Wikimedia-l September 2021

112 participants
54 discussions

Happy #May17 #IDAHOT #IDAHOTBITQ
by Željko Blaće 17 May '24

17 May '24

What is May 17th? The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was created in 2004 to draw the attention to the violence and discrimination experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex people and all other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or expressions, and sex characteristics. The date of May 17th was specifically chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. https://may17.org One year ago in 2020 we started QueeringW in hope #1 Queering Wikipedia conference would be happening with a year of delay...now we hope it is in 2022! Meanwhile we are "Together, we Resist, Support, and Heal" <https://twitter.com/may17org> Happy #May17 #IDAHOT #IDAHOTBITQ for those who celebrate and would support https://www.instagram.com/QueeringW @may17org <https://twitter.com/may17org> #IDAHOT <https://twitter.com/hashtag/IDAHOT?src=hashtag_click> #IDAHOT2021 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/IDAHOT2021?src=hashtag_click> https://twitter.com/QueeringW

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The Wikimedia Enterprise API project
by Liam Wyatt 11 Feb '23

11 Feb '23

Dear all, Over the last few months, a small team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working on a project that has been discussed by many people in our movement for many years: building ‘enterprise grade’ services for the high-volume commercial reusers of Wikimedia content. I am pleased to say that in a remarkably short amount of time (considering the complexity of the issues: technical, strategic, legal, and financial) we now have something worthy of showing to the community, and we are asking for your feedback. Allow me to introduce you to the Wikimedia Enterprise API project – formerly codenamed “okapi”. While the general idea for Wikimedia Enterprise predates the current movement strategy process, its recommendations identify an enterprise API as one possible solution to both “Increase the sustainability of our movement” and “Improve User Experience.”[0] That is, to simultaneously create a new revenue stream to protect Wikimedia’s sustainability, and improve the quality and quantity of Wikimedia content available to our many readers who do not visit our websites directly (including more consistent attribution). Moreover, it does so in a way that is true to our movement’s culture: with open source software, financial transparency, non-exclusive contracts or content, no restrictions on existing services, and free access for Wikimedia volunteers who need it. The team believes we are on target to achieve those goals and so we have written a lot of documentation to get your feedback about our progress and where it could be further improved before the actual product is ‘launched’ in the next few months. We have been helped in this process over the last several months by approximately 100 individual volunteers (from many corners of the wikiverse) and representatives of affiliate organisations who have reviewed our plans and provided invaluable direction, pointing out weaknesses and opportunities, or areas lacking clarity and documentation in our drafts. Thank you to everyone who has shared your time and expertise to help prepare this new initiative. A essay describing the “why?” and the “how?” of this project is now on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay Also now published on Meta are an extensive FAQ, operating principles, and technical documentation on MediaWiki.org. You can read these at [1] [2] and [3] respectively. Much of this documentation is already available in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The Wikimedia Enterprise team is particularly interested in your feedback on how we have designed the checks and balances to this project - to ensure it is as successful as possible at achieving those two goals described above while staying true to the movement’s values and culture. For example: Is everything covered appropriately in the “Principles” list? Is the technical documentation on MediaWiki.org clear? Are the explanations in the “FAQ” about free-access for community, or project’s legal structure, or the financial transparency (etc.) sufficiently detailed? Meet the team and Ask Us Anything: The central place to provide written feedback about the project in general is on the talkpage of the documentation on Meta at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise On this Friday (March 19) we will be hosting two “Office hours” conversations where anyone can come and give feedback or ask questions: - 13:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/95580273732 - 22:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/92565175760 (note: this is Saturday in Asia/Oceania) Other “office hours” meetings can be arranged on-request on a technical platform of your choosing; and we will organise more calls in the future. We will also be attending the next SWAN meetings (on March 21) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network, and also the next of the Wikimedia Clinics https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics Moreover, we would be very happy to accept any invitation to attend an existing group call that would like to discuss this topic (e.g. an affiliate’s members’ meeting). On behalf of the Wikimedia Enterprise team, Peace, Love & Metadata -- Liam Wyatt [Wittylama], Wikimedia Enterprise project community liaison. [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme… [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise *Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]* WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & Wikimedia Enterprise <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison Wikimedia Foundation

