. Although the report includes highly specific recommendations to be implemented by Wikimedia UK, as a whole, it suggests several foundational themes that may be broadly applicable to all movement organizations. Each of us (including myself) who holds positions entrusted by our community may benefit from the learnings of the report. The following ones are worth consideration by all of us in Wikimedia organizations. ▪ Maintain Respect and Professionalism. According to the UK report, strong and effective relationships are an essential ingredient of any movement involving multiple organizations in dispersed territories and cultures. To foster effective relations among Wikimedia groups, the report recommends that communications within the movement be respectful and professional. It also suggests that this tone should be set and modeled by those in entrusted positions in the movement – such as trustees, executives and employees. We need not avoid controversy and disagreement, but respectful and professional behavior benefits the community as a whole. It ensures we are talking about and solving issues that benefit the community in a constructive, objective and productive way.[1] ▪ Keep Roles Within the Movement Separate from Your Personal Interests. The report suggests that, to best serve the movement, community members should keep their Wikimedia organizational roles separate from their own personal interests. For example, a trustee should never use that position within the movement to advance their own financial interest. Similarly, when individuals within the movement are acting in their personal capacity, for their own benefit, they should not rely on their Wikimedia title or office in any way, and they should be clear about it.[2] ▪ Be Transparent With Regard to Conflicts of Interest and Cooperate in Resolving Them. As many of you may know, the WMF Board is currently considering the proposed “Guidelines on the Disclosure of Potential and Actual Conflicts of Interest in Requesting Movement Resources,” which were developed through a six-week consultation period with the community. The guidelines encourage community members to disclose actively their potential conflicts of interest when requesting Wikimedia resources, and also provide guidance regarding (1) what circumstances may constitute a conflict of interest, and (2) when to disclose such circumstances to the appropriate decision-maker within the movement. The community’s efforts to improve the handling of conflicts of interest are recognized in the UK report. The report specifically discusses these guidelines and highlights their value in providing a framework for the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest so that they may be fully evaluated and managed. The UK report explains that, in a charitable organization, the highest standards should be followed in managing conflicts. If an employee, officer or trustee of a movement entity believes there is any possibility that they present a potential or actual conflict of interest, this should be raised immediately with the appropriate decision-maker. Furthermore, the employee, officer, or trustee should be forthcoming and transparent with regard to all relevant facts, so the appropriate decision-maker may fully assess the potential conflict.[3] ▪ Go Beyond the Minimum Requirements of Law. Finally, the report recognizes that the demands and values of the worldwide Wikimedia movement call for us all to hold ourselves to the highest standard, going beyond the basic legal requirements.The WMF Board encouraged as much in its
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Licencing question
On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 8:51 AM, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: All, I have a question for you which I am sure you will enjoy discussing. It's about licencing. Wikimedia sites do not use a 'byline' on their images - for example, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page requires an image to be clicked on before you can view the licence and the author information. The same applies for Wikipedia, and the WMF (and WMUK) blogs. Hi Richard, On the Wikimedia blog, we include Copyright notes at the bottom of each post with images and include the Title of the photo, the author's name (and link to userpage if available) and the link to the relevant license page on CC or elsewhere. See for example: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/19/wikimedia-sites-move-to-primary-data-center-in-ashburn-virginia/ This process was formalized after a Commons user pointed out to us that we appeared not to be in compliance with the URI sub-clause of the CC-BY-SA license. cf sections 4 a) and 4 b) here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode Our legal team affirmed the Commons user's assertion and we have subsequently implemented the Copyright notes special field in the admin end or our blog. You can see a bit more info here on the instructions we give to post authors and editors: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Guidelines#Add_Copyright_Notes thanks, Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation named Knight News Challenge winner
(This press release is also available online at: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Knight_News_Challenge_winner) Wikimedia Foundation named winner of Knight News Challenge $600,000 in Knight Foundation funding supports innovation across Wikimedia mobile initiatives SAN FRANCISCO, CA - January 17, 2013 - The Wikimedia Foundation was named a winner in the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's Knight News Challenge for its efforts to expand and improve Wikimedia's mobile projects. The Wikimedia Foundation is enhancing the Wikipedia mobile experience and making it easier to access Wikipedia, particularly for readers in developing countries. As mobile technology is increasingly the primary opportunity for billions of people around the world to access the Internet, the Wikimedia Foundation is working to remove the two biggest hurdles to access free knowledge: cost and accessibility. The News Challenge grant will be utilized in four areas: *Improving the way that users experience our mobile platform on feature phones; *Expanding Wikipedia Zero, which gives mobile users free access to Wikipedia on their phones; *Developing features to improve the mobile experience regardless of how feature-rich the device is, including new ways to access Wikipedia via texting; *Increasing the number of languages that can access Wikipedia on mobile. The Wikimedia Foundation is one of eight mobile projects to receive a total of $2.4 million today through the Knight News Challenge, which accelerates projects with funding and advice from Knight's network of media innovators. A full list is at knightfoundation.org. Knight Foundation's funding will support us making the mobile version of Wikipedia easier to use, as well as enabling us to expand Wikipedia Zero, our project with mobile operators that lets their customers access Wikipedia for free, said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm very happy Knight has chosen to support us; it's an important affirmation of our mobile work. Knight Foundation, the nation’s leading funder of journalism and media innovation, is committed to promoting democracy by supporting informed and engaged communities. Founded by newsmen John S. and James L. Knight, the foundation launched the Knight News Challenge in 2007 to find the next generation of innovations that help communities get the information they need. Wikipedia has helped define the way that people collaboratively create content. Making the site available to more people across the world will help foster and spread that culture, said John Bracken, director for journalism and media innovation at Knight Foundation. The $600,000 News Challenge grant is for two years and follows a general support grant of $250,000 that Knight Foundation awarded to the Wikimedia Foundation in December 2012. The Wikimedia Foundation and the other winners of the challenge will present their projects via live Web stream at 12:30 p.m. ET/ 10:30 a.m. MT Friday, January 18 at knightfoundation.org/live, from a gathering on the future of mobile at Arizona State University. (Follow #newschallenge on Twitter.) About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Press contact Jay Walsh Senior Director, Communications Wikimedia Foundation Tel. +1 415-860-8166 jwa...@wikimedia.org About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org or newschallenge.org Press contact Andrew Sherry VP for Communications, Knight Foundation Tel. 305-908-2677 she...@knightfoundation.org (To unsubscribe from Wikimedia Foundation press releases, reply with unsubscribe in the subject line.) ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
[Wikimedia-l] adding SM to the Blog Calendar on Meta
Do you guys think it makes any sense to use Meta to help handle the workflow for both the blog and social media messages? See the item for tomorrow where I've added proposed social media message for the two blog posts I'm publishing tomorrow: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Calendar#January_2013 I don't know how we can make Meta work for this kind of thing, but it seems to make sense to me to try to consolidate the tool we use for seeking and giving feedback on these. thoughts? M -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikivoyage launch: why no blog post or pressrelease?
