[Wikimedia-l] Re: Joint Statement on Palestine

[Yaroslav Blanter]

It might be a good idea to freeze this thread out before we start
discussing whether political statements are allowed here at all, whether
they are desirable, and whether this specific political statement qualifies
as support or endorsement of terrorism. I do not see how any of such
discussions on this list can lead to anything productive.

Best
Yaroslav

On Sun, Apr 14, 2024 at 12:45 PM Thyge  wrote:

> +1
> Regards,
> Sir48-Thyge
>
> Den lør. 13. apr. 2024 kl. 16.47 skrev SCP 2000 <
> scp-2000.wikime...@outlook.com>:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> It seems that very few people watch the talkpage, so I repost my comment
>> 
>>  here:)
>>
>> "*We call upon the Wikimedia Foundation to take proactive measures to
>> ensure the safety of volunteers, communities, partners and knowledge and
>> memory institutions from Palestine contributing to the dissemination of
>> knowledge. We urgently request the Wikimedia Foundation to prioritize the
>> unbiased dissemination of information and the accurate and timely
>> documentation of the ongoing human-made humanitarian disaster and the
>> erasure of cultural heritage. *"
>>
>>
>> Previously, WMF published a statement
>> 
>>  to
>> calls for unrestricted internet connectivity and access to knowledge in
>> Gaza in December. The Human rights team
>>  also published an a
>> on-wiki statement
>> 
>>  regarding
>> digital and physical security best practices and the Internet Outages
>> Guide 
>> .
>>
>>
>> WMF is only an organization which hosts and support Wikimedia projects,
>> rather than a Human rights organization. Thus, I am curious about the
>> petitioner's thoughts on *what further action WMF should take to fulfil
>> the requirements of this statement*. Thanks.
>>
>> Regards,
>> SCP-2000
>> https://w.wiki/_zgcU
>> --
>> *From:* Farah Jack Mustaklem 
>> *Sent:* Friday, April 12, 2024 12:00 AM
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Joint Statement on Palestine
>>
>> Dear fellow Wikimedians,
>>
>> On the 7th of April, a joint statement was published by Wikimedia groups,
>> ally organization, and individual Wikimedians expressing concern over the
>> humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine. The statement calls on "all
>> Wikimedia groups, affiliates, allies, and volunteers to unite in solidarity
>> with humanity and demand an immediate and lasting ceasefire to halt the
>> tragic loss of life and destruction of Palestinian cultural heritage."
>>
>> Additionally, the signatories call upon the WMF to "prioritize the
>> impartial dissemination of information and accurate, real-time
>> documentation of the current human-caused humanitarian disaster and erasure
>> of cultural heritage" and to "take proactive measures to ensure the safety
>> of volunteers, communities, partners and knowledge and memory institutions
>> from Palestine contributing to the dissemination of knowledge."
>>
>> Since the initial release, several additional groups and individuals have
>> signed on to the statement, and others are kindly urged to do the same.
>>
>> The statement can be found and signed here:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Joint_Statement_on_Palestine
>>
>> Peace and justice for all,
>> Farah
>> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Urgent attention required because Commons is blocked in Pakistan

[Yaroslav Blanter]

My understanding is that only Commons is currently blocked in Pakistan.

In July 2023, when I visited, I could (and did) edit Wikipedia and
Wikivoyage in several languages, as well as Wikidata. To be honest I did
not try Urdu Wikipedia, but I guess if it were blocked in Pakistan we would
know this.

My impression from the communication with WMF I described earlier was that
they learned about the Commons block from me. I might be wrong of course.

Best
Yaroslav

On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 5:14 PM Risker  wrote:

> Could someone please explicitly state which Wikimedia projects are blocked
> in Pakistan?  This thread starts around the blocking of Commons, but
> information provided by James Heilman implies that (at least one point) ALL
> Wikimedia projects are blocked.  So, to be clear, are Wikipedias also
> blocked?  Other projects?  Understanding the extent of the block will help
> the broader community to best assist our Pakistani colleagues in continuing
> to contribute, and for helping the broad Pakistani citizenship to access
> our work.
>
> It may be helpful for someone from the WMF who is in a position to report
> to tell us exactly which projects are currently blocked, and whether or not
> any of the originally blocked projects have now had blocks lifted.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On Wed, 20 Mar 2024 at 11:21, Saqib Qayyum  wrote:
>
>> I remember this statement was issued when Wikipedia was briefly blocked
>> last year.
>> --
>> Saqib Qayyum
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 7:54 AM James Heilman  wrote:
>>
>>> Here is the press release from Feb 3, 2023 from the WMF urging Pakistan
>>> to unblock Wikimedia Projects.
>>>
>>>
>>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/02/03/wikimedia-foundation-urges-pakistan-telecommunications-authority-to-restore-access-to-wikipedia-in-pakistan/
>>>
>>> Appears the reason has to do with religious content
>>>
>>>
>>> https://netblocks.org/reports/wikipedia-restricted-in-pakistan-over-alleged-sacrilegious-content-nAg35pAp
>>>
>>> James
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 6:40 PM Neurodivergent Netizen <
>>> idoh.idreamofhor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 IP block exemption is already automatically granted to admins, at least
 on the English Wikipedia; it’s rarely needed enough that further automatic
 exemption doesn’t really make sense. VPNs, typically costing money, aren’t
 an accessible workaround, anyways. Let’s redirect attention back to getting
 Commons unblocked.

 From,
 I dream of horses
 She/her





 On Mar 19, 2024, at 2:40 PM, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
 wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:


 It's intriguing (to me) to contemplate how the notion of restricting IP
 editing in specific circumstances is often viewed as a violation of
 principle, even when supported by examples or data, yet a restriction like
 requiring long-standing users to jump through hoops just to use a VPN for
 privacy—something standard nowadays—is considered necessary and acceptable.
 Both policies aim to address issues while weighing the pros and cons and
 inevitably curbing some degree of freedom.

 Personally, I question the efficiency of the VPN restriction. I hold a
 different perspective: implementing a one or two-year, 100-500-edit
 registration threshold for automatic exemption of registered users seems
 reasonable.

 Nevertheless, it's important to recognize that nothing is inherently
 necessary; these are always political and not technical choices.

 It's not just vandals ruining it; it's also the approach taken. By
 granting trolls immense power to disrupt everyone's activities, you fuel
 their mischief. Thus, every time these extreme measures are enforced and
 standardized, they inevitably lead to wasted time and endless debates about
 the status quo, and regular users pay a price. Not hypothetically, for
 real we know. Whoever prioritizes the pursuit of trolls and vandals
 over the work of regular users, de facto feeds the troll.

 It's important to clarify: as seasoned users, many of us have kinda
 learned to navigate this "mess" and endure it... similar issues have
 been grappled with for years, Commons management shows little sign of
 improvement and we just don't care anymore.

 However, for those who haven't mastered it or are stuck in some
 nationwide quagmire as this one, suggesting VPNs as a solution is
 impractical—unless you anticipate tens of thousands of users from a country
 with millions of inhabitants to individually request IP exemptions. It's
 evident that the log of such a system would not be sustainable.

 I remain skeptical that an alternative solution will be implemented,
 given the likelihood that the approach will mirror that of the VPN case or
 other instances—utilizing massive and/or indefinite 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Urgent attention required because Commons is blocked in Pakistan

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Just to clarify, at least in my case, the embedded Commons files were
visible on Wikimedia projects (including the English Wikipedia) when I was
in Pakistan. I just could not open them on Commons or upload any files.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 7:13 PM Risker  wrote:

> VPNs and IP block exemption may or may not be useful for contributing to
> Commons, but contribution is not the only thing at issue here.
>
> The purpose of Commons is to act as a media repository for (a) all
> Wikimedia projects and (b) the world as a whole, without cost or licensing
> issues.  Every day, hundreds if not thousands of Commons files are used in
> news media, academia, and other places outside of Wikimedia projects.
> Commons files appear in the majority of Wikimedia articles.   Therefore,
> free and open access to Wikimedia Commons as part of the knowledge
> available to all of humanity is a major objective.  It's also where we, as
> a community, store useful documents and files associated with significant
> information about our movement, our projects, and many other things that
> may affect all projects, so access to them is important, too.
>
> I have no doubt that the Pakistani block is motivated by matters that have
> nothing to do with free knowledge or the Wikimedia mission. If I was a
> betting woman, I'd say that this may be an attempt to avoid a public uproar
> about blocking Wikipedia itself, but with Commons being so much less
> visible, it's easier to block that project and wind up with essentially the
> same effect.
>
> I am aware that there are multiple language Wikipedias edited by our
> Pakistani editors. One possible interim solution might be ensuring that
> images can be uploaded directly to those Wikipedia projects, and copies of
> Commons images be hosted on those projects. Some Wikipedias retained their
> own project-specific media storage, and many of their policies, procedures
> and guidelines could be used as a framework for the Pakistani-languages
> wikis to develop their own processes. As English is one of Pakistan's
> official languages, it would be worthwhile to have a discussion on English
> Wikipedia to work on this, too. Bots located outside of Pakistan could be
> used to both bring images to those Wikipedias and to copy their images over
> to Commons for global use.
>
> Of course, the longer-term goal is to have the block lifted entirely. What
> I  am suggesting is a mitigation strategy only.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On Tue, 19 Mar 2024 at 13:17, Saqib Qayyum  wrote:
>
>> Hello Mr James
>>
>> Certainly, using a VPN is a workaround, but it's worth noting that
>> obtaining an IP block exemption is still necessary to edit Commons, and
>> this is not always feasible for all users. Many may not even be aware of
>> its existence. For instance, I couldn't edit Commons since October 2020
>> until I discovered the option for IP ban exemption. .
>>
>> And because of this, contributions to Commons from Pakistan have
>> significantly dwindled. For instance, I recall organizing Wiki Loves
>> Monuments Pakistan from 2014, where we used to receive thousands of images
>> annually. However, in recent years, the number of uploads has drastically
>> declined, with only a maximum of 100 photos being uploaded each year. This
>> trend underscores the challenges Pakistani users face in accessing and
>> contributing to the site.
>> --
>> Saqib Qayyum
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 9:55 PM James Heilman  wrote:
>>
>>> Can you not just use a VPN?
>>>
>>> James
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 9:29 PM Saqib Qayyum 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

 I am writing to you as a concerned volunteer from Pakistan regarding a
 critical issue that has been persisting for several years now. Despite
 multiple attempts to communicate this matter to members of the WMF's
 communication team, there has been a disappointing lack of response or
 acknowledgment.

 For the past several years, Commons has been blocked in Pakistan. While
 Wikipedia was briefly blocked last year, the swift response from both
 Pakistani and international news media led to its unblocking. However, the
 blockade of Commons, being a less prominent site in comparison, has gone
 largely unnoticed.

 Furthermore, several journalists I have spoken to have also expressed
 frustration over their attempts to reach out to WMF staff regarding this
 issue, only to receive no response.

 I urge the WMF to prioritize this matter and take immediate action to
 address the ongoing blockage of Commons in Pakistan.

 Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
 --
 Saqib Qayyum
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Saqib
 ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Urgent attention required because Commons is blocked in Pakistan

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I have been to Pakistan in July and indeed discovered that Wikimedia
Commons was blocked. I complained to the WMF (using the Village pump on
Commons when I was back), they were apparently not familiar with the
situation but investigated it and acknowledged that Commons is indeed
blocked in Pakistan (or at least in some locations in Pakistan).

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 4:59 PM Saqib Qayyum  wrote:

> TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
>
> I am writing to you as a concerned volunteer from Pakistan regarding a
> critical issue that has been persisting for several years now. Despite
> multiple attempts to communicate this matter to members of the WMF's
> communication team, there has been a disappointing lack of response or
> acknowledgment.
>
> For the past several years, Commons has been blocked in Pakistan. While
> Wikipedia was briefly blocked last year, the swift response from both
> Pakistani and international news media led to its unblocking. However, the
> blockade of Commons, being a less prominent site in comparison, has gone
> largely unnoticed.
>
> Furthermore, several journalists I have spoken to have also expressed
> frustration over their attempts to reach out to WMF staff regarding this
> issue, only to receive no response.
>
> I urge the WMF to prioritize this matter and take immediate action to
> address the ongoing blockage of Commons in Pakistan.
>
> Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
> --
> Saqib Qayyum
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Saqib
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are doing it wrong

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Dear All,

I can easily find two recent discussions which touch the topic of video on
Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2023/12#Prioritizing_our_technical_needs

and

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Requests_for_comment/Technical_needs_survey#No_objection,_but.
..

I am sure there were more.

I do not know whether videos can be embedded externally, but images
certainly can. I for example embed them in my blog (random example:
https://ymblanter.dreamwidth.org/146913.html; the text is in Russian which
is irrelevant for my point). I have been doing this for years and never
encountered any issues.

Best
Yaroslav

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 8:00 AM Gnangarra  wrote:

> Kaya
>
> I'd like to my perspective from wikimania side the amount of effort
> volunteers and time to bring every session alive on commons is all
> consuming yes YouTube is the best place to put that content.  It gets
> harder the smaller the event is. Video needs to be addresses as a priority
> along with issues raise by galder. Simple mp4 upload option would be a
> starting point, surely we are big enough for any copyright holders to
> donate the licensing if wmf comes made a request
>
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2024, 2:44 pm Mrb Rafi,  wrote:
>
>> +1 to Galder.
>>
>> Sharing a current situation.
>>
>> A significant number of non wikimedian photographers participate in the
>> wiki loves X campaigns and since the upload process in commons is complex
>> than any other site, most of them feel lost and don't retain.
>>
>> We are arranging wiki loves folklore in Bangladesh this year and we have
>> prepared a handbook for the participants considering the above situation.
>> The handbook has been uploaded to commons and now we're receiving feedback
>> that our participants are feeling lost after visiting the description page,
>> they can't decide how to view the pdf.
>>
>> Wikimedia commons needs a user friendly and intuitive pdf viewer asap.
>>
>> Best,
>> Rafi
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 24, 2024, 4:24 AM Ivan Martínez  wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you Yaroslav, I would very much appreciate a link to the
>>> discussion.
>>> By not having a Youtube 2.0 we are avoiding a Wikipedia 2.0 with pure
>>> encyclopaedic videos. I see a false dilemma there.
>>>
>>> El mar, 23 ene 2024 a las 16:03, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga (<
>>> galder...@hotmail.com>) escribió:
>>>
>>>> Thanks to everyone for your comments.
>>>> We don't need to worry about Commons being "Youtube 2.0", because we
>>>> can't embed Commons video outside. Furthermore, we can't even embed Commons
>>>> images or videos in Diff, because oEmbed is not working for Commons and
>>>> Wordpress can't take directly images or videos from Commons. This has been
>>>> known since... 2010!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T27854
>>>>- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T309101
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Again, the problem is not about this code or that specific piece of
>>>> code. The problem is lack of direction, ambition and goals.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Galder
>>>> --
>>>> *From:* James Heilman 
>>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 23, 2024 10:49 PM
>>>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>>>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are
>>>> doing it wrong
>>>>
>>>> Yes we see this sentiment regarding a number of issues in our movement.
>>>> The existing community wants to keep certain processes more difficult /
>>>> time consuming to make sure that those involved in the process are
>>>> sufficiently "dedicated".
>>>>
>>>> Maybe we just need a flag which can be given to allow certain folks we
>>>> trust to use an easier process or only allow video upload by people with so
>>>> many edits which can be removed if they misuse it?
>>>>
>>>> James
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 2:38 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Specifically related to video uploads, we had discussions on Commons on
>>>> different strategic issues recently, in particular, about this. The general
>>>> sentiment was, to my understanding (pls correct me if I am wrong) that
>>>> Commons has no ambition to become Youtube 2.0 and we do not have any
>>>> resources for this. If 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are doing it wrong

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Specifically related to video uploads, we had discussions on Commons on
different strategic issues recently, in particular, about this. The general
sentiment was, to my understanding (pls correct me if I am wrong) that
Commons has no ambition to become Youtube 2.0 and we do not have any
resources for this. If video upload is encouraged, very strict policies
must be in force concerning of what is in the scope of Commons.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 10:05 PM Brion Vibber  wrote:

> Converting them to suitably compact files in h.264/aac in .MP4 format
> would be by far the simplest way. Use ffmpeg as we do on the server side
> for online playback.
>
> Conforming to the arbitrary Wikimedia prohibition on h.264 you could use
> mpeg-4 visual instead, still in .mp4 - afaik patents are expired and it'll
> play in standalone files (not in HLS)
>
> If you jump through enough hoops you might get vp9 working in HLS offline,
> but adaptive streaming may be irrelevant to offline use.
>
> -- brion
>
> On Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 12:52 PM James Heilman  wrote:
>
>> It would be amazing if one could play videos on iPhones when the videos
>> are within ZIMs in an offline environment aswell. Brion not sure what
>> barriers there are to this currently?
>>
>> James
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 12:48 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
>> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Should read 2030 Strategy, not 2023 strategy, sorry.
>>>
>>> Paulo Santos Perneta  escreveu (terça,
>>> 23/01/2024 à(s) 19:41):
>>>
 I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. We are currently grappling
 with rather rudimentary approaches when it comes to uploading and reusing
 video and music files...
 The incredibly useful Graph has been down for quite some time. The
 extensive capabilities of Wikidata query representations, particularly with
 geolocated data on maps, appear to have barely scratched the surface.
 Listeria frequently experiences issues and underwent a major update that
 disrupted previous queries.

 On a personal note, I attempted to create a dynamic digital library of
 works under a free license using Wikidata for our Digital Humanistics
 centre. However, I discovered that with the available tools, I would need
 to code the presentation myself, as the options for reuse outside of
 Wikidata were very basic.

 On the whole, the Wikipedia experience remains challenging, especially
 for newcomers. The much wanted Visual Editor developments and improvements
 seem to have stopped years ago. The recent changes made by the 'Desktop
 Improvement' team to the default Wikipedia skin seem to be more geared
 towards readers than editors and have apparently worsened the overall
 experience, according to feedback I've received from newcomers.

 These are just a few instances that have underscored, and continue to
 underscore, my belief that we are likely not on the path towards achieving
 the objectives outlined in the 2023 Strategy.

 My personal impression is that the issue doesn't necessarily stem from
 a lack of funding to pursue these objectives but rather from the
 ineffective expenditure and allocation of those funds. I wish I knew how to
 contribute to changing or improving this situation.
 It would also be great to see a comment/opinion from current CEO
 Maryana Iskander on this state of affairs, and if there is some roadmap for
 improving it.

 Best,
 Paulo


 Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga  escreveu (terça,
 23/01/2024 à(s) 11:03):

> Dear wikimedians,
> Nearly one year ago, the Graphs extension was disabled from all wikis,
> because there was a security issue that should be solved (
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T334940). A wide team from the WMF
> worked on a solution for some weeks, but after Northern Hemisphere spring
> ended, summer came, then the monsoon season, and now it is again summer in
> the Southern Hemisphere... and Graphs are still disabled. All the 
> solutions
> proposed have been dismissed, but every two months there's a proposal to
> make a new roadmap to solve the issue. We have plenty of roadmaps, but no
> vehicle to reach our destination.
>
> Seven years ago, we were discussing our Strategy for 2030. We used
> thousands of volunteer hours, thousands of staff hours and millions of
> dollars to build a really well-balanced strategy. There we concluded that 
> "*By
> 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem
> of free knowledge*". We also made some recommendations to improve the
> User Experience (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Improve_User_Experience)
> and claimed that we wanted to Innovate in Free Knowledge (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Innovate_in_Free_Knowledge).

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Sister Projects Committee

[Yaroslav Blanter]

This is a proposal which was active about 10 years ago. If I remember
correctly, at that time it became clear that nobody was going to delegate
any responsibilities to the possible committee, which instantly killed the
proposal.

Best
Yaroslav

On Mon, Dec 25, 2023 at 8:43 AM James Heilman  wrote:

> Hey Frostly
>
> Do we have any further progress on this? I am not seeing any recent
> discussion at that page on meta.
>
> James
>
> On Sun, Dec 24, 2023 at 11:51 PM Frostly via Wikimedia-l
>  wrote:
> >
> > You are invited to join the discussion regarding the proposed Sister
> Projects Committee, a body to review requests for creating, significantly
> modifying, and closing Wikimedia projects, here
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Sister_Projects_Committee
> .
> >
> >
> > User:Frostly___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Who is the editor with the longest editing streak? Find out!

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Indeed I believe my last break of an edit streak was when I was on a plane
/ connection without wifi for more than 24h (going from Europe to Japan). I
normally edit every day since I have joined (15-ish years now), but I am
not so much addicted to edit-count so that I would plan my travel taking
this into account or pay for the internet during the flight when I do not
need it otherwise. Still, nice to have these streaks having been
acknowledged sometimes.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 12:19 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> This is a bit like edit counts, in that it indicates nothing about the
> value of the edits. In a way it is impressive that someone is so dedicated,
> but all the guy at the top of the list needs to do to crash and burn is a
> couple of days of inability to edit for reasons out of their control, so
> some luck is involved.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> *From:* Yaroslav Blanter [mailto:ymb...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 28 July 2023 18:56
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Who is the editor with the longest editing
> streak? Find out!
>
>
>
> Thanks, interesting, I am apparently a human #19 in the list.
>
>
>
> Best
>
> Yaroslav
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 28, 2023 at 6:43 PM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Bon dia / Hi,
>
>
>
> Is there any available tool to precisely count how many days in a row a
> Wikimedian from a specifif project has been editing? The source that is
> linked in the Diffs page (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Longest_active_user_editing_streaks)is
> only within the English Wikipedia…
>
>
>
> Has anyone checked that there is no other user in the rest of the
> other projects (hundreds of them) with a similar or better streak, so that
> the sentence “the Wikimedian with the longest editing streak” is fully
> accurate regarding both language and Wikimedia project?
>
>
>
> Gràcies! / Thank you!
>
>
>
> Xavier Dengra
>
>
>
> El dv, 28 jul., 2023 a 17:15, Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska <
> nszaf...@wikimedia.org> va escriure:
>
> *Read in عربي, bahasa Indonesia, français, Deutsch, español, Kiswahili,
> and Polish **on Diff
> <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/28/more-than-5700-days-with-wikipedia-meet-the-editor-who-has-been-editing-each-day-for-15-years/>.
> *
>
>
>
> Johnny Au <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johnny_Au>has been editing
> every single day since November 11, 2007, which makes him the Wikimedian
> with the longest editing streak. That's more than 15 years or - more
> precisely - 5733 days of continuous editing!
>
>
> Each day Johnny checks his extensive watchlist, which includes articles
> related to his beloved hometown Toronto. From local sports teams and art
> galleries, to Toronto transit system – Johnny is passionate about all
> things Toronto-related, and carefully watches over Wikipedia articles about
> it. He specializes in minor, maintenance edits: correcting spelling and
> language, reverting vandalisms, adding images and correcting mistakes.
>
>
>
> The daily habit of editing and the pure love for Wikipedia, and passion
> for free knowledge, is what keeps him going. When asked about advice to
> share with other editors, he says: *Never give up. Fight the good fight.
> We must fight against misinformation and disinformation.*
>
>
>
> Learn more about Johnny, his work (and this one time when his editing
> streak almost broke!) on Diff
> <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/28/more-than-5700-days-with-wikipedia-meet-the-editor-who-has-been-editing-each-day-for-15-years/>or
> on Meta
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/WikiCelebrate/Johnny_Au>,
> as we WikiCelebrate
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/WikiCelebrate>his
> incredible dedication to free knowledge. You can also leave some kind words
> for Johnny on the meta page
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/WikiCelebrate/Johnny_Au>
> and congratulate him on his amazing achievement!
>
>
>
> Johnny is one of the great people that have contributed so much to
> bringing us to where we are today, and continue to do so. Each month we
> WikiCelebrate a different Wikimedian, acknowledging the amazing community,
> the pillars of our movement. We warmly invite you to write about the people
> celebrated each month. If you know them, share some wiki love. If there’s
> an outstanding Wikimedian that you think should be celebrated, recommend
> them <https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/WikiCelebrate>.
>
>
>
> Happy celebra

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Who is the editor with the longest editing streak? Find out!

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thanks, interesting, I am apparently a human #19 in the list.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Jul 28, 2023 at 6:43 PM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Bon dia / Hi,
>
> Is there any available tool to precisely count how many days in a row a
> Wikimedian from a specifif project has been editing? The source that is
> linked in the Diffs page (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Longest_active_user_editing_streaks)is
> only within the English Wikipedia…
>
> Has anyone checked that there is no other user in the rest of the
> other projects (hundreds of them) with a similar or better streak, so that
> the sentence “the Wikimedian with the longest editing streak” is fully
> accurate regarding both language and Wikimedia project?
>
> Gràcies! / Thank you!
>
> Xavier Dengra
>
> El dv, 28 jul., 2023 a 17:15, Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska <
> nszaf...@wikimedia.org> va escriure:
>
> Read in عربي, bahasa Indonesia, français, Deutsch, español, Kiswahili, and
> Polish on Diff
> .
>
>
> Johnny Au has been editing
> every single day since November 11, 2007, which makes him the Wikimedian
> with the longest editing streak. That's more than 15 years or - more
> precisely - 5733 days of continuous editing!
>
> Each day Johnny checks his extensive watchlist, which includes articles
> related to his beloved hometown Toronto. From local sports teams and art
> galleries, to Toronto transit system – Johnny is passionate about all
> things Toronto-related, and carefully watches over Wikipedia articles about
> it. He specializes in minor, maintenance edits: correcting spelling and
> language, reverting vandalisms, adding images and correcting mistakes.
>
> The daily habit of editing and the pure love for Wikipedia, and passion
> for free knowledge, is what keeps him going. When asked about advice to
> share with other editors, he says: *Never give up. Fight the good fight.
> We must fight against misinformation and disinformation.*
>
> Learn more about Johnny, his work (and this one time when his editing
> streak almost broke!) on Diff
> or
> on Meta
> ,
> as we WikiCelebrate
>  his
> incredible dedication to free knowledge. You can also leave some kind words
> for Johnny on the meta page
> 
> and congratulate him on his amazing achievement!
>
> Johnny is one of the great people that have contributed so much to
> bringing us to where we are today, and continue to do so. Each month we
> WikiCelebrate a different Wikimedian, acknowledging the amazing community,
> the pillars of our movement. We warmly invite you to write about the people
> celebrated each month. If you know them, share some wiki love. If there’s
> an outstanding Wikimedian that you think should be celebrated, recommend
> them .
>
> Happy celebrating!
> Natalia and Mehrdad
>
> --
> *Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska* (she/her)
> Senior Global Movement Communications Specialist (European Region)
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] activity around Wikimedia.ru

[Yaroslav Blanter]

This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it
could be of general interest here.

Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian
chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that
he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of
the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is
an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia,
supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a
pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia.

Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to
pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly pissed
off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko said he
does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger of
getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter.

The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on
advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first
responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else
eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he
resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case
pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter
in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years
totally disconnected from the community anyway.

I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of Mr.
Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian Wikipedia
in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and never came
back, but I do not think this is important at the moment.

Best
Yaroslav

[1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/
[2]
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%A4%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BC/%D0%9D%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8#%D0%A0%D1%83%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B9%D0%BA%D0%BE
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Selena,

thanks a lot for sharing, very useful.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 1:54 AM Selena Deckelmann 
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I joined the Wikimedia Foundation on August 1 of last year in a newly
> created role as the Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO). (For the
> first few weeks, some of the staff called me C3PO as they got used to the
> new title :) The role was created to bring both the Product and Technology
> departments back under a single accountable leader for the first time since
> about 2015. Like Maryana
> ,
> I decided to spend the first few months of my time at Wikimedia listening
> and learning. Although I come from the open source technology field, and
> have worked with volunteers and communities in prior jobs, it felt
> important to start here with curiosity and openness about what’s working
> well and what needs to change.
>
> Since then, I have met one on one and in small groups with more than 360
> people, who spoke with me from 38 different countries. I also attended 22
> large and small convenings and events which included about 3,150 people.
> This includes members of the Foundation’s product and technology teams,
> other Foundation staff, editors, functionaries, affiliates, movement
> organizers and open internet partners. I tried to approach every
> conversation with curiosity, openness, and eagerness, letting go of any
> preconceptions I may have had (intentionally embracing beginner’s mind
> ) about the Foundation, the
> Wikimedia projects, and communities worldwide that contribute to creating
> and sharing free knowledge. I can confirm that I quickly found myself awash
> in details, experiencing a firehose of information from all sides! My
> husband and two young children have also learned a lot more about this
> movement in the last six months than you might expect.
>
> To provide myself with some structure, I asked everyone the same kind of
> questions about: (1) the impact our product and technology organizations
> have had on the movement and/or the world in the last five years, and what
> people were most proud of; (2) the current vision and strategy and if they
> will take us where we need to go; and (3) the most promising opportunities
> that people see in our work, and what is needed to realize that potential.
>
> I want to thank everyone who took the time to share with me, and I’ve
> included some direct, anonymized quotes in this letter from the
> conversations I had. And I want to confirm that the listening continues — I
> will create more spaces in the year ahead for dedicated conversations about
> some of the important topics I have highlighted below. I will also be
> posting this letter to Meta.
>
> Pulling in the same direction: More visible and shared metrics
>
> On a page of the first notebook I had for my onboarding, I quoted a person
> who said they just wanted "meaningful common goals." This was a theme
> repeated over and over — a clear desire from everyone to do work together
> that was linked by common purpose, and with all the volunteers that have
> created all Wikimedia projects. I got to hear so many different voices, and
> I heard the details from every side — what’s working, what hasn’t been
> working for a long time — some of the problems we face are over ten years
> old. People shared what’s missing, what’s extra, who’s fighting to be heard
> and who’s feeling lost at sea.
>
> "I think there are lots of promising opportunities to incentivise people
> to pay off technical debt and make our existing stack more sustainable.
> Right now there are no incentives for engineers in this regard."
>
> "Are we really having impact?"
>
> How can we unite behind meaningful common goals? And which metrics matter
> the most? We have so much data, but we really need lodestar
>  (or some refer to this as north
> star) metrics across the whole Foundation, a system for reviewing and
> reflecting on what we learn from them, and then a way to connect those
> metrics with the day to day work everyone is doing.
>
> To get at that, we’re doing two main things — one is deepening our
> understanding of volunteer activities and the health of the volunteer
> communities. This will be through working closely with volunteers using
> existing processes and sharing what we’re learning, as well as qualitative
> and quantitative research workstreams, including reviewing existing
> research of volunteer activities and typical work profiles. The other is
> working to establish a set of Foundation-wide lodestar metrics. Shared
> metrics help everyone understand how we’re measuring success across the
> Foundation, and we’re sharing these publicly as part of our Annual Plan.
> Over time, we plan to bring our measures of success for important
> initiatives to communities 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Galder,

on the other hand.. Basque Wikipedia is one of very few accounts twitting
on the Pele death in Basque, whereas a lot was twitted in English. I do not
think English Wikipedia twitter can compete with major news outlets, they
operate on a completely different scale.The low-hanging fruit would be
twitting DYKs, FAs, GAs, or may be some other randomly picked stuff. Also,
you say one tweet per day is too little, how may do you think is normal? If
I personally see an account which tweets more than say 10 per day (not
counting threads) I start thinking may be it is a spam generator.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 2:26 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Some months have gone since I started this topic in this list, and still,
> we can't know how much engagement we have at Wikipedia, because data is not
> available. Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk, things are changing, there
> are more accounts in Mastodon daily, but still Twitter matters. I have been
> looking at the Twitter activity in the last days for @Wikipedia and I'm
> still very worried about the (lack of) strategy followed here. A full team,
> with staff members, which only produces one tweet per day, a lonely message
> in the vastness of the ocean, and gets really poor engagement numbers.
>
> A couple of weeks ago Pelé, one of the greatest football players of all
> time, died. (English) Wikipedia Twitter account needed 7 days to tweet
> about it, even if the article was changed in a few minutes after the death (
> https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1611363972174778368). The tweet had
> 13.729 impressions (now we can know the number of impressions), 14 RTs and
> 129 likes. Wikipedia account has nearly 644.000 followers. If we divide
> these two numbers, we get a rate of 2,13% of impressions per follower.
>
> The same day Pelé died, Basque Wikipedia made a tweet. Not a week after,
> just when it was news (
> https://twitter.com/euwikipedia/status/1608541274491211776). The tweet
> had 964 impressions, 3 RTs and 2 likes. Basque Wikipedia account has 7,956
> followers. This is a rate of 12,11% of impressions per follower. x5.68
> times larger, relatively than (English) Wikipedia Twitter account.
>
> (English) Wikipedia Twitter account has nearly 81 times more followers
> than the Basque one. English Wikipedia is more visible, because it has a
> (now golden) verified account symbol, so tweets are more often promoted.
> English has 1.500 million speakers around the world. Basque has fewer than
> one million. English Wikipedia should have around 1.000 more followers than
> Basque Wikipedia. English Wikipedia article about Pelé had 2,5 million
> pageviews in the two days after his death. Basque had 250 pageviews. This
> is 10.000 times more pageviews.
>
> @Wikipedia has 644.000 followers, and @euwikipedia has nearly 8.000.
> Audience of English Wikipedia is 10.000 times larger for the same event.
> Why Wikipedia is not 10.000 times larger? Why doesn't Wikipedia account
> have 80 million followers? YouTube's Twitter account has 78 million
> followers. *"By 2030, Wikimedia is to become the central infrastructure
> for Free Knowledge on the Internet."*.  How could we if Youtube's account
> has 100x more followers than we have? How can think that we are in a good
> shape if our tweets are only seen by less than 2% of our followers?
>
> I hope that 2023 comes with a change. A change to open these accounts,
> have a fresh way of thinking on social media ,and building engagement, both
> with momentum, not losing opportunities, and promoting good content.
>
> Sincerely
>
> Galder
>
>
> --
> *From:* Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 16, 2022 3:21 PM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in
> Twitter
>
> Dear all,
> Some weeks ago, we had a discussion here about the different approaches we
> have for the @wikipedia account at Twitter. We don't know yet how many
> interactions does the account has, but as I said in the discussion, we try
> to find ways to measure our work at @euwikipedia. Today I want to share
> with you that this account was ranked last week as the most influential
> social-movements account in Basque language (
> https://umap.eus/ranking/gizartea) and the 10th most influential account
> in all categories (https://umap.eus/ranking/orokorra). This is a good
> metric we use to know if we are doing fine or not.
>
> Sincerely,
> Galder
>
> --
> *From:* Andy Mabbett 
> *Sent:* Friday, August 5, 2022 8:50 PM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
>
> On Mon, 18 Jul 2022 at 18:48, Lauren Dickinson 
> wrote:
>
> > Also, Andy, we will follow up this week regarding your questions
> > about the @WiktionaryUsers and @Wiktionary accounts.
>
> Three working weeks have passed since the above was written; I've seen
> no 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Chat GPT