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Wikimedia Taiwan’s statement on the office actions of the Wikimedia Foundation on Chinese Wikipedia
by ffaarr＠wikimedia.tw 26 Dec '22

26 Dec '22

On behalf of Wikimedia Taiwan, we would like to say that this is long overdue. For more than half a decade, good faith volunteers from Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland, and Taiwan have raised concerns about dangerous members of that organization, including in the Signpost(1) (repeatedly(2)). It is not the kind of threat that communities or even larger ones, like our wiki, can deal with entirely on their own. We have been having very exhausting years. Now there is some hope. But we have a lot of work ahead of us as a volunteer community, and we call upon the Foundation to meet its commitment of support as we do. We need to rebuild an inclusive wiki that welcomes everyone from all places who wants to contribute to Chinese language Wikipedia in good faith. Many people have felt very unsafe for years, so restoring a shared sense of comfort will likely take a long time. Doing this work is very important to get back to focusing on knowledge and Wikipedia’s five pillars that should unite our community. Yuan Chang, Chairman of Wikimedia Taiwan (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-10-31/In_fo… (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-07-25/Speci… 中文版本: 在此僅代表台灣維基媒體協會聲明，這個行動是遲來的努力。多年來，香港、中國大陸和台灣的用戶一再呼籲對該組織中的危險成員與行為的關切，包括但不僅止於之前於Signpost報導(1) (另一則報導(2))中所提及。這不是社群，或甚至整個中文維基，可以自行處理的威脅。這些年我們心力交瘁。現在的處置，讓我們覺得終於有了一些希望。但作為志願者組織，我們仍有很多工作要做，並希望基金會能大力支持。我們需要重建一個具有包容性的維基百科，歡迎來自所有地區，願意真誠貢獻中文知識的參與者。這幾年來，許多參與者感到不安，要恢復原本平和的氛圍，需要相當長時間的努力。這個工作非常重要，有助於我們把心力集中在知識，以及團結我們社群的維基百科的五大支柱上。台灣維基媒體協會理事長張遠 (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-10-31/In_fo… (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-07-25/Speci… Original Link of the statement: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Taiwan/Declaration/Wikimedia_Taiw…

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[Foundation-l] Improving search in Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery
by Brian J Mingus 09 Sep '22