On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 6:06 AM, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: Ideally we would have also had the blog post synced up to be online immediately at the same time as the release. The blog post went up at the same time as the release, 8 am PST, the time we had planned to lift the embargo. -Matthew Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation announces the official launch of the Wikivoyage online travel guide
Forwarding from Announce-l. This is the official announcement from WMF of the Wikivoyage launch. There is also a blog post on the WMF blog: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/15/wikimedia-foundation-launches-wikivoyage-a-free-worldwide-travel-guide-that-anyone-can-edit/ thanks, Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* (This press release can also be found online here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_launches_Wikivoyage ) Wikimedia Foundation launches Wikivoyage, a free, worldwide travel guide that anyone can edit Wikivoyage becomes the 12th official Wikimedia project and debuts on Wikipedia's 12th birthday SAN FRANCISCO -- 15 January, 2013 -- The Wikimedia Foundation is excited to announce the launch of its 12th official project: Wikivoyage (www.wikivoyage.org), a free, worldwide, online travel guide. Like Wikipedia and its sister projects, Wikivoyage is free to edit, free of ads, and built collaboratively by volunteers from around the globe. Wikivoyage is currently available in nine languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. There are already approximately 50,000 articles, which are edited and improved by a core group of approximately 200 volunteer editors. There's a huge global demand for travel information, but very few sources are both comprehensive and non-commercial. That's about to change, said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikivoyage is a great, useful service for travelers, and I'm expecting that with the support of the Wikimedia Foundation and the global Wikimedia editing community, it's going to get even bigger and better. Wikivoyage has been an active wiki-based travel guide since 2006 in German and Italian, supported by the German non-profit Wikivoyage Association. The contributors on that site and the non-profit requested to migrate their content and offered to donate their brand to the new project hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. The proposal was approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees in October 2012. The site was moved over to the Wikimedia Foundation servers in November of 2012, where it was in Beta until today. The purpose of the Wikivoyage Association is to promote education and knowledge of all countries and regions in the world, as well as understanding among nations, said Stefan Fussan, Chairman of the board of the Wikivoyage Association. We're very excited about the launch of Wikivoyage as a Wikimedia project, and about the future role of the Association in supporting the Wikivoyage community through its programs. Wikivoyage is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, which allows anyone the right to read, copy, print, save, download, modify, distribute, sell, and update its content in any way, provided the terms of the free license are respected. This includes giving proper attribution to the creators of the content and ensuring that any reuse or derivative works are also freely-licensed. As contributors to Wikivoyage, we work hard to create high-quality content, written by travelers, for travelers, in their own language, said Peter Fitzgerald, an administrator on Wikivoyage. We're very excited to be part of the Wikimedia community, and we invite travelers to join us in creating an independent, non-commercial, online travel guide for the world. We are confident that it will become the number one travel resource on the web. The Wikivoyage launch coincides with the 12th anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia on January 15th, 2001. Official Wikivoyage logo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikivoyage-logo-en-TTO-attempt.svg Visit the Wikivoyage portal site here: http://www.wikivoyage.org/ About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Press contact Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation Tel. +1 415-839-6885 x6635 mr...@wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikivoyage launch: why no blog post or press release?
