Wikimedia-l January 2014

173 participants
107 discussions

Wikimania 2014 scholarship now accepting application
by Katie Chan 11 Feb '14

11 Feb '14

Hi all, Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2014 in London are now being accepted. Applications are open until the end of the day UTC on 17 February. Wikimania 2014 scholarships is an award given to an individual to enable them to attend Wikimania in London from 6-10 August, 2014. Only a single type of scholarship will be available from the Wikimedia Foundation for Wikimania 2014. A Wikimedia Foundation scholarship will cover the cost of an individual's round-trip travel costs as arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation travel agency, shared accommodation as arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation, and registration for Wikimania. Applicants will be rated using a pre-determined selection process and selection criteria by the Scholarship Committee, who will determine which are successful. To learn more about Wikimania 2014 scholarships, please visit <https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships>. To apply for a scholarship, fill out the application form on <http://scholarships.wikimedia.org/apply>. It is highly recommended that applicants review all of the material on the Scholarships page and the associated FAQ before submitting an application. If you have any question, please contact <wikimania-scholarships(a)wikimedia.org> or leave a message on <https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scholarships>. Katie Chan Chair, Scholarship Committee -- Katie Chan Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the view of any organisation the author is associated with or employed by. Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

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Textbooks Which Borrow Heavily from Wikipedia
by James Heilman 06 Feb '14

06 Feb '14

Have come across a collection of basic college textbooks that appear to be more or less based on text from Wikipedia. There are 21 of them. The company claims that they are being used by more than 2 million students. They are under a CC BY SA license and if you follow the links seen here http://books.google.ca/books?id=7avpAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2058 they do eventually attribute Wikipedia. They are being offered for free on amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywo… and are being sold for $19.99 on their website. https://www.boundless.com/ So the question is should we have a response? I think this could generate position press for our movement. Attribution could be better (I would consider theirs to be borderline). Additionally should we be adding this textbooks to Wikiversity or Wikibooks to make sure they stay free available? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com

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Invitation to WMF January 2014 Metrics & Activities Meeting: Thursday, February 6, 19:00 UTC
by Praveena Maharaj 06 Feb '14

06 Feb '14

Dear all, The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday, February 6, 2014 at 7:00 PM UTC (11 AM PST). The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube stream. The current structure of the meeting is: * Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also specialized reports and analytic * Review of financials * Welcoming recent hires * Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest priority initiatives * Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further information about how to participate. We'll post the video recording publicly after the meeting. Thank you, Praveena -- Praveena Maharaj Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development +1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689 www.wikimedia.org

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next Wikidata office hour
by Lydia Pintscher 03 Feb '14

03 Feb '14

Hey folks :) Adam and I will be holding another office hour on February 3rd at 5pm UTC. See http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Wikidata+office+ho… for your timezone. We will be meeting in #wikimedia-office on freenode IRC. The topics will be: * short update on the current state of Wikidata * questions about the development plan for 2014+ (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Development_plan) * any other questions/discussion We will make logs available for those who can't attend. Hope to see many of you there! Cheers Lydia -- Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher Product Manager for Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 10963 Berlin www.wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

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Kumusha Takes Wiki: announcing new WiC in Ivory Coast
by Florence Devouard 02 Feb '14

02 Feb '14

Hello everyone I am very happy to announce that we have found a wonderful person to be our Wikipedian in Community for our Kumusha Takes Wiki project in Ivory Coast. His name is Cyriac Gbogou. Born on the 02nd of September 1980 in Kpada (Soubré) village located in the south west of the country and the capital of Ivorian cocoa, Cyriac Gbogou runs for years a part of the African continent with his parents as a student-resident respectively in Senegal, Togo, Mali and Congo-Brazzaville. He finally returned to Côte d'Ivoire in 2001 and decided to pursue graduate studies in computer science. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science. He gets married in August 2009. In 2010, he discovers the world of Web 2.0. That same year, Cyriac chooses to not follow his employer IBM which wanted to relocate its activities in Morocco because of the very sensitive period in Cote d’Ivoire. Loving risk and adventure, he stays to serve his country as volunteer in Akendewa (now former Secretary General). His passion for social networks has grown during the post-electoral crisis of 2011 working with other actors in the Ivorian web projects such as Civsocial #, # Wonzomai who have saved lives with the Internet use [1]. Cyriac is the Chairman of the Association des Blogueurs de Côte d'Ivoire (A.B.C.I) Since September 2012, Cyriac Gbogou is an independent consultant, a job he does with passion, as an advisor, speaker and trainer. He was named by his peers "Village Chief" of the Ivorian web community. You can also follow him on his blog where he speaks freely on topics: www.cyriacgbogou.ci Whilst Cyriac is not (yet) a wikipedian, he is quite knowledgeable with open source and related projects : he was involved in OSM Ivory Coast mapping and coordinating mapping party or was involved in the jerry project (http://youandjerrycan.org) including in the set up of Afripedia on a jerry server. More info about Kumusha here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kumusha_Takes_Wiki/en#News Cyriac will have about two weeks to gain some familiarity with Wikimedia projects before heading to Cap Town for a month, to receive some training and start planning his activity in Ivory Coast. It would be great if some of you could welcome him on his (still red) talk page :) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Cyriac_Gbogou Florence/Anthere