09 Sep '22

This paper (first reference) is the result of a class project I was part of almost two years ago for CSCI 5417 Information Retrieval Systems. It builds on a class project I did in CSCI 5832 Natural Language Processing and which I presented at Wikimania '07. The project was very late as we didn't send the final paper in until the day before new years. This technical report was never really announced that I recall so I thought it would be interesting to look briefly at the results. The goal of this paper was to break articles down into surface features and latent features and then use those to study the rating system being used, predict article quality and rank results in a search engine. We used the [[random forests]] classifier which allowed us to analyze the contribution of each feature to performance by looking directly at the weights that were assigned. While the surface analysis was performed on the whole english wikipedia, the latent analysis was performed on the simple english wikipedia (it is more expensive to compute). = Surface features = * Readability measures are the single best predictor of quality that I have found, as defined by the Wikipedia Editorial Team (WET). The [[Automated Readability Index]], [[Gunning Fog Index]] and [[Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level]] were the strongest predictors, followed by length of article html, number of paragraphs, [[Flesh Reading Ease]], [[Smog Grading]], number of internal links, [[Laesbarhedsindex Readability Formula]], number of words and number of references. Weakly predictive were number of to be's, number of sentences, [[Coleman-Liau Index]], number of templates, PageRank, number of external links, number of relative links. Not predictive (overall - see the end of section 2 for the per-rating score breakdown): Number of h2 or h3's, number of conjunctions, number of images*, average word length, number of h4's, number of prepositions, number of pronouns, number of interlanguage links, average syllables per word, number of nominalizations, article age (based on page id), proportion of questions, average sentence length. :* Number of images was actually by far the single strongest predictor of any class, but only for Featured articles. Because it was so good at picking out featured articles and somewhat good at picking out A and G articles the classifier was confused in so many cases that the overall contribution of this feature to classification performance is zero. :* Number of external links is strongly predictive of Featured articles. :* The B class is highly distinctive. It has a strong "signature," with high predictive value assigned to many features. The Featured class is also very distinctive. F, B and S (Stop/Stub) contain the most information. :* A is the least distinct class, not being very different from F or G. = Latent features = The algorithm used for latent analysis, which is an analysis of the occurence of words in every document with respect to the link structure of the encyclopedia ("concepts"), is [[Latent Dirichlet Allocation]]. This part of the analysis was done by CS PhD student Praful Mangalath. An example of what can be done with the result of this analysis is that you provide a word (a search query) such as "hippie". You can then look at the weight of every article for the word hippie. You can pick the article with the largest weight, and then look at its link network. You can pick out the articles that this article links to and/or which link to this article that are also weighted strongly for the word hippie, while also contributing maximally to this articles "hippieness". We tried this query in our system (LDA), Google (site:en.wikipedia.org hippie), and the Simple English Wikipedia's Lucene search engine. The breakdown of articles occuring in the top ten search results for this word for those engines is: * LDA only: [[Acid rock]], [[Aldeburgh Festival]], [[Anne Murray]], [[Carl Radle]], [[Harry Nilsson]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Phil Spector]], [[Plastic Ono Band]], [[Rock and Roll]], [[Salvador Allende]], [[Smothers brothers]], [[Stanley Kubrick]]. * Google only: [[Glam Rock]], [[South Park]]. * Simple only: [[African Americans]], [[Charles Manson]], [[Counterculture]], [[Drug use]], [[Flower Power]], [[Nuclear weapons]], [[Phish]], [[Sexual liberation]], [[Summer of Love]] * LDA & Google & Simple: [[Hippie]], [[Human Be-in]], [[Students for a democratic society]], [[Woodstock festival]] * LDA & Google: [[Psychedelic Pop]] * Google & Simple: [[Lysergic acid diethylamide]], [[Summer of Love]] ( See the paper for the articles produced for the keywords philosophy and economics ) = Discussion / Conclusion = * The results of the latent analysis are totally up to your perception. But what is interesting is that the LDA features predict the WET ratings of quality just as well as the surface level features. Both feature sets (surface and latent) both pull out all almost of the information that the rating system bears. * The rating system devised by the WET is not distinctive. You can best tell the difference between, grouped together, Featured, A and Good articles vs B articles. Featured, A and Good articles are also quite distinctive (Figure 1). Note that in this study we didn't look at Start's and Stubs, but in earlier paper we did. :* This is interesting when compared to this recent entry on the YouTube blog. "Five Stars Dominate Ratings" http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html… I think a sane, well researched (with actual subjects) rating system is well within the purview of the Usability Initiative. Helping people find and create good content is what Wikipedia is all about. Having a solid rating system allows you to reorganized the user interface, the Wikipedia namespace, and the main namespace around good content and bad content as needed. If you don't have a solid, information bearing rating system you don't know what good content really is (really bad content is easy to spot). :* My Wikimania talk was all about gathering data from people about articles and using that to train machines to automatically pick out good content. You ask people questions along dimensions that make sense to people, and give the machine access to other surface features (such as a statistical measure of readability, or length) and latent features (such as can be derived from document word occurence and encyclopedia link structure). I referenced page 262 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to give an example of the kind of qualitative features I would ask people. It really depends on what features end up bearing information, to be tested in "the lab". Each word is an example dimension of quality: We have "*unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on.*" You then use surface and latent features to predict these values for all articles. You can also say, when a person rates this article as high on the x scale, they also mean that it has has this much of these surface and these latent features. = References = - DeHoust, C., Mangalath, P., Mingus., B. (2008). *Improving search in Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery*. Technical Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/6/68/DeHoustMangalat…> - Rassbach, L., Mingus., B, Blackford, T. (2007). *Exploring the feasibility of automatically rating online article quality*. Technical Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/d/d3/RassbachPincock…>