Drat, my apologies. I forwarded to Wikimedia-l and neglected to send here. Busy morning :/ -Matthew On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:30 AM, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: Matthew distributed the release and the blog post this morning (around 0900 PT), it should have made its way to this list as well: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_launches_Wikivoyage https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/15/wikimedia-foundation-launches-wikivoyage-a-free-worldwide-travel-guide-that-anyone-can-edit/ Also, happy birthday, Wikipedia! And welcome to our new friends at Wikivoyage :) On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 6:37 AM, Stevie Benton stevie.ben...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: Hi Tom et al, There is indeed a release - but it is embargoed until 1600 GMT / 0800 PST... It's uploaded to the WMUK blog in readiness to go live at the appointed hour. I am absolutely certain that the Foundation are equally prepared. Hope this is helpful, Stevie On 15 January 2013 14:35, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: Some friends asked me today about the Wikivoyage launch, and the reasoning behind it. I hopped over to https://blog.wikimedia.org/ and found... nothing. Then I went to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room and also found... nothing. Any reason why the Foundation hasn't published anything about the official launch of Wikivoyage? It'd be quite useful to be able to point my enquiring friends to oh, this is what the Foundation are saying about it, but apparently the Foundation aren't saying anything about it. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Stevie Benton Communications Organiser Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173 @StevieBenton Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Jay Walsh Senior Director, Communications WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation announces the official launch of the Wikivoyage online travel guide
(This press release can also be found online here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_launches_Wikivoyage) Wikimedia Foundation launches Wikivoyage, a free, worldwide travel guide that anyone can edit Wikivoyage becomes the 12th official Wikimedia project and debuts on Wikipedia's 12th birthday SAN FRANCISCO -- 15 January, 2013 -- The Wikimedia Foundation is excited to announce the launch of its 12th official project: Wikivoyage (www.wikivoyage.org), a free, worldwide, online travel guide. Like Wikipedia and its sister projects, Wikivoyage is free to edit, free of ads, and built collaboratively by volunteers from around the globe. Wikivoyage is currently available in nine languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. There are already approximately 50,000 articles, which are edited and improved by a core group of approximately 200 volunteer editors. There's a huge global demand for travel information, but very few sources are both comprehensive and non-commercial. That's about to change, said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikivoyage is a great, useful service for travelers, and I'm expecting that with the support of the Wikimedia Foundation and the global Wikimedia editing community, it's going to get even bigger and better. Wikivoyage has been an active wiki-based travel guide since 2006 in German and Italian, supported by the German non-profit Wikivoyage Association. The contributors on that site and the non-profit requested to migrate their content and offered to donate their brand to the new project hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. The proposal was approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees in October 2012. The site was moved over to the Wikimedia Foundation servers in November of 2012, where it was in Beta until today. The purpose of the Wikivoyage Association is to promote education and knowledge of all countries and regions in the world, as well as understanding among nations, said Stefan Fussan, Chairman of the board of the Wikivoyage Association. We're very excited about the launch of Wikivoyage as a Wikimedia project, and about the future role of the Association in supporting the Wikivoyage community through its programs. Wikivoyage is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, which allows anyone the right to read, copy, print, save, download, modify, distribute, sell, and update its content in any way, provided the terms of the free license are respected. This includes giving proper attribution to the creators of the content and ensuring that any reuse or derivative works are also freely-licensed. As contributors to Wikivoyage, we work hard to create high-quality content, written by travelers, for travelers, in their own language, said Peter Fitzgerald, an administrator on Wikivoyage. We're very excited to be part of the Wikimedia community, and we invite travelers to join us in creating an independent, non-commercial, online travel guide for the world. We are confident that it will become the number one travel resource on the web. The Wikivoyage launch coincides with the 12th anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia on January 15th, 2001. Official Wikivoyage logo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikivoyage-logo-en-TTO-attempt.svg Visit the Wikivoyage portal site here: http://www.wikivoyage.org/ About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Press contact Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation Tel. +1 415-839-6885 x6635 mr...@wikimedia.org ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Featuring the edit tab in Vector (by making it red)
Steven's link, without the extra is in it: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_engagement_experiments On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 1:54 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.comwrote: On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Jan Kučera kozuc...@gmail.com wrote: Yes this was quick (and maybe little ugly) mockup, but the idea is simple. Someone from E3 team around here for comments? Hey, E3 team member here. I agree with Sage for sure. The real value of A/B testing this particular change or a variation of it, is to help everyone decide what the ideal change might be (e.g. red vs bold vs an icon) and what impact each of those options have in comparison to each other and/or to a baseline. That way we can still make judgement calls with the input of design expertise and even consensus, but conversation can form around data, rather than just opinion. If anyone wants to write a description of a test like this they want to see, then you are always welcome to post it to MediaWiki.org or Meta, and get our attention. Being bold and adding it to the list of planned experiments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_engagement_experimentsis a good way to do so. :) Even if we may not always have the bandwidth to do these experiments ourselves immediately, we are always happy to gather ideas for future work, since we regularly have time to run smaller experiments on the side. We can also help you set up an experiment and work through the data collection/analysis cycle. Steven ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] compromise?
On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 5:14 PM, Leslie Carr lc...@wikimedia.org wrote: That's accurate. But there's no dentists onsite, no massage center, no chefs, no barista making my latte, etc, etc I'm a pretty good barista, so for a small fee, I'd be happy to make your coffee ;) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] If I could talk to the wiki folks...