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi,

just to remark that it superficially looks like a great tool for small
language Wikipedias (for which the translation tool is typically not
available). One can train the tool in some less common language using the
dictionary and some texts, and then let it fill the project with a
thousands of articles. (As an aside, in fact, one probably can train it to
the soon-to-be-extint languages and save them until the moment there is any
interest for revival, but nobody seems to be interested). However, there is
a high potential for abuse, as I can imagine people not speaking the
language running the tool and creating thousands of substandard articles -
we have seen this done manually, and I would be very cautious allowing this.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 4:57 AM Raymond Leonard <
raymond.f.leonard...@gmail.com> wrote:

> As a friend wrote on a Slack thread about the topic, "ChatGPT can produce
> results that appear stunningly intelligent, and there are things that I’ve
>  seen that really leave me scratching my head- “how on Earth did it DO
> that?!?”  But it’s important to remember that it isn’t actually
> intelligent.  It’s not “thinking.”  It’s more of a glorified version of
> autosuggest.  When it apologizes, it’s not really apologizing, it’s just
> finding text that fits the self description it was fed and that looks
> related to what you fed it."
>
> The person initiating the thread had asked ChatGPT "What are the 5
> biggest intentional communities on each continent?" (As an aside, this
> was as challenging as the question that led to Wikidata, "What are the ten
> largest cities in the world that have women mayors?") One of the answers
> ChatGPT gave for Europe was "Ikaria (Greece)". As near as I can determine,
> there is no intentional community of any size in Ikaria. However, the
> Icarians  were a 19th-century
> intentional community in the US founded by French expatriates. It was named
> after a utopian novel, *Voyage en Icarie*, that was written by Étienne
> Cabet. He chose the Greek island of Icaria as the setting of his utopian
> vision. Interesting that ChatGPT may have conflated these.
>
> It seems that given a prompt, ChatGPT shuffles & regurgitates facts. Just
> as a card dealer deals a good hand, sometimes ChatGPT seems to make sense,
> but I think at present it really is " a glorified version of autosuggest."
>
> Yours
> Peaceray
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 29, 2022 at 6:39 PM Gnangarra  wrote:
>
>> I think the simplest answer is yes its an artificial writer but its not
>> intelligence as the name implies but rather just a piece of software that
>> gives answers according to the methodology of that software. The garbage in
>> garbage out format, it can never be better than the programmers behind the
>> machine
>>
>> On Fri, 30 Dec 2022 at 09:56, Victoria Coleman <
>> vstavridoucole...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you Ziko and Steven for the thoughtful responses.
>>>
>>> My sense is that for a class for readers having a generative UI that
>>> returns an answer VS an article would be useful. It would probably put
>>> Quora out of business. :-)
>>>
>>> If the models are not open source, this indeed would require developing
>>> our own models. For that kind of investment, we would probably want to have
>>> more application areas. Translation being one that Ziko already pointed out
>>> but also summarization. These kinds of Information retrieval queries would
>>> effectively index into specific parts of an article vs returning the whole
>>> thing.
>>>
>>> Wikipedia as we all know is not perfect but it’s about the best you can
>>> get with the thousands of editors and reviewers doing quality control. If a
>>> bot was exclusively trained on Wikipedia, my guess is that the falsehood
>>> generation would be as minimal as it can get. Garbage in garbage out in all
>>> these models. Good stuff in good stuff out. I guess the falsehoods can also
>>> come when no material exists in the model. So instead of making stuff up,
>>> they could default to “I don’t know the answer to that”. Or in our case, we
>>> could add the topic to the list of article suggestions to editors…
>>>
>>> I know I am almost day dreaming here but I can’t help but think that all
>>> the recent advances in AI could create significantly broader free knowledge
>>> pathways for every human being. And I don’t see us getting after them
>>> aggressively enough…
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Victoria Coleman
>>>
>>> On Dec 29, 2022, at 5:17 PM, Steven Walling 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 29, 2022 at 4:09 PM Victoria Coleman <
>>> vstavridoucole...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 Hi everyone. I have seen some of the reactions to the narratives
 generated by Chat GPT. There is an obvious question (to me at least) as to
 whether a Wikipedia chat bot would be a legitimate UI for some users. To
 that end, I would have hoped that it would have been developed by the WMF
 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Join the new Movement Strategy Forum community review

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Dear All,

I thought I would just let it go, but I do not think the discussion
currently runs in a good direction.

I do not think it is useful to advocate that Meta is a good discussion
platform. It is not. It is dead. At best, there are some announcements
posted there, and there is a small group of people who monitor and comment
on them. If there is something really outrageous going on, such as the
recent rebranding attempt, users can be mobilized from the projects to
leave their opinion. This is done by the project users who care, it is done
inside the projects or using some extra-Wikimedia means, and it can only
happen occasionally. If this does not happen, Meta discussions attract at
best a dozen commenters, some of whom are just negative towards everything.

We tried to do something about this for at least 15 years (I myself was
around and have been an active Meta user since 2007-2008). Things are not
getting better, they are getting worse.

It might be a matter of funding, may be a radically new interface could be
build on Meta to replace the existing one. But I am afraid this is more a
matter of attitude. Discussions were happening on IRC, then most of them
migrated to Facebook , then to Discord or Telegram, but nobody ever
considered discussing things on Meta.

Obviously there are a lot of boundary conditions, I fully buy the argument
that discussion should happen in the space owned by the WMF (though a lot
of discussions are happening right now on spaces not owned by the WMF, and
partially just because they are not owned by the WMF), licensed
appropriately etc. But saying we should go to Meta to discuss there and
shooting off all attempts of doing something else is a dead end.

(I must say I did not even log in to the Movement Stategy Forum and I am
not registered there, I am not prepared to endorse or criticize it, and I
do not have any specific suggestions for improvement. I did participate in
Space when it was up, and I recognize all the problems which were there,
though).

Best
Yaroslav

On Mon, Jun 13, 2022 at 11:09 AM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Bon dia a tothom/Hi everyone,
>
> It's really difficult not to agree with Galder here. Happy to still read
> these persistent colleagues with key arguments.
>
> The same people that committed the big mistakes and failure with Wikimedia
> Space (that should have never existed and that even combined discussions
> with Facebook groups as a "revolution" of communication) is now trying to
> tell us that they "learnt from those mistakes" and that they have full
> commitment in finishing this new forum. I still look back at this graph
> of 2019
> 
> and wonder how things can rapidly age that badly and with worse leadership.
>
> Imho this is quite informative of the lack of sustained chain of command
> (not community-need driven anymore). And the worst part of it, this is
> coming from the same people that is parallelly trying to blame those
> volunteers who strongly disagree with very legit discourses on the constant
> externalization of features and the lack of renewed wiki tech. I've read so
> far too many fallacies ("this platform must be good because we are 67 staff
> people behind", etc) instead of a critical recognition that our default,
> wiki one is obsolete and must be urgently supported with staff and
> resources.
>
> There is no way to justify new forums in other interfaces rather than the
> aim or the apathy of the WMF to disengage actively involved wikipedians in
> favor of more empty infrastructures (that benefits the institution rather
> the direct interaction within the knowledge projects). Truly sad,
> especially when some of us feel obliged to explain this to kind donors that
> truly believe that their 5$ are going to fund Wikipedia's servers and
> functionalities as they are mostly told in the funding banners.
>
> Xavier Dengra
> --- Original Message ---
> El dilluns, 13 de juny 2022 a les 10:19 AM, Matej Grochal <
> matej.groc...@wikimedia.sk> va escriure:
>
> Dear all
>
> I quite agree with Galder here. We should focus on making our own spaces
> more inclusive and easier to use rather than jumping to various external
> providers for this and that. Let's not forget that existing volunteers and
> staff also have to learn to use the new platform. The other issue is the
> continued splitting of content and esp. volunteers have to find extra time
> to check those other platforms to stay in touch with the movement.
>
> Be well and healthy
>
> Matej
>
> On Sunday, June 12, 2022, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga 
> wrote:
>
>> Ceill,
>> I am a big fan of having 'one front door' for people that are trying to
>> find answers to questions. Having the front door in another building, with
>> another technology, and once they are in we say them that our building is
>> the other 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Research Showcase June 15

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Peter,

from my (admittedly from more than ten years ago) experience with the
Russian Wikipedia, articles are often translated from other language
Wikipedias, with references just taken over and not being independently
checked (perhaps it is checked that an online reference is still available,
but not its content). I also see my articles on the English Wikipedia being
translated to other languages, even when they have Dutch or Russian
references which I do not expect the translators to be able to read. This
is an anecdotal evidence though.

In addition, there are very few projects where the main population is
monolingual, in almost all cases the bulk of the editors speak also a major
language which is used like lingua franca (like Russian for the Chuvash
Wikipedia, or perhaps Spanish for the Quechua Wikipedia). This makes the
problem less acute.

Best
Yaroslav

On Wed, Jun 8, 2022 at 8:44 PM Peter Southwood 
wrote:

> Interesting research. Maybe I just missed it, but I didn’t notice any
> discussion of relation of availability of reliable sources to coverage in
> different languages. In English Wikipedia we are not allowed to write about
> topics which are not covered by suitable sources, but there may also be
> more and a wider range of sources available in English, and English
> Wikipedia is also written by people with a wider range of languages, making
> more non-English sources available. Is there any research on comparing
>  this tendency in other languages? If there is no-one editing a Wikipedia
> who can read a source, no-one can write about its content. It can be very
> difficult to find sources for some topics, and it would be unsurprising if
> geographical topics in an area where a given language is not spoken are not
> covered in that language.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> *From:* Emily Lescak [mailto:eles...@wikimedia.org]
> *Sent:* 08 June 2022 15:13
> *To:* wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org; analyt...@lists.wikimedia.org;
> wiki-researc...@lists.wikimedia.org
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Research Showcase June 15
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> The next Research Showcase, *Wikipedia's Languages*, will be
> live-streamed Wednesday, June 15, at 4:00 AM PST/11:00 AM UTC. View your
> local time here .
>
> YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZQM1dtn3g0
>
> You are welcome to ask questions via YouTube chat or on IRC at
> #wikimedia-research.
>
> This month's presentations:
>
> *Quantifying knowledge synchronisation in the 21st century*
>
> By *Jisung Yoon (Pohang University of Science and Technology)*
>
> Humans acquire and accumulate knowledge through language usage and eagerly
> exchange their knowledge for advancement. Although geographical barriers
> had previously limited communication, the emergence of information
> technology has opened new avenues for knowledge exchange. However, it is
> unclear which communication pathway is dominant in the 21st century. Here,
> we explore the dominant path of knowledge diffusion in the 21st century
> using Wikipedia, the largest communal dataset. We evaluate the similarity
> of shared knowledge between population groups, distinguished based on their
> language usage. When population groups are more engaged with each other,
> their knowledge structure is more similar, where engagement is indicated by
> socio-economic connections, such as cultural, linguistic, and historical
> features. Moreover, geographical proximity is no longer a critical
> requirement for knowledge dissemination. Furthermore, we integrate our data
> into a mechanistic model to better understand the underlying mechanism and
> suggest that the knowledge "Silk Road" of the 21st century is based online.
>
>
> *The Language Geography of Wikipedia*
>
> By *Martin Dittus*
>
> Every language is a system of being, doing, knowing, and imagining. With
> over 7,000 active languages in the world, how many languages are fully
> represented online? To answer this question, digital non-profit Whose
> Knowledge? initiated the first ever report on the State of the Internet's
> Languages. As part of this report, Martin Dittus and Mark Graham have
> investigated the languages of Wikipedia. Wikipedia began with a single
> English-language edition more than two decades ago, and now offers more
> than 300 language editions, which places it at the forefront of digital
> language support. However, this does not mean that speakers of these
> languages get access to the same content: Wikipedia’s language editions
> vary widely in scale. We further find that this inequality is also
> reflected in Wikipedia’s geographic coverage: not all places are captured
> in every language. Wikipedia's coverage often follows the global
> distribution of speakers of the respective language. Yet even when we
> account for the distribution of language populations, certain language
> communities are much more strongly represented on Wikipedia than others. As
> a consequence, 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I was personally hit by an open proxy when I was on holidays last year
(South Tirol, Italy, for the record). I could edit the four projects where
I am administrator, but I could not edit five other projects where I update
the image of the day. (In fact, I could not edit Meta either except for my
own talk page). On my talk page, I requested an exempt and was quickly
given it; then I requested a global exempt for the remaining couple of days
and was given it as well; I can not really complain about the reaction
speed. However, I am by every definition a trusted user: 500K global edits,
admin flags on four projects, and a global rollback. I guess at least half
of the stewards have seen my username around. It probably would be easier
for everybody if I could get a global IP block exempt for say two or three
years, and then have it renewed assuming I am still active and the account
is not blocked on any project. I am sure we could come up with some
criteria for trusted users, and these can be given long-term exempts. This
would not fully solve the problem, but will take some time off the
stewards' hands.

Best
Yaroslav

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 4:17 PM Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi Lane,
>
> I would appreciate if you could take the time to learn about an issue
> before holding strong, accusatory opinions about it.
>
> gIPBE is granted to people in China and other areas where they want to use
> proxies for security reasons. A significant portion of current gIPBEs are
> for people in China. The issue here is not people being declined gIPBE,
> it’s the sheer amount of people who need it and the lack of infrastructure
> for current volunteers to handle those requests.
>
> What isn’t feasible is automatically giving everyone IPBE, global or
> local, as it would make CU next to useless. Anyone intent on abuse could
> just flip a VPN on. This isn’t “the convenience of current checkusers”,
> this is an indisputable fact. People subject to bans often try to get IPBE
> so they can edit on a VPN without concern for that account being found in
> relation to previous ones. Any human review is better than mass-granting it
> to tens of thousands of accounts. We just need to speed up the time it
> takes to do that human review.
>
> Regards,
> Rae
>
> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 04:48 Lane Chance  wrote:
>
>> "Granting IPBE by default to [...extendedconfirmed]/etc. users is not
>> feasible."
>>
>> Granting IPBE to large groups of good faith editors is feasible, such as
>> entire classes of people during editathons, all registered accounts joining
>> a virtual conference, or everyone with more than 1,000 edits on wikidata.
>>
>> "also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts
>> the convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against
>> the safety of new and regular users.
>>
>> Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and
>> in the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private
>> records, despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to
>> vanish without any serious consequences.
>>
>> Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment or
>> harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
>> information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
>> preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
>> competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
>> Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
>> checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
>> service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
>> even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
>> verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
>> lobbyists.
>>
>> Lane
>>
>> On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> It would result in every block effectively being anon-only, and it would
>>> also make CU next to useless. Granting IPBE by default to
>>> autoconfirmed/extendedconfirmed/etc. users is not feasible.
>>>
>>> 
>>> User:Vermont  on
>>> Wikimedia projects
>>> they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
>>> )
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM Vi to  wrote:
>>>
 IPBE for autoconfirmed is a local matter, it would imply that any block
 (TOR included) will, in practice, almost turn into anon-only.

 Expiration is an option, as for any global group.

 Vito

 Il giorno gio 21 apr 2022 alle ore 19:51 Nathan  ha
 scritto:

> How significant is the risk in just granting autoconfirmed (or
> similar) users IPBE by default? Why does IPBE expire anyway?
>
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:50 AM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Sanctions against the Russian Federation; support for Ukrainian Wikimedians

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Males between 18 and 60 may not leave the country (and probably do not want
to do it anyway), so that there could be only women, old people, and
children among the refugees. Given the gender gap situation, probably there
are not so many Wikipedians among them, but I hope if there are some, they
will let themselves known.

Best
Yaroslav

On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 2:35 PM Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:

> I was contacted by two wikipedians from Ukraine which I know personally
> with questions about the situation at Polish border and what documents they
> need to enter. I just answered them + gave my private phone number, but
> till then I haven't heard from them, so they either decided to stay or are
> still trying to get to the border. One of them is from Kiev and one from
> Lviv. Bear in mind that at the moment, there are around 1 million
> Ukrainians queing at the border on the Ukrainian side, and Poland is able
> to accept around 100 000 per day.
>
> I guess - if the substantial number of Ukrainian Wikipedias manage to
> reach Polish border - some sort of help from WMF would be very appreciated
> - but at the moment I guess not too much real help can be done.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> 
>  Wolny
> od wirusów. www.avast.com
> 
> <#m_-2230622763712047362_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
>
> czw., 3 mar 2022 o 11:40 Andy Mabbett 
> napisał(a):
>
>> On Wed, 2 Mar 2022 at 18:04, Stephen LaPorte 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > The Foundation is undertaking several initiatives in assisting the
>> Wikimedia
>> > communities in Ukraine and Russia, and in reviewing the potential
>> impacts
>> >that the sanctions will have on the movement. We are not able to discuss
>> all
>> > the specifics without potential risk to those being supported.
>> >
>> > What we can disclose is that the Trust and Safety and Human Rights
>> units of
>> > the Foundation are in constant communication with community members in
>> Ukraine
>> > and Russia.
>>
>> Thank you for the response. It is good to know that WMF is assisting
>> our colleagues, and of course I understand the need for discretion
>> regarding specifics, but I had hoped you could tell us /something/
>> about what is being done in that regard.
>>
>> An additional thought occurs to me: Do we know of any Wikimedians who
>> have become refugees, and are we assisting them in their new host
>> countries?
>>
>> Regarding sanctions, do WMF have salaried staff or freelancers in
>> Russia, and what is their position now? Does WMF fund a chapter or any
>> other grantees in Russia, and ditto?
>>
>> --
>> Andy Mabbett
>> @pigsonthewing
>> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>> ___
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>>
>
>
> --
> Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
> http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
> http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
>
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikimedia Announcements] Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month: We are back in 2022!

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Absolutely.

I am not a fan of government propaganda, but not it is not the best moment
to discuss it.

Best
Yaroslav

On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 7:23 AM effe iets anders 
wrote:

> The list archive probably has an answer to your question on 9 feb 2021.
>
> But regardless, writing about Ukrainian culture is never more prudent than
> when it is under threat. Whatever one's personal opinion on this war, I
> don't think anyone will deny that Ukrainian cultural heritage is at risk?
> Asking people to go outside and take photos, that may be a bit much right
> now, but this is a writing exercise. That is the beautiful thing about
> Wikimedia: we document things regardless of how much we 'like' them.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 9:59 PM 4nn1l2 <4nn1l2.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is a legitimate concern as several users have dared to ask questions
>> as you can see at
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ukraine%27s_Cultural_Diplomacy_Month
>>
>> We need more transparency regarding this decision. Granted, there was a
>> campaign last year around this time, but was it advertised at a global
>> scale? At least, I can't remember that.
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 8:28 AM Ariel Glenn WMF 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This campaign was conducted last year at around the same time:
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%27s_Cultural_Diplomacy_Month_2021
>>> Let's keep any unwarranted speculations off of this list please.
>>>
>>> Ariel Glenn
>>> ar...@wikimedia.org
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 5:55 AM 4nn1l2 <4nn1l2.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 The timing of this campaign is of real concern and not prudent, I
 think, especially for those of us who strive for neutrality.

 On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 2:47 AM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Thanks for sharing -- a nice idea and gorgeous page; nice to see the 
> *wikigap
> challenge* model proliferating.
>
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 6:00 PM Valentin Nefedov <
> nefedov.valen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello, dear Wikipedians!Wikimedia Ukraine, in cooperation with the
>> Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Ukrainian Institute, has
>> launched the second edition of writing challenge Ukraine's Cultural
>> Diplomacy Month , which lasts from 17
>> February to 17 March 2022. The campaign is dedicated to famous Ukrainian
>> artists of cinema, music, literature, architecture, design and cultural
>> phenomena of Ukraine that made a contribution to world culture. The most
>> active contesters will receive prizes.
>>
>> We invite you to take part and help us improve the coverage of
>> Ukrainian culture on Wikipedia in any language!
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Valentyn Nefedov a.k.a. Renvoy
>> ___
>> 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:
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>
>
> --
> Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529
> 4266
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia payroll and related (WAS: Re: Media coverage in Germany: Enterprise / Advocacy)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Am I the only one who thinks that discussing salaries (even if publicly
disclosed) of named persons on this mailing list is highly inappropriate?

(I have no relation to WMF or any of these persons, for the record).

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Feb 1, 2022 at 1:45 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Christophe,
>
> "First year" applies in Jaime Villagomez' case (who took over as CFO on
> Feb. 1, 2016). Thank you for pointing that out. If his 2016 salary of
> $237,665 was only for eleven months (yielding an annual salary figure of
> 12/11 x 237,665 = 259,270), that does reduce the increase over three years
> to about $30,000.
>
> Toby Negrin and Lisa Seitz-Gruwell both joined before 2016, so no
> first-year exception applies in their cases.
>
> You say it's important to look at the percentage increases. Let's do so.
>
> In Jaime's case, with 2016–2019 base salaries of $259,270 (est.),
> $264,341, $275,495 and $289,356, I arrive at annual percentage increases of
> 2.0%, 4.2% and 5.0%.
>
> In Lisa's case ($209,706, $216,556, $229,170, $252,117) I make the
> increases 3.3%, 5.8%, 10.0%.
>
> In Toby's case ($192,018, $214,504, $228,023, $237,992) the increases
> were 11.7%, 6.3%, 4.4%.
>
> Per the Form 990 info, WMF salary costs per head increased year-on-year by
> 13%, 7% and 6% (if you use Anne's method of calculating the average salary
> cost per head; with the one I first used only the first figure would
> change, to 15%, while the other two are unaffected).
>
> As for market practice in the US, according to the US Average Wage
> Index[1], the average increases in those years were 3.45%, 3.62% and 3.75%.
>
> The above salary increases are well above these national averages. They
> are also, it must be said, financed by fundraising banners making people
> believe that Wikimedia is struggling to have enough money to keep Wikipedia
> up and running.
>
> Andreas
>
> [1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/awidevelop.html
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 10:05 PM Christophe Henner <
> christophe.hen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm sorry but I feel that discussion is loaded and meant to create a
>> heated debate and not provide good analysis data points.
>>
>> I was surprised by your claims, so I picked one example, not giving names
>> to not single anyone out.
>>
>> First, you assume the first year is systematically a full year, it never
>> is. And yes even if you arrive mid january, it does take a dent in your
>> yearly compensation (it represents 5%).
>> Second, you voluntarily speak in numbers and not ratio, which makes all
>> data easy to twist. The one I checked had a 4% to 6% yearly salary increase
>> which all in all is market practice in the US (we can argue about the
>> discrepancies but hey).
>> Third, even if you spot a higher increase, going into personal details
>> about the increase is meaningless (such increases can be related to pre
>> negotiated increase, to planned catch up on cost of living, on role change,
>> role expansion, new responsibilities, beyond expectations achievements, a
>> load of valid HR reasons).
>>
>> If only on very specific and verifiable data points like those I can find
>> how you distort reality to fit your narrative I can only assume you are
>> doing the same for the rest of the discussion.
>>
>> Public eye provides a safeguard for problems and financial abuses, yes
>> (and that's why 503c are public).
>>
>> But twisting those data to spread gratuitous shade on people working for
>> the Foundation (and even naming them) is wrong and honestly shows a lack of
>> empathy (you don't care about how people can live when their integrity is
>> attacked while they are committed).
>>
>> So I am happy to jump in Spreadsheet and discuss compensations, but if we
>> are to do it, let's at the very least do it with a benevolent approach and
>> minding the people whose job is talked about.
>>
>> Just a bit of empathy and care goes a long way :)
>>
>>
>> --
>> Christophe
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 31 Jan 2022 at 15:20, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>>
>>> Correction:
>>>
>>> The 2016 base salary figure for Lisa in my previous mail should have
>>> read $209,706, not $192,018.
>>>
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 1:55 PM Andreas Kolbe 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Chris,

 All the numbers are taken from the official Form 990s filed. You can
 verify them for yourself here:

 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200049703

 There is also a table of top-earners' base salaries on Meta, with data
 taken from the Form 990:

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries

 Have a look. They show various individuals' salaries increasing by
 remarkable amounts in recent years.

 Jaime Villagomez' base salary for example increased by more than
 $50,000 in three years, from $237,665 in 2016 to $289,356 in 2019.

 Toby Negrin's base salary increased by more than $45,000 over the same
 time period (from $192,018 to 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Re: Uplifting the multimedia stack (was: Community Wishlist Survery)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

In the past, we were often told that a specific proposal even if it gains
enough support will not be implemented because this is too difficult / not
enough resources / whatever. My understanding is that it does not make
sense to suggest such proposals again. On the contrary, if the proposal
gained a lot of support, could have been implemented but was not
implemented I would say yes, report it again.

Best
Yaroslav

On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 4:30 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> I asked on th talk page, but posting here as well:
>  -- what's the intended interaction b/t proposals from past years and the
> current list? Do people need to find and repost older proposals they want
> to see included? Is there a mechanism for refactoring sets of related
> proposals?
>
> 
>
> On Sat., Jan. 22, 2022, 8:08 a.m. Szymon Grabarczuk, <
> sgrabarc...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Hello, I'd like to refer to the original subject of the discussion -
>> tomorrow is the last day for submitting proposals for the Community
>> Wishlist Survey 2022.
>>
>> Apart from that, everyone is welcome to translate, promote, and discuss
>> proposals:
>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/01/10/what-improvements-in-wikimedia-platforms-would-you-like-to-see-help-the-wikimedia-foundation-to-grant-the-communities-wishes/
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Szymon Grabarczuk (he/him)
>>
>> Community Relations Specialist
>>
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 2:43 PM Strainu  wrote:
>>
>>> În mar., 11 ian. 2022 la 08:01, Kunal Mehta  a
>>> scris:
>>> >
>>> > So I think the status quo can be changed by just about anyone who is
>>> > motivated to do so, not by trying to convince the WMF to change its
>>> > prioritization, but just by doing the work. We should be empowering
>>> > those people rather than continuing to further entrench a WMF technical
>>> > monopoly.
>>> >
>>>
>>> Counterexample:
>>>
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org/message/G2QTRJFAUKLE45SFTFUHOOTOBR6G3DP3/
>>> (this was the situation that I quoted in my first email on this thread
>>> as the WMF refusing to even do reviews).
>>>
>>> Maybe it's just the multimedia part that it's in this desperate
>>> situation, but I can totally see volunteer developers getting
>>> discouraged quickly if their patches are outright ignored.
>>>
>>> Strainu
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Are we losing our readers?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Actually, I see an issue with snippets.

Wikipedia articles have very variable quality. Some are reasonably good and
contain reliable information which is confirmed by reliable sources listed
in the article. But a lot have information which is promotional, POV,
unconfirmed, or outright false. In Wikipedia, we have mechanisms to
indicate that information is less reliable or more reliable (such as
templates for example). But snippets do not have this information. If you
want to know for example who was the US president after Jimmy Carter
probably this question can be answered by a snippet to everyone's
satisfaction. But if you want to know for example who is Elizabeth Holmes I
doubt that information provided by a snippet is a good replacement to the
lede of the Wikipedia article (may be this is not the best example but I
hope you get what I want to say). It is like snippets give you information
in black and white, and on Wikipedia we try to get it colored or at least
shaded.

Best
Yaroslav

On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 2:41 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Hi Xavier and all,
>
> You say, "even the WMF tried to rebrand itself from «Wikimedia Foundation»
> to «Wikipedia Foundation» in a move that I consider a disbelief towards its
> own content legacies"
>
> It seems these rebranding efforts are in fact ongoing after all. According
> to Meta,[1] the fundraising emails sent to donors over the past few months
> have had Jimmy Wales signing off as follows:
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jimmy Wales
>
> Wikipedia Foundation
>
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising=next=22133512
>
> Email text linked in that edit:
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OAjBvUJh3cwuYDzpXRusX7HqOOJIwtTfLXgTMRsblAc/edit?usp=sharing
> Archive link: https://archive.fo/J30ls
>
> On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 12:37 AM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi/Bona nit
>>
>> Specifically regarding the last emails about videos and new formats in
>> university students and their use of Wikipedia. A truth is that we already
>> had the chance to integrate better multimedia contents and formats via some
>> channels that he already had: our sister projects.
>>
>> Wikiversity, Wikibooks or Wikisource were in the past powerful and
>> attractive tools, valid to integrate knowledge in more flexible
>> (non-enciclopedic) forms until mid- last decade. Until they were abandoned
>> with no further tech investing. I remember having trained and mentorized
>> schools, universities and public institutions in Catalonia on Wikibooks
>> until 2015. It was seen as a really valid alternative by then.
>>
>> Since then WikiHow, Moodle, StuDocu, Notion or other participative niches
>> have progressed with some multimedia inclusions as better opportunities
>> than the WMF sister projects —even the WMF tried to rebrand itself from
>> «Wikimedia Foundation» to «Wikipedia Foundation» in a move that I consider
>> a disbelief towards its own content legacies. All this, despite many
>> small-sized community efforts and requests to claim for better integration
>> of multimedia features, that imho are the key to get these projects a bit
>> back to new success. I don’t think that these competitors offer amazing
>> features that we could not develop (apart from their cuter and cleaner
>> interfaces?).
>>
>> Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and therefore I find that is normal that has
>> some conceptual limitations in how it shapes and shows the content. You
>> rely in other niches for more specific stuff. However, this may be easily
>> tackled in Wikimedia if sister projects' potential and existing contents
>> would be really valued and connected.
>>
>> That way, if videos are one of the reasons why there is a loss of readers
>> (I agree that we should be able to see longers trend to unmask possible
>> covid peaks) on Wikipedia, we could still redirect/invite/seduce them to
>> alternatives that are still interactive, Open Access, participative &
>> transparent (i.e. Wikimedia wikis).
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Xavier Dengra
>>
>>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Commons-l] Uplifting the multimedia stack (was: Community Wishlist Survery)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

On Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 11:09 PM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Not to mention what's going on with the sister projects: for Wikiquote or
> Wikibooks it has been crystal clear for the small communities that we are
> merely server-supported, without any other special, significant improvement
> foreseen nor for the past decade nor for the years to come. I feel often
> insulted when I see the "scary" banners to push people to donate in this
> small wiki projects -in which we barely can provide contents with an
> interface of 2008.
>

On Wikivoyage, we get zero technical support from the WMF. Just none The
above map issue is an illustration of the problem. Whatever we can do, we
do ourselves (sometimes there is coordination between different languages,
sometimes not). Whaever we can not do ourselves is just not getting done.

Best
Yaroslav



> ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
> El dilluns, 3 de gener 2022 a les 9:44 PM, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> va escriure:
>
> I would like to be optimistic, but...
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T289101
>
> 2022(e)ko urt. 3(a) 15:28 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Brion Vibber <
> bvib...@wikimedia.org>):
>
> (Anyway I'm just grumping. I hear positive things about plans for this
> year and I'm heartened to see more folks involved in planning the next
> stages!)
>
> -- brion
>
> On Mon, Jan 3, 2022, 6:10 AM Brion Vibber  wrote:
>
> On Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:27 AM Samuel Klein  wrote:
>
> Separate thread.  I'm not sure which list is appropriate.
> *... but not all the way to sentience
> .*
>
> The annual community wishlist survey (implemented by a small team,
> possibly in isolation?) may not be the mechanism for prioritizing large
> changes, but the latter also deserves a community-curated priority queue.
> To complement the staff-maintained priorities in phab ~
>
> For core challenges (like Commons stability and capacity), I'd be
> surprised if the bottleneck were people or budget.
>
>
> Currently there are zero people and no budget for multimedia, aside from
> whatever work I and others manage to get done here there. And I'm afraid I
> don't scale.
>
> It's Wikimedia Foundation's job to assign budget and people here. I've
> been hoping for years that this will happen, and continue to hope.
>
>
> -- brion
>
> We do need a shared understanding of what issues are most important and
> most urgent, and how to solve them. For instance, a way to turn Amir's
> recent email about the problem (and related phab tickets) into a family of
> persistent, implementable specs and proposals and their articulated
> obstacles.
>
> An issue tracker like phab is good for tracking the progress and
> dependencies of agreed-upon tasks, but weak for discussing what is
> important, what we know about it, how to address it. And weak for
> discussing ecosystem-design issues that are important and need persistent
> updating but don't have a simple checklist of steps.
>
> So where is the best current place to discuss scaling Commons, and all
> that entails?  Some examples from recent discussions (most from the wm-l
> thread below):
> - *Uploads*: Support for large file uploads / Keeping bulk upload tools
> online
> - *Video*: Debugging + rolling out the videojs
>  player
> - *Formats*: Adding support for CML
>  and dozens of other
>  common high-demand file
> formats
> - *Thumbs*: Updating thumbor 
> and librsvg 
> - *Search*: WCQS still  down
> , noauth option
>  wanted for tools
> - *General*: Finish implementing redesign
>  of the image table
>
> SJ
>
> On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 6:26 AM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
>
> I'm not debating your note. It is very valid that we lack proper support
> for multimedia stack. I myself wrote a detailed rant on how broken it is
> [1] but three notes:
>  - Fixing something like this takes time, you need to assign the budget
> for it (which means it has to be done during the annual planning) and if
> gets approved, you need to start it with the fiscal year (meaning July
> 2022) and then hire (meaning, write JD, do recruitment, interview lots of
> people, get them hired) which can take from several months to years. Once
> they are hired, you need to onboard them and let them learn about our
> technical infrastructure which takes at least two good months. Software
> engineering is not magic, it takes time, blood and sweat. [2]
>  - Making another team focus on multimedia requires changes in planning,
> budget, OKR, etc. etc. Are we sure moving the focus of teams is a 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Marketing Mail] Re: Small gratitude to our fellow wikimedians

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Actually, many projects maintain the list of deceased users.

English Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deceased_Wikipedians

Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deceased_contributors

Meta is up the thread.

We should also realize that a significant part of our active editors /
administrators are over 50, meaning that in 10 years we will have many more
names than we have now.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Nov 9, 2021 at 1:45 PM Peter Southwood 
wrote:

> Seems a reasonable idea. Cheers, Peter
>
>
>
> *From:* Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l [mailto:
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org]
> *Sent:* 09 November 2021 14:16
> *To:* 'Wikimedia Mailing List'
> *Cc:* Alessandro Marchetti
> *Subject:* [Marketing Mail] [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small gratitude to our
> fellow wikimedians
>
>
>
>
>
> Yes, a user status/right “deceased" is IMHO important. It was also the
> reason why I expected a SUL policy to be created soon or later. I tried two
> or three time to raise the issue since 2016.
>
>
>
> Now some projects block accounts, but it's not a standard process. It has
> to be fixed soon or later. At the moment, a relative can reuse an old
> account in theory on another platform, if they wish to do so. For example I
> find archive of images of my deceased partner and despite the user being
> blocked on a local wikipedia, I start to upload them on Commons in their
> name. Everybody has their way to cope with grief. Do we accept this or not?
>
>
>
> Alessandro
>
> Il martedì 9 novembre 2021, 10:17:51 CET, Geert Van Pamel <
> geert...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>
>
>
>
> I do find this an excellent proposal.
>
>
>
> Wouldn’t it be good to also implement a user status/right “deceased” to
> identify those accounts?
>
>
>
> This information could be shown to their user rights page e.g.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UserRights/Geertivp?
>
>
>
> One could get a list of volunteers that are no longer amongst us via
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers.
>
>
>
> *Geert Van Pamel*
>
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> Virus-free. www.avg.com
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Meet the new Movement Charter Drafting Committee members

[Yaroslav Blanter]

People with multiple expertise and background would have been the way to
go, but unless we have decided for the fully appointed body (which was
opposed by pretty much everybody) it is unclear how this could be realized.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Nov 2, 2021 at 1:24 PM Mike Peel  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm curious as to what the ideal distribution of members might have
> been? NWE has 3 members, which seems like an outlier, but all the others
> were 1 or 2 - so which would you have picked to have 1 member rather
> than 2? Or should there just be more members overall (good for the
> global council itself, less good for a drafting committee)?
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> On 1/11/21 14:13:53, Bodhisattwa Mandal wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Coming from South Asia and looking at ESEAP, I am not at all excited
> > considering the geographical representation of the committee as per
> > Wikimedia regions[1], excluding WMF appointed candidates who will
> > represent WMF instead of the regions itself, we have
> >
> >   o United States and Canada - 2 members
> >   o Western & Northern Europe - 3 members
> >   o Central and Eastern Europe & Central Asia - 1 member
> >   o Sub-Saharan Africa - 1 member
> >   o Middle East and North Africa - 2 members
> >   o East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific - 1 member
> >   o South Asia - 1 member
> >   o Latin America & Caribbean - 2 members
> >
> > I am so surprised to see only 1 representation from ESEAP which has such
> > a thriving group of affiliates and which had talked about and tried to
> > materialise to build a hub in the region so passionately. If movement
> > strategy wants Wikimedia to reach the next billion users in future, they
> > are in South Asia and ESEAP and without hearing the voices from those
> > regions, that target will be very hard to achieve.
> >
> > Anyway, good luck and best wishes for the drafting process. Hope it will
> > echo our voices.
> >
> > [1]
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Affiliate-chosen_members
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Affiliate-chosen_members
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Bodhisattwa
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 1 Nov 2021 at 18:32, Mardetanha  > > wrote:
> >
> > Congratulations to all elected, selected and appointed
> >
> > Mohsen
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 1, 2021 at 3:47 PM Kaarel Vaidla  > > wrote:
> >
> > Dear movement colleagues,
> >
> >
> > I am happy to announce that the Movement Charter Drafting
> > Committee election and selection processes are complete.
> >
> >   *
> >
> > 1018 participants voted to elect
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Set_Up_Process#Election_process
> >seven
> > members to the committee:
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Richard Knipel (Pharos)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Richard_Knipel_(Pharos)
> >
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Anne Clin (Risker)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Anne_Clin_(Risker)
> >
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Alice Wiegand (Lyzzy)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Alice_Wiegand_(lyzzy)
> >
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Michał Buczyński (Aegis Maelstrom)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Micha%C5%82_Buczy%C5%84ski_(Aegis_Maelstrom)
> >
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Richard (Nosebagbear)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Richard_(Nosebagbear)
> >
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Ciell (Ciell)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Ciell_(Ciell)
> >
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Ravan J Al-Taie (Ravan)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Ravan_J_Al-Taie_(Ravan)
> >
> >
> >   *
> >
> > The affiliate process
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Set_Up_Process#Selection_process
> >has
> > selected six members:
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Anass Sedrati (Anass Sedrati)
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Candidates#Anass_Sedrati_(Anass_Sedrati)
> >
> >
> >   o
> >
> > Érica Azzellini (EricaAzzellini)
> > <
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Meet the new Movement Charter Drafting Committee members

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Dear Bodhisattwa,

this is an issue which has been raised at the strategy transition group I
was part of, and also during the events following these discussions which
were intended to shape the specific process to draft the Charter.
Basically, the choice was between two options - either have a (relatively)
small group elected/appointed fast which would not be fully representative
but would be efficient and would draft the Charter quickly, or to go for
representation at the expense of the time and possibly also size of the
group - if it includes everybody needed for representation it would be
unworkable. The decision, which I personally also supported, was to go for
speed and efficiency at the expense of representation. I see your
arguments, and they have merit, but we can not do everything at once. It
was clear that the community elections would favor North American and East
European candidates, as for example the board elections always do. There
was some hope that affiliates would elect more candidates from the rest of
the world, which is indeed what happened (I am not an affiliate member and
I am not familiar with the specific selection process). The WMF mitigated
that even further by appointing one person of Indian background (even
though residing in the US if I am not mistaken). There are other safeguards
in place - I assume the draft Charter will be up to the community
discussion, and if there are omissions they will be noticed. But the main
idea was to elect/appoint people who understand what they are doing and who
would implement what is best for the movement, taking into account that the
Charter is for evetrybody, and not their personal vision. Those drafting
committee members I know fit this definition. This is now our turn, as a
community, to make sure that we read the draft - when it is out - carefully
and make sure it is acceptable for everybody.

Best
Yaroslav

On Mon, Nov 1, 2021 at 7:08 PM Bodhisattwa Mandal <
bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Samuel,
>
> On Mon, 1 Nov 2021 at 21:35, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>
>>
>> I don't believe the idea is for anyone to explicitly represent their
>> geography, affiliations, or organizations -- rather to draft a meaningful
>> and empowering starting point for us all.
>>
>
> People develop their perspectives based on their environment, culture and
> surroundings and it is almost impossible for anyone to understand
> comprehensively about what is going on in other places without dealing with
> their real situation there. It doesn't matter how honest or how experienced
> a person might be, an Western European will have hard times to understand
> all the real issues in South Asia, A South Asian will have little
> understanding about what is really happening in Latin America and that is
> why geographical representation is needed. If the question or process is
> about something global, then it is needed even more. To draft a document
> for us all, it is essential to get voices from as many as possible, if not
> all. How can a movement charter be drafted if it does not echo the concerns
> of all our existing communities clearly?
>
> We chose to follow popular elections which have always brought North
> Americans and Europeans on the top of the table and historically abandoned
> other parts of the world, even though there are capable people in those
> parts too but do not have the voter base. We have seen it repeated in this
> election process too. Here we had 7 seats through community elections, so
> its almost futile for Global South candidates to compete there, the proof
> of my statement is that only 1 candidate from the Global South actually
> made through this election. So, they only have 6 affiliate selected
> positions from 8 Wikimedia regions (and 1 Thematic hub), where they have
> minimal chance because 6 seats from 8 regions count to < 1 candidate per
> hub. So, regions like South Asia, ESEAP, Sub-Saharan Africa, etc. was
> extremely lucky to get 1 candidate in the committee, 2 is not at all
> expected. Don't you think that this is a totally unfair process from the
> start for under-represented communities and affiliates? No wonder, people
> here are getting aloof from the movement strategy process.
>
> Of course broad geographic and project backgrounds, and good language
>> diversity (within the drafting group and through available tools to support
>> work with others) are important for this work.  But please don't exclude
>> any participant from that, based on the experimental mix of selection
>> processes.  We are all wikimedians.  Runa and Jorge for instance have been
>> advancing the global movement towards free knowledge, culture and tools for
>> a very long time.  And having a translation expert actively involved should
>> help amplify different voices :).
>>
>
> Sorry for my English, I am not a native English speaker, so maybe there is
> a misunderstanding. I have not excluded anyone as you are saying. Runa and
> Jorge are amazing 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: 100$ million dollars and still obsolete

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Amir,

thanks for this detailed analysis. What do you think should be done? Is
there any role for volunteers who are not developers and do not write code?

Best
Yaroslav

On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 2:11 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:

> Well, if we need to have better support for multimedia, first we need to
> give some attention to the existing system that is basically falling apart.
> Let me give you some examples.
>
> Thumbor, the software that builds small sizes of the images is on
> deprecated infrastructure, on EOL python version (python2), uses an
> extremely old fork of the upstream and does not have an owner. And this is
> a pretty critical software, if it goes down, virtually no image can be
> shown in all of Wikipedia (including all SVG files). Because of that, we
> can't move it to a newer infrastructure (kubernetes), make it use a more
> modern python version or upstream code, to make it use a more modern
> version of svg converter to fix countless svg bugs the current system has
> [1]. It in itself is blocking adding more features on all of Wikipedia. For
> example, as a certified science nerd, I want to add support for chemical
> markup files (.bxr, etc.) that would enrich our chemistry articles [2] but
> well, it's blocked on thumbor being unmaintained.
>
> The old video player, kultura, is still in production and used quite
> heavily. The replacement media player exists but has some bugs that are
> rather easy to fix and unblock further rolling out. But because no one is
> on this task, it's basically a group of volunteers (including yours truly)
> struggling to find the time to work on it. [3]. It would give a slightly
> more modern look to our media player.
>
> This is mostly fixed but worth mentioning, the image table in commons was
> bigger than 300GB compressed (and 600GB uncompressed), it would take 15
> hours to take a simple backup and basically a ticking bomb given how
> heavily it is used. Commons went readonly and caused a big outage so
> technically it was a bomb that exploded already once. The problem was
> metadata of pdf files and djvu files were massive, the pdf files got fixed
> by Tim Starling and I (I did it in my volunteer capacity) which in turn
> reduced 200GB from it. And now we are working on fixing djvu. [4] Again in
> volunteer capacity. This work is actually blocking redesign of the image
> table to make it more useful [5] or practically any change that would
> impact size of tables in commons.
>
> The problems have passed the point of blocking improvements and adding
> more features, they are reaching the point of actually bringing down our
> systems and bleeding to the rest of our systems. And it all boils down to
> not having a dedicated team on multimedia but in all fairness, it's not
> something you can fix overnight. You need to grow, hire, plan, etc. etc.
>
> Best
> [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193352#5984544
> [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18491
> [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T248418
> [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T275268
> [5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T28741
>
> On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 1:08 PM Juergen Fenn  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Am 16.10.21 um 16:25 Uhr schrieb Yaroslav Blanter:
>> >
>> > In a few years, there will be tools for editing video. If by that time
>> > we are not ready to incorporate video at full scale to Wikimedia
>> > projects, we will be where AOL is now.
>>
>>
>> We already _are_ there. When we tried to relaunch German Wikiversity
>> almost ten years ago we sadly had to shrug and decline offers to bring
>> converted classroom scenarios to Wikiversity because Commons did not
>> accept mp4 videos and we could not include frames from YouTube where it
>> all happens. Period. That was the end of online learning with Wikimedia.
>> (Fair enough, there were more reasons why we did not succeed.)
>>
>> BUT: When we incorporate multimedia content at full scale it should be
>> clear that Wikimedia is NOT YouTube. We won't accept everything. We need
>> high qualitity educational content. Only.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Jürgen.
>> ___
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>
>
>
> --
> Amir (he/him)
>
> ___
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: 100$ million dollars and still obsolete

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Yes, absolutely.

In a few years, there will be tools for editing video. If by that time we
are not ready to incorporate video at full scale to Wikimedia projects, we
will be where AOL is now.

Best
Yaroslav

On Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 9:34 AM Christophe Henner <
christophe.hen...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I will the whole first part of the discussion :)
>
> As for the product discussion. We should very mindful of what we consider
> our ProductS.
>
> We tend to talk a lot about the wikis. They are products that can be
> improved, and have been and still should evolve yes. And I agree it would
> be great if they improved more, be updated for both readers and editors.
> But the context, with so many communities to satisfy makes it very hard.
>
> Be damned if you do, be damned if you don't sort of things.
>
> But, they are not obsolete.
>
> What however is, to me, obsolete is our shared very occidental web vision
> of our products.
>
> What can makes us obsolete, is our inability to adapt our products or
> create new products adapted to new mean of content consumption.
>
> From a content consumption perspective, video and audio have a lot of
> tractions.
>
> Short and fast burst of information is taking more and more place on how
> we consume content.
>
> The disintermediation of content is more than here and even if we have
> Wikidata, we are not, yet!, exploiting it's full potential to spread
> content.
>
> VR and AR are 5 to 10 years away as mass market products. But it will
> requires years to do something good for us around it.
>
> Yes editing can be improved, but to me it is not where we will see
> obsolescence first. Content consumption is clearly to me the topic.
>
> I know it can be easy to say "hey look at simultaneous editing on gdoc or
> 365". Yes that's a nice thing, but would it be a game changer for us? But
> having all around the world PoP to decrease loading time also is a great
> product improvement. Etc.
>
> All that to say, yes there is a lot of work from a product perspective,
> but it can be easy to have our own biases give us a twisted view of what
> needs to be improved.
>
> And if you read the whole thread it is not really about money but more
> about product vision/strategy/roadmap :)
>
> Which we might be missing or isn't known enough.
>
> Le sam. 16 oct. 2021 à 8:41 AM, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> a écrit :
>
>> True Samuel. We can actually edit [Wikipedia] from our mobile phones. We
>> can't use the visual editor. I tried to say it later with the sentence
>> "Desktop computers are disappearing. We still can't edit in a good way with
>> our mobile phones." but it's true the first time I mentionen this it was
>> not factual.
>>
>> About the other projects, it doesn't matter where the bottleneck is: we
>> are obsolete and we have 100 million dollars. We try to make some
>> improvements using a wishlist system that only creates culture of scarcity,
>> instead of culture of abundance. There is a reason to create scarcity, but
>> this is a topic for another essay.
>>
>> Have a good weekend
>>
>> Galder
>> --
>> *From:* Samuel Klein 
>> *Sent:* Saturday, October 16, 2021 3:07 AM
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: 100$ million dollars and still obsolete
>>
>> Luis writes:
>> > For what it is worth, I think the current mobile app is pretty good
>> and I regularly finding pleasant surprises
>>
>> Yea, the mobile app is sweet, editing and all.
>>
>> Responding to two specific earlier comments:
>>
>> 1. *Galder* - "It is 2021 and we still can't edit by mobile phone."
>>
>> -->  Safe to say this is not true :)  But you could say that about your
>> later comment on the ability to "*write simultaneously ... upload videos
>> ...** autosave*", each of which are common in online collaborative
>> spaces, and which we do need to make standard for our wikis.  But the
>> bottlenecks aren't primarily design, but rather coordinated vision and
>> focus -- or at least unblocking and supporting one another as we design and
>> implement prototypes.  We need new social norms and clear community use
>> cases for simultaneous editing
>>  (resolving attribution
>> and revision history for multiparty edits), video uploading
>>  (how to
>> note the original upload if we only save a transcode), and drafts
>>  (rallying support behind a
>> specific client-side use case to realize).
>>
>> 2.* Jonathan* -
>>"[In my new sw company] we have the autonomy to make the changes in
>> the first place, see what happens, and then build from there..."
>>"WMF product teams work in an environment where [...] one set of end
>> users (editors) has a great deal of both *soft* and *hard* power to
>> block changes, even when those changes are intended for--and indeed,
>> primarily affect--a 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Maggie and William, thanks a lot for the answers.

Best
Yaroslav

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:45 PM Nathan  wrote:

> Maggie,
>
> Thank you for taking these very difficult actions to protect both the
> members of our community as well as the values that it seeks to uphold. I
> also appreciate the degree of transparency provided and hope that more
> information will be disclosed as it is appropriate. I imagine questions
> will be asked about how these individual accounts were selected for office
> actions and the contours of the risk both to the individuals behind these
> accounts and the wider community. Any information that the WMF is able to
> safely share will help all of us understand better what the threats are and
> how we may better support the movement's goals in jurisdictions where our
> values are not respected.
>
> Thank you again,
> Nathan
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Maggie,

thanks for sharing. I think this is indeed very important.

Just to understand this better - have all administrators on all projects
who reside in the Mainland China been desysopped?

If this is the case, is there a policy that no user residing in the
Mainland China can become administrator on any of our projects?

If this is the case, how it is going to be implemented? As a bureaucrat on
Wikidata who promotes new admins I obviously do not know where they reside.

Best
Yaroslav

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:15 PM Maggie Dennis  wrote:

> (on-wiki:  ; Google translated notice that there is a professional Chinese
> translation of the email below - 中文翻譯見下文)
>
> Hello, everyone.
>
> I’m Maggie Dennis, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice President of Community
> Resilience & Sustainability.[1] I’m reaching out to you today to talk about
> a series of actions the Foundation has recently taken to protect
> communities across the globe.
>
> I apologize in advance for the length and the ambiguity in certain areas.
> These are complicated issues, and I will try to summarize a lot of what may
> be unfamiliar information to some of you succinctly. I will answer
> questions to the best of my ability within safety parameters, and I will be
> hosting an office hour in a few weeks where I can discuss these issues in
> more depth. We’re currently getting that set up in regards to availability
> of support staff and will announce it on Wikimedia-L and Meta as soon as
> that information is prepared.
>
> Many of you are already aware of recent changes that the Foundation has
> made to its NDA policy. These changes have been discussed on Meta, and I
> won’t reiterate all of our disclosures there,[2] but I will briefly
> summarize that due to credible information of threat, the Foundation has
> modified its approach to accepting “non-disclosure agreements” from
> individuals. The security risk relates to information about infiltration of
> Wikimedia systems, including positions with access to personally
> identifiable information and elected bodies of influence. We could not
> pre-announce this action, even to our most trusted community partner groups
> (like the stewards), without fear of triggering the risk to which we’d been
> alerted. We restricted access to these tools immediately in the
> jurisdictions of concern, while working with impacted users to determine if
> the risk applied to them.
>
> I want to pause to emphasize that we do not mean to accuse any specific
> individual whose access was restricted by that policy change of bad intent.
> Infiltration can occur through multiple mechanisms. What we have seen in
> our own movement includes not only people deliberately seeking to
> ingratiate themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and
> advance an agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals
> who have become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups
> because they are already trusted insiders. This policy primarily served to
> address the latter risk, to reduce the likelihood of recruitment or (worse)
> extortion. We believe that some of the individuals impacted by this policy
> change were also themselves in danger, not only the people whose personal
> information they could have been forced to access.
>
> Today, the Foundation has rolled out a second phase of addressing
> infiltration concerns, which has resulted in sweeping actions in one of the
> two currently affected jurisdictions. We have banned seven users and
> desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into
> activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of
> Mainland China.[3] We have also reached out to a number of other editors
> with explanations around canvassing guidelines and doxing policies and
> requests to modify their behaviors.
>
> When it comes to office actions, the Wikimedia Foundation typically
> defaults to little public communication, but this case is unprecedented in
> scope and nature. While there remain limits to what we can reveal in order
> to protect the safety and privacy of users in that country and in that
> unrecognized group, I want to acknowledge that this action is a radical one
> and that this decision was not easily made. We struggled with not wanting
> to discourage and destroy the efforts of good faith users in China who have
> worked so hard to fight for free and open knowledge, including some of
> those involved in this group. We do not want them to fear that their
> contributions are unwelcome. We also could not risk exposing them to danger
> by doing nothing to protect them after we became aware of credible threats
> to their safety.
>
> While some time ago we limited the exposure of personal information to
> users in mainland China, we know that there has been the kind of
> infiltration we describe above in the project. And we know that some users
> have been physically harmed as a result. With this confirmed, we 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikipedia issues in UNDARK.org #Opinion article to check...

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I believe this is for the first time I see a person who is active in the
Wikimedia movement and does not know who Mike Godwin is.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 7:09 PM  wrote:

> >Mike is not an employee nor a spokesperson for the
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Oh, thanks.
>
> I don't know who he is.  His manner led me to believe he represented the
> WMF in some capacity.
>
> Someone who downplays the danger of far-right activism within education is
> either ignorant or some kind of nazi themselves.
>
>
> MC
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Blocking users for Palestinian flag

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I do not know. Whoever puts a userbox "I support slavery" on their user
page on the English Wikipedia invites a fast block does not matter what
their edits in the articles are.

I do not think there is a universal answer to this question.

Yaroslav

On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 1:31 PM Satdeep Gill  wrote:

> But was there something in the editing. People should be free to say FREE
> TIBET in their user pages, for instance but can be really reasonable
> editors.
>
> In a way, we are also unbiased and neutral point of view is something we
> all look upto but can never trully achieve.
>
> Best
> Satdeep
>
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2021, 4:57 PM Peter Southwood 
> wrote:
>
>> The problem is which political opinions would be acceptable on a user
>> page, and who gets to decide this. We are expected to edit neutrally, so
>> expressing a political opinion on a user page could be  considered a
>> declaration of partisanship which could extend to editing behaviour.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Peter
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Frederick Noronha [mailto:fredericknoro...@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 30 June 2021 00:57
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List
>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Blocking users for Palestinian flag
>>
>>
>>
>> Just seeking clarity:
>>
>> Is there anything wrong with expressing a political opinion on a
>> userpage?
>>
>> A lot of our badges, flags, icons might have some or the other political
>> history behind them, just that these are seen as more "normal" by today's
>> standards. At one time, slavery too was considered quite legal.
>>
>> Can't this be discussed in the public domain?
>>
>> FN
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 30 Jun 2021 at 03:34, Gereon Kalkuhl  wrote:
>>
>> Dear 4nn1|2,
>>
>> Thank you for informing us about the incident. But to be clear: You write
>> that it's about a Palestinian flag. Yet actually it's about a flag with a
>> statement: free Palestine. There's a difference. And a member of the
>> Persian Wikipedia removed the deletion request on Commons and kept the file
>> on the same day. I'm not judging anything here, but please be more precise
>> in your accusations.
>>
>> Thank you,
>> Gereon
>>
>> Am 29.06.2021 um 20:34 schrieb Amir Sarabadani:
>>
>> If anyone is interested to know about this incident. Send me a private
>> message and I can explain better.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 8:17 PM 4nn1l2 <4nn1l2.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Wikimedians,
>>
>>
>>
>> Persian Wikipedia has reached a new level in their arbitrary and
>> nonesense adminship. They have blocked me for placing a Palestinian flag on
>> my userpage (of course they have already removed it from my userpage and
>> you need to see a previous revision of my userpage).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> https://fa.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B1:4nn1l2=32191672
>>
>>
>>
>> Another user has nominated the file for deletion on Commons!
>>
>>
>>
>> I am admin on Commons myself and I'm fed up with how fawiki is managed.
>> They block users for the most friviolous reasons.
>>
>>
>>
>> What does this mean?
>>
>>
>>
>> Yours faithfully,
>>
>> User:4nn1l2
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Amir (he/him)
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
>>
>> _/  FN * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا‎ +91-9822122436
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Join “CEE Spring” on Wikipedia to help discover Ukraine to the world

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thanks Anton. Let us hope that it works.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 5:56 PM Anton Protsiuk <
anton.prots...@wikimedia.org.ua> wrote:

> Thanks for your work, Yaroslav!
>
> Although this challenge is obviously not focused on the specific problem
> you mentioned, we do pay attention to improving articles in general. For
> example, as noted in the announcement, we have prepared the list of most
> important stubs for each CEE language edition:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Spring_2021/Structure/Ukraine/Stubs
>
> The contest in general is also not focused only on creating new articles,
> though specifics might depend on each language edition. For example, in the
> Ukrainian-language edition of the contest, which ran throughout April, we
> were trying to incentivize improvement of existing articles in various
> ways; we'll try to share lessons learned with the international community
> once the results are ready.
>
> Best Regards
> Anton Protsiuk
> Program Coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine
>
>
> On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 6:39 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
>> Not to undermine an importance of creation of new articles, but to note
>> that after the reform of the administrative divisions of Ukraine in July
>> 2020 dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of articles across many projects
>> now contain wrong information (well, not up-to-date information). In the
>> English Wikipedia, I was correcting it pretty much single-handedly since
>> the last year, and I will probably finish correcting it by the end of this
>> year (though occasionally I see people reverting me saying "information is
>> redundant" or smth similar). I see that on all other projects, including
>> Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedias which I would normally expect to take the
>> lead, the articles about Ukrainian localities still contain this outdated
>> information. I do not really expect to be acknowledged for this (looks like
>> almost nobody cares), but a bit of attention to already existing articles
>> would probably not harm.
>>
>> Best
>> Yaroslav
>>
>> On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 4:16 PM Anton Protsiuk <
>> anton.prots...@wikimedia.org.ua> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi everyone!
>>>
>>> By the end of May, we at Wikimedia Ukraine invite everyone to join CEE
>>> Spring (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Spring_2021) to
>>> help discover Ukraine to the world.
>>>
>>> The contest is devoted to improving Wikipedia content about Central and
>>> Eastern Europe across multiple languages; the Central & Eastern European
>>> community of Wikimedians has organized it every year since 2015.
>>>
>>> Of course, you can write about many different CEE countries and regions
>>> within the contest, but we at Wikimedia Ukraine are planning to send
>>> special souvenirs for most active contributors to articles about Ukraine
>>> specifically ;)
>>>
>>> For the first time, we prepared the top-10 most important articles about
>>> Ukraine that are missing (red links) for each CEE Wikipedia (
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=11313069) and the top-10 important
>>> articles that are too short for each CEE Wikipedia (
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=11313068).
>>>
>>> And we also have the general top-100 list with important topics missing
>>> in many Wikipedias: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10583331
>>>
>>> You can read the full announcement (and share it to help us spread the
>>> world) here:
>>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/05/06/join-cee-spring-on-wikipedia-to-help-discover-ukraine-to-the-world/
>>>
>>> Best Regards
>>> Anton Protsiuk
>>> Program Coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Join “CEE Spring” on Wikipedia to help discover Ukraine to the world

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Ciell,

thanks a lot.

I am using this for the new districts (raions)

https://www.minregion.gov.ua/press/news/novi-rajony-karty-sklad/

and this for hromadas (sub-district divisions)

https://gromada.info/ru/region/%D0%94%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F-%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD/

(this is just an example, one would need to use dropdown menu to go to
other items).

but unfortunately none of these is in English, and I am not aware of the
English sources. Currently, on the English Wikipedia I have done Chernihiv,
Cherkasi, Chernovtsi, and Ternopil Oblasts (4 out of 24), everything
related to them should be up to date (I might have made typos, which is
inevitable with this number of edits, but I hope I did not introduce
serious errors). Currently I am doing Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. All pages on
raions should be up to date, there is still some work to do, but at least
they do not contain wrong information.

I will be happy to answer any questions. It is probably easier onwiki, my
username is Ymblanter.

Best regards
Yaroslav

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 9:52 PM Ciell Wikipedia 
wrote:

> Hi Yaroslav,
>
> Is there a (online) source for the new administrative divisions we can
> base our edits on?
> I'm sure several people across different languages on this list would like
> to help out with the updates.
>
> Vriendelijke groet,
> Ciell
>
>
> Op vr 7 mei 2021 om 17:38 schreef Yaroslav Blanter :
>
>> Not to undermine an importance of creation of new articles, but to note
>> that after the reform of the administrative divisions of Ukraine in July
>> 2020 dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of articles across many projects
>> now contain wrong information (well, not up-to-date information). In the
>> English Wikipedia, I was correcting it pretty much single-handedly since
>> the last year, and I will probably finish correcting it by the end of this
>> year (though occasionally I see people reverting me saying "information is
>> redundant" or smth similar). I see that on all other projects, including
>> Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedias which I would normally expect to take the
>> lead, the articles about Ukrainian localities still contain this outdated
>> information. I do not really expect to be acknowledged for this (looks like
>> almost nobody cares), but a bit of attention to already existing articles
>> would probably not harm.
>>
>> Best
>> Yaroslav
>>
>> On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 4:16 PM Anton Protsiuk <
>> anton.prots...@wikimedia.org.ua> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi everyone!
>>>
>>> By the end of May, we at Wikimedia Ukraine invite everyone to join CEE
>>> Spring (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Spring_2021) to
>>> help discover Ukraine to the world.
>>>
>>> The contest is devoted to improving Wikipedia content about Central and
>>> Eastern Europe across multiple languages; the Central & Eastern European
>>> community of Wikimedians has organized it every year since 2015.
>>>
>>> Of course, you can write about many different CEE countries and regions
>>> within the contest, but we at Wikimedia Ukraine are planning to send
>>> special souvenirs for most active contributors to articles about Ukraine
>>> specifically ;)
>>>
>>> For the first time, we prepared the top-10 most important articles about
>>> Ukraine that are missing (red links) for each CEE Wikipedia (
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=11313069) and the top-10 important
>>> articles that are too short for each CEE Wikipedia (
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=11313068).
>>>
>>> And we also have the general top-100 list with important topics missing
>>> in many Wikipedias: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10583331
>>>
>>> You can read the full announcement (and share it to help us spread the
>>> world) here:
>>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/05/06/join-cee-spring-on-wikipedia-to-help-discover-ukraine-to-the-world/
>>>
>>> Best Regards
>>> Anton Protsiuk
>>> Program Coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine
>>> ___
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Join “CEE Spring” on Wikipedia to help discover Ukraine to the world

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Not to undermine an importance of creation of new articles, but to note
that after the reform of the administrative divisions of Ukraine in July
2020 dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of articles across many projects
now contain wrong information (well, not up-to-date information). In the
English Wikipedia, I was correcting it pretty much single-handedly since
the last year, and I will probably finish correcting it by the end of this
year (though occasionally I see people reverting me saying "information is
redundant" or smth similar). I see that on all other projects, including
Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedias which I would normally expect to take the
lead, the articles about Ukrainian localities still contain this outdated
information. I do not really expect to be acknowledged for this (looks like
almost nobody cares), but a bit of attention to already existing articles
would probably not harm.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 4:16 PM Anton Protsiuk <
anton.prots...@wikimedia.org.ua> wrote:

> Hi everyone!
>
> By the end of May, we at Wikimedia Ukraine invite everyone to join CEE
> Spring (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Spring_2021) to
> help discover Ukraine to the world.
>
> The contest is devoted to improving Wikipedia content about Central and
> Eastern Europe across multiple languages; the Central & Eastern European
> community of Wikimedians has organized it every year since 2015.
>
> Of course, you can write about many different CEE countries and regions
> within the contest, but we at Wikimedia Ukraine are planning to send
> special souvenirs for most active contributors to articles about Ukraine
> specifically ;)
>
> For the first time, we prepared the top-10 most important articles about
> Ukraine that are missing (red links) for each CEE Wikipedia (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=11313069) and the top-10 important
> articles that are too short for each CEE Wikipedia (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=11313068).
>
> And we also have the general top-100 list with important topics missing in
> many Wikipedias: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10583331
>
> You can read the full announcement (and share it to help us spread the
> world) here:
> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/05/06/join-cee-spring-on-wikipedia-to-help-discover-ukraine-to-the-world/
>
> Best Regards
> Anton Protsiuk
> Program Coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New feature from Community Tech: Watchlist Expiry

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thanks Ilana, this is great.

Yaroslav

On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 1:26 AM Ilana Fried  wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm very excited to announce a new feature created by the Community Tech
> [1] team: Watchlist Expiry. With this feature, you can optionally select
> to watch a page for a temporary period of time. This feature is now
> available on all wikis. It was developed in response to the #7 request[2]
> in the 2019 Community Wishlist Survey[3]. To learn more, you can check out
> the Help:Watchlist_Expiry[4] page on Mediawiki.org, as well as the project
> page[5]. Since this is a new feature, we invite you to share your feedback. 
> Thank
> you, and we look forward to checking out your feedback on the project talk
> page![6]
>
> Thank you!
>
> Ilana Fried
>
> Product Manager, Community Tech
>
> [1]. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech
>
> [2].
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2019/Watchlists/Watchlist_item_expiration
>
> [3]. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2019
>
> [4]. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Watchlist_expiry
>
> [5]. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Watchlist_Expiry
>
> [6]. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Tech/Watchlist_Expiry
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A Universal Code of Conduct draft for review

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Natacha,

I am not opposed to UCoC but I am afraid you have unrealistic expectations.

We do have serious behavioral problems in the big communities. One of them,
for example, is that the general tone of discussions is very aggressive and
prevents some categories of users, for example, women, from participating.
A completely different one is a proliferation of POV pushers in all
possible topics. However, UCoC will not solve these problems. It will not
solve any problems of the French Wikipedia.