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
by GerardM 09 Aug '22

09 Aug '22

Hoi, I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most excellent bit of news. The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics. What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should approve yet another language :) NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus... Thanks, GerardM ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org> Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875. Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org> Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org> Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project <reviews(a)linguistlist.org> Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/ The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, and donations from subscribers and publishers. Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org> ================================================================ To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html ===========================Directory============================== 1) Date: 18-Jun-2007 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers -------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers Dear subscribers, As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the "Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this at: http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm. The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity of our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit more leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on the Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely organizational one. We will: *Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or pages that need improvement; *Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified as "in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any references or sources," etc; *Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or articles; *Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia; *Keep track of our project Wikipedians; *Keep track of revisions and new entries; *Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's efforts. We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us all get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an area needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of Linguists page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and information added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort, please respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which linguistics entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our campaign on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we will share with you soon. This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The end result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth and depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate prospective students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on what we do. Please consider participating. Sincerely, Hannah Morales Editor, Wikipedia Update Project Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable ----------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831

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[Wikimedia Announcements] Welcoming the new Wikimedia Foundation CEO
by Nataliia Tymkiv 28 Jan '22

28 Jan '22

Dear all, I am pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has appointed Maryana Iskander as the new CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation [1] [2]. Since 2013, Maryana has served as the CEO of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator [3], a South African non-profit social enterprise focused on building African solutions for the global challenge of youth unemployment. Prior to this, she spent six years as Chief Operating Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America [4], a volunteer-led social movement focused on access to women’s healthcare. Maryana has also worked in academia as the Advisor to the President of Rice University [5], an international research university based in the United States. Her professional career has been motivated by breaking down systemic barriers, creating opportunities for collaborative solution-building, and community empowerment. She has a proven track record for leading complex organisations shaped by shared decision-making. In looking for the next CEO, we on the Board convened a Transition Committee [6], primarily to guide us in finding the right person for this critical role and secondly to oversee the executive Transition Team. The Transition Committee conducted a far-reaching and competitive global search, receiving around 400 recommendations and speaking to about 50 potential candidates. Throughout this selection process, Maryana impressed us as someone who is deeply inspired by the Wikimedia vision and who embodies the values of equity and community that inform all Wikimedia work. She has extensive leadership experience working with volunteer-led initiatives and building partnerships across public, private and social sectors. Maryana also brings expertise in technology-led innovation to accelerate meaningful social change. She does this with a global perspective: Maryana was born in the Middle East, educated in the United States and the United Kingdom, and has spent the last decade living and working on the African continent. Maryana joins the Wikimedia Foundation at a crucial time. The movement is larger than ever, and it has never been more relevant or more trusted. This is an inflection point, as decisions need to be made to execute a shared vision for where the Movement wants to be in 2030. We believe that Maryana is the right person to help lead the Foundation at this moment. As Maryana begins, her priorities will include supporting movement efforts to implement the Wikimedia 2030 recommendations, such as the development of a Movement Charter and the finalization of a Universal Code of Conduct. She will continue the Foundation’s focus on knowledge equity and exploring ways to address the gaps in content and the diversity of contributors to Wikimedia projects. She will be supported by the Board in this journey. Maryana will officially start at the Wikimedia Foundation on January 5, 2022, as she transitions from her current job. Until then, the Foundation will continue to be led by the Transition Team, with guidance from the Board. In my conversations with her, I have seen that Maryana is a fan of direct communication and excited to learn from the movement. In the coming weeks, she will share ways to connect. Please join me in welcoming Maryana (CCed) to the Foundation! PS. For translations of this message, or to help translate it into more languages, please visit Meta-Wiki [7] *[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/14/wikimedia-foundation-appoin… <https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/14/wikimedia-foundation-appoin…>* *[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryana_Iskander <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryana_Iskander> * *[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambee_Youth_Employment_Accelerator <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambee_Youth_Employment_Accelerator>* *[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood>* *[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_University <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_University> * *[6] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Creating_a_CEO_Transition_… <https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Creating_a_CEO_Transition_…> * *[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/14_S… <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/14_S…>* <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/14_S…> Best regards, antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv Acting 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!* _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list -- wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikimediaannounce-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