Wow, I want to start a Thematic Organization just so I can call it a thorg! What a great acronym :) On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 1:51 PM, Bence Damokos bdamo...@gmail.com wrote: Thank you Ziko – your post is great! ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Thematic_Organizations#Scope_and_names_for_movement_entities ) Best regards, Bence (P.S. AffCom is still looking for new members ready to think about the hard questions that are raised there: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Call_for_Candidates_2013 ) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012 Wikipedia fundraiser
(This press release is also available online at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_raises_25_million_in_2012_fundraiser The Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012 Wikipedia fundraiser More than 1.2 million Wikipedia readers donated to keep Wikipedia and sister sites ad free and free to all SAN FRANCISCO, December 27, 2012 - The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today announced the successful completion of its ninth annual fundraising campaign in record time. Wikipedia readers donated $25 million and once again affirmed the value of the project by guaranteeing that the online encyclopedia will remain ad-free. I'm grateful that the Wikipedia fundraiser was so successful. Our supporters are wonderful and without them we could not do the job of delivering free content worldwide, said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. We're thrilled to be able to introduce our readers to the editors around the world who create Wikipedia and to invite our readers to join in editing. Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server infrastructure, support global projects to increase the number of editors, improve and simplify the software that supports our projects, and make Wikipedia accessible globally to billions of people who are just beginning to access the internet. More than 1.2 million donors contributed to the 2012 campaign, which ran on English Wikipedia in 5 countries (United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand) for only 9 full days, down from 46 days in 2011. The most successful 24-hour period for donations this year brought in $2,365,564 million from 145,573 donors. Messages and formats optimized in this year's campaign will be used in another short fundraising drive for the rest of the world in April 2013. Though the fundraiser is an important part of Wikipedia's success, volunteer contributors are the heart of the world's largest encyclopedia. To highlight the tens of millions of hours they put into the projects each year, the Wikimedia Foundation will conduct a thank you campaign with short videos that showcase some of the roughly 80,000 volunteer editors, photographers and free-knowledge advocates from around the world who regularly contribute to Wikimedia projects. The campaign starts on December 27th and runs through the end of the year. Meet all the Wikimedians who we're profiling in our thank you campaign here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All Some of the Wikimedians being profiled: Mei Jiun Kwek is a botanist from Malaysia who uploads photos to Wikimedia Commons to accompany her work on crop species in her country. She encourages researchers to share their material on a freely licensed database to improve open access to knowledge. (Video link on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_-_Mei_Jiun_Kwek.webm and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGotJ927YM) Dumisani Ndubane is an electrical engineer from South Africa who started uploading his circuit analysis class notes to Wikiversity, a project supporting open educational resources, which did not have much information in his field at the time. By participating with volunteers from around the world, Ndubane not only grew to appreciate the value of collaboration, he helped improve the quality of free tutorials and coursework. (Video link on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Dumisani_Ndubane.webm and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXvhABH-jFs) Adrianne Wadewitz is a professor from California who uses Wikipedia as a teaching tool in her classroom and helps her faculty peers to incorporate digital technology in their teaching and research methods. She describes a memorable moment when one of her students turned in an essay largely plagiarized from a Wikipedia article Wadewitz had written. (Video link on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Adrianne_Wadewitz.webm and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwZ7jL4xyY) About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Press contact: Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager
[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012 Wikipedia fundraiser
Forwarding on from Wikipedia Announce list. For those who haven't already seen the thank you banner at the top of English Wikipedia, you need to be logged out to view it. -- Forwarded message -- From: Matthew Roth mr...@wikimedia.org To: press-rele...@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:46:51 -0800 Subject: [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012 Wikipedia fundraiser (This press release is also available online at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_raises_25_million_in_2012_fundraiser The Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012 Wikipedia fundraiser More than 1.2 million Wikipedia readers donated to keep Wikipedia and sister sites ad free and free to all SAN FRANCISCO, December 27, 2012 - The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today announced the successful completion of its ninth annual fundraising campaign in record time. Wikipedia readers donated $25 million and once again affirmed the value of the project by guaranteeing that the online encyclopedia will remain ad-free. I'm grateful that the Wikipedia fundraiser was so successful. Our supporters are wonderful and without them we could not do the job of delivering free content worldwide, said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. We're thrilled to be able to introduce our readers to the editors around the world who create Wikipedia and to invite our readers to join in editing. Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server infrastructure, support global projects to increase the number of editors, improve and simplify the software that supports our projects, and make Wikipedia accessible globally to billions of people who are just beginning to access the internet. More than 1.2 million donors contributed to the 2012 campaign, which ran on English Wikipedia in 5 countries (United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand) for only 9 full days, down from 46 days in 2011. The most successful 24-hour period for donations this year brought in $2,365,564 million from 145,573 donors. Messages and formats optimized in this year's campaign will be used in another short fundraising drive for the rest of the world in April 2013. Though the fundraiser is an important part of Wikipedia's success, volunteer contributors are the heart of the world's largest encyclopedia. To highlight the tens of millions of hours they put into the projects each year, the Wikimedia Foundation will conduct a thank you campaign with short videos that showcase some of the roughly 80,000 volunteer