The point is that big projects  had twenty years to solve behavioral
issues, and have developed an extensive system of policies and guidelines
to deal with them. In some cases, policies are missing because the
communities were not able to come up with a good solution, acceptable for
everyone, and it is very naive to think that a small dedicated group will
be able to develop something better in two months. I see that it does not
even pretend doing this, which is a good thing, but even if they were
thinking they know better than the communities such UCoC were impossible to
enforce. Another reason sometimes is that policies already exist but are
not fully enforced - and here UCoC will not help either, the projects must
look themselves and figure out why the policies are not enforced.

Where UCoC can potentially help are small projects without well-developed
conduct policies. A few year ago, a user was blocked on the Acehnese
Wikipedia for something that the admin thought is an insult to Islam (I
believe posting non-offensive images of people but I muight be wrong). On
the Chechen Wikipedia, a user was blocked for stating that Chechnya is part
of Russia. A couple of years ago, a user was blocked on the Amcharic
Wikipedia, and the admin said openly gay users are not allowed to edit
because this is contrary to Ethiopian tradition. The Croatian Wikipedia is
essentially governed by a clique blocking everybody who disagrees, and
nobody can do anything about it. These are the showcases where UCoC may be
(or even might be) instrumental, and only if one thinks very well what the
instruments could be. Not on the big projects.

Best
Yaroslav

On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 8:55 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> A code of conduct id something many of us have asked the WMF to write for
> many years. We are asking the WMF to take an active part in stopping
> abusive behaviors in our community.
>
> On fr wiki, many admins say they are tired of conflicts and that they did
> not enroll to deal with them. A code of conduct could help then take action
> because it offers a frame.
>
> This is COMPLETELY different with the branding process.
>
> We are one of the few projects in the open source world without a code of
> conduct.
>
> So thank you for this draft, thank you for opening up for discussions, and
> I hope the language will remain respectful.
>
> I believe moderators should ban from this list the person who spoke about
> « wmf flatulence ».
>
>
>  I dont want to read that type of language among people who are supposedly
> asked to write neutral enccyclopedias.
>
> It puts pressure and stress on those who would like to answer on this
> thread, it sets an aggressive climate.
>
> Please could we all feel empowered to  apply our founding principles and
> refuse any such language here and on meta in these discussions?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Nattes à chat
>
>
> Envoyé de mon iPhone
>
> > Le 10 sept. 2020 à 03:53, Gnangarra  a écrit :
> >
> > Yair
> >
> > I was in the room in 2017 when the first community consultation on the
> > strategy program took place. Affiliates were asked to send a person
> > specifically for the strategy process, and  WMF also invited some other
> > community members. There was absolutely no coercion, or control over what
> > topics were raised during those discussions. The program was not run by
> the
> > WMF and everyone was free to contribute any ideas they had, as the
> program
> > went on we chose which areas and topics we wanted to be the focus. Trust
> > and safety, and user conduct were areas that were identified as necessary
> > to the future development of the movement. This process has been open for
> > ideas, comments, and suggestions. Yes the WMF has funded the process but
> > every choice has been made by community members without any duress or
> > reward as to where each step lead.
> >
> > As someone who actively runs projects for the last 10 years to bring in
> new
> > contributors, I have concerns about the UCoC process in giving advantages
> > to those who have been around longer but that is not something that will
> be
> > unique to this as its already an issue in all projects where the new
> person
> > is the one frequently dismissed as wrong when there is a clash between
> > them and someone who has been around long enough to be known.
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 at 09:11, Yair Rand  wrote:
> >>
> >> The UCoC is obviously a 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I just want to comment on one particular point made by Pete.

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 8:27 PM Pete Forsyth  wrote:

> Institutional memory is important BOTH to staff of WMF, AND to the
> volunteer community.
>
> I think both you and I, Michael, have blurred these two issues to some
> degree. It would be possible for (a) WMF to fully and privately document
> the relevant history (which could be a function of top-down leadership
> and/or staff culture), and for (b) volunteers to fully and publicly
> document relevant history (growing out of volunteer culture, presumably
> with some input from staff).
>
> Whereas this is correct as a general statement, in practice, volunteers
can not document the institutional history. This documentation can not be a
bottom-up process similar to writing a Wikipedia article. For a very simple
reason: There are many viewpoints at every particular event, and the
documentation of volunteers will inevitably reflect one of the points.
Sure, one person can write an analysis of a particular incident from their
point of view, or even a book on the history of Wikipedia. This person can
be a knowledgeable volunteer having general trust of the community or it
could be a user under a site ban. However, a collective product will
inevitably face the necessity of choice. In writing a Wikipedia article, we
use reliable sources to select material (and when reliable sources clash,
we usually face a disaster). Here, we are talking about the events which no
reliable sources describe in detail. An organization can document them on a
basis of performed investigation. A single person can document them on the
basis of their memory and experience. But I do not see how any grassroot
collaboration could be possible here. Any attempt to document these things
from the volunteer side would lead to projects similar to V-ocracy (which
already happened in some languages).

Best regards
Yaroslav



>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sexual harassment

[Yaroslav Blanter]

In addition, (English Wikipedia) ANI can reasonably well deal with one or
several highly problematic diffs, but very often we have a long pattern
which can result in a long series of diffs, so that each one is
unproblematic or slightly problematic, but all together thay may constitute
a harassment pattern and make the victim feel very unpleasant. ANI is
absolutely not capable of dealing with this situation, and usually ArbCom
can not handle it either. In my situation, I overreacted a couple of times,
and then every time I would try to raise the question at best it would be
called "keeping old grudges" and I was advised to "grow thick skin", but
more often that it was told it was my fault and in fact it was harassment
from my side. ArbCom was not capable of performing any better. To be
honest, I do not see how T can perform better either. An investigation of
such situation would require wading through thousands of diffs and
reconstructing the whole episodes, and I just do not see how this can be
done.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 12:57 PM Gnangarra  wrote:

> The whole purpose of harassing someone is to put them under pressure, to
> make the victim upset and force them away from editing. Creating a clear
> list
> of problematic diffs and an unbiased, unemotional recounting of events is
> impossible during the incident, when all thats desired is to have the
> immediate abuse stopped.  Emotive language is a call for help, seasoned
> abusers know how to play the game AN/I and the community knows them so when
> they boo the community accepts their version. At AN/I and as Vermont
> explain its the victim that has to be restrain their language, its the
> victim that  has to be calm, its the victim that has to clearly lay out all
> the diffs, its the victim that has to recount/relive the whole of the
> abuse.  The victim is not at fault but until the system supports the victim
> the problems of in grained abuse and hostility by old hands is going to
> remain.
>
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 17:51, Chris Gates via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > I see.
> >
> > The English Wikipedia, and most projects in general (from my experience),
> > are not perfect at handling problems with established editors.
> >
> > This is to be expected. However, there’s some element of draconian secret
> > policing present in having a brigade of T employees handling any and
> all
> > conduct issues. We ha e local communities, and in most cases they are
> > successful in handling issues, but when an editor’s social clout is
> > involved, and/or when there’s incivility/harassment from multiple
> parties,
> > it quickly becomes a larger issue that often ends with little to no
> action.
> >
> > With this issue specifically, it’s minor and local community functions
> > would very likely have been able to manage it properly had the
> discussions
> > continued. The formation of the messages also help determine the
> outcome; a
> > message saying they were told to report there with no links but one to
> the
> > editor’s userpage is not very helpful for people viewing it. A list of
> > problematic diffs and an unbiased, unemotional recounting of events is
> > quite helpful for those viewing it. The latter is much likely to result
> > successfully than the former.
> >
> > Also, T actions are not quick and easy either. Their investigations are
> > usually quite extensive and take equally extensive periods of time.
> > Communities act quicker, and though the volunteers may be affected more
> by
> > personal prejudice than employees of the WMF, we are a collaborative
> > project that relies on community input.
> >
> > Hopefully the UCoC is successful with setting reasonable definitions and
> > expectations for community enforcement of conduct policies, though in my
> > view larger projects are not the most pressing issue to be addressed by
> the
> > UCoC. This instance of sexual harassment is minor when viewed in
> > perspective. It’s clearly uncivil and a problem, and we don’t know how
> the
> > ANI section would have ended up if continued (though I would have
> supported
> > a strong warning and block if it continued, perhaps an IBAN), but it
> could
> > have been handled locally. Take a look at most projects with under 30
> > admins. Small community, usually tightly knit, with entrenched
> hierarchies
> > of social clout. Those projects are where extreme incivility, blatant
> > bigotry, and clearly biased administrative actions occur most often. Not
> to
> > mention non-harassment/incivility issues like copyright violations,
> > backwards policies, and historical revisionism, completely ignored by
> local
> > administrators, which hopefully at some point can be mitigated as well.
> >
> > Regarding Fæ’s email, it would be interesting and useful to see a study
> on
> > boomerangs at ANI. It does seem prevalent for newer editors, experiencing
> > biting from more established editors, to be unable to seek 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board update on Branding: Briefing postponement

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thank you Zack for the update, much appreciated.

Best regards
Yaroslav

On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 7:14 PM Zack McCune  wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> Heather Walls and I met with much of the Board of Trustees on July 28 to
> provide an informational briefing on the strategy, history, and process of
> the Brand Project. We shared milestones up until recent events including
> the RfC, the open letter, and the survey (but not survey results). We also
> answered preliminary questions and committed to resolving other questions
> that come up.
>
> The brand project team is preparing for our upcoming Board meeting where we
> will decide next steps. The 2-day in-person Board of Trustees meeting
> originally scheduled to coincide with Wikimania in early August, has now
> been moved to a series of virtual meetings over the last two weeks of
> September.
>
> For reference, the Brand Project team has added the materials that were
> shared with the Board of Trustees to our project page. [1]
>
> Cheers,
>
> - Zack
>
> [1]
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_movement_brand_project#See_also
>
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 3:43 PM Todd Allen  wrote:
>
> > And, how might one view it?
> >
> > Todd
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 11:29 AM Zack McCune 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello all -
> > >
> > > A quick update on timing: this Board briefing has been rescheduled for
> > July
> > > 28th.
> > >
> > > thanks,
> > >
> > > - Zack
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 6:24 AM João Alexandre Peschanski <
> > > joa...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Thanks for the update Nataliia. I hope he or she is feeling better.
> > Best,
> > > > João
> > > >
> > > > Em qua., 8 de jul. de 2020 às 14:44, Nataliia Tymkiv <
> > > > ntym...@wikimedia.org>
> > > > escreveu:
> > > >
> > > > >  Hello! Just a quick update: the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
> > Trustees
> > > > was
> > > > > notified by staff on the night of July 7th that the briefing of
> July
> > > 8th
> > > > > needs to be rescheduled because of the illness of one of the key
> > staff
> > > > > members. We are looking for a new date before the August board
> > meeting,
> > > > and
> > > > > we shall share an updated timeline in a few days.
> > > > >
> > > > > Best regards,
> > > > > antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
> > > > > Vice Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> > > > >
> > > > > *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal
> > > > working
> > > > > hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during
> weekend.
> > > You
> > > > > should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank
> > you
> > > in
> > > > > advance!*
> > > > > ___
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Zack McCune (he/him)
> > >
> > > Director of Brand
> > >
> > > Wikimedia Foundation 
> > > ___
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>
>
>
> --
>
> Zack McCune (he/him)
>
> Director of Brand
>
> Wikimedia Foundation 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Universal Code of Conduct Drafting Committee - Call for participation

[Yaroslav Blanter]

It is known and widely recognized that online communities were excluded
from the strategy process. There was no way one could open RfC on the
process, and no approval of the strategy by the editing communities.

This has to be fixed now. It is difficult to fix, because there are already
too many boundary conditions attached, and I am personally trying to do
whatever I can as a member of the transition strategy group.

On the other hand, there was no real RfC rejecting the UCoC (at least I am
not aware of one), even though many users, in particular, on the English
Wikipedia in relation to the Fram affair, were very vocal about this. But
people become vocal about many things, some of them, for example, continue
to advocate that we should fork from the existing project and this forking
is the only way forward. People say many things, and we have community
processes to see what is consensus and what is not.

In the current situation, specifically concerning UCoC, is to wait for the
draft / drafting principle, whatever comes on 24 august. If many people
think the product is not acceptable they should open RfC on meta or on the
projects and see whether there is consensus it is unacceptable. For these
RfCs to happen, but for this people should really follow the process, read
the draft and see what the consequences are. If online communities are not
involved in this process either, then things will go over and over again -
UCOc accepted as proposed, included into ToU, followed by a couple of
high-profile bans, shistorm in the most active communities, and complete
denial by WMF managers. We have been there and we do not want this
happening again.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 5:55 PM Anders Wennersten 
wrote:

> If you choose to not take active part in he strategy process it it your
> privilege.  But the fact is that the Strategy is the steering document
> now for the nearest activities in the Movement. And the endorsments are
> there to be read.
>
> If you had wanted the endorsement to be visible in the form of a Rfc,
> you missed to express that in an appropriate  moment.
>
> Anders
>
> (This being my third entry, it will be my last)
>
>
>
> Den 2020-07-31 kl. 17:38, skrev Todd Allen:
> > I have read that, but do not see any public RfC nor any individual
> > statements.
> >
> > Todd
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 9:34 AM Anders Wennersten <
> m...@anderswennersten.se>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Read
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20
> >> and people involved supporting it and endorsing its different phases
> >>
> >> Anders
> >>
> >> Den 2020-07-31 kl. 17:28, skrev Todd Allen:
> >>> Where was the public RfC that these "700 individuals" participated in?
> >> The
> >>> one I saw, which took place on Meta, was, again, a very firm "No".
> >>>
> >>> Off-wiki backchanneling stuff doesn't count.
> >>>
> >>> Todd
> >>>
> >>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 9:18 AM Anders Wennersten <
> >> m...@anderswennersten.se>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
>  The development of the Code of Conduct is part of the Strategy. The
>  strategy and this part was endorsed by some 700 individuals
> representing
>  more or less all parts of the Movement. And that group is the closest
> we
>  have seen resembling a government body of the movement. But as in a
>  democracy, even if the parliament is unanimous in a decision, it does
>  not mean all citizens, or even groups of citizens, agree. But is the
>  best way we know how to come to a decision.
> 
>  And how to implent it is still open, and will most likely involve all
>  parties being effected by it
> 
>  Anders
> 
>  Den 2020-07-31 kl. 16:28, skrev Todd Allen:
> > Uh, guys?
> >
> > That was a firm "No" on any Universal Code of Conduct. There
> shouldn't
>  be a
> > "drafting committee" for it, it was disapproved.
> >
> > Todd
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 11:49 AM Christel Steigenberger <
> > csteigenber...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello everyone,
> >>
> >>
> >> We are happy to announce that the Universal Code of Conduct drafting
> >> committee has been assembled. We had 26 volunteers apply, either by
> >> publicly signing up on the Meta page, or by sending an email.
> >> Volunteers
> >> from 18 different countries applied, speaking 11 different
> languages.
> >>
> >> We had Wikimedian applicants with different levels of experience
>  on-wiki,
> >> from someone who started editing only last year to people who have
> >> been
> >> editing for more than 18 years and/or have more than 300,000 edits.
> >> Applicants held a variety of different roles within the movement,
> and
>  also
> >> informed us about interesting and relevant experiences in their
>  real-life
> >> careers. It was very hard to narrow down from this diverse and
> >> extremely
> >> qualified pool of applicants.
> >>
> >> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia coediting spaces?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Teemu,

do you mean a cafe run by the WMF or an affiliate? How is this compatible
with the non-profit status? Or is there smth I misunderstand?

Best
Yaroslav

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 2:15 PM Leinonen Teemu 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Have there ever been a serious discussion on the idea of having a network
> of Wikipedia branded (co)editing spaces / coffee shops / tea rooms around
> the world?
>
> They could work so that a chapter may apply from the WMF a license to run
> a Wikipedia coediting coffee shop. The WMF could provide some basic things
> such as Wikipedia branded coffee cups, barista aprons and specification of
> the tables, chairs, menu etc. Each Wikipedia coediting space could also
> offer some local delicacies.
>
> The coediting space could seek for profit (shared between the chapter and
> the WMF?), but the primary aim would be to be self-sustainable.
>
> I am sure there are some cons, but I made a quick list of pros:
>
> * Outreach and education
> * Community building
> * Jobs for Wikipedians
> * Fun places for all Wikipedians to visit when in town
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> - Teemu
>
> ---
> http://www.teemuleinonen.fi
> + 358 50 351 6796
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Local partnerships and funding sources towards multilingual Wiki-Smart Humanity

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thank you.

This actually worries me a lot. If I read it correctly, we will get a kind
of Wiki-Resident, but not with a cultural and educational institution but
with the local government of one of the most populous and influential
subjects of the Russian Federation. I do not think we previously had a
similar situation. In a distant past, we had a user who was hired by the
tourist office (not the government) of Gibraltar, and this is usually
regarded as a complete disaster. We also usually have serious opposition to
the intervention of governments to the editing of Wikipedia, the last
example was in May when the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry was running an
editing contest. I think at the very least the projects must be informed,
and I would not be surprised if for example the community of the English
Wikipedia strongly opposes the initiative.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 12:06 AM Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin <
f...@yandex.com> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> This is
>
> 1 to introduce a reworked concept for Wiki-Smart Humanity ([[m:WISH]],
> https://w.wiki/QGD ) project page
>
> 2 to update you on the groundwork in Tatarstan and around Russia for
> growing local and regional public support for Wikimedia community projects,
> as well as discussions about funding Outreach and other local activities
> (since my previous report back in early April https://w.wiki/MFm )
>
> 3 to inform you of the upcoming pilot regional procurement tender
> initiated by one of our partners as the easiest way for them to incentivize
> multilingual article creation and improvement regarding important regional
> phenomena of Tatarstan.
>
> Below you will find detailed description of for each point above. Comments
> would be greatly appreciated.
>
> regards,
> farhad
>
> P.S. I am in an uncharted territory, so very grateful to all Russia and
> international colleagues that help me with listening, advice and ideas.
> Tatar is a  non-dominant language community, though in a much better shape
> than many others around the world - this opens my eyes to the reality that
> long-term preservation of currently living human languages (over 7000) and
> their inherent riches of cultural knowledge would require significantly
> more effort, funding and attention than needed to have enWP, ruWP, trWP and
> all others in official state languages of UN member countries (about 50) to
> describe everything that's currently missing. We are talking about amounts
> that no fundraising will ever bring - something that can only be achieved
> by staying true to the powerful Wikimedia Vision and aspiring to win the
> hearts of our existing and potential volunteers for them to be ready and
> willing to help us with something much more precious than money.
> --
> Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 /
> skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
>
>
> 1) [[m:WISH]] (https://w.wiki/QGD) is community-supported (myself so far)
> undertaking to collect and chart initiatives that bring us closer to
> Wikimedia vision:
> - various initiatives that help making all forms, types and categories of
> knowledge equally well described in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects,
> - as well as those that help make everyone a Wikimedian.
>
> No individual or even a group can give equal attention and priority to
> everything in the world, but we can chart initiatives that help us to move
> towards the world where things are more equal. This started as a Meta-page
> for the project around regions, languages, and different topic-specific
> initiatives I started in Wikimedia Russia wiki, but Meta offered a great
> chance to bring together similar initiatives that exist elsewhere.
>
>
> 2) I am in Kazan (Republic of Tatarstan / Russian Federation), so that's
> where I start with regarding the Russia-regions' specific part of m:WISH -
> https://w.wiki/WDk My first priority is to make editing Wikipedia and
> other Wikimedia projects something widely respected, so I'm working with
> institutional partners.
>
> Locally I am still in touch with or contacted since last update:
> * Tatarstan Presidential Administration (description https://w.wiki/WDz )
> * Municipality of Kazan (description https://w.wiki/MFH / stats by
> Wikimedia projects https://w.wiki/JZh in Russian)
> * Tatarstan Tourism board (description https://w.wiki/WDD / lists
> https://w.wiki/WDC )
> * Tatarstan Investment Promotion Agency (description https://w.wiki/MFL /
> articles for creation list https://w.wiki/PSU ) and
> * Tatarstan Ministry for Culture (proposal in Russian https://w.wiki/R7g)
>
> Russia's Wikimedians helped me in reaching out to Moscow Trade and
> Industry Chamber Committee on cross-regional and international cooperation,
> as well as National Tourism Union - I spoke about Wikimedia opportunities
> for growing international awareness about regional realities (
> https://w.wiki/Qht in Russian) at their joint Online meeting on "Tourism
> post 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board Update on Branding

[Yaroslav Blanter]

That one first, and second that it does not even matter. We should
appreciate that Nat came up with this statement, which is written in her
name, not even as a Board resolution, perfectly knowing that it would not
be fully accepted by the active part of the community, and she woull be a
target of attacks. I fully agree that the attacks are absolutely uncalled
for, even if many of us find the statement insufficient.

We are clearly in the middle of a pretty deep crisis (which was, to be
honest, fully predictable) and we must welcome all efforts to deal with the
crisis. It is unfortunate that these crises come all over and over again,
and I believe this is a structural problem (there is some helpful
discussion at the Meta talk page, which will probably not follow up as
similar discussions have never been followed up previously). This is not a
situation created by the current Board members, and whereas they are
partially responsible for not solving it (in the same sense they are
responsible for everything happening in the WikiVerse), there is no reason
they should resign over it.

Best regards
Yaroslav

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 9:56 AM revi  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > 2020. 6. 23. 14:13, Gnangarra  작성:
> >
> > Nat insulted an ESEAP
> > affiliate because she wanted a European affiliate to endorse her
> > nomination.
>
> Fact check: that was Shani Evanstein.
>
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Nominations/Shani_Evenstein
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An encyclopedia must be conservative (?)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Ziko,

there is a long-standing problem of recentism. There are a lot of Wikipedia
articles which are only based on new sources (though reliable) and not on
serious academic literature. There are some which contain zero encyclopedic
information because they basically only retell the news stories. There are
twe whole classes of articles which are not even written in prose, such as
all COVID-19 article (with a couple of exceptions). I have just given up at
some point, I think we are beyond the point of no return. As soon as we are
working on really notable topics and their quality is improving and not
degrading I can live with this.

This is just one aspect of what you mention but I think an important one.

Best
Yaroslav

On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 3:36 PM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> Dear fellows,
>
> Some time ago, Joseph Reagle wrote that an encyclopedia must be
> progressive. In my personal view, something "progressive" sounds to me
> intuitively more sympathetic than something "conservative". But of course,
> these are only two words loaden with meaning, and reality is always more
> complex.
>
> It seems to me that many Wikipedians or Wikimedians think of themselves as
> being progressive and modern. Our wikis are a tribute to science and
> enlightenment. Spontaneity and a laissez-faire-attitude are held in high
> regard; "productive chaos" and "anarchy" are typical for wikis.
>
> When I had a closer look at our values and ideas, I got the impression that
> the opposite is true. Many attitudes and ideals sound to me more like
> bureaucracy and traditionalism:
> * being thorough, with regard to content and writing about it
> * community spirit
> * treating everyone equally without regard of the person (the highest ideal
> of the Prussian civil servant)
> * individual initiative
> * reliability
>
> What do you think? Is this just my personal or national background, or has
> Wikipedia been build up on a different basis than we usually tell ourselves
> and others?
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Trust and safety on Wikimedia projects

[Yaroslav Blanter]

We of course do not have as many problematic uploads as FB does (and to be
honest having a personal experience I am not really impressed with the
quality of their moderators), but we still get several hundreds of obvious
copyright violations per day uploaded to Commons, and several hundreds junk
articles started and not passed the new page patrol barrier in the English
Wikipedia (deleted or draftified forever). I am sure we have a similar
situation in other big projects. All these things are cleaned up by a very
few people who are on top of the time lost for these tasks also subject to
constant abuse. Note that I am not saying that WMF must pay admins
compensation (still stronger, I will likely leave WMF projects if it starts
doing so), but the problem of emotional drain of those who are dealing with
this shit on a daily basis is real. I am afraid though it has no solution,
because we know that the obvious solution - get more people - does not work.

I am not even talking about off-wiki harassment - which in my experience is
more rare but much stronger because you do not know how real are the
threats. Last time I had to report to the police. This one has no solution
either.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 6:08 PM Chris Gates via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> With regard to the issue Facebook is having, if that were to become an
> issue on Wikimedia projects something likely would have happened already.
> The majority of disturbing content is handled by volunteers, and that which
> T handles is often sent to them by volunteers.
>
> Also, given the relatively complicated upload process (compared to
> Facebook), we simply don’t get nearly as many problematic uploads as they
> do.
>
> On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 09:19 Gnangarra  wrote:
>
> > Is  anyone not already aware of the recent issue facing Facebook over
> > compensation for moderators
> > https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/12/facebook-moderators-ptsd-settlement/
> >  To
> > me there appears to be potential risk that the Board and the WMF must
> > consider in relation to any role that involves any form of moderation;
> >
> >1. is there a problem with setting standards against harassment, toxic
> >behavior, and incivility that is at a minimum equal, understandable,
> and
> >respected on all projects, committees, affiliates, events and
> everything
> >else we do
> >2. is there concern about being asked to contribute at these standards
> >3. is the concern how much the WMF needs to be part of the process, or
> >4. how long it should be allowed to go unaddressed before its
> escalated.
> >
> > I go back way to far back I remember a group targeted stalking of female
> > admins,  I was part of a group of admins that were willing to take action
> > against this group. We lost some very good people during that,
>  Harassment
> > has been an on going issue for all my 15 years, we had some the worst
> > people become tool holders, others have just created 1,000's of socks.
> > There are still people contributing today that are trolls, and harassers
> > contributing today, we know that our failures to deal with it effectively
> > and quickly are legendary.   What ever we do we need to keep improving
> our
> > response and our ability to respond across projects, the alternative is
> > going to be that the Board & WMF are going to have to step in and take
> > responsibility out of the communities hands.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 18:58, Philip Kopetzky  >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > What Martin mentions should be covered in the recommendations for the
> > 2030
> > > strategy, the measures mentioned here being "fast-tracked" to provide a
> > > starting point for improving Community Health.
> > > Conflict resolution needs to happen on the lowest possible level so
> that
> > we
> > > don't run into situations we've encountered in the past. Of course it's
> > > difficult for one aspect to work without the other, so the overall goal
> > > won't be achieved until every part is in place.
> > >
> > > On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 17:46, Samuel Klein  wrote:
> > >
> > > > > A former steward fellow and I
> > > > > discussed this topic at the Safety Space at Wikimania. Due to the
> > > nature
> > > > of
> > > > > the space, the discussion have not been documented but you can find
> > the
> > > > > presentation with backgrounds of the situation and open questions
> on
> > > > > Commons
> > > > > <
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania_2019_%E2%80%93_Do_we_need_a_global_dispute_resolution_committee%3F.pdf
> > > > > >.
> > > > > Maybe it can give some ideas how to proceed with this.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Yes -- I was just thinking of your discussions of this while reading
> > the
> > > > thread. I hope these steward reflections are considered as people
> move
> > > > forward.
> > > >
> > > > The case of disputes that embroil an entire community and their
> admins
> > > > should 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons

[Yaroslav Blanter]

To be fair, in most cases to use Commons for uploading files is totally
unproblematic as soon as one has basic understanding of copyright. I am
pretty sure 99% of my uploads can not be deleted (I had my files
mass-nominated for deletion, once with the claim they are not mine, and
once with the claim they are holiday photos and out of scope, but both
cases admins were reasonably enough to speedy close the nominations). Of
course there are always potentially problematic cases, for example I can
imagine for one could start requiring "publication" dates for painting,
which is copyright paranoia but some people take it seriously etc. But if
one uploads something sufficiently far from the grey area it normally
should be ok.

(I am still a Commons admin, but I reduced my admin activity to a minimum
and I am not planning to increase the activity level).

Best
Yaroslav



On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 3:12 PM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> Hello Alessandro,
> Thank you for your post and its insight. I recognized the same with me: I
> only make use of Wikimedia Commons in lessons if I have enough time. Also I
> would introduce it only to students with a solid knowledge of English.
>
>
> Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
> schrieb am Mo. 18. Mai 2020 um 13:08:
>
> > In the end, it's more like inducing order from other projects than caring
> > about the order on Commons because there clearly can't be with people
> > acting the way they do.
>
>
> This is a great observation! And this phenomenon contributes to the
> on-going chaos, to the work-around-culture you need to adapt to if you want
> to make use of Wikimedia Commons. :-(
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
>
>
> They are also not caring for it: if you spend your time starting
> > unnecessary deletion procedures instead of cleaning up categories or
> > description, you obviously have your priority, so we also have ours.
> >
>
> > About the main page, we need to focus more on media files IMHO, and of
> > course search is complicated but I am sure metadata can improve it.
> >
> > A.
> > Il lunedì 18 maggio 2020, 11:33:46 CEST, Robert Myers <
> > robert.my...@wikimedia.org.au> ha scritto:
> >
> >  Well some people do, but it is when they get trolled by other
> contributors
> > and/or overzealous Admin comes along and deletes the file. They quickly
> > lose interest, in turn telling other people not to bother.
> >
> > I just had another lot of photographs tagged by a troll, in which an
> Admin
> > deletes (
> >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log=File:Rachel_Priest_after_the_Sydney_Thunder_vs_Adelaide_Strikers_WBBL_game_at_Robertson_Oval.jpg
> >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log=File:Abandoned_farm_house_in_Hillgrove_01.jpg
> > ).
> > These have been on Commons for two + years, using the same camera gear I
> > have used over the years. If it is enough for me to give up on the
> project,
> > it would be the same for any other user but for a newbie it is something
> > that would make me run for the hills (depart quickly as possible)!
> >
> > On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Anecdotally, it seems people sometimes don't upload their photos to
> > > Commons because they don't realize that the scope of Commons is much
> > > broader than that of Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > Has there been, or should there be, any research into this, or why
> people
> > > don't contribute more broadly?
> > >
> > > ~Benjamin
> > >
> > >
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Robert Myers
> > Secretary - Wikimedia Australia
> > M: +61 400 670 288
> > robert.my...@wikimedia.org.au
> > http://www.wikimedia.org.au
> >
> > Wikimedia Australia Inc. is an independent charitable organisation which
> > supports the efforts of the Wikimedia Foundation in Australia. We welcome
> > your support by membership or donations to keep the Wikimedia mission
> > alive.
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Concerning using Commons as a photo hosting, I have written a blog post
earlier this year:

https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/wikimedia-commons-as-private-photo-hosting/2866

However, I can not see how it can become anything close to social media,
nor do I think it should be. It already has a lot of garbage, and there are
way less people maintaining it than it is needed. That it is one of the
nastiest communities among all Wikimedia projects, with people being
allowed to do things for which they would become instantly long-term
blocked on other projects, does not help either

Best
Yaroslav

On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 10:32 AM Tito Dutta  wrote:

> This discussion, although started with a question "why don't people
> contribute to Wikimedia Commons, now after actually the discussion above,
> covers more topics. A few notes, observations and comments:
> 1) I remember a major discussion took place somewhere on Wikimedia Commons
> when one of the strategy2030 draft recommendations suggested uploading
> non-free images on Wikimedia Commons. That discussion was also on the scope
> of Wikimedia Commons. I wish I could recall where exactly it took place.
> However, I am pretty sure that many of you have read or participated there.
> Most probably there I first read the idea of "uncommon/uncommons" (or an
> alternative version of Commons).
> 2) Wikimedia Commons is most possibly/definitely less popular than
> Wikipedia. I believe many editors start from Wikipedia and then move to
> Wikimedia Commons. There is, of course, another reason, when someone
> gradually becomes more experienced on Wikipedia, they learn they need to
> spend some time on Wikimedia Commons for the article–photos they are
> working on. I "personally" do "not" feel the solution of this "popularity"
> problem is rebranding. We need more Wikimedia Commons-focused plans,
> initiatives, and strategies (I find this is true for all other projects).
> 3) Yes, the difficulty of using the app/web interface might be an issue of
> seeing less contribution as well. You have different photo-sharing
> platforms which uploads photos in 1-click. Commons upload process is
> longer. (I am not saying the process is bad, of course, we need all the
> steps, and there is not an unnecessary step there.)
> 4) The human emotion and interaction part is kind of missing: On Facebook,
> Instagram the likes, comments etc one gets, work as a motivation. This is a
> major issue. On FB, or Instagram an uploader can connect with people
> instantly, and their responses/reactions are quick as well. (Here also, I
> am not really suggesting anything, just keeping it as an observation)
> Let's talk about Google Photos, their badges, photo views analytics, and
> email time to time (eg: Your photo is making a difference, or You are a
> star) is good for motivation as well.
>
> Thanks
> User:Titodutta
>
>
>
> On Sun, 17 May 2020 at 13:03, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 17 May 2020 at 07:20, Roland Unger
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > There are several causes why people do not upload their photos to
> > Commons.
> > >
> > > -
> > >  Wikimedia Commons is less known like the other Wikimedia sisters. We
> > had to
> > > increase the awareness of these projects including the Foundation
> > > itself. But all people speak only about Wikipedia, and nobody starts an
> > > ad campaign for the sisters to overcome this. Not only the scope of
> > Commons is broader, that of the movement is broader, too. Maybe the
> > Foundation can improve its support for the sisters to attract new users
> for
> > the movement.
> > >
> > > see:
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/02/07/how-does-the-world-see-wikimedia-brands/
> > > -
> > >  Many photographers (and Wikipedians) will be become famous. There is
> > the question why to
> > > publish at Wikimedia Commons instead of Instagram, Flickr, or
> Pinterest?
> > >
> > > -
> > >  There is almost no support for the sister projects by Wikipedians.
> Some
> > Wikipedians are
> > > living in their own world, and sometimes they argue against their
> > > sisters.
> > > - For many users it is difficult to use Commons or other Wikimedia
> > projects. They have to fight against an ancient and not user-friendly
> user
> > interface (for instance manual edits of things stored in EXIF data or in
> > the user account, adding categories without any automatic support, etc.).
> > >
> > > I am not really sure if an investigation should be done because most
> > problems are known already now.
> > >
> > > I think we should keep the opportunity of commercial use, because all
> > Wikimedia products should be used freely. For instance, what shall an
> > officer at a travel agency do if she/he cannot use Wikimedia products
> > freely because of commercial-usage restrictions?
> > >
> > > Roland
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > >>> Benjamin Ikuta  05/17/20 5:07 AM >>>
> > >
> > >
> > > Anecdotally, it seems people sometimes don't upload their photos to
> > Commons because they don't realize 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF political activism

[Yaroslav Blanter]

We have this article as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day_Live

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 10:31 PM Michael Peel  wrote:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day is not the same as
> https://www.earthdaylive2020.org/ - but the link was to the latter.
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> > On 24 Apr 2020, at 21:26, Robert Fernandez 
> wrote:
> >
> > FFS who is against Earth Day?   Every organization and company
> > probably mentions it or observes it in some way.  Get over yourselves.
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] คุณมีความสุขกับอะไรในสัปดาห์นี้? / What's making you happy this week? (Week of 19 April 2020)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I actually also had a train identified this week, by User:Altona
  with whom I never
interacted as far as I know.