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Announcing an academic conference on Wikipedia translation
by Mark SHUTTLEWORTH 20 Dec '21

20 Dec '21

Dear friends and colleagues Please permit me to publicise an academic conference that we're holding at Hong Kong Baptist University on 15-17 December 2021. The conference will be an ideal forum in which to discuss research methodologies, issues of collaborativity, theoretical frameworks that have proven valuable for the study of Wikipedia translation, the use of Wikipedia in the translation classroom and by translation professionals, and the nature of Wikipedia translation and how it differs not only from other more traditional types of translation but also from other newly emerging types. While the conference's main focus is interlingual translation within the online encyclopaedia, we are also interested in research into the multilingual Wikipedia that makes no explicit reference to translation issues. The conference will be online, face-to-face or mixed mode, depending on prevailing circumstances. Please see the conference website at https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/ for full details and the Call for Papers. I hope to see some of you there! Mark Professor Mark Shuttleworth 夏致遠 Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies Hong Kong Baptist University Phone: +852 3411 6641 http://www.tran.hkbu.edu.hk https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/ -- Disclaimer This message (including any attachments) may contain confidential information intended for a specific individual and/or purpose. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and notify the sender and the University immediately. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is prohibited as it may be unlawful. In addition, the University specifically denies any responsibility for the accuracy or quality of information obtained through University E-mail Facilities. Any views and opinions expressed in the email(s) are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the University. The University accepts no liability whatsoever for any losses or damages that may be incurred or caused to any party as a result of the use of such information.

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What happened to the cc-by-sa-4.0 initiative?
by Strainu 29 Oct '21

29 Oct '21

Hi, A few years ago there was a public consultation on moving the Wikimedia license to cc-by-sa-4.0 instead of 3.0. Now, obviously that never happened but I couldn't find the decision documented anywhere. Why was the proposal scrapped? Are there any plans to revisit this? Steainu

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Peer Support Networks in the Wikimedia Movement
by Christel Steigenberger 20 Oct '21

20 Oct '21

Hello all, We are writing to invite you to take part in a new project that the Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety Team is creating. This project aims to maintain and expand peer-support networks within the Wikimedia communities, improve the working atmosphere on our projects, and aid in the fight against harassment. In the Foundation, we believe that your participation and opinion is important as it will enable us to gain diverse perspectives and new information.This Peer Support Project endeavors to connect volunteers in a way where they can support each other, and your knowledge, skills and experience would be highly appreciated. For more information on the project, please visit our Meta page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Peer_Support_Networks_within_the_Wikimedia_…> . If you'd like to lend your expertise here, we are organizing Focus group meetings as a next step. In those meetings, we hope to learn about already existing networks, ideas on how volunteers could connect more and better, and what support they would need to do so. These meetings will cover three different time zones, and each meeting will last two hours. Feel free to sign up for the meeting that is most comfortable for you! Focus group meetings will be held on Google Meet on the days and times listed below: 1 October 2021, 7:30 - 9:30 UTC 15 October 2021, 15:00 - 17:00 UTC 22 October 2021, 19:00 - 21:00 UTC Please feel free to encourage more members of your community or other wikifriends to reach out to us if you believe that this project will be of interest to them. Do let us know if you are available to participate in one of those meetings listed above and we will send out calendar invites to you. If you are interested, but are unavailable in the time slots listed above, let us know and we will look for ways to connect. Please be aware that Trust & Safety will also reach out soon with a similar offer to talk about training around the UCoC. Feel free to concentrate on the issue that is most important to you, but of course you are also very welcome to take part in both discussions. We are aware that capacity is limited and will highly value any kind of participation! Looking forward to hearing from you, Christel Steigenberger (she/her) Senior Trust and Safety Specialist Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