editors, photographers and free-knowledge advocates from around the world who regularly contribute to Wikimedia projects. The campaign starts on December 27th and runs through the end of the year. Meet all the Wikimedians who we're profiling in our thank you campaign here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All Some of the Wikimedians being profiled: Mei Jiun Kwek is a botanist from Malaysia who uploads photos to Wikimedia Commons to accompany her work on crop species in her country. She encourages researchers to share their material on a freely licensed database to improve open access to knowledge. (Video link on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_-_Mei_Jiun_Kwek.webm and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGotJ927YM) Dumisani Ndubane is an electrical engineer from South Africa who started uploading his circuit analysis class notes to Wikiversity, a project supporting open educational resources, which did not have much information in his field at the time. By participating with volunteers from around the world, Ndubane not only grew to appreciate the value of collaboration, he helped improve the quality of free tutorials and coursework. (Video link on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Dumisani_Ndubane.webm and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXvhABH-jFs) Adrianne Wadewitz is a professor from California who uses Wikipedia as a teaching tool in her classroom and helps her faculty peers to incorporate digital technology in their teaching and research methods. She describes a memorable moment when one of her students turned in an essay largely plagiarized from a Wikipedia article Wadewitz had written. (Video link on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Adrianne_Wadewitz.webm and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwZ7jL4xyY) About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. As a comparison, Doctors Without Borders/MSF USA had a policy of paying the E.D. no more than 3 times the rate of the entry level positions. When I left at the end of 2004, the entry level salary was $35,000 and the E.D. was $105,000. Not sure what it is now. -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:57 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: On Dec 28, 2012 12:52 AM, Matthew Roth mr...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. As a comparison, Doctors Without Borders/MSF USA had a policy of paying the E.D. no more than 3 times the rate of the entry level positions. When I left at the end of 2004, the entry level salary was $35,000 and the E.D. was $105,000. Not sure what it is now. How are they structured? Was there another layer of management at the international level? $105k sounds very low for the top person in an organisation of any significant size. That's what the E.D. probably thought :) and it was definitely scuttlebutt among folks at the office. MSF was structured in some ways like WMF and its chapters. MSF USA was a non-operational chapter of the overall MSF, meaning that we raised funds and did recruitment of volunteers, but we were not allowed to organize any operations (i.e. missions in the field to administer aid). The five operational organizations were all in Europe: France, UK, Spain, Switzerland and Netherlands. Each of the 19 chapters had it's own organizational hierarchy. I'm not sure about the compensation of the other chapters at MSF, but I imagine they were not compensated too much higher. This was one of the points of pride in maintaining the golden rule there (15% of money raised spent on admin, 85% spent on programs), so salaries were lower than peers like the IRC and others (ironically, another point of pride and similarity with us is that MSF also moved away from taking govt money). MSF USA got its first operational mission in Guatemala in 2004 (soon followed by Nigeria). I imagine that trend has increased as the chapter matured so to speak. Sorry to digress. -Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 3:04 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Zack Exley wrote: Tens of thousands of donors have filled out a survey this year after donating. We've gotten hardly a handful of complaints. I would have expected a lot. Can you elaborate on this point? You seem to be saying that you would have expected a lot of complaints from people who are filling out a voluntary survey after having willingly donated money to you. Just how many complaints were you expecting and what might they look like? I'm fascinated to know. I don't know what Zack was expecting this year, but having worked on the fundraiser last year, the banners were talked about so extensively that they became the topic of numerous blog posts at large outlets. The Brandon Harris one even got him to an IAMA on Reddit. They were very much mocking the left orientation and the easy way you could screen shot the photo over a Wikipedia article title to make an insult. It was not that much fun to read when you were investing a lot of time and energy on the effort, so I think some of us were not looking forward to the same happening this year. Now that I monitor social media for the Foundation, I get to see a lot of chatter around the banner. I don't mean to suggest Tweets are proof of anything definitively, but of the ten thousand+ Wikipedia tweets since Nov 15, I've only seen a small handful of them (I would guess less than 20) that mentioned the yellow banners negatively. I haven't monitored every single tweet of course, so if someone wants to be more scientific about it, please do. A search on Twitter for yellow banner does bring up some of those negative ones, but it's not a huge list. FWIW, Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Update to Internet Brands travel site lawsuit
Hi all, I'm sharing a blog post on behalf of Wikimedia Foundation General Counsel Geoff Brigham with an update about the Internet Brands travel site lawsuit. This update can be found online here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/28/update-to-internet-brands-travel-site-lawsuit/ The federal district court in Los Angeles has now issued its written order on volunteer Ryan Holliday’s anti-SLAPP motion and motion to dismisshttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-09-26_Notice_of_Defendants%27_Special_Motion_to_Strike.pdf. A copy of the order is available herehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-11-19_D18_Order_re_Special_Mtn_to_Strike_and_Mtn_to_Dismiss.pdf. The order is consistent with our prior reporthttp://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/19/update-on-internet-brands-v-holliday/ following the hearing on November 19. In the order, the court noted that Internet Brands abandoned its federal Lanham Act claim. That claim was based on the factual allegation that the Foundation was operating a new travel wiki called “Wiki Travel Guide,” which Ryan showed to be incorrect. After being required to respond to Ryan’s motion, Internet Brands was forced to admit that the basis of its claim was primarily predicated on an assumption. Noting that this Lanham Act claim was the only claim supporting federal jurisdiction, the court dismissed the remainder of Internet Brands’ case and found Ryan’s anti-SLAPP motion to be moot. While we had hoped that the court would reach the merits of Ryan’s anti-SLAPP motion, the dismissal of the entire suit nonetheless represents a victory for Ryan and volunteer James Heilman (who was also named in the suit). We congratulate both of them on this result. Meanwhile, the Wikimedia Foundation is proceeding forward with its lawsuit against Internet Brands in San Francisco. Internet Brands has filed a demurrer (motion to dismiss), the hearing for which has been postponed to December 14. The court has issued a tentative ruling on that motion, which is available herehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Minutes_-_Demurrer_11-19-12.pdf. In the tentative ruling, the court indicates that it is inclined to rule against Internet Brands. We will update you further after the hearing. *Geoff Brigham, General Counsel* * * * * -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board vote on narrowing focus