My train is from Canada, uploaded a week ago.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:West_Coast_Railway_Heritage_Park_08.jpg

Best
Yaroslav

On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 9:35 PM Michael Peel  wrote:

>
> > On 23 Apr 2020, at 20:21, Pine W  wrote:
> >
> > What’s making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any
> > language. You are also welcome to start a WMYHTW thread next week.
>
> A few years ago, I took some photos of some abandoned and heavily-decayed
> trains in Paranapiacaba, an old railway town in southern Brazil, and
> uploaded them to Commons. This week, User:Sorocabano_32 came along and
> identified several of them!
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Siemens-Schuckert_B-B_(RFFSA)
> These seem to be the only photos we have of this locomotive class, as it’s
> the last of its kind.
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:TUE_S%C3%A9rie_100_(EFCB)
> 
> It turns out these were built in the UK!
>
> (There are still many more still to be identified in
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vila_Ferrovi%C3%A1ria_de_Paranapiacaba
> !)
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comment Open on U.S. Open Access Policy

[Yaroslav Blanter]

As an actively publishing researcher, I just know that mandating open
access publishing would mean that the author pays the (huge) publication
fee rather than the library pays the subscription. In an ideal world, the
universities would refund the fees, and will get subsidy from the
governments, In our real world, the researchers will have to pay everything
out of their own pocket, with some of them losing all possibilities to
publish, for the lack of funds. I tried to raise this before, and the
universal reply was that this is my problem, not the problem of the
society. I do not expect anything else this time.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 10:34 PM Shani Evenstein 
wrote:

> Jake, well written and nicely put.
> Is this online somewhere, where we can share it further?
>
> Best,
> Shani.
>
>
> ---
> *Shani Evenstein Sigalov*
>
> * Lecturer, Tel Aviv University.
> * EdTech Innovation Strategist, NY/American Medical Program, Sackler School
> of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.
>
> * PhD Candidate, School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
> * Azrieli Foundation Research Fellow.
> * OER & Emerging Technologies Coordinator, UNESCO Chair
>  on Technology,
> Internationalization
> and Education, School of Education, Tel Aviv University
> .
>
> * Member of the Board of Trustees
> ,
> Wikimedia
> Foundation .
> * Chairperson, The Hebrew Literature Digitization Society
> .
> * Chief Editor, Project Ben-Yehuda .
>
> +972-525640648
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 11:27 PM Pete Forsyth 
> wrote:
>
> > Jake,
> >
> > How can we most effectively support your excellent effort with this?
> >
> > -Pete
> > --
> > Pete Forsyth
> > User:Peteforsyth on Meta, English Wikisource, English Wikipedia, etc.
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 1:22 PM Tito Dutta  wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > > Very well-written and well-supported by statistics. Thanks for sharing.
> > > Regards.
> > > User:Titodutta
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:41 AM Jake Orlowitz 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > My Letter to the U.S. Office for Science and Technology Policy
> > regarding
> > > a
> > > > proposal for federally mandate open access to publicly-funded
> > research...
> > > >
> > > > ---
> > > >
> > > > Wikipedia is one of the ten most popular websites in the world. Each
> > > month
> > > > 200,000 editors improve over 6 million articles. This vital public
> > > > information is viewed on 1 billion unique devices as our pages are
> > loaded
> > > > by people around the globe 7,000 times per second.
> > > >
> > > > Wikipedia is the "free encyclopedia", both in its open CC-BY-SA
> > licensing
> > > > as well as the unpaid contributions of its volunteer editors. Yet
> > > > Wikipedia's hundreds of thousands of editors struggle to access
> > scholarly
> > > > research. And, if they are able to read and cite it, then hundreds of
> > > > millions of readers cannot verify or explore it for deeper research.
> > > >
> > > > Citations are the bridge between Wikipedia articles and a broader
> > > landscape
> > > > of reliable, secondary sources. Citations not only allow readers to
> > > verify
> > > > the reliability of the facts they find in Wikipedia; through
> citations
> > > > readers can also deep-dive into any given topic by exploring the
> books,
> > > > scholarly publications, and news stories referenced in an article.
> > > >
> > > > A recently released dataset of all citations with identifiers in
> > > Wikipedia
> > > > found that less than half of the official versions of scholarly
> > > > publications cited with an identifier in Wikipedia are freely
> available
> > > on
> > > > the web. This chasm of for editors and for readers is a tragedy of
> > public
> > > > education and digital literacy.
> > > >
> > > > Just look at the most recent global catastrophe with Coronavirus. By
> > > April
> > > > 2020 the main articles on COVID-19 had received 50 million views.
> > > > Wikipedia's medical content--made up of more than 155,000 articles
> and
> > 1
> > > > billion bytes of text across more than 255 languages--has been ranked
> > as
> > > > one of the top-3 most viewed sources for medical information on the
> > > entire
> > > > internet.
> > > >
> > > > References are essential to the public's trust in Wikipedia. Indeed,
> > > > Wikipedia's medical content is supported by 757,855 references in
> > English
> > > > and 1,596,528 in other languages, for a total of 2,354,383 across all
> > > > languages. In English 168,985 have a PMID while 261,850 do in other
> > > > languages. This means at least 430,835 references are journal
> articles.
> > > >
> > > > What happens when those journal articles lie behind a paywall? The
> > public
> > > > suffers from a dearth of good 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Brand Project: Who are we as a movement?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

In all honesty, this should not have been directed at Samir. I do not think
he has the authority to stop the process. And whoever has probably spends
more time in Twitter that in Wikimedia projects.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 11:12 AM Tito Dutta  wrote:

> There is something called [[WP:IDHT,]] i.e. I didn't hear that.
> No matter how many times, how many people (90% in the RFC) speak, I just
> didn't hear that.
> Kind regards,
> (Comment in personal capacity)
>
> Thanks
>
>
> On Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 00:15, Samir Elsharbaty 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > We wanted to follow up with a brief update on the project timeline and
> > share an invitation to join an event this month.
> >
> > We know there continues to be so much uncertainty in the world, so we are
> > slowing down the process of the project. Big changes are happening to all
> > of us these days. We want to make sure that we respect the time and
> > priorities of the project collaborators. This means updating the project
> > timeline approach to have more flexibility for participants and smaller
> > time commitments [1], revising the project schedule month by month and
> > keeping the Brand Network [2] and other participants informed on a more
> > regular basis with any updates and changes. The naming discussions
> planned
> > for April are now pushed to May, at the earliest. Design proposals are
> > likewise shifted +4 weeks.
> >
> > But we do have things to share:
> >
> > *This month: live brand concept presentation!*
> >
> > To honor, celebrate, and conclude the work around the concepts referred
> to
> > in Essie’s email above [3], Snohetta and the Brand Project team will
> > present the Unified Concept LIVE on 16 April, 15:00 - 16:00 GMT. Snøhetta
> > will explain how they used the ideas, feedback and conceptual models from
> > the workshops and online exercises to arrive at a final, unified concept.
> > This unified concept  will be the foundation for the upcoming work around
> > the naming conventions, visual decisions, and the overall design system.
> > The session will also be recorded and made available for viewing after.
> You
> > can join us using these links. [4] Note: this is not a presentation of a
> > proposal for a naming convention or design.
> >
> > Thank you!
> >
> > Samir and the brand project team
> >
> > [1]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_movement_brand_project/Timeline
> >
> > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brand_Network
> >
> > [3] https://brandingwikipedia.org/concepts/
> >
> > [4] Join via Zoom:
> >
> > https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/769565325
> >
> > Steam via Youtube Live:
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS72O6Si94Q
> >
> > Samir Elsharbaty (he/him)
> >
> > Community Brand and Marketing coordinator
> >
> > Wikimedia Foundation 
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 10:32 AM David Gerard  wrote:
> >
> > > The article itself is spammy brochure-style nonsense, and this is even
> > > after some cleanup. Editorial eyes welcomed.
> > >
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sn%C3%B8hetta_(company)
> 
> > >
> > >
> > > - d.
> > >
> > > On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 23:16, Samir Elsharbaty
> > >  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi everyone,
> > > >
> > > > The Brand Project Team felt it was important to address the concerns
> > and
> > > > questions around Snøhetta and the English Wikipedia, and have now
> added
> > > an
> > > > FAQ about it. [1] Please refer there for the full details about the
> > block
> > > > and what is being done. The project team is in the process of
> updating
> > > the
> > > > project materials, including the FAQ, so feel free to add those pages
> > to
> > > > your watchlist to stay up to date on the latest information.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > >
> > > > Samir
> > > >
> > > > [1] https://w.wiki/LEF
> > > >
> > > > Samir Elsharbaty (he/him)
> > > >
> > > > Community Brand and Marketing coordinator
> > > >
> > > > Wikimedia Foundation 
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 4:43 AM Gnangarra 
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > This does have feeling of a company creating a financial
> relationship
> > > with
> > > > > the Foundation as way to bypass or backdoor a community ban thats
> > been
> > > > > reviewed already.   Over the years I've worked with many users who
> > been
> > > > > blocked and help them become productive contributors but before
> they
> > > start
> > > > > making recommendation or decisions about who we are there needs to
> be
> > > > > something done to get them back to good standing with the community
> > > first
> > > > > untiil thats taken place.It's like asking the fox to rebuild
> the
> > > hen
> > > > > house,  I just dont see how I could support anything they
> recommend.
> > > > >
> > > > > After the dollars, and t=volunteer time that has been pumped into
> the
> > > 2030
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiProject COVID-19 (English Wikipedia) is started

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Just to remark that I went today to a supermarket to take a picture of
empty shelves and eventually to upload it to Commons. Which I did (and
eventually I added one of the photographs to an English Wikipedia article),
just to discover that several people had the same idea before me, including
one in my city. Still, the number of relevant pictures is laughably small,
and now it is good time to take pictures for example of places which are
normally overcrowded by tourists and now are empty. Or queues at the
airports due to cancellations, We need to document the event (obviously not
compromising on the safety), and anybody with a cell phone can easily
contribute.

Best
Yaroslav

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Empty_chips_shelves_in_AH_Delft_02.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Empty_butter_shelves_in_AH_Delft_01.jpg

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 10:12 PM Pine W  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> May I suggest that the discussion regarding the name take place
> somewhere other than Wikimedia-l? I think that a talk page of one of
> the relevant articles on English Wikipedia, a WikiProject Medicine
> talk page, or the WikiProject Medicine Mailing List, would all be
> reasonable venues.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Brand Project: Who are we as a movement?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

We just had an RfC on Meta which gave 90% opposes. I do not see how any
serious rebranding discussions could still be happening after this result
has become apparent. For me personally, the question is closed at least for
several years.

Best
Yaroslav

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 8:48 PM Pine W  wrote:

> Although Mike and I have differences of opinion about centralizing on
> the "Wikipedia" brand, one way in which I agree with Mike is that
> there are ways to have branding discussions that are not themselves
> controversial. Even if consensus was not reached, I for one would be
> more accepting of the process.
>
> Some departments in WMF seem to be more on board with regards to
> process than others. In particular, I think that Audiences these days
> generally does a good job, and also I like Tech News.
>
> Outside of WMF, the Wikidata team at WMDE produces very informative
> newsletters each week. They seem to do good work without spending
> money on outside consultants.
>
> So, why all of these issues in WMF Communications? I don't get it.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Practical implications of Coronavirus

[Yaroslav Blanter]

For a setting with a lot of presentations and questions Zoom should work
fine

https://zoom.us/?zcid=2314=359453254254=%2Bzoom%20online%20%2Bmeeting=b=g=c=EAIaIQobChMIsI2o0JaQ6AIVBc13Ch0VxwqZEAAYASAAEgJs0_D_BwE

but of course it would not provide any interaction between participants.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 3:59 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:

> At last Sunday's London Meetup we discussed the situation and while not
> wanting to seem over cautious (we were of course the dozen who'd decided to
> attend). We realised that there was a good chance that the April and even
> May meetings might need to go virtual.
>
> Is there a recommended software solution for video/audio conferencing a
> dozen to twenty people?
>
> I took part in some not the wikipedia Weekly podcasts almost a decade ago,
> but i'm assuming the technology has progressed since then.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Not_The_Wikipedia_Weekly
>
> Regards
>
> WSC
>
> On Tue, 10 Mar 2020 at 13:27, 
> wrote:
>
> > Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
> > wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> > wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> > wikimedia-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
> >
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >1. Re: 2020 Wikimania Scholarships now open (Dariusz Jemielniak)
> >2. Re: 2020 Wikimania Scholarships now open (Gnangarra)
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2020 08:48:48 -0400
> > From: Dariusz Jemielniak 
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2020 Wikimania Scholarships now open
> > Message-ID:
> > <
> > cadespguuq96jzaylkajfipv-isfmqvcul8nhm+scbjxagfd...@mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I believe it likely is too early to make a decision. We have a
> professional
> > team at the WMF monitoring the situation, but the date is still 5 months
> in
> > the future.
> >
> > It is reasonable to expect that we may need to make adjustments to the
> > situation as it develops and in 2-3 months it will be much clearer where
> we
> > stand.
> >
> > For now, I think it is already fair to say that the WMF leadership is not
> > shying away from difficult decisions (the summit cancellation, closing
> down
> > the office, canceling international travel for staff) and clearly
> > prioritizes our safety.
> >
> > I trust the judgment of our staff when they communicate clearly that they
> > are considering all options and will.make a decision in due time.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Dj "pundit"
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 00:45 Rehman Abubakr 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I too have cancelled all personal/work/wiki travel plans. The risks are
> > > far too great.
> > >
> > > A single infection at the conference, depending on who/where, has the
> > > potential to cause significant damage to the Movement.
> > >
> > > I understand the sheer effort that has already been put, but I strongly
> > > hope the Foundation will postpone the conference or cancel this year's
> > > conference for the safety of the volunteers, and to prevent the risk of
> > > spreading it to more parts of the world.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yours truly,
> > >
> > > Rehman
> > >
> > > 
> > > From: Wikimedia-l  on behalf
> of
> > > James Heilman 
> > > Sent: 09 March 2020 22:51
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2020 Wikimania Scholarships now open
> > >
> > > From a personal perspective, I have cancelled all future travel plans
> and
> > > have requested that everyone I work with do the same. I am of course in
> > > healthcare. Please note that this is not official advise.
> > >
> > > James
> > >
> > > On Mon, Mar 9, 2020 at 5:48 AM Toni Ristovski  >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > *
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps on Wikimedia Space

[Yaroslav Blanter]

On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 7:31 PM Todd Allen  wrote:

>
> Quit trying to make us TwitFaceTube. The tools we already have work just
> fine.
>

Apparently not if people go there en masse instead of using on-wiki
channels.

Yaroslav


>
> Todd
>
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 10:41 AM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > I provided feedback previously on Space earlier and I could not find it
> now
> > but I assume it was taken into consideration when the decision was taken.
> > Without repeating it, let me remark that the two main questions, which
> > remained unsolved, were (i) what is the target audience and (ii) what is
> > the content to be discussed there. For (i), we have many different groups
> > with many different interests. We have project people (editors), active
> on
> > different projects, we have affiliate people, we have WMF people, there
> is
> > certain overlap between these categories, but I am afraid not much. They
> > have very different interests and vision. If I understand it correctly,
> the
> > idea was to bridge the gap between these categories (primarily, between
> WMF
> > and community), but it did not work - it is understandable that people
> who
> > never edited Wikipedia and have no interest editing it, do not find a
> topic
> > on the first Wikipedia contribution very appealing, and those for example
> > who deal with Wikipedia as their daily job are not so keen to discuss the
> > job on social media - I also have an exciting job but I do not have any
> > desire to discuss it anywhere in my free time. Concerning (ii), we have
> > people who were looking for something like social media, just to hang
> out,
> > we had people who wanted to discuss project and foundation issues which
> > they found important, we had people who were only posting announcements -
> > but I do not think we had general understanding why people should come to
> > Space to discuss, and what they should discuss. There are discussions
> going
> > on in the projects. Meta started as a cross-product (and cross-language)
> > discussion venue, but now it is essentially dead - I long ago stopped
> > following my watchlist there. The mailing lists are mainly dead or at
> least
> > half-dead. Understandably, people went to FB and Twitter - they will
> > discover at some point that there are serious privacy issues, and, in
> > addition, this is like Wild West where you are on your own (I had my FB
> > account disabled for alleged copyright violations last year, and there is
> > nothing I can do about it), but before they discover it I am not sure why
> > they should go to any other platform to discuss - what? There might be
> some
> > room for a social media platform run by WMF, but it should be very well
> > discussed what exactly we expect, what we can provide, and how this can
> be
> > done. I would recommend a community conversation - not a "community
> > consultation", when a decision has already been taken, and the
> > "consultation" is used to legitimize this decision, but a real
> > brainstorming, and see what the stakeholders are and what they want. I am
> > afraid though that it would be difficult to organize even this
> > brainstorming and collect a sufficient number of responses to make
> > meaningful conclusions.
> >
> > (There were opinions voiced that the Space would never take off because
> it
> > is run by WMF who would erase any criticism - well, I have not seen this
> > happening. This would not be my concern at this point.)
> >
> > Despite my skepticism, I believe that people who were running the Space
> and
> > people who invested into the Space clearly had good intentions, and
> whereas
> > things did not work at the end, I would like to thank them - mainly Elena
> > and Quim I guess.
> >
> > Yaroslav
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 3:35 PM Quim Gil  wrote:
> >
> > > Thank you for all the feedback. After scanning different channels, we
> > have
> > > a wide range of opinions which reflect how deep and complex the problem
> > of
> > > cross-wiki collaboration is, and also how differently the Space
> prototype
> > > and this decision is being perceived. We will process this feedback and
> > > integrate it in the lessons learned. If you have more feedback or
> > > questions, please share. This conversation is important.
> > >
> > > The channels we are watching:
> > >
> > > *
> https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/next-steps-on-wikimedia-space/3184
> > > *
> > >
> > >
> &g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps on Wikimedia Space

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I provided feedback previously on Space earlier and I could not find it now
but I assume it was taken into consideration when the decision was taken.
Without repeating it, let me remark that the two main questions, which
remained unsolved, were (i) what is the target audience and (ii) what is
the content to be discussed there. For (i), we have many different groups
with many different interests. We have project people (editors), active on
different projects, we have affiliate people, we have WMF people, there is
certain overlap between these categories, but I am afraid not much. They
have very different interests and vision. If I understand it correctly, the
idea was to bridge the gap between these categories (primarily, between WMF
and community), but it did not work - it is understandable that people who
never edited Wikipedia and have no interest editing it, do not find a topic
on the first Wikipedia contribution very appealing, and those for example
who deal with Wikipedia as their daily job are not so keen to discuss the
job on social media - I also have an exciting job but I do not have any
desire to discuss it anywhere in my free time. Concerning (ii), we have
people who were looking for something like social media, just to hang out,
we had people who wanted to discuss project and foundation issues which
they found important, we had people who were only posting announcements -
but I do not think we had general understanding why people should come to
Space to discuss, and what they should discuss. There are discussions going
on in the projects. Meta started as a cross-product (and cross-language)
discussion venue, but now it is essentially dead - I long ago stopped
following my watchlist there. The mailing lists are mainly dead or at least
half-dead. Understandably, people went to FB and Twitter - they will
discover at some point that there are serious privacy issues, and, in
addition, this is like Wild West where you are on your own (I had my FB
account disabled for alleged copyright violations last year, and there is
nothing I can do about it), but before they discover it I am not sure why
they should go to any other platform to discuss - what? There might be some
room for a social media platform run by WMF, but it should be very well
discussed what exactly we expect, what we can provide, and how this can be
done. I would recommend a community conversation - not a "community
consultation", when a decision has already been taken, and the
"consultation" is used to legitimize this decision, but a real
brainstorming, and see what the stakeholders are and what they want. I am
afraid though that it would be difficult to organize even this
brainstorming and collect a sufficient number of responses to make
meaningful conclusions.

(There were opinions voiced that the Space would never take off because it
is run by WMF who would erase any criticism - well, I have not seen this
happening. This would not be my concern at this point.)

Despite my skepticism, I believe that people who were running the Space and
people who invested into the Space clearly had good intentions, and whereas
things did not work at the end, I would like to thank them - mainly Elena
and Quim I guess.

Yaroslav

On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 3:35 PM Quim Gil  wrote:

> Thank you for all the feedback. After scanning different channels, we have
> a wide range of opinions which reflect how deep and complex the problem of
> cross-wiki collaboration is, and also how differently the Space prototype
> and this decision is being perceived. We will process this feedback and
> integrate it in the lessons learned. If you have more feedback or
> questions, please share. This conversation is important.
>
> The channels we are watching:
>
> * https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/next-steps-on-wikimedia-space/3184
> *
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Space#Next_steps_on_Wikimedia_Space
> *
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2020-February/094269.html
> and replies
> *
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/2699004306814050/
>
> If you are aware of more conversations related to this announcement, please
> share them here as well.
>
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 11:30 AM Quim Gil  wrote:
>
> > Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation launched Wikimedia Space to
> experiment
> > with new ways to connect volunteers, increase movement participation, and
> > showcase community stories. While we remain committed to this important
> > goal, based on lessons learned through the Space prototype, the
> Foundation
> > has decided to close Discuss Space. The Space blog, which continues to
> fill
> > a need to share news for the movement by the movement, will continue in a
> > new home. Please continue to submit community-focused stories [1], so
> that
> > we may share them with the movement.
> >
> > To learn more about the next steps, check the full announcement at
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Recommendations released, join the conversation

[Yaroslav Blanter]

We will be again talking to the wall. (Would be, I am not going to react
this time).

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 5:06 AM Todd Allen  wrote:

> Katherine,
>
> These are very disappointing. It does not seem like a bit of the feedback
> on earlier versions was taken into consideration at all. Can we expect
> anything we say to matter this time around, or will we once again be
> talking to the wall?
>
> Todd
>
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:24 PM Katherine Maher 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I wanted to share some news with you: the first version of the movement
> > strategy recommendations document has been published on Meta [1]. On
> behalf
> > of the movement strategy working groups and recommendation writers, I am
> > honored to present them to you. We ask you to please take a moment to
> read
> > through, review, and comment.
> >
> > In 2017, we set about building the future we want, together. In 2020,
> your
> > fellow Wikimedians have written and shared a framework for how we can
> bring
> > to life our vision of becoming the essential support system of the
> > ecosystem of free knowledge.
> >
> > == Review the recommendations ==
> >
> > These recommendations are the result of 18 months of in-depth discussions
> > and consultation among global Wikimedia community members and research
> > into opportunities for our future. The volunteer working groups [2],
> > writing teams [3] and strategy liaisons [4] have all invested a
> significant
> > amount of energy into this, and I want to wholeheartedly thank each and
> > every person who contributed to creating this work.
> >
> > I would like to encourage everyone to read this work. There are 13
> > recommendations (condensed from 89), accompanied by an explanation of the
> > principles [5] that underlie the recommendations, an outline of how these
> > recommendations work together [6], as well as an overview of how the
> > recommendations were produced and next steps [7].
> >
> > The core of this material is online in Arabic, English, French, German,
> > Hindi, Portuguese, and Spanish. We also have an overview available in
> > Catalan, Dutch, Farsi, Hebrew, Polish, and Russian that offers a
> condensed
> > introduction to the recommendations material.
> >
> > == Share your feedback ==
> >
> > In order to produce a final document that is representative of and
> relevant
> > to the diverse project communities as well as groups and organizations
> that
> > make up our movement, we are calling on everyone to review the
> > recommendations and share their thoughts.
> >
> > Specifically, we ask you to look at what impact these recommendations
> might
> > have on you and your group or community’s context. Discussions are
> > happening on-wiki in many languages, as well as in discussion groups on
> > other, off0wiki platforms, and within movement groups and structures.
> >
> > This round of community conversations will run until the first week of
> > March [8]. After this five-week period, the Core Team will publish a
> > summary report of input from across affiliates, online communities, and
> > other stakeholders for public review. [9] Your input will play a role as
> > the recommendation writers finalize the strategy document, and move us
> > towards discussions around implementation.
> >
> > You will find more information about the process in the FAQs [10], and
> > please direct any additional questions or remarks to the respective meta
> > pages.
> >
> > Our movement is the sum of its parts. Each member brings to it invaluable
> > skills, expertise, and ideas to capture, collect, and share free
> knowledge.
> > And every single contribution made by every community member from the
> > beginning has helped us grow into the global, diverse, and unique
> movement
> > we are today.
> >
> > I am honored to share this on behalf of everyone involved, and am looking
> > forward to insights from across the movement over the next few weeks.
> >
> > Katherine
> >
> > [1]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations
> > [2]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups
> > [3]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/People#Second_phase
> > [4]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/People/Community_Strategy_Liaisons
> > [5]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Principles
> > [6]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Cover_note
> > [7]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Process
> > [8]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Frequently_asked_questions#What_is_the_timeframe_for_all_of_this
> > ?
> > [9]
> >
> >
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Brief request for advice about "What's making you happy this week?"

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I posted once a reply which was reasonably concise and had just one point -
and it generated very little response. My conclusion was that people here
are mainly not interested in what is going on on the projects contentwise.
I will not do it again.

Yaroslav

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 11:16 AM Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

> I have similar thoughts.
>
> I find the "What makes you happy" emails generally nice and useful and
> occasionally I reply. But the opening emails are often too long, and have
> too many sections and links, which make it hard to read.
>
> The title "What makes you happy" implies something that is unique for every
> week, so it should have fewer repetitive sections.
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> ‪“We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
>
>
> ‫בתאריך יום ב׳, 25 בנוב׳ 2019 ב-10:33 מאת ‪Diane Ranville‬‏ <‪
> dranville-...@wikimedia.org‬‏>:‬
>
> > Hi Pine,
> >
> > Personally, the reason I don't answer to WMYHTW? is that - to be honest
> - I
> > actually find it too long and visually unappealing (too many links, looks
> > very technical) so I read the first few lines, then I skip and go to the
> > next email. I really like the idea though, and when I have time, I click
> a
> > few links, but indeed it doesn't prompts me to answer because, well... it
> > looks more like a newsletter than an actual call for conversation.
> >
> > Maybe this would have more success with a shorter format, maybe including
> > images directly inside text. You could also try cross-posting it to
> > Wikimedia Space, where engagement is less intimidating because it looks
> > more like social media (you can "like", comment, etc). It makes me think
> > about this post
> > <
> >
> https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/what-was-your-first-commons-contribution/2021
> > >,
> > which triggered quite a few answers.
> >
> > Hope this helps!
> > Best,
> > Diane
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 9:36 AM Pine W  wrote:
> >
> > > Hello colleagues,
> > >
> > > I would like to ask for your advice about one issue with the "What's
> > making
> > > you happy this week?" emails.
> > >
> > > I was hoping that people would frequently comment in the email threads
> > > and/or on the talk pages of WMYHTW publications in *The Signpost* to
> > share
> > > what is making them happy, in the Wikiverse or elsewhere. However,
> > comments
> > > are somewhat rare.
> > >
> > > I am concerned that some people may feel too intimidated to comment.
> > >
> > > I understand that communicating in public requires courage, but I
> believe
> > > that people who try to be respectful will have their comments received
> > well
> > > by the community if they comment in these threads. Perfection is not a
> > > requirement for WMYHTW.
> > >
> > > Also, I think that public communication becomes easier with practice,
> and
> > > these threads would be good places for people who want to become more
> > > experienced with public communication on Wikimedia-l to practice.
> > >
> > > Is there something else that you think could be done to facilitate
> > > participation in WMYHTW? I would appreciate your advice and input.
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > >
> > > Pine
> > > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Ի՞նչն է Ձեզ երջանկացնում այս շաբաթ: / What’s making you happy this week? (Week of 22 September 2019)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thanks Gerard.

I think concerning Wikidata, we should be fine, since all these articles
existed on the Russian Wikipedia before Wikidata was even created, and bots
must have moved there relevant information, but I will sample it.

Concerning the Africa project, I added quite some information to about a
half of the articles on districts in Mozambique several years ago, when
DrBlofield organized a writing competition on African topics at the English
Wikipedia. Since that, I never could find time to work on the other half.
May be now there is time. However, again, all these articles existed
already at the time, in the English, Spanish, and Portuguese Wikipedias,
and I assume that basic data is already on Wikidata. The coverage of
African physical geography is generally very poor as well, but, in contrast
to human geography, improving coverage probably requires a visit to a
library.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 3:25 PM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> Wonderful work congratulations .. I do appreciate your work, in my "Africa
> project" I have a record for all the known administrative administrative
> entities. It truly is a work in progress and it serves a few purposes.
>
>- In Wikidata the links for the administrative entities exist and they
>are linked to the one level higher up
>- when the data is used in Listeria lists, the same list may be used for
>multiple Wikipedias, serving multiple languages.
>- it shows the known articles, the difference is straight or italic. It
>is easiest to add names for the higher levels, they will then show in
> the
>local language properly
>
> The problem with topics that are used a lot but have few devotees is that
> it helps when lists like these are available. When you care to, I am happy
> to help you set this up for Russia and have the info on more Wikipedias.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> PS there is a similar project for India
>
> On Sun, 6 Oct 2019 at 13:53, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > Now, what is making me happy this week is that yesterday I completed the
> > first step of my long-term project at the English Wikipedia. I finished
> > creating articles on all district centers in Russia. Districts are the
> > second level administration divisions in Russia (the first level are
> > federal subjects), there are slightly less than two thousands of them.
> > District centers could be cities, urban-type settlements (urban
> localities
> > toughly equivalent to towns in the UK), and rural localities. When I
> > started, all articles on Russian towns were already there, but less than
> a
> > half of urban-type settlements and rural localities which are district
> > centers were redlinks. I started creating all of them more than a year
> ago,
> > and yesterday I finished the last one remaining. The articles I created
> are
> > mainly stubs, with some minimal necessary geographical information,
> > including population and coordinates, categories, templates etc.
> >
> > Now I am back to the second step — filling these articles with
> information.
> > This is also something I already started (in fact, I started it the first
> > day I edited the English Wikipedia from my new account in 2011), and for
> > the time being I have completed writing articles on districts, district
> > centers, and urban localities in six (out of 83) federal subjects. This
> is
> > something I am more proud of, a random example of such an article is
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezhetsky_District . The second step will
> be
> > to bring the remaining articles to a comparable level. Since this is not
> > the only thing I am doing on the English Wikipedia, I can easily imagine
> it
> > could take ten years or more. So far nobody else was interested in doing
> > this work along with me — which is not very surprising, because the
> > information exists mainly in Russian, and knowledge of Russian beyond the
> > Google Translate abilities is essential.
> >
> > A spin-off project I came across and which had to be shelved for a year
> was
> > to create articles about all Ukrainian urban localities — I am almost
> done
> > there, but last time I checked there were still several dozen articles to
> > create. I will probably resume it now if there are still some left.
> >
> > (And another thing I found recently is completely unrelated to the above
> —
> > I just discovered that a lot of metro stations do not have articles on
> the
> > English Wikipedia, and a lot of those which have do not cite any
> sources. I
> > had some fun a couple of weeks ago creating articles on stations of
> Panama
> > Metro, and this wee

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Ի՞նչն է Ձեզ երջանկացնում այս շաբաթ: / What’s making you happy this week? (Week of 22 September 2019)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Now, what is making me happy this week is that yesterday I completed the
first step of my long-term project at the English Wikipedia. I finished
creating articles on all district centers in Russia. Districts are the
second level administration divisions in Russia (the first level are
federal subjects), there are slightly less than two thousands of them.
District centers could be cities, urban-type settlements (urban localities
toughly equivalent to towns in the UK), and rural localities. When I
started, all articles on Russian towns were already there, but less than a
half of urban-type settlements and rural localities which are district
centers were redlinks. I started creating all of them more than a year ago,
and yesterday I finished the last one remaining. The articles I created are
mainly stubs, with some minimal necessary geographical information,
including population and coordinates, categories, templates etc.

Now I am back to the second step — filling these articles with information.
This is also something I already started (in fact, I started it the first
day I edited the English Wikipedia from my new account in 2011), and for
the time being I have completed writing articles on districts, district
centers, and urban localities in six (out of 83) federal subjects. This is
something I am more proud of, a random example of such an article is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezhetsky_District . The second step will be
to bring the remaining articles to a comparable level. Since this is not
the only thing I am doing on the English Wikipedia, I can easily imagine it
could take ten years or more. So far nobody else was interested in doing
this work along with me — which is not very surprising, because the
information exists mainly in Russian, and knowledge of Russian beyond the
Google Translate abilities is essential.

A spin-off project I came across and which had to be shelved for a year was
to create articles about all Ukrainian urban localities — I am almost done
there, but last time I checked there were still several dozen articles to
create. I will probably resume it now if there are still some left.

(And another thing I found recently is completely unrelated to the above —
I just discovered that a lot of metro stations do not have articles on the
English Wikipedia, and a lot of those which have do not cite any sources. I
had some fun a couple of weeks ago creating articles on stations of Panama
Metro, and this week I added sources to the articles on Prague Metro, most
of which had zero sources previously).

