Wikimedia-l April 2013

186 participants
145 discussions

xkcd collecting donations for WMF?
by Manuel Schneider 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

Did you see this April's Fool Day comic on xkcd, with an interactivly growing dog: "The dog gains a pound for every $10 donated to the Wikimedia Foundation via this link." http://xkcd.org/ Is this real? How can it tell how much has been donated to WMF through this comic? I see that there is a special campaign reference in the donation link but how can it fetch the amount? Has there been any cooperation / negotiation between Randall Munroe and the WMF beforehand? /Manuel -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] questions on the use of banner space to promote a cause
by James Salsman 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

geni wrote: > On 30 March 2013 20:57, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote: >>... >> >> (A) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to >> CISPA advocacy?[3][4] >> >> (B) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to >> CALEA advocacy?[5] >> >> (C) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CFAA >> advocacy?[6] > > No since none of those have any impact on our core issues. I disagree. All of those measures represent various forms of government intrusion likely to change editor behaviors in a way which can reasonably be expected to degrade article quality and comprehensiveness. Oliver Keyes wrote: > On 30 March 2013 20:57, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote: > >> As a more specific practical reformulation of this question, how bad would >> poverty in developed countries have to become before it would be >> appropriate for the Foundation to advocate on the issue? Is it already >> appropriate? Would it only be appropriate if the proportion of editors >> leaving the project due to personal poverty was increasing? Would it never >> be appropriate? > > Speaking personally: ... It would, practically speaking, never be appropriate > for us to spend page impressions or chunks of page impressions on this kind > of advocacy - I say "practically" because, while things might alter slightly > if it turned out editors were leaving in droves due to poverty, this > seems...'ludicrously unlikely' doesn't cover it. I presume that this opinion doesn't have any actual data behind it. Here is some actual data, from the county where I went to school: "The school system, which keeps the best records of homelessness in the county, says the number of homeless students rose from 59 in 2001 to 2,812 in the current school year." -- http://prospect.org/article/weeklies So there you have an example of students who would otherwise likely join in the pool of potential editors in the developed world. Over the period of time that Wikipedia has existed, they have become far less likely to become editors because they have far less free time, less access to internet resources, less access to personal educational resources, and less financial capacity to perform ordinary tasks in support of editing such as travel to university libraries and obtaining specialist reference materials. > James, I appreciate that you care a lot about these issues. But please stop > trying to use the movement as your personal soapbox. When poverty increases in the developed world, the demand for my customers' products increases in the developing world. Over the past six years, the extent to which this has happened has far surpassed and entirely supplanted my income as a software engineer in Silicon Valley. I resent the insinuation that I am doing anything for myself by showing the connections between poverty and the health of the editor community, when in fact the opposite is true. Sincerely, James Salsman

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Transition team update
by Jan-Bart de Vreede 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

Hello Everyone, With a little help from TheHelpfulOne we have made a start with the Meta pages for the transition team. The central page is located at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ED_Transition_Team Feel free to browse and comment/suggest! Jan-Bart de Vreede Chair Transition Team

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"Adopt a page"
by Strainu 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

Hi, I've just seen an OTRS ticket asking why isn't Wikipedia giving its pages for "adoption" (like when you adopt a page and your name ends up on its cage or something like that). I've moved the ticket to the donations queue, but I was wondering if this has ever been discussed/considered before. Thanks, Strainu

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"
by WereSpielChequers 31 Mar '13

31 Mar '13

I see several issues/concerns re sponsoring pages. Firstly it is a form of advertising, even if we don't name the sponsor on the page (and there will be pressure to do so) then we will have headlines along the lines of car maker x launches new "peregrine" car - sponsors Wikipedia page on Peregine Falcon. A large enough part of the community don't want to accept advertising, such a large part that any advertising however disguised as "sponsorship" is going to be more trouble than its worth. Secondly there is the argument that sponsorship could help by funding the buying of sources. We already have microgrants available to help here, why do we also need sponsorship? Thirdly there is the vexed issue of paid editing, here the important thing is to avoid COI. At Wikimania in Gdansk Google's charity arm presented a relatively uncontentious program they had run to translate medical articles from English into various South Asian languages. Fourthly you can expect news stories along the lines of "travel company Y stops sponsoring Wikipedia articles on resorts X and Z, starts sponsoring articles on resorts A and B as it moves out of Country Q and expands offer in Country C". My concern if you approach these via sponsorship is that you then have to have a whole new bureaucracy around who is an acceptable sponsor, and whoever seeks to control that has an impossible task as the sponsors may not disclose their plans in advance (hypothetical example, a computer game manufacturer known for science fiction themed games sponsors some unrelated articles re Roman history and the Magonid dynasty, they then get a lot of free publicity as the games press correctly speculates that they are going to launch a "swords and sandals" type game based on the Punic Wars. So in my opinion best to not allow sponsorship of articles. WSC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:04:35 -0700 > From: Mono <monomium(a)gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" > Message-ID: > < > CAD6tHrU9DQS4bykOFq6gniwEC3d2UZN1Bj1b2KCOm+MvvsRwFg(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > How so? > > > On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 5:58 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com > >wrote: > > > On Mar 30, 2013 12:55 AM, "Mono" <monomium(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > Yes, but it might be nice if we could let people pay trusted editors to > > > improve articles (without a COI and with a NPOV) that normally wouldn't > > get > > > attention. > > > > Would that be nice? I think that would be very harmful... > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:08:45 +0100 > From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" > Message-ID: > <CALTQccfVk7ABPZmeAC5K23XFa_kmO== > DH1H5o1iJfu4++YtNcg(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" <monomium(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > How so? > > It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer > written encyclopedia. > > You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid editors. > There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The whole > concept would be extremely divisive. > > > > Message: 4 > Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:29:33 +0000 > From: Thomas Morton <morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" > Message-ID: > <CAKO2H7_PR2CKzF= > ZvAy7_fSLhuhz-d19Q8kUYfX3P6sC0HdKCw(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > It's a weird dichotomy. > > I've spent several hundred quid on source material for my current topic > area. I could easily have spent several grand. > > Paid editing is a major issue, because it conflicts with our culture > > But if someone were able to buy my sources then it would be of huge > benefit. > > And, controversially, if someone could fund me one day a week to write > these articles I could likely expand from one GA per month to covering this > entire field in GAs in a year. > > Without that it will take me a good five years > > I've come recently to see that funding article work is not inherently an > awful thing. But it needs to be done with extreme care to protect our > ideals and neutrality. And that is a HARD problem. > > Tom > > On Saturday, March 30, 2013, Thomas Dalton wrote: > > > On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" <monomium(a)gmail.com <javascript:;>> > wrote: > > > > > > How so? > > > > It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer > > written encyclopedia. > > > > You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid > editors. > > There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The > whole > > concept would be extremely divisive. > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:;> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > > Message: 7 > Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:23:22 +0200 > From: Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" > Message-ID: > <CAC9meRLKPB5iX6MFqU-ZGUQQZwCGMDT= > AUoKaLzGWLgAZOqPnw(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Guys, I think you're reading more into it than it is. When you're adopting > an animal you don't get to decide what and how much it gets to eat. > Similarly adopting a wiki page wouldn't mean you pay for having a say on > the content. At the bottom end of the reward scale you could get a badge > you could put on YOUR website, without having your name on Wikipedia at > all. > > I'm not necessarely in favour of this idea but i wanted to see if it's been > discussed before. I guess that if it has, people havebeen confusing this > idea with paid editing. > > >

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Wikimedia-l April 2013