On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 9:26 AM, Bence Damokos bdamo...@gmail.com wrote: Do you have an example in mind of a recent press release that took advantage of this support? How useful to you find ComCom, as a list and network, compared to direct personal facilitation by WMF staff? I spent a fair amount of time supporting Lodewijk and the international team with press work around Wiki Loves Monuments, drafting press releases, communications strategy, etc. When I couldn't continue to spend time in a staff capacity given the many other demands for time, I did other work as a volunteer, much as I did for other elements of organizing the U.S. version of the contest. It was a great deal of fun and I look forward to helping again next year, in both capacities. While not recent or international; I have taken advantage of both personal WMF staff support and ComCom in the past, in slightly different circumstances. For planning a communications strategy, the direct input, coaching and concentrated involvement of a Comms manager of WMF was instrumental; while ComCom in my experience has been useful in providing advice on how to react to a situation, which required less time of any given participant. In the former case the help might have been an unmandated task, and the person providing the help did not need to be WMF staffer (after all, Wikimedia Deutschland also had similar levels of communications expertise at the time, though still no mandate to be available to the global community). One important result of this interaction (and also other similar interactions in other fields of expertise, as well as that of the WMF-funded organizational development pilot) was the transfer of skills, ways of thinking that has been useful beyond the one project in question, and has perhaps resulted in not requiring to contact WMF again. In addition to working with folks on ComCom around reactive situations, or PR training/planning, we continue to seek out material for the communications channels that we manage, including the Wikimedia Foundation blog http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Blog and several large social media channels http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Social_Media. Several chapters and many individual Wikipedians have taken advantage to contribute material to blog.wikimedia.org. We're working on a process to re-design that blog so that we can better incorporate more voices beyond the Foundation and in many more languages (think more of a news magazine format and not just a chronological blogroll). We've been expanding the number of multi-lingual posts http://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/ and utilizing the great translate extension as much as possible. We'd welcome many more posts about movement activities from chapters or other event and activity organizers. The best way to do that is to contact me or anyone else listed under the guidelines section of the Meta page for the blog here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog We can get you help with editing the posts and put them on the calendar. We're also happy to help share/re-tweet/further spread the word on social media channels where applicable. So hopefully the changes you see coming from the WMF communications team include more support for the work you do, a more robust infrastructure to make it easier to publicize your work, and much better multi-lingual communications across the many channels available to us. Please feel free to reach out to me directly or anyone at communications at wikimedia dot org for any reason. Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board vote on narrowing focus
On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stie...@gmail.comwrote: On 11/2/12 8:15 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Samuel Klein, 02/11/2012 16:01: * Institutional support for the GLAM related activities in the US (until the US Federation is fully functional, if ever) I agree there is room for a global GLAM support for regions that don't have local [chapter] organization. Why do you feel this is a special problem for the US, compared to other archive-rich parts of the world - given the two regional chapters and numerous present and past Wikipedians in residence? The problem is always the same, i.e. that the WMF acts as WM-USA while a chapter is missing, rather than being truly global. Random (unfair?) recent example: WLM-USA uses the allegedly global Wikimedia blog https://blog.wikimedia.org/**2012/10/31/wiki-loves-** monuments-us-top-ten-photos-**announced/https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/10/31/wiki-loves-monuments-us-top-ten-photos-announced/ unlike all the other national editions. There is a US blog: http://www.wikilovesmonuments.**us/http://www.wikilovesmonuments.us/ I'm not sure why it was posted on the WMF blog. Mostly because I wrote the blog post on Tuesday night after work :) I'm happy to publicize more of the other country winners as well. I'll check on Elke's and Lodewijk's posts at http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/and coordinate with them and anyone else who would like to publicize them. We'll also be doing PR around the final announcement of the overall winners in December, as discussed with Lodewijk. thanks, Matthew -Sarah -- *Sarah Stierch* */Museumist and open culture advocate/* Visit sarahstierch.com http://sarahstierch.com __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Slate article on Gibraltar
Link to the article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/09/20/roger_bamkin_gibraltor_s_repeated_appearance_on_did_you_know_provkes_existential_crisis_for_wikipedia_.html On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: User:Panyd, who spotted the start of this whole incident on DYK, gave an interview with Slate magazine, which she's been very misquoted in and is a little upset about. She just emailed the UK list explaining her thoughts on all this, so I'm sharing them here: * * *I gave Slate an interview in the hopes of being the first non-crazy person to talk about what Roger is actually doing - which, yes, I still have problems with - but which isn't being Scrooge McDuck using WMUK to grab all the money in the land whilst writing all the articles about Gibraltar himself under the watchful gaze of the Tsar of Tourism. That is the only reason I gave those people the time of day. They have now quoted me as saying that Roger was writing and promoting the articles himself. They completely contradict themselves at the end of the paragraph, which is a hell of a lot closer to what I actually said, but...whatever, they can't write.