Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-07-04/News and notes
WMF board elections and fundraising updates
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Wikimedia Foundation board elections now in pre-onboarding and campaign period
The 2024 Wikimedia Foundation board elections, designed to replace four "Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees" whose terms will end this year, have now entered the pre-onboarding and campaign period (June 25, 2024 – August 26, 2024). The list of candidates judged eligible according to the candidate criteria is as follows:
- Bobby Shabangu
- Deon Steyn
- Erik Hanberg
- Farah Jack Mustaklem
- Christel Steigenberger
- Lane Rasberry
- Lorenzo Losa
- Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz
- Mohammed Awal Alhassan
- Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
- Tesleemah Abdulkareem
- Victoria Doronina
Three candidates were judged ineligible:
A newly introduced candidates shortlisting process (which would be based on input from affiliate organizations) was not yet used this year, as the number of eligible candidates did not exceed 15.
The eligible candidates have completed their answers to the following community questions on Meta-Wiki:
- UCoC: The creation and implementation of a Universal Code of Conduct has been a Board priority since 2020. The original timeline for the implementation of the UCoC was wildly unrealistic, the UCoC was implemented by the Board without community ratification, and the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee was recently elected without a sufficient number of members to form a quorum. What lessons should the Board take from the UCoC process, especially about how the Board interacts with volunteers?
- Movement Charter: There has been some trend towards devolving or sharing the governance of the Wikimedia movement, including having a separate board for the Wikimedia Endowment and the proposed Global Council in the Movement Charter. What do you see as the positives and negatives of these trends, and what is your overall assessment of the work so far?
- AI and CC-by-SA: In the 2024-25 draft Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan, there is a statement that Wikimedia content is becoming less visible as part of the Internet's essential infrastructure, because an increasingly closed and artificial intelligence-mediated internet doesn't attribute the source of the facts, or even link back to the Wikimedia projects. What responsibility does the Board and the Wikimedia Foundation have in enforcing the CC-by-SA licensing of the content from all projects by AI or other digital media information formats that do not respect the copyright law?
- Negative trends: Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan recognizes multiple trends negative to the Wikimedia movement: decreasing visibility, audiences moving to a novel competition such as artificial intelligence solutions and Internet influencers, increasing information warfare and erosion of trust, necessary technical investments while the revenue growth was flattening. At the same time, the movement's products and processes change very, very slowly. Which bold steps would you recommend to the Wikimedia Foundation?
- Systemic bias: What are your thoughts about systemic bias on Wikimedia projects, both in their content and their demographics, and including identity-based, language-based, economic/resource-based, ideological/worldview-based, and other forms of system bias? What measures or initiatives do you think the Board can appropriately take to address systemic bias?
Follow the links to see the candidates' answers. Voting will begin on September 3, 2024. For a complete timeline of the election, see Meta-Wiki. – AK, H
New community collaboration page for this year's English fundraising banners
The Wikimedia Foundation's Julia Brungs has informed The Signpost that a new community collaboration page has been set up for the 2024 English fundraising banner campaign:
Dear all,
We would like to share with you the community collaboration page around the English fundraising banner campaign 2024. This page is for volunteers to learn about fundraising and share ideas for how we can improve the 2024 English fundraising campaign together. On this page you'll have messaging examples and spaces for collaboration, where you can share your ideas for how we can improve the next campaign together.
The fundraising banner pre-tests phase on English Wikipedia starts in mid-July with a few technical tests, using messaging that was created with the community during the last campaign. We will regularly update the collaboration page with new messaging ideas and updates on testing and campaign plans as we prepare for the main campaign that will launch at the end of November.