I realize that many people on the list do not edit projects but edit them
occasionally, and probably do not care much about this obscure type of the
articles, but I still think it is good not to forget why we are here.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 11:44 PM Pine W  wrote:

> Pictures from Armenia
>
>
>-
>
>This image
><
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Ararat_and_the_Araratian_plain_(cropped).jpg
> >,
>which was the Picture of the Day for English Wikipedia on 17 September,
>shows Mount Ararat and the Araratian plain seen early morning from near
> the
>city of Artashat in Armenia. On the center left can be seen the historic
>Khor Virap monastery. The photo was taken by User:Սէրուժ
><
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%D5%8D%D5%A7%D6%80%D5%B8%D6%82%D5%AA
> >
>.
>- Closer view
><
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monasterio_Khor_Virap,_Armenia,_2016-10-01,_DD_25.jpg
> >
>of Khor Virap monastery
><
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monasterio_Khor_Virap,_Armenia,_2016-10-01,_DD_25.jpg
> >,
>in a photo by User:Poco a poco
>.
>
>
> Other recent pictures of the day on English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons
>
>
>-
>
>Schönbühel Castle (Schloss Schönbühel)
><
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schloss_Sch%C3%B6nb%C3%BChel_20180919.jpg
> >
>in Schönbühel-Aggsbach, Lower Austria, in a photo by User:Uoaei1
>
>-
>
>The Kiss (Der Kuß)
><
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Kiss_-_Gustav_Klimt_-_Google_Cultural_Institute.jpg
> >,
>a painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. The scan of the painting was
>made by the Google Art Project, and it was uploaded to Wikimedia
> Commons by User:Crisco
>1492 .
>-
>
>Elizabeth L. Remba Gardner
><
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_L._Remba_Gardner,_Women%27s_Airforce_Service_Pilots,_NARA-542191.jpg
> >,
>a member of the United States Women's Airforce Service Pilots
> (“WASPs”), in
>a photo that was probably taken during World War II. The image was
> uploaded
>by User:Junkyardsparkle
>, and edited by
>User:Hohum  and User:Bammesk
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Community Tech: New Format for 2020 Wishlist Survey

[Yaroslav Blanter]

The wishlist of course accepts wishes in any language, but in order to make
it to the accepted zone a wish must have several dozens supporters, which
is only realistically possible for English language wishes. (Supports can
also be in any language).

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 10:51 AM Chris Keating 
wrote:

> >
> > > the wishlist only reflects
> > > the needs and perceptions of highly active contributors [at present I
> > think
> > > it only accepts submissions in English ,which is another obstacle, but
> > that
> > > could be addressed].
> >
> > The wishlist has explicitly accepted wishes in any language.
>
>
> Thanks for confirming - and glad to hear it!
>
> Chris
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation joins the global climate strike

[Yaroslav Blanter]

This probably goes too far of this thread, but judging from another thread
where attendance complain that no C-level WMF executive attended the French
language conference, people expect from Wikimania not so much the talks
(which I guess by now are available online anyway), but a chance of meeting
some people and discussing issues which can not be discussed online - this
is what Dutch call "wandelgangcultuur". In this sense, the live attendance
is not at all the same as the online attendance.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 1:36 PM Fæ  wrote:

> We used to regularly raise the issue of a lack of active
> videoconferencing at Wikimania. Though we (Wikimedians) are highly
> technically literate, we still do not host virtual attendees, such as
> 3D virtual conferencing and claim it a win if we release video streams
> of some of the presentations.
>
> Both to reduce our community's carbon footprint, and to encourage
> access for those that find air travel challenging or impossible, it
> would be great to see the Wikimedia Foundation being active in
> trialing and funding virtual environments for our events. 25 years ago
> I worked for a global bank and had regular virtual meetings in a video
> room where you physically sat at a conference table where the other
> half telemagically was in other headquarters in other cities with
> shared (physical) whiteboards to help workshopping. These days it's
> relatively easy to videoconference, but we should do more to
> experiment with whether booking video suites in different cities might
> also be a good way of encouraging Wikimedians to default to local
> travel and still be active in our multi-national or global events and
> workshops. At the end of the day, paying a few hundred dollars for
> several conference suites or higher end conference kit hire hosted by
> local Wikimedia Chapters, is a fraction the cost of paying for a far
> smaller number of lucky applicants to get their flights and
> accommodation paid for.
>
> This type of high quality conferencing initiative would perfectly fit
> the non-specific high level aims mentioned in the WMF sustainability
> documents. It's weird to me that this is still a debate, and folks are
> defending continued air travel at the current consumption levels,
> rather than even trialling all the virtual alternatives.
>
> Fae
>
> On Mon, 23 Sep 2019 at 12:14, Ilario Valdelli  wrote:
> >
> > Anyways this is perceived by the community.
> >
> > In Wikimedia CH we cannot give scholarships for Wikimania because people
> > would not do long trips.
> >
> > IMHO the problem is these big events.
> >
> > For this reason we prefer to give more scholarships for regional wikicon
> > than to Wikimania.
> >
> > This is the reason why you dont see more Swiss people at Wikimania.
> >
> > Kind regards
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation joins the global climate strike

[Yaroslav Blanter]

If we are discussing such things, why do not we are discussing whether WMF
employees are driving to the work or taking public transportation? Or
chapter employees? Or volunteers? Or whether volunteers switch off the
light when they leave a room (I actually do)?

I really do not think this is a reasonable avenue to proceed.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 7:53 PM Fæ  wrote:

> Sure, but it seems more realistic than calculating the CO2
> contributions from the management team compared to all the other
> employees.
>
> At the end of the day, how many flights the executive team take as
> part of their jobs, and working out whether they are flying less or
> more in 2019 compared to 2018, is an very simple and useful fact to be
> open and transparent about. Doing so gives everyone a great incentive
> to do better.
>
> Considering the WMF is getting ethical gold stars by putting a Climate
> Change banner over the entirety of its website landing page, it is
> reasonable to expect that the organization starts by changing itself
> and turn the non-committal statements in the WMF presentation from "we
> will consider" and "we will seek" in to a meaningful and measurable
> "we will act".
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
>
> On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 17:58, Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
> >
> > Because # of flights is not a useful metric for assessing environmental
> > impact.
> >
> > Seddon
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 3:23 PM Fæ  wrote:
> >
> > > Those publications are where my numbers came from. There is no useful
> > > transparency to explain how many actual flights are taken, why or by
> whom.
> > >
> > > Fae
> > >
> > > On Fri, 20 Sep 2019, 15:17 Lucas Werkmeister, <
> m...@lucaswerkmeister.de>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Did you see the sustainability report that was published yesterday
> [1]
> > > > [2]? Page 30 of the PDF has some numbers on business travel by air –
> > > > some 5.6 million km in total, by the looks of it. Page 32 also shows
> > > > that the carbon footprint of air travel is about half that of the
> > > > electricity used by the Foundation’s data centers.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Lucas
> > > >
> > > > [1]:
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/19/how-the-wikimedia-foundation-is-making-efforts-to-go-green
> > > > [2]:
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Sustainability_Assessment_and_Carbon_Footprint.pdf
> > > >
> > > > On 20.09.19 15:23, Fæ wrote:
> > > > > Nice to see that https://wikimediafoundation.org has a banner
> linking
> > > > > to the global climate strike today.
> > > > >
> > > > > Can anyone produce some verifiable metrics that the WMF has taken
> > > > > significant action to reduce the total number of aircraft flights
> the
> > > > > WMF uses?
> > > > >
> > > > > I am asking as though there are no transparently published figures
> for
> > > > > how much the WMF spends on air travel, I recall that the Katherine
> > > > > Mahler was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, where is was
> part
> > > > > of her impressive executive profile to be "on the road" for 200
> days
> > > > > of the year. This probably puts Katherine in the very top numbers
> for
> > > > > CEOs with damaging carbon footprints resulting from travelling so
> > > > > often by flying.[1] If the WMF wants to be seen as an ethical
> company
> > > > > when it comes to reducing their organizational impact on climate
> > > > > change, perhaps this could start with publishing travel figures for
> > > > > the CEO and the rest of the management team, so that everyone can
> see
> > > > > whether there is year on year improvement, or none.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks again for the banner, it does help increase the sense of
> > > urgency.
> > > > >
> > > > > Links:
> > > > > 1.
> > > >
> > >
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-35-year-old-executive-director-of-wikimedia-travels-1529588701
> > > > >
> > > > > Fae
> > > > >
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Right.

I guess a central notice about an RfC would be appropriate.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 8:16 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> It seems like there is a clear consensus to open an RfC on Meta about this,
> so we can safely move forward with it and close this thread. Otherwise, we
> will most likely keep up boggling our minds with the 20-per-cent metric and
> endlessly discuss how unfortunate is this for the global community when the
> only rational thing we can do is take action and save everyone's time.
>
> Do you have any concluding remarks or comments regarding the RfC?
>
> Best regards,
> Kiril
>
> On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 7:57 PM Ferdinando Traversa <
> ferdi.trave...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I’m against and sincerly I don’t trust this datas (80% agrees? Are you
> > kidding me? I’ve seen the meta discussion). I think a Meta CLEAR VOTE as
> > suggested here is the best way. Imposing a change like this is a wrong
> > decision.
> >
> > Regards.
> >
> > > Il giorno 6 set 2019, alle ore 05:49, Zack McCune <
> zmcc...@wikimedia.org>
> > ha scritto:
> > >
> > > *Summary* - We want your help with a voluntary, OPT-IN design process
> for
> > > movement branding.  Please join the in-depth discussion group, or watch
> > for
> > > updates on Meta-Wiki.
> > >
> > >
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > After 4 months of community consultation, spanning dozens of
> affiliates,
> > > several mailing lists, community conferences, and Meta-Wiki, I am
> pleased
> > > to share a summary of feedback on the proposed 2030 movement brand
> > strategy
> > > [1].
> > >
> > > From more than 319 comments, representing 150 individual contributors
> and
> > > 63 affiliates, we assessed 6 major themes in feedback:
> > >
> > >   1.
> > >
> > >   Reducing confusion
> > >   2.
> > >
> > >   Protecting reputation
> > >   3.
> > >
> > >   Supporting sister projects
> > >   4.
> > >
> > >   Addressing (legal, governmental) risks
> > >   5.
> > >
> > >   Supporting movement growth
> > >   6.
> > >
> > >   The process of change
> > >
> > > Please visit our feedback summary page to learn more [2]. You will see
> > > examples of comments within each section, along with a rough indication
> > of
> > > how many of the comments that we received were related to each theme.
> > >
> > > The comments sometimes contradict one another, showing that across our
> > wide
> > > movement’s experience, different points of view are common (and a sign
> of
> > > health!). To visualize these tensions, we have created “polarity maps”
> > > which are used to help visualize how different arguments coexist in
> > tension
> > > with each other.
> > >
> > > Ultimately, the comments provided from you all are very thoughtful and
> > > useful guidance on what is needed to make our movement’s branding
> > > successful. One can read the 6 themes above as “criteria” for assessing
> > > branding systems.
> > >
> > > == Thanks ==
> > >
> > > I would like to thank the organizers of Iberoconf, Wikipedia Education
> > > Summit, and the Wikimedia Summit for inviting us to hold discussions
> > during
> > > their sessions. I would also like to thank my colleagues Elena Lappen,
> > > Samir Elsharbaty, and Blanca Flores who conducted extensive parts of
> this
> > > consultation. To the hundreds of people, and dozens of affiliates
> > > commenting, thank you for reviewing the proposal and offering your
> > > perspectives and insights.
> > >
> > >
> > > == Next steps and staying involved ==
> > >
> > > There is considerable support for the brand proposal and general
> appetite
> > > to improve our movement’s branding system. Further, we believe that
> > > critical feedback on the proposal offers direct guidance for precisely
> > what
> > > branding must do to be successful for our movement. We have shared
> these
> > > insights and our proposed continuance with the Board of Trustees, who
> > > approved continuing these efforts.
> > >
> > > Acting on community insights, we will be collaborating on formal brand
> > > naming, visual identity, and brand system design that will use
> > “Wikipedia”
> > > as the central reference point. The resulting system will be OPT-IN for
> > > affiliates.
> > >
> > > This design process will be guided by a “brand network” – a group of
> > > volunteers who would like to continue advising on brand during this
> > > consultation. Dozens of people have already volunteered, and we invite
> > you
> > > to join the group. We will use a group on Wikimedia Space to host this
> > > discussion and the group will be closed to allow candid discussions and
> > > room for iterations. EVERYONE IS INVITED TO JOIN [3]. If you do not
> want
> > to
> > > commit to the in-depth, longer term discussions that will be happening
> > > within the brand network group, we will still be tracking comments left
> > on
> > > the project’s Meta-Wiki page [4]. Furthermore, all important ideas and
> > > updates originating from the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I agree with Fae. I strongly oppose the proposal, and I somehow used to
assume that our opinion would be asked in a structured way.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 7:03 PM Fæ  wrote:

> If the WMF is going to make statements that are not derived from all
> the demonstrable facts, perhaps the community should now respond with
> a completely unambiguous RFC on meta so there can be no doubt?
>
> Something along the lines of:
> "The WMF have employed Wolff Olins for rebranding advice, and they
> recommend that Wikimedia rebrands itself around the word "Wikipedia"
> and projects like Wikimedia Commons are renamed to "Wikicommons" to
> ensure marketing of the projects can easily be delivered by the WMF.
> Do you support or oppose this rebranding programme?"
>
> With a straightforward RFC to keep on linking to in every discussion
> on every venue, we might then have tangible evidence of whether "There
> is considerable support for the branding proposal" or "There is
> considerable opposition for the branding proposal" is factual. Rather
> than drifting along for months with the debate and unhappiness that
> comes from arguing both sides of a mostly political case without
> firmly verifiable evidence available or relying on complex and less
> credible stats from surveys that are likely to suffer from embedded
> bias, especially considering the already banked investment in
> consultancy that drives the need to change something, to prove the
> spent money had impact and "value".
>
> P.S. Zack and others, it's best to avoid the word "collaboration" when
> communicating with an international group. It has unfortunate history
> and gives the impression that you are quoting views from collaborators
> rather than holding open collegial discussion.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
>
> On Fri, 6 Sep 2019 at 17:19, Diane Ranville 
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I agree with Pine.
> > There is a majority of people who actually oppose the rebranding
> > proposition.
> > I don't quite understand why this is still going forward (except that it
> is
> > difficult to acknowledge a mistake and take steps backwards - but it is
> > sometimes necessary).
> > Have other options even been considered?
> >
> > -speaking in my own name here-
> >
> > Diane
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 7:35 AM Pine W  wrote:
> >
> > > Hello Zack,
> > >
> > > Thank you for the report on Meta.
> > >
> > > I am troubled by your statement in this email that "There is
> considerable
> > > support for the brand proposal and general appetite to improve our
> > > movement’s branding system." What that statement appears to omit is
> that,
> > > according to the report on Meta, there is also considerable opposition
> to
> > > the rebranding proposal.
> > >
> > >
> > > Can you explain why you characterized the proposal as having
> "considerable
> > > support" without in the same sentence acknowledging what appears to be
> > > considerable opposition?
> > >
> > >
> > > Of the three top-level metrics that the report on Meta displays that
> > > measure community and affiliate support or opposition regarding the
> > > rebranding proposal, one of the three metrics is in favor and two of
> the
> > > three metrics are opposed. If this was an RfC, and I was using those
> > > measures of sentiment to evaluate support and opposition regarding the
> RfC,
> > > I would probably close the current rebranding proposal as declined.
> > >
> > > Pine
> > >
> > > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Sep 5, 2019, 20:49 Zack McCune  wrote:
> > >
> > > > *Summary* - We want your help with a voluntary, OPT-IN design
> process for
> > > > movement branding.  Please join the in-depth discussion group, or
> watch
> > > for
> > > > updates on Meta-Wiki.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hello all,
> > > >
> > > > After 4 months of community consultation, spanning dozens of
> affiliates,
> > > > several mailing lists, community conferences, and Meta-Wiki, I am
> pleased
> > > > to share a summary of feedback on the proposed 2030 movement brand
> > > strategy
> > > > [1].
> > > >
> > > > From more than 319 comments, representing 150 individual
> contributors and
> > > > 63 affiliates, we assessed 6 major themes in feedback:
> > > >
> > > >1.
> > > >
> > > >Reducing confusion
> > > >2.
> > > >
> > > >Protecting reputation
> > > >3.
> > > >
> > > >Supporting sister projects
> > > >4.
> > > >
> > > >Addressing (legal, governmental) risks
> > > >5.
> > > >
> > > >Supporting movement growth
> > > >6.
> > > >
> > > >The process of change
> > > >
> > > > Please visit our feedback summary page to learn more [2]. You will
> see
> > > > examples of comments within each section, along with a rough
> indication
> > > of
> > > > how many of the comments that we received were related to each theme.
> > > >
> > > > The comments sometimes contradict one another, showing that across
> our
> > > wide
> > > > movement’s experience, different 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Yaroslav Blanter]

ion,
> > > > >>> instead
> > > > >>>> of
> > > > >>>>>> rushing to a quick fix.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> INTEGRATION
> > > > >>>>>> The working groups are taking input that they gathered at
> > > Wikimania
> > > > >>> and
> > > > >>>>> via
> > > > >>>>>> different movement channels and incorporating it into the next
> > > > >>>> iteration
> > > > >>>>> of
> > > > >>>>>> their recommendations. These documents will then serve as a
> > basis
> > > > >> for
> > > > >>>>>> harmonization across working groups.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> The input that we are gathering comes in on different levels.
> > Some
> > > > >> of
> > > > >>>> it
> > > > >>>>>> targets structural level changes or emphasizes specific
> > principles
> > > > >> or
> > > > >>>>>> values, while other feedback is more on the programmatic side
> or
> > > > >>>> already
> > > > >>>>>> addressing implementation. Structural input will continue to
> be
> > > > >>>>> considered
> > > > >>>>>> in forthcoming iterations of the recommendations. Programmatic
> > > > >> input
> > > > >>>> will
> > > > >>>>>> be documented and taken forward to inform the implementation.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> TIMELINE
> > > > >>>>>> We wanted to get the English drafts out as soon as possible
> and
> > > the
> > > > >>>>>> translations on a rolling basis, so that Wikimania
> participants
> > > > >> could
> > > > >>>>> read
> > > > >>>>>> and prepare to engage in person. Over the next few weeks, we
> > will
> > > > >> do
> > > > >>>>>> targeted, public outreach to online project communities in
> > > multiple
> > > > >>>>>> languages. We are soliciting feedback to shape the overall
> > > > >> direction
> > > > >>> of
> > > > >>>>> the
> > > > >>>>>> recommendations through mid-September. Working Groups are
> > already
> > > > >>>> working
> > > > >>>>>> on identifying gaps and overlaps with other groups to prepare
> > for
> > > > >>>>>> harmonization.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> At the harmonization sprint in Tunis on 20-22 September, we
> will
> > > > >>> bring
> > > > >>>> 3
> > > > >>>>>> representatives from each Working Group together to work to
> > > > >> develop a
> > > > >>>>> more
> > > > >>>>>> coherent set of recommendations. The group will be supported
> by
> > > > >>>>>> facilitators and external advice, as well as the core team. We
> > > have
> > > > >>>> also
> > > > >>>>>> invited María Sefidari, Katherine Maher, Ryan Merkley, Valerie
> > > > >>> D’Costa
> > > > >>>>>> (Wikimedia Foundation) and Abraham Taherivand (Wikimedia
> > > > >> Deutschland)
> > > > >>>> to
> > > > >>>>>> the sprint. They contribute expertise and experience from
> their
> > > > >> work
> > > > >>>> and
> > > > >>>>>> leadership in the movement and beyond. They will be active
> > > > >> listeners
> > > > >>>> and
> > > > >>>>>> can challenge recommendations by pointing out risks and
> > > > >> consequences
> > > > >>> on
> > > > >>>>> the
> > > > >>>>>> organizational and movement level. They also participate as
> the
> > > > >>>>>> represent

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Yaroslav Blanter]

And this is the core problem of the whole process (which has been pointed
out by multiple people from the very beginning)

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 12:27 PM Jeff Hawke  wrote:

> Andy
>
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 7:41 PM Andy Mabbett 
> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 19 Aug 2019 at 09:55, Jeff Hawke 
> wrote:
> >
> > > the WG then collate them and decide the final form of the
> > > recommendations, to be implemented by the WMF
> >
> > This seems to be missing a rather crucial intermediate step; the one
> > where the recommendations are accepted, or not, by the wider Wikimedia
> > community.
> >
>
>  That step is not mentioned at
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Frequently_asked_questions#What_steps_will_take_place_in_the_next_few_months_to_put_a_decision-making_process_in_place
> ?
>
> Jeff
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Yaroslav Blanter]

No, it does not work like this. Large communities are only going to accept
decisions which were discussed with them properly, on their project and in
the two-way interaction mode. The discussions on Meta in the mode "we will
listen to you and then let you know of our decision" are not going to be
accepted. We have had enough recent examples to illustrate this.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 5:51 PM Nicole Ebber 
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> We would like to offer further clarification that the recommendations for
> Wikimedia 2030 [1] that were shared earlier with you are indeed drafts.
> They represent discussions around a wide array of topics that the nine
> thematic working groups, affiliates and communities had identified
> important for our movement’s future. They are the product of conversations
> over many months with a variety of stakeholders, and the working groups are
> eager to hear from you. The draft recommendations are neither final nor
> complete, but a continuation of an ongoing conversation happening across
> wikis, platforms, surveys, meetings, and meet-ups. As such, constructive
> feedback and solution-oriented suggestions are welcomed. The draft
> recommendations are based on contexts that deserve due review and
> reflection, and are the result of the efforts of many, rather than single
> individuals.
>
> Many of the draft recommendations underline structural changes needed for
> the growth and expansion of a movement like ours. Many are representative
> of wider societal, historical and global dynamics around us. Please take
> the time to review the draft recommendations in their entirety, pose
> questions, hear from others, and in the spirit of collegial collaboration,
> offer suggestions that you think can address the issues at hand. This is a
> process for all of us to shape our shared future, together; let’s keep
> engaging and challenging one another in this same spirit.
>
> Best wishes,
> Nicole
>
> [1]
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations
>
> On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 15:49, Todd Allen  wrote:
>
> > "And just to keep this on track, what is your view on how we can
> > incorporate
> > indigenous knowledge without it becoming commercialised by the current
> > licensing scheme?"
> >
> > We can't and no one can.
> >
> > Knowledge, ideas, and concepts cannot be copyrighted to begin with. Now,
> > specific expressions of those ideas certainly can be, but the underlying
> > facts and ideas cannot. If the expression of those ideas is to be on
> > Wikimedia, they must be under an open content license, allowing reuse
> > without regard to purpose. If someone would prefer to put their work
> under
> > an NC license, then a free-content project is not the appropriate place
> for
> > it. Many other places are happy to accept NC-licensed material. But even
> > then, reuse of the concepts and facts cannot be prohibited no matter what
> > one does.
> >
> > Todd
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 5:47 AM Philip Kopetzky <
> philip.kopet...@gmail.com
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Please don't generalise frustration with your conduct on this list.
> > You're
> > > the only one telling people to shut up here.
> > >
> > > And just to keep this on track, what is your view on how we can
> > incorporate
> > > indigenous knowledge without it becoming commercialised by the current
> > > licensing scheme?
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
>
>
>
> --
> Nicole Ebber
> Adviser International Relations
> Program Manager Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy
> Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
> Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
> https://wikimedia.de
>
> Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit
> teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
> https://spenden.wikimedia.de
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
> Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
> der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
> Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
> ___
> Wikimedia-l 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Universal forced HTTPS backdoor in Kazakhstan

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh
Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for example,
the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license and
verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend 
wrote:

> Yury
>
> What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
>
> The Turnip
>
> On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka
>  wrote:
> >
> > I'm sure many have heard about this:
> >
> https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
> >
> > Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into
> > installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the
> > government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
> >
> > Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at
> > least on some ISPs).
> >
> > I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not
> > only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but
> > also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack
> > admin accounts.
> >
> > Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other
> > governments may start doing the same.
> >
> > I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
> >
> > Best,
> > Yury.
> >
> > ___
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> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I agree that it is completely counterproductive to discuss issues like who
filed the complaint.

What is however important to understand, especially for those who are not
English Wikipedia insiders, is that the reaction which this event caused in
unprecedent. For example, by now 19 active admins resigned the tools over
the incident in two weeks. Depending on the point of view, one can call
this mass protest, or mass madness, or whatever, but this is clearly not an
ordinary run-of-the-mill event. It already lead to a lot of troubles and at
this point is actually dangerous for stability of the Wikimedia universe.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 9:27 PM Dennis During  wrote:

>  On Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 14:48 Thomas Townsend 
> wrote:
>
>
> Considering that nobody posting  has any information about the
> facts of the case, would it not be better to cease from speculation
> which can have no positive aspects but will certainly be offensive or
> even defamatory to named individuals.
>
> What you recommend is against human nature.  It is natural for one to try
> to anticipate what others might do, especially if it might have
> consequences for oneself.
>
> I'm not looking forward to a wikiworld where judgment and punishment
> rendered in camera by folks whose questionable interpretations of
> platitudinous Missions and Codes is apparently shaped by the values of an
> increasingly intolerant subculture.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright issues

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Actually, I am afraid, for CCI at some point we will have to remove all
added text by bot. I do not see any other scalable solution.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 5:36 PM Stephen Philbrick <
stephen.w.philbr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have seen a couple comments on copyright issues in the last couple days
> so I thought I'd share some information that I think may be not well-known
> by everyone.
>
> Very roughly, copyright issues (text) can be viewed in three categories:
> 1. Addition of copyrighted material to articles in years past, not yet
> removed (one-off)
> 2. Same as above, except by a serial violator
> 3. Close to real-time edits which may include copyrighted material
>
> The reason for distinguishing these three categories is that our approach
> and success rates are very different.
>
> In case 1, an editor identifies what they believe to be a copyright issue
> in an existing article. They can report it to Wikipedia:Copyright_problems.
> In the case of a single issue or a very small handful of issues, those
> items are identified and taken care of by volunteers. (I think this aspect
> is handled adequately — I used to be active there but haven't been
> recently)
>
> The second case arises when a potential violation is identified. An
> examination of the editors contributions reveals many examples (typically
> five or more). If this occurs, it is referred to Wikipedia:Contributor
> copyright investigations. A CCI is opened, and the intent is to examine
> every single edit by that editor. This aspect is extremely backlogged. I've
> spent many hours working on CCI's, but it isn't easy, it isn't rewarding,
> and it is discouraging because I think the backlog is increasing rather
> than decreasing. (This isn't due to newly created copyright issues but
> newly found ones.)
>
> The third case is handled by Copy Patrol, a  foundation created tool that
> examines all new edits in close to real time and generates a report, which
> is handled by volunteers.
>
> I want to emphasize this third aspect for multiple reasons. I think it is
> one of the least known tools. Some of the prior emails on the subject leave
> the impression that the authors are unaware of the existence of this tool.
> On the one hand, it works very well, as almost all of the several hundred
> reports each week are reviewed, most within 24 hours.
>
> Good news:
> * Copy Patrol is working, so my guess is that the growth in true copyright
> issues is close to nonexistent.
>
> Bad news:
> * Copy Patrol is adequately staffed but just barely. One editor is
> responsible for the handling of far more than half of all of these reports
> (major kudos to Diannaa), but that much reliance on a single volunteer is
> not good for the long-term health of the project.
>
> * The copy patrol tool is pretty good, and was being improved for a while,
> but I've identified some desirable improvements and my sense is that it's a
> very back burner project in terms of additional enhancements.
>
> * CCI clearance is going to take many years
>
> Phil (Sphilbrick)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community Health, Roles & Responsibilities

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I went ahead and offered my time to participate in the strategy process. My
offer was rejected.. I do not think I will ever do it again.

I an afraid WMF is up to some surprises when they publish the 2030 Strategy
which was not in any way coordinated with the communities, and then see
that the communities, for whatever reason, are not interested in
enthusiastically embracing it.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 11:03 PM Ad Huikeshoven  wrote:

> We are in a turbulent episode on this mailing list and en.wp. I don't claim
> to speak for the community. I wish everybody can speak for themselves.
>
> Some people don't like the Wikimedia Foundation stepping in and banning an
> user for a specific project for a year. Most people don't react, while some
> are vocal.
>
> Some people comment on a more general level than this specific case. That
> can be separated from the case. There is an ongoing strategy discussion on
> meta and elsewhere about Wikimedia 2030.
>
> There are working groups for Community Health. There are working groups for
> Roles and Responsibilities in the movement. They do ask for input. People
> who want to influence the roles and responsibilities of project communities
> versus for example the Wikimedia Foundation board and paid staff, go ahead,
> and find your way to participate.[1] Or just fill out the survey.[2]
>
> Previously a strategic direction has been agreed. Something with diversity,
> inclusion and something about underrepresented voices, and communities that
> have been left out by structures of power and privilege. It goes as far as
> "We will break down the social, political, and technical barriers
> preventing people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge."
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation took a bold step in banning Fram for a year. They
> have the authority to do so. They are not obliged to give reasons.
>
> The Community Health group guiding questions inter alia are "How can we
> ensure that our communities are places that people want to be part of and
> participate in, and how can we make people stay? How do we engage and
> support people that have been left out by structures of power and
> privilege?"
>
> Those last two questions are interesting questions. I'ḿ curious to learn
> answers from people who strongly oppose interventions by WMF staff. and
> from others as well.
>
> I'm looking forward to have conversations about the recommendations of the
> working groups in the Wikimedia 2030 process at Wikimania Stockholm. I hope
> to see a lot of you there.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Ad Huikeshoven
>
> [1]
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Participate
> [2] https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d718KRfJ5W3OVYV
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Yaroslav Blanter]

I think it would. I see many people in the discussions, myself included,
who would not have any objections to a ban by ArbCom but who oppose the WMF
ban. Having a PhD in math and physics, I can not theoretically exclude that
there are active community members who are happy now and would object the
ArbCom ban, but, to be honest, I still would like to see one.

The amount of shit could indeed be approximately the same.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 11:31 PM GorillaWarfare <
gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yaroslav,
>
> I understand the difference. I'm simply raising an objection to the claim
> that this would've gone over much better had it been the ArbCom and not the
> WMF who placed a ban.
>
> – Molly White (GorillaWarfare)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GorillaWarfare
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 5:01 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > Just to summarize the difference between WMF and ArbCom, in view of the
> > majority of the en.wiki community:
> >
> > We elect ArbCom, and if they do not do what they should be doing, they do
> > not get re-elected in two years, which happens on a regular basis
> >
> > We do not elect WMF and in fact we have no means of influencing WMF
> (apart
> > of the three Trustees we elect every three years who are themselves
> > typically alienated from the community). Short of taking down the
> > fundraiser banner or of organizing a Wikipedia blackout.
> >
> > This is the difference, and this is why virtually everybody who had to
> say
> > smth about this episode was unhappy with the process. Without looking at
> > the diffs, I only remember three users who were perfectly happy with what
> > happened, out of hundreds who said smth.
> >
> > One unfortunate consequence of the whole episode was, whoever is right
> and
> > whoever is wrong, the general opinion about WMF in the community is
> > all-time low, with people generally not prepared to believe to anything
> > communicated to them. If WMF is not interested in getting very unpleasant
> > surprises, they should start working towards building the community
> trust.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Yaroslav
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 10:48 PM GorillaWarfare <
> > gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 8:36 AM Fæ  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Any Arbcom approved sanction against Fram based on the evidence would
> > not
> > > > be controversial for anyone.
> > >
> > >
> > > Sorry for coming in late to this conversation; I've mostly been
> following
> > > the sicussion happening on-wiki. But I wanted to pipe up to say that I
> > > absolutely do not believe this is true (see also my comment here
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=revision=901559520=901559137=source
> > > >).
> > > To repeat my comment somewhat, the English Wikipedia ArbCom has in the
> > past
> > > had to place similar bans: that is, ones against long-term contributors
> > > with many supporters, and ones in which the full details behind what
> led
> > to
> > > the ban cannot be revealed publicly. The reaction has been quite
> similar
> > to
> > > the one the WMF is currently experiencing—"star chamber" accusations,
> > > claims that we've abused our power or the process, and assumptions that
> > the
> > > ban is unwarranted unless everyone is allowed to scrutinize the private
> > > evidence. The ArbCom is empowered to take action based off of
> > > privately-submitted evidence and private discussion, but in practice it
> > is
> > > extremely poorly-received when we do, basically across-the-board.
> > >
> > > – Molly (GorillaWarfare)
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GorillaWarfare
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Just to summarize the difference between WMF and ArbCom, in view of the
majority of the en.wiki community:

We elect ArbCom, and if they do not do what they should be doing, they do
not get re-elected in two years, which happens on a regular basis

We do not elect WMF and in fact we have no means of influencing WMF (apart
of the three Trustees we elect every three years who are themselves
typically alienated from the community). Short of taking down the
fundraiser banner or of organizing a Wikipedia blackout.

This is the difference, and this is why virtually everybody who had to say
smth about this episode was unhappy with the process. Without looking at
the diffs, I only remember three users who were perfectly happy with what
happened, out of hundreds who said smth.

One unfortunate consequence of the whole episode was, whoever is right and
whoever is wrong, the general opinion about WMF in the community is
all-time low, with people generally not prepared to believe to anything
communicated to them. If WMF is not interested in getting very unpleasant
surprises, they should start working towards building the community trust.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 10:48 PM GorillaWarfare <
gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 8:36 AM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Any Arbcom approved sanction against Fram based on the evidence would not
> > be controversial for anyone.
>
>
> Sorry for coming in late to this conversation; I've mostly been following
> the sicussion happening on-wiki. But I wanted to pipe up to say that I
> absolutely do not believe this is true (see also my comment here
> <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=revision=901559520=901559137=source
> >).
> To repeat my comment somewhat, the English Wikipedia ArbCom has in the past
> had to place similar bans: that is, ones against long-term contributors
> with many supporters, and ones in which the full details behind what led to
> the ban cannot be revealed publicly. The reaction has been quite similar to
> the one the WMF is currently experiencing—"star chamber" accusations,
> claims that we've abused our power or the process, and assumptions that the
> ban is unwarranted unless everyone is allowed to scrutinize the private
> evidence. The ArbCom is empowered to take action based off of
> privately-submitted evidence and private discussion, but in practice it is
> extremely poorly-received when we do, basically across-the-board.
>
> – Molly (GorillaWarfare)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GorillaWarfare
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Yaroslav Blanter]

The point made by pretty much everyone is not that Fram should or should
not be banned, but that the process in this case should have followed the
standard dispute resolution avenues, More specifically, the case should
have been communicated to the Arbitration Committee, whose members did sign
the non-disclosure agreement.