* * * *For the record, no. No I did not say that. Yes, I have issues. You know what? I asked the community about them and they shrugged their shoulders and said: Eh, you're wrong. That's that then. If there are further discussions about what I feel are relevant issues, then I'll join them in a manner that AGF, because that is the Wikipedian way. People can be wrong, right or somewhere in between but thorough, open and civil discussion from both sides is required to help address the situation. (No Wikipediocracy, I don't just mean you, people are talking about this on-wiki too from multiple sides) Hopefully with a view to looking forward and adapting to these situations, whether it's to welcome or deny them.* * * *I don't think this has anything to do with Wikimedia UK whatsoever, and I'm sorry you're even having the discussion here. It should've stayed on Wikipedia, where it belongs, and where there are appropriate channels for people to discuss issues of paid editing, COI, impact on the project etc. I'm also sorry to Roger, because differences of opinion regarding on-wiki behaviour should not result in such incivility, or knee-jerk reactions. He added much to WMUK, gave so much of his time and love to help the chapter go forward, and to lose him is a great shame. For my part in that, I can only apologise to Roger and the community.* * * *Fiona * ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board pages on WMF wiki
Limited email connectivity today, but there is some discussion here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Talk:Board_of_Trustees Will comment more soon, -Matthew On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 2:17 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: Well, it was added by Matthew Roth, one of the WMF's comms people. I don't know if it originated with him, but he should be able to tell its more. I agree with its removal. It's a very strange but of text to have in board member bios. Including the board member's accomplishments is fine, but they should be accomplishments of that member, not the whole board and certainly not things that had little, if anything, to do with the board. On Aug 11, 2012 7:57 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: A few days ago, along with the new trustee's biographies, a lengthy text has been added (three times) to https://wikimediafoundation.** org/w/index.php?title=Board_**of_Trusteesoldid=83125 https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Board_of_Trusteesoldid=83125 , under the mysterious title Tenure Accomplishments, mentioning an unheard-of new format for bios. As this is not about the individual trustee's activity and there were a number of problems, the text has been removed, but it seemed to be given some importance so it's been restored elsewhere, as Summary of resolutions (a more neutral term). You can see the history here: https://wikimediafoundation.** org/w/index.php?title=**Resolutionsdir=prevoffset=** 20120720133234limit=12**action=history https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Resolutionsdir=prevoffset=20120720133234limit=12action=history The worst parts have been removed or fixed, but there's still much objectionable content, see some examples here: https://wikimediafoundation.**org/?diff=83158oldid=83156 https://wikimediafoundation.org/?diff=83158oldid=83156 It would be useful to know who's responsible for writing this piece of text and what purpose it's supposed to serve, so that interested people can understand it and possibly help improve it. Thanks, Nemo __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] In the News
This one had legs this week. Here's a sample of the coverage following the original report on Monday by Micah Sifry at Tech President. Once Colbert jumped in, it led to another round of coverage through today. It's also just now getting to the British press. -Matthew * * *Wikipedia | How to Spot Romney's VP Pick in Advance* Tech President | 6 August 2012 http://techpresident.com/news/22680/how-spot-romneys-vice-president-pick-advance *Further coverage:* *Political Wire | Want to guess Romney's running mate? **(6 August 2012)* http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/08/06/want_to_guess_romneys_running_mate.html *Politico | On veep selection, look to Wikipedia (6 August 2012)* http://www.politico.com/blogs/media /2012/08/on-veep-selection-look-to-wikipedia-131262.html *Politico | Why Wikipedia isn't the veep oracle (7 August 2012)* http://www.politico.com/blogs/media /2012/08/why-wikipedia-isnt-the-veep-oracle-131322.html *CNN | Looking to Wikipedia for clues about Romney's VP pick* CNN | 9 August 2012 http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/07/tech/web/romney-vp-pick-wikipedia/ *HuffPo | Romney's VP pick predicted through Wikipedia edits? (7 August 2012)* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/will-wikipedia-predict-ro_n_1751782.html *Mashable | Is Wikipedia the key to predicting Mitt Romney's VP? (7 August 2012)* http://mashable.com/2012/08/07/wikipedia-romney-vice-president/ *Salt Lake Tribune | Will Wikipedia be a harbinger of Romney's VP pick? (7 August 2012)* http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsmoviecricket/54648634-66/wikipedia-pick-romney-presidential.html.csp __ *Wikipedia | **Game Over: Wikipedia locks down potential VP pages in response to Colbert mischief making* Tech President | 8 August 2012 http://techpresident.com/news/22695/game-over-wikipedia-locks-down-potential-vp-pages-response-colbert-mischief-making *Further coverage:* *Politico | Wikipedia locks potential VP's pages (8 August 2012)* http://www.politico.com/blogs/media /2012/08/wikipedia-locks-possible-vps-pages-131458.html *NYTimes The Caucus | Romney's running mate? Some say Wikipedia holds the answer* http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/romneys-running-mate-some-say-wikipedia-holds-the-answer/ *LA Times | Possible VP picks' Wikipedia pages locked down amid editing spree (8 August 2012)* http://ur1.ca/9xhyw *The Hill | Wikipedia locks down pages of VP contenders after excessive edits (8 August 2012)* http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/242789-wikipedia-locks-down-pages-of-vp-contenders-after-excessive-edits *ABC News | Colbert causes Wikipedia to lock down potential VP pages (9 August 2012)* http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/colbert-causes-wikipedia-to-lock-down-potential-vp-pages/ *HuffPo | Colbert's Pawlenty Wikipedia Prank (8 August 2012)* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/colbert-pawlenty-wikipedia-romney-running-mate_n_1756205.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/wikipedia-romney-vp-stephen-colbert_n_1757554.html *The Hollywood Reporter | Stephen Colbert's Wikipedia vice presidential scheme short cirucuited (8 August 2012)* http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/stephen-colberts-wikipedia-vice-presidential-359985 *USA Today | Wikipedia locks the pages for potential Romney VPs (8 August 2012)* http://ur1.ca/9xhyt *Daily Mail | Wikipedia locks editing access... (8 August 2012)* http://ur1.ca/9xhyr *The Toronto Star | Wikipedia protects US vice presidential pages... (9 August 2012)* http://ur1.ca/9xhzh On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Mike Dupont jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote: I love it! great stuff! wikipedia edit heatmaps is what we need! On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Folks, if this has already been brought to the List, please excuse the repetition. If not, enjoy; http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/romneys-running-mate-some-say- wikipedia-holds-the-answer/?nl=usemc=edit_cn_20120810 Marc Riddell They probably got that out of Wikipedia, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney_presidential_campaign,_2012#Use_of_Wikipedia_for_divination Fred ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org Saving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