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Join the Conversation with Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on October 20
by Shani Evenstein 20 Oct '21

20 Oct '21

Hello, everyone. TLDR: Join the Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on October 20, 2021 at 11:00 UTC (check for your local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1634724017>). During the meeting, you will: * Meet the incoming CEO, Maryana Iskander. * Meet the candidates nominated through the latest Community-Selection process to the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees * Learn about Board Committees’ work * Engage through a Question & Answers session (partly pre-sent, and partly live). Now in more details: What are we announcing? The Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees’ Community Affairs Committee <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…> (CAC) is hosting its second Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (formerly called an Office Hour), which is an open forum for the community to directly engage with Trustees. Come and meet the Board of Trustees, including the candidates nominated for the Board through the latest Community-Selection process, and the incoming CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation; learn about what the Board of Trustees has been up to lately; and engage through the Question & Answers section! When & Where? The meeting will be held on October 20, 2021 at 11:00 UTC (check for your local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1634724017>)! We promised at the last meeting to alternate the timings for these in order to accommodate a wider range of time zones to be able to join in. At least 3 Trustees and relevant Wikimedia Foundation staff will be in attendance. The session will be streamed live and recorded, so those who cannot participate live will be able to watch later. Those who cannot attend are welcome to send questions in advance to the session (details below). How will it work? The meeting will last for 90 minutes. The first 40 minutes will include a short introduction to the session, and an update on what the Board has been working on lately. It will be followed by 50 minutes of Questions & Answers: around 20-30 minutes of answering questions sent in advance, and an additional 20-30 minutes of live questions. We will be monitoring YouTube, the Wikimedia General Chat Telegram group <https://t.me/WikimediaGeneral> and the Meta talk page for live questions. We would like to encourage everyone, especially those who cannot participate at the designated time, to send questions for the Board in advance of the meeting. The structure is meant to enable the CAC to not only update the community on current matters the Board is working on, but also hear directly from the community. This will both increase the transparency around the Board’s work and will help inform the CAC’s future work. Setting the agenda with your Questions In order to be as efficient as possible, and since we anticipate that some questions will require answers from Wikimedia Foundation Staff, we are encouraging community members to send questions in advance. Please send all questions to askcac(a)wikimedia.org, by Wednesday, October 13 (midnight, whatever time zone you may be in). The Q & A section in the meeting agenda will be based on the main topics related to the questions received. We will share more exact topics on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…> 3 days before the meeting, including final names of Trustees in attendance. Please note -- * Participants will still be able to ask questions live if that is preferred. * If you miss the deadline for sending questions (October 13th), you can still send questions, if they are not addressed during the meeting, we will follow up in writing after the meeting. Registering to attend the meeting For security reasons and specifically to avoid Zoombombing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoombombing>, we will be sending the Zoom link only to people who have registered in advance close to the meeting. In order to register, please send an email to askcac(a)wikimedia.org. The title should be: “Registration for the October 20 Conversation with Trustees”, and it should indicate your name, username, affiliation if you have any, and whether you will require live translation. Requests for live translation must be sent at least a week before the session, October 13th. As live translation is costly, there is a minimum of 5 people registering and requesting translation to a specific language that is required to request for a live translation. If you miss the deadline of requesting translation, or if there is no minimum of 5 people requesting translation, you will still be able to see the main points after the meeting, which will be translated to Arabic, Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, German and English. Please note -- - The session will be moderated based on the Universal Code of Conduct <https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct> - Globally banned users will not be allowed in the zoom room, but can still participate by watching live and sending questions in real-time. Please help us spread the word by sharing this message with your community. Hoping to see as many of you as possible, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, on behalf of the CAC. Shani Evenstein Sigalov <https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/> Acting Vice Chair, Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_cam…> Virus-free. www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_cam…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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Wikimedia-l September 2021