This is different from the past cases when users were banned by WMF, since
in this case it was made clear the case is based on on-wiki open activity
of Fram (and, specifically, only on the English Wikipedia). The on-wiki
activity is subject to the community policies.

To be clear, I am not a friend of Fram, and in the past supported desysop
on a number of occasions.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 5:46 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:

> People who oppose the ban: Are you aware of all aspects and things Fram has
> done? Do you have the full picture? It's really saddening to see how fast
> people jump to conclusion in page mentioned in the email. I personally,
> don't know what happened so I neither can support or oppose the ban. As
> simple as that.
>
> So what should be done IMO. If enwiki wants to know more, a community body
> can ask for more information, if body satisfy two things:
>  - They had signed NDA not to disclose the case
>  - They are trusted by the community
>
> I think the only body can sorta work with this is stewards but not sure
> (Does ArbCom NDA'ed?)
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 3:58 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Lack of transparency from the WMF, whatelse is new.
> > I'm currently under a funding ban secretly decided (by who?) based on a
> > false accusation, without providing any evidence. Until now I'm waiting
> for
> > an explanation from the WMF. So, this sort of attitude doesn't surprise
> me
> > at all.
> > It is very unfortunate that the WMF apparently thrives in this kind of
> > medieval obscurity, the opposite of the values of the Wikimedia Movement.
> > Matter for Roles & Reponsibilities.
> >
> > Best,
> > Paulo
> >
> >
> > Benjamin Ikuta  escreveu no dia terça,
> 11/06/2019
> > à(s) 05:45:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks for this.
> > >
> > > I'm glad to see I'm not the only one dismayed by the unilateralism and
> > > lack of transparency.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Jun 10, 2019, at 8:25 PM, Techman224 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Forwarding to WIkimedia-l since WikiEN-l is relatively dead.
> > > >
> > > > Since this message, an Arbcom member (SilkTork) stated that they
> > weren't
> > > consulted, nor did this action was the result of Arbcom forwarding a
> > > concern to the office. [1]
> > > >
> > > > The only non-response excuse from the WMF [2] was that "local
> > > communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own
> autonomous
> > > rules but the Terms of Use, too.” even though there were no complaints
> > > on-wiki nor to Arbcom privately.
> > > >
> > > > The on-wiki discussion is taking place at the Bureaucrats and the
> > Arbcom
> > > noticeboards.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Request_for_ArbCom_to_comment_publicly_on_Fram's_ban
> > > >
> > > > [1]
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> > > >
> > > > [2]
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team
> > > >
> > > > Techman224
> > > >
> > > >> Begin forwarded message:
> > > >>
> > > >> From: George Herbert 
> > > >> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
> > > >> Date: June 10, 2019 at 8:54:34 PM CDT
> > > >> To: English Wikipedia 
> > > >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia 
> > > >>
> > > >> In case you're not following on-wiki - Office S blocked English
> > > Wikipedia
> > > >> user / administrator Fram for a year and desysopped, for unspecified
> > > >> reasons in the Office purview.  There was a brief statement here
> from
> > > >> Office regarding it which gave no details other than that normal
> > policy
> > > and
> > > >> procedures for Office actions were followed, which under normal
> > > >> circumstances preclude public comments.
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > >>
> > > >> Several people on Arbcom and board have commented they're making
> > private
> > > >> inquiries under normal reporting and communication channels, due to
> > the
> > > >> oddity and essentially uniqueness of the action.
> > > >>
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Be the change you want to see (was: WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi James,

thank you for the answer, appreciated.

Specifically about on-wiki communication, I possibly misunderstand the
situation, but out of 900+ projects you mention, some are dead (no regular
editors), and a vast majority is still in the regime when a few active
users can follow the recent edit list. (I am admin on the Russian
Wikivoyage and I have checked every single edit there since its transfer to
WMF in 2012 - we currently have about a hundred per day). All these
projects only have one noticeboards (typically accessible from the panel on
the left as Community Portal, or, of not, it can be easily located). Again,
at the Russian Wikivoyage, except for the very first cuple of months, when
we were coordinating transfer from the Wikitravel, I can not recollect any
WMF-related person who was interested in discussing anything. We get useful
announcements (typically related to software), but the only time we had
something else (the beginning of the current strategy cycle), we did not
get an impression anybody was interested in listening to us.

Now, bigger projects - there are may be 30 or so of them where one can not
follow the recent changes (the vast majority being Wikipedias, plus
Commons, Wikidata, and possibly English and German Wikivoyages and a couple
of more projects). The absolute majority of these also have one central
place (typically, again linked to Community portal), where things should be
discussed. I would think that a WMF representative trying to discuss smth
at a particular article talk page - it is not impossible, but as a
community member I would find this odd - at the very least, it should be a
pointer to that discussion.

Finally, there are some really big projects, where one can several village
pumps without an obvious choice. I am obviously more familiar with the
English Wikipedia, and indeed RfCs can proliferate anywhere (even though
there is a central place one cal locate all of them), and it might be a bit
tricky to find a correct one, but in all cases I have seen if the topic is
even remotely connected to WMF business (and sometimes even when it is not
connected to it at all) somebody would ping one, or two, or five WMF
employees - who could come and engage ina discussion, or come and say they
are not interested, or not come at all - which is fine, obviously
reasonable people do not expect A-level employees to react to every ping
anywhere in the Wikimedia universe - but at least I think these discussion
places are reasonably well localized and are easy to follow if anybody is
interested in. I am, again, not saying that WMF employees should follow all
discussion on all projects - or even that they should check several
selected pages every day - but some communication channel much exist. In my
experience, most of the reasonable questions just simply get ignored -
which obviously creates an impression that nobody is listening to the
community.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 10:31 PM James Hare  wrote:

> On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 6:26 AM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > This is of course fine, and everybody is free to participate or not to
> participate on this mailing list, but, generally speaking, does WMF have
> any channels to listen to the volunteers working on the project?
>
> I am a product manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. What this means, in the
> broadest of terms, is that I need to know what people want/need in order to
> do my job “correctly,” for some definition of “correct.” Of course, what
> constitutes a “correct” decision on my part is something not everyone will
> agree on and that’s fine. But I need to gather information as part of this
> work.
>
> The problem is that there is no “one” place to go. To give you an idea of
> the magnitude of the problem, there are over 900 wikis.  Hundreds of those
> wikis comprise Wikipedia, a project with a cumulative total of 50,000,000
> articles. Each one of those articles either has a talk page or could
> theoretically get one as soon as someone makes the first post. So, just
> starting with Wikipedia articles, we have over 50,000,000 potential or
> existing discussion venues, with very little coordination or
> cross-organization between these venues, and this doesn’t even include
> individual user talk pages or really, really specific talk pages like
> “Wikipedia talk:Administrators’ noticeboard/Incidents” which is... very
> precisely, a venue to discuss the administration of that specific
> noticeboard (but not to, itself, host noticeboard-like posts).[0]
>
> It is very convenient and easy to create a talk page because talk pages are
> a very central paradigm to the MediaWiki software (going back to 2002?
> 2003?) and so they are built into the overall website experience in a way
> that things that were tacked on way later, simply are not. But it is a poor
> interface that doesn’t scale across more than several 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Be the change you want to see (was: WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

This is of course fine, and everybody is free to participate or not to
participate on this mailing list, but, generally speaking, does WMF have
any channels to listen to the volunteers working on the project? They often
say so, but in practice I do not see any. This list used to be the one, but
it does not carry out this function. The corresponding part of Meta is
dead, questions never get answered. Some (very few, as far as I can tell),
WMF staff members are also active as volunteers, but they do not serve as
liasons between WMF and communities, at least I do not see any indication
that they would welcome these questions asked as their talk pages. Every
time I see a WMF staffer on one of the projects I am active in, this is a
one-way communication mode, not a dialogue.

Well, may be WMF does not need these channels, but then I do not understand
why they continue claiming they are listening to the community. In my
experience, this is not the case.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 3:16 PM Joseph Seddon 
wrote:

> I do not think we should assign blame to those who left this list during
> and because of the periods of toxicity, and who are disinclined to
> participate here because of the memories of that and a continued perceived
> unhealthiness in the tone. Their decision to leave was a valid one.
>
> Not respecting that choice I suspect would just reaffirm their suspicions
> and reinforces the lack of desire to commit here. A significantly more
> positive tone needs to be made and a much more conciliatory stance taken.
> Otherwise we all might as well pack our bags.
>
>
> On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:17 AM Asaf Bartov  wrote:
>
> > Speaking as a (very) longtime member of this mailing list, and one who is
> > carefully observing it for a few years now as a volunteer list
> > co-administrator:
> >
> > On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 3:56 AM Joseph Seddon 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I, like many others, wish to see this list become a crucible of good
> > > suggestions, healthy and critical debate about ideas and as a sound
> > > mechanism for oversight and account . A huge amount of staff time and
> > > movement resources is taken up by the consumption of its content. And
> yet
> > > it remains the greatest shame that much of the best most worthwhile
> > > constructive discussions have moved to platforms like Facebook because
> > this
> > > list is viewed as hosting such an unhealthy atmosphere when emails are
> > > written with such overt passive aggression.
> > >
> > > I call it out because if we want people to participate on this list,
> the
> > > unhealthy way in which this list gets treated by some of its most
> active
> > > participants needs to be dealt with. Otherwise valid points will not
> get
> > > acknowledged or answered.
> > >
> >
> > I am not sure the causality here runs in the direction you describe.
> It's
> > true that this list had some aggressive, even vulgar participants in the
> > past, and that some senior staff members, as well as board members, have
> > left the list in protest.  Personally, I think that was a mistake on
> their
> > part: to improve the list atmosphere, you model good behavior yourself,
> and
> > you call upon the rest of the list -- the "silent majority" -- to call
> out
> > bad behavior and enforce some participation standards (as, indeed, I and
> my
> > co-moderators have been doing since we took over).
> >
> > By senior people's departing this list, and no longer requiring staff to
> be
> > on this list, a strong signal was sent that this is not a venue crucial
> to
> > listen to, and that, coupled with the decreasing frequency of WMF
> responses
> > to legitimate volunteer inquiries and suggestions, had a *powerful*
> > chilling effect on the willingness of most volunteers to engage here.
> > Especially when, as you say, they were able to get better engagement on
> > Facebook and other channels, despite the serious shortcomings of
> > accountability on those channels (immutable archiving, searchability,
> > access to anonymous volunteers, etc.)
> >
> > Yes, this list has also seen some pseudonymous critics whose questions
> may
> > have been inconvenient or troublesome to address.  Yet I think the
> > accountable thing to do would have been to respond, however briefly, to
> > prevent the sealioning and sanctimonious posts that filled the list --
> and,
> > I am sure, greatly annoyed and demotivated many subscribers.  Even a
> > response stating WMF chooses not to respond to a certain question, or not
> > to dig up certain data, would have been better than the stony silence
> that
> > has become the all-too-common stance for WMF on this list.
> >
> > As you know, I also work for WMF (though I am writing this in my
> volunteer
> > capacity, and out of my care for the well-being of this list).  While I
> > have never shied away from responding on this list, I have on occasion
> been
> > scolded (internally) for attempting to answer volunteer queries to the
> best
> > of my 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Be the change you want to see (was: WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Yes, Asaf is absolutely spot on. Though I am afraid it is a small part of a
bigger problem.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 12:54 PM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> Asaf thank you very much. This response of yours helps build bridges.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On Wed, 15 May 2019 at 03:17, Asaf Bartov  wrote:
>
> > Speaking as a (very) longtime member of this mailing list, and one who is
> > carefully observing it for a few years now as a volunteer list
> > co-administrator:
> >
> > On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 3:56 AM Joseph Seddon 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I, like many others, wish to see this list become a crucible of good
> > > suggestions, healthy and critical debate about ideas and as a sound
> > > mechanism for oversight and account . A huge amount of staff time and
> > > movement resources is taken up by the consumption of its content. And
> yet
> > > it remains the greatest shame that much of the best most worthwhile
> > > constructive discussions have moved to platforms like Facebook because
> > this
> > > list is viewed as hosting such an unhealthy atmosphere when emails are
> > > written with such overt passive aggression.
> > >
> > > I call it out because if we want people to participate on this list,
> the
> > > unhealthy way in which this list gets treated by some of its most
> active
> > > participants needs to be dealt with. Otherwise valid points will not
> get
> > > acknowledged or answered.
> > >
> >
> > I am not sure the causality here runs in the direction you describe.
> It's
> > true that this list had some aggressive, even vulgar participants in the
> > past, and that some senior staff members, as well as board members, have
> > left the list in protest.  Personally, I think that was a mistake on
> their
> > part: to improve the list atmosphere, you model good behavior yourself,
> and
> > you call upon the rest of the list -- the "silent majority" -- to call
> out
> > bad behavior and enforce some participation standards (as, indeed, I and
> my
> > co-moderators have been doing since we took over).
> >
> > By senior people's departing this list, and no longer requiring staff to
> be
> > on this list, a strong signal was sent that this is not a venue crucial
> to
> > listen to, and that, coupled with the decreasing frequency of WMF
> responses
> > to legitimate volunteer inquiries and suggestions, had a *powerful*
> > chilling effect on the willingness of most volunteers to engage here.
> > Especially when, as you say, they were able to get better engagement on
> > Facebook and other channels, despite the serious shortcomings of
> > accountability on those channels (immutable archiving, searchability,
> > access to anonymous volunteers, etc.)
> >
> > Yes, this list has also seen some pseudonymous critics whose questions
> may
> > have been inconvenient or troublesome to address.  Yet I think the
> > accountable thing to do would have been to respond, however briefly, to
> > prevent the sealioning and sanctimonious posts that filled the list --
> and,
> > I am sure, greatly annoyed and demotivated many subscribers.  Even a
> > response stating WMF chooses not to respond to a certain question, or not
> > to dig up certain data, would have been better than the stony silence
> that
> > has become the all-too-common stance for WMF on this list.
> >
> > As you know, I also work for WMF (though I am writing this in my
> volunteer
> > capacity, and out of my care for the well-being of this list).  While I
> > have never shied away from responding on this list, I have on occasion
> been
> > scolded (internally) for attempting to answer volunteer queries to the
> best
> > of my knowledge, for "outstepping my remit" or interfering in someone
> > else's remit.  I have taken this to heart, and accordingly no longer try
> to
> > respond to queries such as Fae's (which in this case I find a perfectly
> > reasonable question, meriting an answer).  Several past attempts by me to
> > ping appropriate senior staff on questions on this list (or on talk
> pages)
> > have also met with rebuke, so I have ceased those as well.
> >
> > For these reasons I do not accept this wholesale blaming of this list's
> > subscribers on the difficulty having meaningful conversations here:
> >
> > But if we want to see staff members more actively
> > > participating here then those long standing individuals need to really
> > > thing about the tone in which they engage here, particularly those who
> do
> > > so most often. If that does not change, this list will continue to
> > languish
> > > and those few staff members who continue to engage here will slowly
> > > disappear. This now increasingly perennial topic keeps coming up and my
> > > fear is that it will on go away through the increasing abandonment this
> > > list faces.
> > >
> >
> > It is WMF that is not behaving collaboratively here.  And it is within
> > WMF's power to change it.  C-levels, the ED, and other managers at WMF
> > could all decide to 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the amount of
material it has to deal with.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
wrote:

>
>
>
> Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or capable to do
> the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
>
>
>
> On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
>
> > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> >
> > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several GLAM-related
> > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing what it
> is
> > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can create a
> > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> >
> > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> >
> > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with Common's
> > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you project
> > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do something
> similar.
> >
> > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but on the
> other
> > hand it is constantly flooded by hundreds  of copyright violating files a
> > day:
> >
> > See the list from just one day:
> >
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2019/05/01
> >
> > so this hostility works both ways - Common's admins have to cope with
> > aggressive hostile copyright violators every day, and after some time -
> > decide to leave or became being hostile themselves... and the other issue
> > is decreasing number of active admins and OTRS agents.
> >
> > I think - sooner or later - all this system - uploads - screening uploads
> > by admins, and OTRS agreements - needs deep rethinking.
> >
> >
> > niedz., 12 maj 2019 o 10:48 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> >
> >> Hello all,
> >>
> >> There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons
> components
> >> of The Community, judging by the article "Wikimedia Commons: a highly
> >> hostile place for multimedia students contributions" at the Education
> >> Newsletter
> >>
> >>
> >>
> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/April_2019/Wikimedia_Commons:_a_highly_hostile_place_for_multimedia_students_contributions
> >>
> >> As far as I can understand it, some students on an Outreach project
> >> uploaded some rather well-made video material, and comeone on Commons
> >> deleted them because they appeared to well-made to be student projects
> and
> >> so concluded they were copyright violations.  But some rather odd
> remarks
> >> were made "Commons has to fight the endless stream of uploaded
> copyrighted
> >> content on behalf of a headquarters in San Francisco that doesn't care."
> >> and
> >> "you have regarded Commons as little more than free cloud storage for
> >> images you intend to use on Wikipedia ".
> >>
> >> Perhaps the Foundation needs to resolve this dispute?
> >>
> >> Thrapostibongles
> >> ___
> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> >> 
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
> > http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
> > http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Ziko,

you could then argue that Commons is also not a collaborative project -
only one person takes a picture (determines the story, the position, light
etc), and others can at best perform some editing or add/remove categories.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> Hello Philippe,
>
> Thank you for your points to which I generally can agree. Because this
> is an important matter to my, allow me to explain what I exactly mean.
>
> Of course, there are several tasks or layers where people can (and do)
> collaborate when working on journalistic content. But there is an
> aspect where the collaboration cannot be a collaboration of equals
> (which is necessary for the definition of what a wiki is).
>
> Imagine that reporter-editor P. has witnessed a speech of the mayor
> and reports about it, calling it e.g. "enthusiast".
> Stay-at-home-editor Z. reads this report and changes the word to
> "euphoric". P. then protests and changes it back, claiming that he has
> been there and knows better. So P. and Z. didn't have the same access
> to the world that has to be described.
>
> That would be different in the case that P. and Z. only work on
> material such as press releases and content from news agencies. I
> believe that Andrew meant this kind of work when he wrote that we
> don't need (another) website offering this.
>
> Another example for content unsuitable for
> wiki-collaboration-among-equals is an autobiography. An autobiography
> by definition is a personal account of what someone has experienced in
> her life. No other person has the same world access. Other people in a
> wiki can check the text for inconsistencies, orthography, structure
> etc. (Great.) But the person of the autobiography has always a veto
> right - otherwise, it wouldn't be an autobiography.
>
> An interesting question is whether fiction is suitable for
> collaboration (and what kind of collaboration), but that would go to
> far here.
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
> Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 18:26 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette
> :
> >
> > Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and fact
> > check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
> >
> > That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success
> stories,
> > but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many
> roles
> > for community there.
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk 
> wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not
> > > suitable for collaboration.
> > >
> > > Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which
> > > the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based
> > > on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a
> > > library.
> > >
> > > When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she
> > > is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in
> > > the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do
> > > little more.
> > >
> > > Kind regards
> > > Ziko
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette
> > > :
> > > >
> > > > The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
> > > >
> > > > I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with
> > > > notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
> direct
> > > > news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
> > > >
> > > > [1]
> > > >
> > >
> https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
> > > >
> > > > Me too.  In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always
> done
> > > > very well.  It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite
> functional, use
> > > > for a Wiki.  A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a
> fine
> > > > addition to the ecosystem, imho.  And it is very reasonable to think
> that
> > > > given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to
> fill
> > > > that spot.
> > > >
> > > > But a news competitor to traditional news outlets?  Nope, that it
> isn't.
> > > >
> > > > Philippe
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih 
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Andrew
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the
> policies
> > > > > that
> > > > > > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
> > > are a
> > > > > > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
> > > Wikipedia
> > > > > is
> > > > > > a success as a news-gathering operation.  These seem
> inconsistent to
> > > me.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
> > > primary
> > > > > source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
> > > > >
> > > > > I 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Yaroslav Blanter]

My understanding is that this is exactly what we are discussing now. In the
scenario proposed by Asaf there is a vote (RfC) in which keep votes of the
Wikinews community would go against delete votes by Wikimedia users not
interested in keeping Wikinews.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:17 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) 
wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:41, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the
> > project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down
> > against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or
> > perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask
> > myself  whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where
> we
> > have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day
> > against the will of the community, just because we are not successful
> > competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for
> example.
> >
>
> I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without
> community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
>
> Dan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the
project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down
against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or
perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask
myself  whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where we
have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day
against the will of the community, just because we are not successful
competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for example.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:32 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all
> volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.
> Is that a message we want to broadcast?
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk
> Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand
> system for our 2030 goals]
>
> Hello,
> Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did
> not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing
> from time to time.
> But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept.
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
>
> Samuel Klein  schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
>
> > Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
> and
> > internal narrative of the projects and movement.  A classic branding
> issue
> > ;)
> > * On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
> topical
> > subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
> major
> > language Wikpiedias'?  some obvious names have already been taken)
> > * On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
> > overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or
> > synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
> >
> > We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects
> > trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the
> > world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects:
> >  I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers.   They
> > all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can
> > accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
> date
> > of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion
> > about how to do it better.  When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
> exactly
> > what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling
> > and satisfying to them.  However as there is no central cafe or village
> > pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible
> > to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage
> > with them...
> >
> > This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways
> > for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel,
> > advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and
> > coalescence, for awareness and thanks.  We have tried many small steps in
> > this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple,
> > functional tools of alignment.
> >
> > SJ
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Andrew
> > >
> > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
> > that
> > > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a
> > > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
> Wikipedia
> > is
> > > a success as a news-gathering operation.  These seem inconsistent to
> me.
> > > However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
> is
> > to
> > > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia.  Is that right?
> > >
> > > JPS
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
> Wikipedia
> > > > seems
> > > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
> > its
> > > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason.  Maybe the WMF
> > should
> > > > > sort out the demarcation issues.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Jennifer,
> > > >
> > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
> vast
> > > > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
> Wikinews
> > > > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
> > properties.
> > > >
> > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Andrew Lih provided a couple of days ago a link to his excellent analysis
of ten years ago, but in short - Wikinews has a very different nature that
all other Wikimedia projects. Wikipedia, or say Wikivoyage or Commons are
incremental - you can add a paragraph of text or an image, walk away, come
back in a week and continue. A new item for Wikinews should be written
quickly - one day old news are not really news - and published in a form
which is digestable from the very beginning. It is not incremental, and
there is very little room for collaborative writing.

And competition for news items is of course way stronger than for wikipedia
articles.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:52 AM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 3:49 AM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't describe Wikinews as a success case, though.
> >
> > Paulo
> >
>
> Compared to Wikitribune it is!  But more importantly, if Wikinews is not
> thriving, then why not?  Does it lack resources?  What could or should the
> WMF do to revive it?  Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would
> be better spent on the  projects that are not doing so well as the big
> Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them down,
> on the principle of reinforcing success instead.  These are the big
> questions it should be asking itself.
>
> JPS
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Yaroslav Blanter]

To be honest, Wikidata does have serious vandalism issues which have not
yet been solved. It is unlikely the English Wikipedia will have a more
close integration with Wikidata until they have been solved. For the
record, I am administrator on both projects.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 8:31 PM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> When I worked on Ottoman history in Wikidata (I will get back to it again)
> Catalan was one of the best resources. Thank you :) If you want me to I can
> share my work/your work on your wikipedia.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM#Ottoman_Turkey
>
> On Sat, 13 Apr 2019 at 20:21, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, that Wikidata problem happens on English Wikipedia. Some Wikipedias
> > (Basque, Catalan, even French) are embracing Wikidata extensively.
> >
> > And there's the branding issue. Maybe Wikipedia is not THE future.
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [strategy process] Fwd: I decided to leave the working group

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hello Itzik,

thanks for sharing this.

I actually did not want to react, because I presumably sound too critical
on this list in the last couple of years. However, 24h passed, and nobody
reacted, and It would be unfortunate if we let this go.

My own experience brought me to the same conclusions, even though I have a
very different background. I am a project contributor, highly active on
several WMF projects and having some advanced permissions there. I belong
to the category which became common to refer to as "unorganized volunteers"
(which we actually read as a derogatory name). I participated in the 2010
strategy consultation, which was pretty much community driven, and I liked
that one. My name is on the final document. However, I did not like the
current process from the very beginning. In the first stage, facilitators
were hired, and some of them genuinely wanted to do things but did not know
how to activate the communities, and others did not even make an effort. As
I already shared on this list, on one of the projects I am active in we
took the challenge seriously and formulated quite a few of strategic
directions - just to be told by the facilitator that this is not what we
were expected to do. The final document had no trace of our suggestions. I
was one of those who opposed the final document and signed for this on Meta
- about 70 people signed and were duly ignored. I was not looking forward
to the second round, but when I saw a call, I though "ok, I was criticizing
the process a lot, but did I do enough to fix it", and I applied. My
application was rejected, and a couple of days later there was a second
call stating that the first one did not get enough applicants. Then I was
sure I am happy that whatever final document would be there in the end is
no way my name could be associated with it. Whatever else would happen
around the strategy discussion this round, I am not going to be available
to help. The strategy discussion is smth that happens in a different
galaxy. The process is hopelessly broken and should have been killed at an
earlier stage. I know that a lot of people I respect (and quite a few I do
not) were and still are involved, but apparently the process design was not
appropriate from the very beginning.

I am generally very disappointed by an inability of many people at WMF and
thematic organizations to realize what "strategy" actually means.
Apparently, they really think that they are the movement, and volunteers at
the projects ("unorganized volunteers") would do what they decide for them.
We had already enough calls showing that the communities are not going to
do what they are told if they do not think it is reasonable. And if
somebody has forgotten the Wikitravel story, which tells us what happened
if you push volunteers too much, it could be useful to read it again. I
have an impression that some people really forget where their salary is
coming from, that other people are working for free, and if they stop
working for free, there is not going to be any salary any more. And if you
can not understand what communities want, then you need to ask again, and
not just write a few generic sentences and take it to another level. There
are enough real challenges before the movement which, if inappropriately
handled or not responded to, can just kill the whole Wikimedia universe. To
write a text in which a lot of money and a lot of time is invested but
which is not even specific about anything is not one of them.

And if you ask me I would say that the strategy can not be determined
solely by people who are not working in projects on a daily basis.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 2:06 PM Itzik - Wikimedia Israel <
it...@wikimedia.org.il> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Two weeks ago I sent this email to my strategy working group (resource
> allocation). I didn't plan to send a public email, just to share with the
> rest of the group my reason to leave and just to disappear.
> I receive feedbacks with many of the group members and also requesting
> permissions to transfer it with others outside of the group, which leads to
> more conversations that I had around it.
>
> Last week we had our weekly phone call, during which we discussed our
> feelings and opinions about the process so far. From our long conversation
> and the conversations with the others, I learned that many of these
> feelings exist among the other members, as well some ideas on how to make
> it easier and less demanding and at the same time publishing the
> conclusions sooner.
> Yesterday, following a good conversation with one of the WMF's board
> members about it, I was asked to share these thoughts with the movement's
> list, so that it may also involve the community's feedback as well.
>
>
>
> *Itzik Edri*
> Chairperson (volunteer)
> it...@wikimedia.org.il
> +972-54-5878078
>
>
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: Itzik - Wikimedia Israel 
> Date: Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 2:08 PM
> Subject: I decided to 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] How diverse are your readers?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Peter,

I am also writing about what I am (sometimes mildly) interested in, and I
am sure there will be enough materials for me to edit until I die, but you
would be surprised to learn how many people have no idea on what they
could/should edit, and are happy to take suggestions.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 6:31 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Vito,
> I do not agree with you, but that may be because we edit differently. I
> write about what I am interested in, and know enough about to be reasonably
> efficient. There is enough of it to keep me busy indefinitely. I read the
> topics that interest me and I don't know enough about to write. I copyedit
> anywhere I see a need while I am reading. I fix what I see to be broken if
> I can. I do not think I am unique, or even unusual. What do you write
> about? Is it greatly affected by what other people choose to read?
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Vi to
> Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 11:07 AM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] How diverse are your readers?
>
> That's an unstable process on a long-term, with popular topics
> cannibalizing resources. Top read articles are already about two or three
> sports, some TV series and three or four music topics.
> These are also the most popular topics among editors but if you'll start
> focusing energies on these already popular topics you'll end up having no
> resources to be spent on "female combatants during Russian civil war",
> "near to extinction languages in Brazil", "computational chemestry in late
> XX century".
>
> The way we self-identify as a project  deeply affects our results:
> promoting the idea of Wikipedia as "the pop encyclopedia" (instead of "the
> free encyclopedia embedding pop topics") will weaken our commitment to
> diversity and quality.
>
> Also, topic popularity is mutable on a daily basis and it's driven by a
> very narrow number of media (basically Google/YouTube and Facebook) which
> will gain a complete influence over us.
>
> To me the mission of an encyclopedia is providing the *knowledge* (not
> *information*) which is worth collecting and preserving. The information
> people need/want is likely to be a subset of this.
>
> If Wikipedia is also an educational medium we should find a way to ask the
> ordes of people looking for new mr. Trump's bizarreness "hey, do you know
> the background of India-Pakistan conflicts?"
>
> Vito
>
> Il giorno lun 11 mar 2019 alle ore 06:19 David Goodman 
> ha scritto:
>
> > The idea of an encyclopedia is to provide the information people need or
> > want  that's appropriate to the format. It would be useful to see what
> they
> > want that is appropriate but we do not have -- and also useful to see
> what
> > they look for that isn't appropriate for us. Within what's appropriate, I
> > see no reason why selection of topics should not be driven by reader
> > interests as much as by editor interests. Our purpose is not to practice
> > our writing skills for our own benefit.
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 6:58 PM Vi to  wrote:
> >
> > > The idea of a popularity-driven encyclopaedia scares 
> > >
> > > Vito
> > >
> > > Il giorno dom 10 mar 2019 alle ore 22:26 Gerard Meijssen <
> > > gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> > >
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > I have been thinking about it.. There is a place for research but
> > really
> > > > why can we not have the data that allows us to seek out what people
> are
> > > > actually looking for and do not find.. Why can we not promote what
> > proves
> > > > to be of interest [1] ?
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >  GerardM
> > > >
> > > > [1]
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-marketing-approach-to-what-it-is-that.html
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 22:13, Leila Zia  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi all,
> > > > >
> > > > > As I mentioned in an earlier thread [1], we will be running reader
> > > > > surveys across a number of Wikipedia languages to learn about the
> > > > > reader needs and motivations in these languages as well as some of
> > > > > their demographic information (and perhaps the correlations between
> > > > > demographics and user motivations and characteristics).
> > > > >
> > > > > If your language community is interested to have statistics on the
> > > > > distribution of reader gender, age, education, native language, and
> > > > > geographic region (rural/urban) in your language (and depending on
> > how
> > > > > much data we collect in your language, perhaps more insights), this
> > is
> > > > > your chance to indicate interest at:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Characterizing_Wikipedia_Reader_Behaviour/Demographics_and_Wikipedia_use_cases#Interested_languages
> > > > >
> > > > > I initially communicated 2019-02-15 as the deadline to sign up.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [wikicite-discuss] Leaving the Wikimedia Foundation, staying on the wikis

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Dario, thanks for your effort. It was a pleasure working with you, and I am
also happy that you will stay around as a volunteer. My congratulations to
Leila. Whereas at this point I am rather skeptical and sometimes vocal
about WMF in general, I have a tremendous respect for both of you.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 11:05 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Dario -- what news!  And how close that seems to your recent pushing of us
> all.
> How lucky the projects have been to have you building a research
> constellation, for these many years.
>
> Leila, congrats + warm wishes in your new role.
>
> With wikilove and taxonometrics,
> SJ
>
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 4:56 PM Dario Taraborelli <
> dtarabore...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Hey all,
> >
> > I've got some personal news to share.
> >
> > After 8 years with Wikimedia, I have decided to leave the Foundation to
> > take up a new role focused on open science. This has been a difficult
> > decision but an opportunity arose and I am excited to be moving on to an
> > area that’s been so close to my heart for years.
> >
> > Serving the movement as part of the Research team at WMF has been, and
> > will definitely be, the most important gig in my life. I leave a team of
> > ridiculously talented and fun people that I can’t possibly imagine not
> > spending all of my days with, as well many collaborators and friends in
> the
> > community who have I worked alongside. I am proud and thankful to have
> been
> > part of this journey with you all. With my departure, Leila Zia is taking
> > the lead of Research at WMF, and you all couldn't be in better hands.
> >
> > In March, I’ll be joining CZI Science—a philanthropy based in the Bay
> > Area—to help build their portfolio of open science programs and
> technology.
> > I'll continue to be an ally on the same fights in my new role.
> >
> > Other than that, I look forward to returning to full volunteer mode. I
> > started editing English Wikipedia in 2004, working on bloody chapters in
> > the history of London ;
> hypothetical
> > astronomy ; unsung heroes
> > among women in science ; and
> > of course natural
> > , technical
> >  and
> political
> > disasters
> > <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections
> >.
> > I’ve also developed an embarrassing addiction to Wikidata, and you’ll
> > continue seeing me around hacking those instances of Q16521
> >  for a little while.
> >
> > I hope our paths cross once again in the future.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Dario
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > *Dario Taraborelli  *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> > research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> > 
> >
> > --
> > Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite
> > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wikicite
> > ---
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "wikicite-discuss" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> > email to wikicite-discuss+unsubscr...@wikimedia.org.
> >
>
>
> --
> Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529 4266
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Bounties…