[Wikimedia-l] Al-Jazeera English Fault Lines report on SOPA
This is a segment in the Fault Lines series on AJE about SOPA, the Blackout and other issues around Controlling the Web. Features some footage of the WMF offices and clips from Jimmy, among many others. http://youtu.be/6FD9urcUWXw thanks Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Outage: what I'm telling the press
There is now a WMF blog post explaining the initial findings from the Operations team: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/08/06/wikimedia-site-outage-6-august-2012/ We hope to have a more detailed report soon. -Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 1:11 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: On 6 August 2012 21:06, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: $35 million is not a few million dollars. But not all of that is spent on site operations. All fine and dandy, but then let's please do our best to ensure that the BBC don't print gaffer tape and string sob stories about us. The tenner that someone in India sends us might indeed be better spent on a local charity there that actually feeds someone, or keeps someone healthy. Don't you think that should be up to the donor? I certainly agree that we need to be honest in our messaging and I've been very vocal in opposition to messaging that suggests there is any urgency for people to donate of that Wikipedia won't survive it they don't (at least, once we're far enough into the fundraiser that basic costs are all covered). That doesn't mean we shouldn't be proud of the fact that we are extremely efficient with our operations spending. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] photography restrictions at the Olympics
On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 2:21 AM, Frederic Schutz sch...@mathgen.ch wrote: Has anyone from the Wikimedia community contacted the IOC on this matter? This conversation came up about a month ago on the Communications Committee list and Jimmy mentioned that he had made requests through his channels and had also been told no. -Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Announces 2012-13 Board of Trustees and Elected Officers at Wikimania in Washington DC
Hello all, Please find a press release from the Wikimedia Foundation announcing Board of Trustees election results and welcoming Alice Wiegand and Patricio Lorente to the Board. thanks, Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Wikimedia Foundation (This release is also posted at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/WMF_Board_Election_July_2012 ) *Wikimedia Foundation Announces 2012-13 Board of Trustees and Elected Officers at Wikimania in Washington DC* Washington, DC -- July 12, 2012-- The Wikimedia Foundation today announced recent appointments and elected officers for the 2012-13 Board of Trustees. Every year at Wikimania, the annual gathering of Wikimedia contributors from around the world, the Wikimedia Board appoints its officers for the coming year, and this year’s appointments were announced in Washington, DC. This year, Kat Walsh was appointed Chair of the Board, Jan-Bart de Vreede was re-appointed Vice-chair, Stuart West was re-appointed as Board Treasurer and Bishaka Dhatta becomes Board Secretary. The Board expressed its great thanks to former Board Chair Ting Chen, as well as outgoing trustees Arne Klempert and Phoebe Ayers. Their leadership has strengthened and nurtured the growth of the worldwide Wikimedia movement. I am honored to have been chosen to chair the Board in the coming year,” said Kat Walsh, Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. “I want to thank Ting Chen for his service in his period as Chair, and I look forward to working closely with him as I take on this new role. It's an important time in the history of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia movement: I look forward to leading the Board in the year ahead. “It’s been a pleasure to serve the Wikimedia movement as Chair of the Board of Trustees,” said Ting Chen. “Since I took on the role of Chair we’ve worked with our global community and the Foundation to introduce an ambitious five-year plan to increase the diversity and overall population of our community, while also establishing long-term financial plans to ensure sustainability for our movement and our projects. Our Board has matured and strengthened, and I’m proud of the tireless work of my colleagues.” There are 10 seats on the Board and according to the Foundation's bylaws, three members are elected by the Wikimedia community, two are selected by the Wikimedia chapters, the Founder seat is held by Jimmy Wales, and four members are appointed by the Board itself to provide additional, specific expertise. The Foundation is happy to welcome its two newest members of the Board, Patricio Lorente and Alice Wiegand, who were elected to the Board by the Wikimedia chapters in May 2012. The chapters seat selection process was created in April 2008, in order to demonstrate the Board's commitment to the chapters as an important player in the fulfillment of the Wikimedia mission. Patricio Lorente is the former President of Wikimedia Argentina. He has worked as Project Manager of the Association for Social Development in Argentina and he currently serves as General ProSecretary of the National University of La Plata. Alice Wiegand is personal aide to the Mayor of Meerbusch, Germany. She has recently begun her Master’s studies in Public Policy and Governance. *The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees for 2012-2013:* *Kat Walsh, Board Chair (current term until July 2013) *Jan-Bart de Vreede, Vice Chair (current term until December 2013) *Stuart West, Treasurer (current term until December 2013) *Bishakha Datta, Secretary (current term until December 2012) *Jimmy Wales, FounderTing Chen (current term until 2013) *Samuel Klein (current term until July 2013) *Matt Halprin (current term until December 2012) *Alice Wiegand (current term until July 2014) *Patricio Lorente (current term until July 2014) *About Wikimania* http://wikimania.org Wikimania 2012 is being held in Washington, DC, USA, where more than 1000 Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia advocates, researchers and educators from 87 countries are in attendance. The previous Wikimanias were held in Frankfurt, Germany (2005), Cambridge, USA (2006), Taipei, Taiwan (2007), Alexandria, Egypt (2008), Buenos Aires, Argentina (2009), Gdańsk, Poland (2010), and Haifa, Israel (2011). *About the Wikimedia Foundation* http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 492 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, May 2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 22 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 85,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