Generally, during the pre-tests and the campaign, you can contact us:
- On the community collaboration page
- At an in-person event (see more details on the collaboration page)
- On the talk page of the fundraising team
- If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket
- If you see a donor on a talk page, VRT or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donatewikimedia.org
Best wishes, Julia JBrungs (WMF)
A community collaboration process has been used since 2022 to address community concerns over banner wordings used in the more distant past. For the history, see previous Signpost coverage –
- Wikipedians question Wikimedia fundraising ethics after "somewhat-viral" tweet (October 2022)
- English Wikipedia editors: "We don't need no stinking banners" (November 2022)
– as well as the related article by Stephen Harrison in Slate. – AK
Wiki Education forms inaugural Humanities and Social Justice Advisory Committee
The Wiki Education Foundation, which runs the Wiki Education Program designed to promote the integration of Wikipedia into coursework by educators in Canada and the United States, announced its inaugural Humanities and Social Justice Advisory Committee earlier this year. The seven-member committee will support the Wikipedia Student Program's Knowledge Equity initiative in partnership with the Mellon Foundation. Its members are:
- David-James Gonzales: Assistant Professor of History at Brigham Young University where he teaches and researches on race, migration, and Latino (a/x/e) politics in the US. He has been teaching with Wikipedia since 2018.
- Shira Klein: Associate Professor and Chair of History at Chapman University. Her two primary areas of expertise are Italian Jewish history and knowledge production on Wikipedia.
- Alexandria Lockett: A former professor of Writing and Rhetoric who has been editing Wikipedia for 20+ years to improve its content about marginalized persons, cultures, communities, languages, professions, texts, and disciplines.
- Tracy Perkins: Associate Professor in the School of Social Transformation Arizona State University who specializes in social inequality, social movements, and the environment.
- David Sartorius: Historian of Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of Maryland and author of a book on the racial politics of colonial rule.
- Heather J. Sharkey: Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in the history of the modern Middle East and North Africa.
- Delia Steverson: Associate Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where she specializes in 19th and 20th Century African American Literature, Critical Disability Studies, and Southern Literature.
Shira Klein's membership was announced on June 14, 2024 in a Chapman University press release. Klein will be known to regular readers of The Signpost as the co-author of an academic paper on Wikipedia's coverage of the Holocaust in Poland that led to a 2023 Wikipedia arbitration case (see previous Signpost coverage: 1, 2).
For further details on the committee and its members see the Wiki Education press release:
– AK
Administrator cadre continues to contract overall, despite recent gains
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Repeating the refrain reported here in recent issues, despite three gains in June (see below), the number of active administrators hasn't been above 440 since May 18, and hit new record lows: 433 on June 13, 432 on June 22, and finally 431 on June 27 right before our publication deadline. – B
Brief notes
- Annual reports: Wiki World Heritage, Wikimedians of Lagos, Wikimedia Italy (finances), Igbo Wikimedians User Group, Wikimedians of Los Angeles, Wikimedia Indonesia.
- New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrators, Elli, HouseBlaster, and Pickersgill-Cunliffe, all promoted in June.
- Elli has been active since 2020 and edited widely in various areas. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elli was closed June 7 with 207 supports, 6 opposes, and 3 neutrals, ending a three-month new-admin drought and becoming the first RfA to succeed under the trial discussion-only period. Opposition concerns about her anodyne, infrequent activity on Wikipediocracy failed to gain meaningful traction. – Sdkb
- Pickersgill-Cunliffe started editing in 2021, with a handful of edits prior to that, and has been active at WikiProject Military history. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Pickersgill-Cunliffe was closed June 15 with 201 yea !votes, zero nay and zero neutral, putting it in the top 10 unopposed RfAs.
- Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/HouseBlaster RfA closed 153:27:8 on 23 June.
- Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is Mechanism (engineering), followed next week by Applied science. Please be bold in helping improve these articles!
- New Wikipedia language version: The Wikipedia community welcomes its newest project, the Mandailing Wikipedia. Request on Meta-Wiki (approved 20 June), homepage.
- Community User Group Senegal: Community User Group Sénégal was recognized as an affiliate on June 3.
Final note
Before most Signposters depart for the beach, barbecue, and/or fireworks, we would like to wish all those who celebrate a holiday or have some other special day in July happy (holi)day. And to everybody else, have an even better day!
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