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Whatever the reasoning is, I think we should accept that at the moment paid
editing is universally regarded very negatively in virtually all projects.
Non-monetary prizes for competitions may or may not be ok, everything else
is most likely not considered to be ok even if does not explicitly
contradict to any policies.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 5:07 PM John Erling Blad  wrote:

> I was thinking about actually bounties, like in bug bounties from
> larger software vendors. We have some "bugs", like spellchecking,
> which is pretty easy to quantify, and that can be done as part of
> bounties with cash. Yes, the ugly word, paid editing! OMG!
>
> But quite frankly, why should we not? ¢1 per fixed single word typo
> that leads to one-less spelling error? Perhaps even $1 per
> spellchecked page? Delayed one week to see if anyone reverts the
> edits?
>
> On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 4:17 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga
>  wrote:
> >
> > In the Basque wikipedia we are doing monthly contests on different
> topics, and some of them are focused on quality (i.e. adding references and
> images). There are some prices every month, usually books or thing related
> to technology. And people usually like to participate for the fun, and for
> the prize.
> > 
> > From: Wikimedia-l  on behalf
> of Benjamin Lees 
> > Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 5:14 AM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Bounties…
> >
> > It's interesting that you chose spellchecking as your example.  On the
> > English Wikipedia, I tend to see that as an activity that some people
> > actually do find fun (or relaxing).  Plus, spelling errors (or perceived
> > spelling errors[1]) are something that unregistered users really like
> > fixing.  But maybe that varies significantly across language editions.
> >
> > In any event, spelling errors are probably the case where eventualism is
> > most appropriate.  It is rare that someone will be misinformed because of
> > spelling mistakes, and they serve a useful signaling function in making
> it
> > clear that a given piece of content has probably not undergone peer
> > review.  And rather than driving people away, they tend to draw them
> > in—Cunningham's law[2] never fails.
> >
> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ENGVAR
> > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 6:55 PM John Erling Blad 
> wrote:
> >
> > > Both in Wikipedia and other parts of the Wikimedia-universe there are
> > > a lot of jobs that should be done, but are not so popular. Because
> > > they are not done, people get tired and backs away from whatever they
> > > are doing.
> > >
> > > I could give several examples, but lets say spellchecking. It is not
> > > fun doing spellchecking, even if you are spellchecking something
> > > written by a professor. Instead of doing spellchecking you do
> > > something else, like poking around in some code, or write about
> > > Pokemon. While you do so the professor gets a bit annoyed over the not
> > > so perfect article, and starts to wonder what happen to the crowd in
> > > crowdsourcing.
> > >
> > > Somewhere along the way the it became so bad to talk about anything
> > > except the pure wikipedian sitting on top of his pillar with a book
> > > and a computer, writing articles in solitude, that we completely
> > > missed the opportunities to get a much larger momentum.
> > >
> > > The Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia has over a half a million articles.
> > > About 10 % lack sources. Nearly all of them has spelling errors. It is
> > > nothing unusual about this.
> > >
> > > Could we use bounties to get some momentum?
> > >
> > > John Erling Blad
> > > /jeblad
> > >
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] blocking, unblocking, wikivoyage

[Yaroslav Blanter]

This person sent this mail today to multiple mailing lists, to some of them
twice.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 6:53 PM 80hnhtv4agou--- via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

>
> I do not see what community this is being
> controlled by;
>
> 1. there are no notice boards, or request for
> administrators, like they have in other wiki’s etc..
>
> 2. there is no
> arbitration committee, or problems resolution section to go to,
> etc..
>
> 3. there are no open rules on blocking.
>
> 4. there
> is no unblocking feature, and yet there is a review page.
> https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Category:Requests_for_unblock
>
> 5. there is nothing in place to review an
> administrators abuse of there blocking powers etc..
>
> 6. for
> newbies there is no active user talk page to request an unblock and if you
> try,
> to that gets blocked
> to.
>
> 7. there is no OTRS.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Well, in 2019 people should already have come to the notion that blocking
locally an acting steward is not really a good idea.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 11:21 AM Vi to  wrote:

> Because of a truly great idea
> <
> https://am.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E1%88%8D%E1%8B%A9:Log/block=%E1%8A%A0%E1%89%A3%E1%88%8D%3ATeles
> >
> the involved user's admin/bureaucrat access was revoked
> <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=rights==Codex+Sinaiticus%40amwiki===
> >
> by Marco Aurelio.
>
> Vito
>
> Il giorno lun 7 gen 2019 alle ore 11:02 Amir Sarabadani <
> ladsgr...@gmail.com>
> ha scritto:
>
> > Given the response on the talk page [1] I think it's clear violation of
> > nondiscrimination policy [2]
> >
> > [1] "promotion of homosexuality will not be tolerated here nor will it be
> > forced down our throats to suit anyone's international political agenda
> if
> > you expect Ethiopians to take part."
> > [2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Nondiscrimination
> >
> > Best
> > On Wed, Jan 2, 2019, 23:09 Risker  wrote:
> >
> > >  I note that we are talking about the block of one single user on one
> > > single project; this particular account has thousands of edits over
> > about a
> > > dozen projects, but is "attached" to hundreds of Wikimedia projects.
> The
> > > majority of these "attached" accounts are likely because the editor
> > > "visited" the various projects while logged in, activating the
> automatic
> > > account creation algorithm.  The account was created 8 years ago, and
> has
> > > actively edited a wide variety of  projects, including several
> > wikipedias,
> > > Commons, Wikidata, and Meta. While English Wikipedia is the account's
> > > "home" wiki, about 55% of the account's global edits have been made on
> > > Marathi Wikipedia. The Amharic Wikipedia account does not appear to
> have
> > > edited, which suggests that it was automatically created when the
> editor
> > > was "looking at" the project on 9  February 2018.  The block for
> account
> > > name was made on 22 October 2018.  I note that accounts were created on
> > > over a hundred projects over the course of a few days in February 2018.
> > >
> > > The point being raised in this thread is that it appears this editor
> was
> > > blocked on one of the 381 wikis on which they have an account,
> explicitly
> > > because of the perception that their username calls attention to the
> > sexual
> > > behaviour of the editor. What we do not know is (a) whether that is in
> > fact
> > > a legitimate username block reason on Amharic Wikipedia, or (b) if it
> is
> > a
> > > legitimate username block reason, *why* it would be a username block
> > > reason. We don't know why this block was applied so long after the
> > account
> > > was created. We don't know the username policy on Amharic Wikipedia,
> nor
> > do
> > > we know how it is applied; for example, we don't know if a username
> like
> > > "StraightGuy101" would be blocked.  We do know that there are only 4
> > > administrators on Amharic Wikipedia, and that there are fewer than 50
> > > active users working on the project, which may be part of the reason
> for
> > > the delay between automatic account creation and the account block.
> > >
> > > We also know that one of the challenges of single user login for all
> > > Wikimedia projects has highlighted the fact that certain usernames that
> > are
> > > acceptable on some projects are blocked on other projects; we've known
> > that
> > > for years. We know that each project establishes its own policies when
> it
> > > comes to usernames. There are legitimate reasons why a username that is
> > > acceptable in one language is not acceptable in another language, even
> in
> > > cases where the editor had no knowledge that the chosen username would
> > be a
> > > problem in another language. We do know that there have been lots of
> > cases
> > > where usernames have been blocked for "username policy violation" on
> all
> > > kinds of projects, despite the account operating productively on other
> > > projects.
> > >
> > > I also note that there is nothing in this thread that confirms the
> editor
> > > themself has raised any concerns about this block, and I am always wary
> > of
> > > turning an editor into a "martyr for a cause" without their direct
> > > agreement, as that can be as abusive as the original action. So the
> first
> > > step in this situation would be to confirm with the individual editor
> > > whether or not they want their "case" to be examined.
> > >
> > > Should the editor be agreeable, I suggest that the next step is for
> > someone
> > > who has the ability to converse in Amharic to contact the Amharic
> > Wikipedia
> > > and find out why the block has been issued, how it is consistent with
> the
> > > username policy on Amharic Wikipedia, whether that policy is driven in
> > part
> > > by external considerations (e.g., does the project risk heavy
> > governmental
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thanks for the reactions so far, they have been very useful. Let me answer
some of the points.

Re subject line: Obviously it is deliberately provocative to generate more
response and reach out to more people. Whereas what I write I do seriously,
if it stays a discussion of a dozen of people with the same views on the
subject it is probably useful.

Re milennials: this is clearly not a red herring. Just ask Facebook what
their demographics is and why the 18- generation is not using it.

Re introduction vs shorter articles:  I agree that a well-written
introduction is very important (though in practice it more often becomes a
battleground than not, and for most articles on my watchlist with non-zero
traffic it gets deteriorated with time, and it takes really a LOT of effort
of the community to maintain them). However, there are many other things in
the articles which are important as well, and I believe having
non-introductory pieces separately, written in a simple language, and
without excessive formatting is important. Currently, we can not
accommodate them within the articles - because there are too many details
to add, references, and formatting (the intro is an exception, it can
indeed be written simply without references).

Re fork: I actually do not believe in forking Wikipedia. One can fork
Wikipedia but so far all attempts to fork the community were unsuccessful,
and I do not think they will be successful in the future. I do not have a
problem with forking, I just believe it is not going to happen. What I
believe it will happen is a completely new platform suitable for new ways
of getting information. Just to give a perspective, imagine someone started
a project in the 1980s based on videotapes, and produced a lot of tapes. By
now they have either been copied to other media, or got completely
forgotten because nobody can play tapes anymore, at least unless one is a
very serious amateur or goes to a specialized library.

Re main point: People, let us be serious. We missed mobile editing (well,
at least this has been identified as a problem, and something is being done
about it). We missed voice interfaces. We are now missing neural networks.
We should have been discussing by now what neural networks are allowed to
do in the projects and what they are not allowed to do. And instead we are
discussing (and edit-warring) whether the Crimean bridge is the longest in
Europe or not because different sources place the border between Europe and
Asia differently, and, according to some sources, the bridge is not in
Europe. Why do you think that if we keep missing all technological
development relevant in the field we are still going to survive?

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sun, Dec 30, 2018 at 2:50 PM Zubin JAIN 
wrote:

> >That's exactly the point here! Maybe not everyone is like that, but
> the pattern is supported by studies. The question is: how do we
> support (or, how do we make Wikipedia relevant for) this category?
>
> But it's not supported by rigorous evidence, a few studies and a bunch of
> clickbait headlines hawking a decline narrative aren't things that should
> be used as a basis for deciding that the encylvopedia is out of date and
> Wikipedia should change itself to a primary video format
>
> >> The idea that Wikipedia needs to be dumbed down
> "Articles must be short and contain a lot of graphic information. May be
> they need to be videoclips. Short clips. Or, at lest, they must contain
> clips, with more voice and less letters." Dumbing down seems to be a fair
> summary of the proposal
>
> On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 at 20:51, Strainu  wrote:
>
> > În dum., 30 dec. 2018 la 12:40, Zubin JAIN
> >  a scris:
> > > These are gross generalizations
> >
> > That's exactly the point here! Maybe not everyone is like that, but
> > the pattern is supported by studies. The question is: how do we
> > support (or, how do we make Wikipedia relevant for) this category?
> >
> > > The idea that Wikipedia needs to be dumbed down
> > Nobody proposed that.
> >
> > > On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 at 17:21, Jane Darnell  wrote:
> > >
> > > > We need better upload interfaces for fixing spelling mistakes,
> > > > adding blue links, categories, media, and all other common tasks.
> >
> > I had a conversation with Dan Garry in Cape Town about why categories
> > and navboxes are not shown on mobile and it seems they are not a
> > "thing" anymore (aka not used by the readers, which prefer navigating
> > through inline links). For the rest, I agree. What do you think of the
> > CitationHunt tool? Would it help if integrated in the normal workflow?
> >
> > În dum., 30 dec. 2018 la 12:57, Anders Wennersten
> >  a scris:
> > >
> > > In my little duckpond (svwp) we have guidleines for the introduction
> > > part of the article.
> > >
> > > It should use (simple) language to enable 14-16 years old to understand
> > > it (while the rest can use more complicated vocabulary)
> >
> > How very interesting! I've always thought that Wikipedia should be
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Frederick.

sure, I know. I am mostly writing about Russia, and I know there are a lot
of topics which are not covered. I am usually the first one who says that
there are many topics to even start an article on, and way more to improve.

But let us face it - if an English-speaking person looks for something in
the English Wikipedia they are most likely to find it. The articles I
create are definitely useful, but they get dozens of views per year.This is
one of the reason we lose editors.

But my point is that we are about to lose most of our editors - at least in
the first world countries which produce the most contribution in the
English Wikipedia, USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New
Zealand. I guess India is different, but the trend is global, I think it is
just a matter of time when it comes to that in India as well. And if
Wikipedia would die in these countries, it will die in India as well.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 11:14 PM Frederick Noronha <
fredericknoro...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > However, as a general guideline, it is not so
> > much incorrect to state that all important things in Wikipedia have been
> > already written. Indeed, if someone looks for information in Wikipedia -
> > or, more precisely, uses search engines and gets Wikipedia as the first
> hit
> >  they are likely to find what they need with more than 99% chance.
>
> Yaroslav, Which world are you talking about? North America and Europe?
>
> When it comes to Asia (which I'm part of) and Africa, possibly Latin
> America too, we haven't even written down 1% of the diversity of these
> places. Leave aside getting it up onto the Wikipedia!
>
> Of course, I agree with the suggestion for new approaches (if I read you
> right). This is particularly true in a part of the world where much of the
> discussion is still in the oral domain, is often not in print; when it's in
> print, it is not digitised. Even when digitised, chances are that it's in a
> non-English language, which is very hard to find very search engines. (No
> wonder that some of the prominent people from our regions are continually
> getting dismissed as non-notable, which I see as another form of 'systemic
> bias').
>
> Give it a thought, please.
>
> Frederick Noronha
> Goa
>
> On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 at 03:05, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > I have written a long text today (posted in my FB) which the readers of
> > this mailing list might find interesting. I copy it below. I understand
> > that it is very easy to critisize me for side issues, but if you want to
> > comment/reply I would appreciate if you address the main issue. The
> target
> > audience I was thinking about was general (not necessarily
> > Wikimedia-oriented), and for the readers from this mailing list the first
> > several paragraphs can sound trivial (or even trivial and wrong). I
> > apologize in advance.
> >
>
> --
> FN* फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا‎ +91-9822122436
> AUDIO: https://archive.org/details/@fredericknoronha
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[Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

e
doing for 20 years will disappear. This is a usual development and happens
to almost every human activity. We know that only a few percents of pieces
of Ancient Greek and Roman literature survived until now.

Yaroslav Blanter, editor and administrator of the English Wikipedia, 125
000 edits.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Croatian Wikipedia: persisting far-right bias?

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Tomasz,

whereas you are right in theory, a practical application of this method
requires (i) availability and acceptance of all these sources in the
community (for example, if one side published in Croatian and another one
published in English, Croatian Wikipedia is likely to use only sources
produced by one side whereas the English Wikipedia is likely to use sources
produced by the other side); (ii) healthy community which is aware of the
notions of systemic bias, neutrality, and is willing to apply these notions
in their editing (for which it must be big and diverse enough so that all
notable topics get sufficiently represented). For the specific situation
with the Croatian Wikipedia, I highly doubt that we have (ii) and I am
pretty sure we do not have (i),

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 1:42 PM Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:

> Vast majority of sources in controversial topics are usually biased. There
> are topics where there is in fact no any non-biased sources. And - coming
> back to my previous example, having knowledge how automatic method o bias
> measurement works it is very easy to bully it:
>
> "According to unfaithful bastard X [source X1][source X2][source X3] the
> true is A. But, according to honorable and widely recognized expert Y
> [source Y] A it is not true, but the true is B."
>
> This sentence is quite obviously biased towards B POV, but  automatic
> measurement of sources will tell you that there is bias towards A POV.  And
> this is very simple, primitive example of bias. People usually tend to do
> it in much more subtle way. Sometimes one short, completely unsourced
> sentence at the end of very long article with hundreds of citations can
> completely ruin NPOV...
>
> Or imagine that you write article about a bishop - quite naturally most
> sources will be religious POV - which does not necessarily mean that the
> article is biased as it might contain only basic facts of that person
> retrieved from official church sources. Then - following this example  - in
> Polish Wikipedia - we have probably articles about all living bishops from
> major christian denomination. But if you would want to "prove" that Polish
> Wikipedia has pro-roman-catholic POV you can easily show that we have 162
> articles about roman-catholic Polish bishops and only 12 about orthodox
> bishops. And the numbers of citations is more or less probably of the same
> proportion. Why? Simply because we have in Poland 162 catholic bishops and
> 12 orthodox. Wikipedia cannot change it obviously ;-)
>
>
>
>
>
> czw., 6 gru 2018 o 02:19 Dennis During  napisał(a):
>
> > Yes the method can miss bias. But if the references* used are* biased, it
> > would provide clear, objective (though not irrefutable) evidence of a
> > general bias.  The more factual the discussion, the more likely it will
> be
> > that any conclusions of the process will be accepted, if not by all at
> > Croatia WP, then perhaps by some there and by most other observers.
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 5:45 PM Tomasz Ganicz 
> wrote:
> >
> > > I don't clearly understand Gerard what is your idea. Do you want to
> > measure
> > > NPOV by calculating how often the sources are used after somehow
> marking
> > > them to belong to one or another group of political, religous or other
> > type
> > > of  POV? And when you find that one group of them are more often cited
> > than
> > > the others, this is a symptom of systematic bias of given Wikimedia
> > > project? Well that might be quite misleading because the issue is the
> > > honesty and context of using sources.
> > >
> > > For example: One can write an article about any controversial topic
> using
> > > equal number of  sources supporting opposite POVs, but the text can
> still
> > > be quite biased:
> > >
> > > "According to unfaithful bastard X [source X] the true is A. But,
> > according
> > > to honourable and widely recognized expert Y [source Y] A it is not
> true,
> > > but the true is B."
> > >
> > > I don't believe in any kind of automated method of measuring NPOV. NPOV
> > is
> > > very complex issue needed human judgment. You can't avoid it.
> > >
> > >
> > > śr., 28 lis 2018 o 12:43 Gerard Meijssen 
> > > napisał(a):
> > >
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > I take offence calling it a faith-based process. We have a database
> > with
> > > > the citations of all Wikipedias. We have overriding principles that
> > > include
> > > > the NPOV and what the role of functionaries is in Wikimedia projects.
> > > When
> > > > they are a faith, they are our faith.
> > > >
> > > > My question to you is, why are you reluctant to start a process that
> > will
> > > > bring down many hobby horses including yours and the ones in your
> > > favourite
> > > > project. Why not start where we face an urgency? An urgency that
> > > undermines
> > > > Wikipedia as NPOV!
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >   GerardM
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 at 00:31, Dennis During 
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Why not test-run the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Odp: Re: Wikimedia Conference 2019: New name, new concept, eligbility criteria

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Michal,

thank you for your reaction. No, I am personally not interested in
attending the Wikimedia conference or whatever name it has now. I am
unhappy with that, from my viewpoint, the opinions of what is called
unorganized volunteers is discarded.

- On stage 1, I participated in some discussions in the projects. I do not
see any traces of that discussion in the final document. On one occasion,
we were told that we are not discussing what we should be discussing.
However, we are writing the content - if we thing smth is important, and if
this smth is strategic, I expect the functionaries which are getting salary
from the funds raised because of our input, to at least take it seriously
and not dismiss it. I reported the case here, I got responses of the type
"this is not good", and nothing happened.

- When the was a call for strategy groups, I applied and was rejected.
Other people applied and were rejected. The report of the selection
committee essentially says that there were too many unorganized volunteers.
(To give a bit of a background, I speak five languages, lived in four
countries, and active in four Wikimedia projects, but I am not a member of
any affiliate). Fine. Nobody complains there are too many unorganized
volunteers to create content

- Now the strategy will be discussed at a conference, and it will be
discussed at local events. But I am not interested in going to these
events. I am a content creator, highly involved in the project governance
(I have administrator flag on four projects and a crat flag on one).It is
ok if the strategy is being discussed at the meetings where mostly
functionaries go, but it should be discussed at the projects - where
content is created - and not just in the form of the approval of a text
which has been drafted elsewhere and already approved by functionaries. As
it stands, it will be strategy for functionaries. Do not then expect
projects to follow smth they have not been asked to participate in creation
of.

I am not really happy to antagonize functionaries and content creators,
especially since I respect a few of functionaries for what they have done
and are still doing on the projects (and some of them are heavily working
on content), but we have come across too many things in the recent years
which suggest that the opinions of the projects are not properly respected,
and the strategy thing is just one of them.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 2:06 PM Michał Buczyński  wrote:

> Hi Yaroslav,   I find your concern important so let me attempt to refine
> it to discussion points or a call for action. :)   Firstly, I think it is
> unwise to assume what everyone is interested in. You dont
> know personally all the people in the Movement, e.g. me and my interests.
> If you meant some particular people or body, please voice it clearly and we
> can go from that point. Secondly, there were signs showing people
> interested in your input:1. while creating and filling a diversity
> matrix to check if we cover all the stakeholders, the
> non-representatives of affiliates, WMF or other bodies (FDC, sAPG, AffCom)
> this issue has been raised - certainly for the funds allocation group. I am
> not sure of the final outcome in terms of e.g. inclusion of particular
> names within the group (it is a pretty tricky to give some
> representativeness without overblowing the groups) but I am sure the
> strategy team has been working on this issue and can communicate something.
> :)  2. There are many ways to reaching out to the wider audiences:
> including surveys, online discussions, show and tell sessions (e.g. IIRC on
> Wikimania *all* strategic sessions, except the organizational/briefing for
> the groups, were fully open for all conference participants) and sessions
> dedicated to particular communities. E.g. in my home Poland there were
> strategy sessions for willing attendees of WMPL conferences, some languages
> also had dedicated online discussion venues, and everyone could contribute
> in English.   Thus, lets give the credit where it is due. I am not
> discussing here if this interest was sufficient. And I am pretty sure that
> if needed we can explore this direction further (e.g. put more resources to
> discuss the strategy in particular national/regional communities and send
> it upstream) and many people dont participate even though they have
> very meaningful things to say.  Perhaps what you wanted to write is e.g.
> Please provide X seats in the [ Group 4:  Additional participants –
> mostly members of the Movement Strategy working groups – invited to
> complement the conference program] for non-affiliated Wikimedians based on
> their editorship in Wikimedia projects and trust of their local
> communities. Did I understand you properly?Best Regards,   Michał
> Buczyński  Wikimedia Polska, FDC,   Resource Allocation Working 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Conference 2019: New name, new concept, eligbility criteria

[Yaroslav Blanter]

This is very remarkable that nobody is actually interested in input from
what the WMF functionaries now call "unorganized volunteers" - people who
actually work in the projects. We are just not in the picture. Good luck
with that. Do not be surprised to see a huge number of volunteers to oppose
the strategy document again, as it happened last year.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 12:54 PM Nicole Ebber 
wrote:

> Hi Chris,
>
> I can comment on your question why we need another strategy conference: The
> Wikimedia 2030 process is ongoing, and is building – among many other
> inputs – upon the outcomes of the last two conferences. Organized groups
> are already working on the implementation of the Strategic Direction in
> their own strategic/annual planning and programmatic work, and Working
> Groups start developing recommendations for change on the structural level
> of the movement.
>
> In spring 2019, these groups will need feedback and input from the
> movement's organized groups and the Wikimedia Summit – alongside other
> opportunities for community consultations – will be build as a platform to
> synchronize the Working Groups' work and to gather and synthesize this
> input and agree upon next steps.
>
> I hope this helps to shed some light on the need for this event. Please let
> me know if you have further questions. We'll also be presenting the current
> state of the strategy process at today's activities meeting; if you're
> interested in tuning in:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings
>
> All the best
> Nicole
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2018 at 22:18, Chris Keating 
> wrote:
>
> > I have so many questions.
> >
> > Is anything concrete planned to replace the learning and
> capacity-building
> > work that used to happen at WMCON? (Or has the identification of capacity
> > building as a strategic priority just resulted in  the abandonment of
> > the main capacity building event?)
> >
> > And why after two "strategy focused" conferences, do we need another one?
> > What will it achieve except acres more flipchart? How many conferences do
> > we expect to need before the strategic direction starts to become a
> > reality?
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > On Tue, 25 Sep 2018, 20:34 Cornelius Kibelka, <
> > cornelius.kibe...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
> >
> > > Dear all,
> > >
> > > As Nicole Ebber already wrote a couple of weeks ago, we would like to
> > give
> > > you some further information about the next Wikimedia Conference, that
> > will
> > > take place from March 29–31, 2019 in Berlin, Germany.
> > >
> > > The next conference will focus on the Movement Strategy process and
> > > movement governance for the organized part of the movement in general.
> > The
> > > program will be designed according to the status and needs of the
> ongoing
> > > Movement Strategy process and its working groups. We are hoping to see
> a
> > > diverse group of participants next year, and look forward to creating
> > three
> > > days of working, discussing, and thinking together. The event is made
> > > possible through the generous financial support of the Wikimedia
> > > Foundation.
> > >
> > > Thus, to make it clearer that learning and capacity-building will not
> be
> > > part of the program and cut laces to the previous conference, we will
> > > change the name to “Wikimedia Summit” (#wmsummit).
> > >
> > > The change of the purpose of the event is accompanied by a change in
> the
> > > composition of the audience. The event will be a more focused one, and
> > > therefore we aim to scale down the audience to around 200 participants.
> > As
> > > it is this still the Wikimedia affiliates conference, every _eligible_
> > > affiliate can send one (1) delegate. Furthermore, we will invite
> > > participants from the Wikimedia Affiliate EDs (~10), WMF Board of
> > Trustees
> > > (10), WMF staff (~10), the committees (~15 from FDC, AffCom and Simple
> > APG)
> > > and additional members of the Movement Strategy working groups, that do
> > not
> > > come in another role (~20). You can find more information regarding
> this
> > on
> > > Meta.[1]
> > >
> > > Registration for the Wikimedia Summit will open on November 2 and end
> on
> > > December 17, 2018. We urge participants that need a visa to register no
> > > later than November 19, so we can support them as best as possible to
> > get a
> > > visa for the event.
> > >
> > > We will keep you updated in the further weeks and months via the usual
> > > communication channels. If you have any questions, please do not
> hesitate
> > > to contact us, preferably via wmsum...@wikimedia.de.
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > >
> > > Daniela Gentner & Cornelius Kibelka
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2019/Eligibility_Criteria
> > >
> > > --
> > > Cornelius Kibelka
> > > Program and Engagement Coordinator (PEC)
> > > for the Wikimedia Conference
> > >
> > > Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 

[Wikimedia-l] European Copyright Law

[Yaroslav Blanter]

If I understand correctly, the European parliament just approved the
copyright law essentially without changes, thus supporting the version we
protested against in May. What would be the consequences for us?

Cheers
Yaroslav
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sensory overloads

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Thanks Romaine for sharing. As someone at the same side of the spectrum (I
get quickly tired in the places where a lot of people are gathering) I can
fully endorse this.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 5:42 PM Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> In our movement we have a lot of different people, including people with a
> different neurodiversity.
>
> Then it can happen that with events organised by the Wikimedia movement,
> there are people that get sensory overloads. it basically means that the
> input through the senses gets too much at some point. This can result in an
> emotional outburst, an instant heavy headache/migraine attack, or in my
> case I go (almost) completely blank.
>
> It is really hard to complain how it is like to people who have no
> experiences with it.
> I think however that we need as inclusive movement to be more aware of the
> huge amount of varieties of people and there needs. For that reason I like
> to share a thread on Twitter with you how a user I know well has
> experienced it herself.
>
> Read at: https://twitter.com/dodocurieux/status/1029743772584865792
>
>
> Thank you!
>
> Romaine
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimania-l] Celebrating Wikimania 2018 online

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Paulo,

in the first instance, I am interested in improving articles on the
Mozambique districts on the English Wikipedia. I have already done that for
the southern half of the country (Buzi District which I references to is a
representative example of how I see these articles).

I was not planning to do anything specific about these districts on
Wikidata or elsewhere, but if you think it would be useful we can discuss
and do smth.

(I will be on holidays for two weeks starting tomorrow, my user name is
Ymblanter).

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 12:25 AM, Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
> ​
> Yaroslav ,
>
> I'm working with Mozambique as well. I've been thinking about adding all
> those divisions to Wikidata, and then generating the Wikipédia articles
> from that info (not "live", though, just copying the information). I
> believe it would be much quicker, and would fill and correct Wikidata
> entries on the way.
>
> If you are interested in using something like that, please drop me a note.
>
> ​All the best,
>
> Paulo​
>
>
> 2018-07-26 17:25 GMT+01:00 Yaroslav Blanter :
>
> > Hi Gerard,
> >
> > when you come to Mozambique, pls let me know, there are reliable sources
> > down to the third level administrative divisions. For example, the two
> > sources present in
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzi_District
> >
> > are available for every district (though I so far only added about half
> of
> > them to the English Wikipedia articles).
> >
> > Cheers
> > ​​
> > Yaroslav
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 3:01 PM, Gerard Meijssen <
> > gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hoi,
> > > I do blog and tweet using #AfricaGap..  At this time I am adding
> > countries
> > > and their "administrative and territorial entities" in Wikidata. In
> many
> > a
> > > Wikipedia, they want to have "human settlements" linked to the lowest
> > level
> > > and these to every time a higher level.
> > >
> > > What I do is add more and more countries. The information is
> incomplete.
> > It
> > > takes a lot of people and a lot of time to get this done. To gain
> > > participation, I add Listeria list to a set of Wikipedias. I work on
> > > cleaning up the data but there is much to be done. One of the benefits
> of
> > > the Listeria lists for me is that I notice any and all activity. After
> > > Wikimania there was a spike, thanks to some bot work.
> > >
> > > What I have noticed is that information on Wikipedias did not keep up
> > with
> > > changes that rearanged these "territories". Consequently start and end
> > > dates are missing on many items. For me, the current situation is most
> > > relevant and historic "territories" are not really considered by me.
> > >
> > > You find what I am working on here [1]. You will find much of the same
> > data
> > > on several (African language) Wikipedias.
> > > Thanks,
> > >  GerardM
> > >
> > >
> > > [1]
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM/Africa#African_
> > > geographical_subdivisions
> > >
> > > On 26 July 2018 at 12:33, KuboF Hromoslav 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Great idea Romaine!
> > > >
> > > > I am now working on Esperanto Wikivoyage (in Incubator), mostly to
> make
> > > it
> > > > fully working. Now I am finishing Europe and immediately after that I
> > > will
> > > > focus on Africa (not only for the Africagap and to help our
> colleagues
> > > but
> > > > also to support tourism and facilitate meetings in Africa).
> > > >
> > > > See you online!
> > > > KuboF Hromoslav
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > po 23. 7. 2018 o 20:25 Romaine Wiki 
> > napísal(a):
> > > >
> > > > > The official part of Wikimania is over, this does not prevent
> > ourselves
> > > > > from celebrating Africa's first Wikimania online, in more
> particular:
> > > > > writing Wikipedia articles.
> > > > >
> > > > > Africa is under represented in Wikipedia, by writing about it we
> both
> > > > > celebrate our great conference as well as we work on solving the
> > > > Africagap
> > > > >
> > > > > With some Dutchies we started the idea of having a list of l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimania-l] Celebrating Wikimania 2018 online

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Gerard,

when you come to Mozambique, pls let me know, there are reliable sources
down to the third level administrative divisions. For example, the two
sources present in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzi_District

are available for every district (though I so far only added about half of
them to the English Wikipedia articles).

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 3:01 PM, Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> I do blog and tweet using #AfricaGap..  At this time I am adding countries
> and their "administrative and territorial entities" in Wikidata. In many a
> Wikipedia, they want to have "human settlements" linked to the lowest level
> and these to every time a higher level.
>
> What I do is add more and more countries. The information is incomplete. It
> takes a lot of people and a lot of time to get this done. To gain
> participation, I add Listeria list to a set of Wikipedias. I work on
> cleaning up the data but there is much to be done. One of the benefits of
> the Listeria lists for me is that I notice any and all activity. After
> Wikimania there was a spike, thanks to some bot work.
>
> What I have noticed is that information on Wikipedias did not keep up with
> changes that rearanged these "territories". Consequently start and end
> dates are missing on many items. For me, the current situation is most
> relevant and historic "territories" are not really considered by me.
>
> You find what I am working on here [1]. You will find much of the same data
> on several (African language) Wikipedias.
> Thanks,
>  GerardM
>
>
> [1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM/Africa#African_
> geographical_subdivisions
>
> On 26 July 2018 at 12:33, KuboF Hromoslav 
> wrote:
>
> > Great idea Romaine!
> >
> > I am now working on Esperanto Wikivoyage (in Incubator), mostly to make
> it
> > fully working. Now I am finishing Europe and immediately after that I
> will
> > focus on Africa (not only for the Africagap and to help our colleagues
> but
> > also to support tourism and facilitate meetings in Africa).
> >
> > See you online!
> > KuboF Hromoslav
> >
> >
> > po 23. 7. 2018 o 20:25 Romaine Wiki  napísal(a):
> >
> > > The official part of Wikimania is over, this does not prevent ourselves
> > > from celebrating Africa's first Wikimania online, in more particular:
> > > writing Wikipedia articles.
> > >
> > > Africa is under represented in Wikipedia, by writing about it we both
> > > celebrate our great conference as well as we work on solving the
> > Africagap
> > >
> > > With some Dutchies we started the idea of having a list of like 10-20
> > > articles of subjects from Cape Town and surrounding area. For example:
> > >
> > >
> > > Well-known park in Cape Town:
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company%27s_Garden
> > >
> > > The often referred to Dassie:
> > > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q323847
> > >
> > > Input needed!
> > >
> > > Romaine
> > > ___
> > > Wikimania-l mailing list
> > > wikimani...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
> > >
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> > 
> >
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