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Fwd: Invitation to Chapters and Photographers for the European Parliament Project 2014
by Olaf Kosinsky 01 Feb '14

01 Feb '14

Dear Chapters, this is a mail focused on chapters within the European Union but of course support and participation of any chapter is welcome! == Preamble == Some might have heard about the State Parliament Projects done in Germany and Austria since 2009: A bunch of Wikipedians and photographers meet politicians in the parliament, shoot professional photos, discuss their Wikipedia articles etc. This way hundreds of free licensed, high quality images have been made, Wikipedia articles have been improved. In the latest project at Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) we added videos, politicians give a short introduction about themselves, their position and political focus in German and in their mother tongue if different from German. About 20 photographers were able to participate and processes how to work with the parliament's administration, how to interact with the politicians, how to efficiently take a lot of photos in a short time and with good quality have been established. == Next Level: European Parliament == Now we would like to take this to next level: After contacting the European Parliament I was able to get their approval, the support by the parties and a date! Unfortunately the date is already in February, 3rd to 7th, as we have to use the short time gap between budget deliberations and elections. MEPs only travel to the EP when deliberations are ongoing but then they are also busy with meetings, as soon as the election preperation starts there won't be any time for our project within the next 6 months. Anyway I am sure we can do that - the elections are also a great opportunity to raise awareness on our material we have in Wikipedia and on Commons. It is also an excellent opportunity to bring together volunteers in doing our core work together, maybe we can transfer the idea of Parliament Projects to other countries. Volunteers get the opportunity to learn from each other - the EP is a very challenging project, having more than 700 MEPs to be handled within a few days. And Wikipedia may improve its articles, also by bringing together volunteers from different EU countries. Many MEPs have their articles only in a few of the European languages, some not even in their native language! == Your Chapter Involved == We are looking forward to get volunteers from as many countries as possible involved in this project. In order to be handle it we need approx. 35 people to help. Obviously the german and austrian photographers are already waiting for it, from past projects they already know what will go on. But there is much more to it: We want your volunteers! Imagine a project where we could bring together volunteers from all 24 language communities in the EU - that is what we are trying! Therefore we ask you for a favour: * please forward this invitation to your local community - you can point them to our project page on Wikimedia Commons: ** https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliame… * does your chapter provide travel support for those volunteers in your country who want to participate? Please do so. Your chapter pays for the transportation to / from Strasbourg and the accommodation (around 300 EUR per person for all 6 nights), we take care of the rest (transportation hotel - EP, catering etc.) ** https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliame… * does your chapter have photographic equipment we might need? We could use DSLRs, flash units, background systems, lenses... ** https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliame… * we would like to supply the volunteers with t-shirts or hoodies with Wikipedia logo or similar - for a unified appearance and to make them visible as volunteers and Wikimedians. Is your chapter (or the WMF?) interested in providing 90 shirts / hoodies? (We planned 2 pc. per person as they will be worn almost one week.) ** https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliame… * everyone who likes this project: state your support on the talk page of our grant request to the WMF which should cover the general costs of the project. By this grant request we make sure that each chapter only has to handle local support and can stay within it's budgeted limits and area of operation. ** https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Olaf_Kosinsky/Wikipedians_in_Eur… Thanks for your attention and your support! We are confident that even with the short time given we will be able to run an awesome project which will have an impact in so many areas - Wikipedia, Commons, our volunteers, chapter collaboration, outreach, reader experience... Regards, Olaf Kosinsky

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community consultation + Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director selection process
by James Salsman 01 Feb '14

01 Feb '14

> the community can help with identifying candidates by > suggesting people who should be invited to apply (we did that) Thank you, Oliver! How many people suggested by the community were invited, and what were their responses? Did Ward Cunningham get an invite?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community consultation + Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director selection process
by James Salsman 31 Jan '14

31 Jan '14

Craig Franklin wrote: >... > it would be grossly unprofessional for Erik, Jan-Bart, or anyone else > to publicly discuss the relative merits of people who may or may not > be involved in a confidential hiring process.... No, the Board resolved to "consult the community as necessary to assist with identifying, evaluating, and selecting candidates" as per http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Appointing_and_authorizing_a… How is it possible for the community to evaluate and select candidates without a transparent discussion of their individual merits? There is nothing which requires confidentiality in the hiring process. What would be unprofessional would be if the Board doesn't follow through with their own resolution, but we all know how well the resolution to maximize financial support of the projects fares as soon as the budgeted fundraising goal is reached since a couple years ago. We should be discussing the merits of individual candidates in the open.

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Scope of Wikimedia Conference
by Chris Keating 31 Jan '14

31 Jan '14

Should "movement organisations in planning" come to the Wikimedia Conference? This is a question that has been asked, does not yet appear to have a definite answer, and indeed it is not clear who should answer it. Please provide your thoughts here; https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Conference_2014#Who_is_invit…

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Welcome 3 employees of Wikimedia Norway
by Erlend Bjørtvedt 31 Jan '14

31 Jan '14

Wikimedia Norway has brought onboard it's Third employee from January 1. We now have a team of 3 full / part time staff supporting the Chapter in realizing ambitious objectives for 2014. They are all installed in Our New Offices in Central Oslo. https://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us Astrid Carlsen will direct the GLAM program co-ordination, and the chapter's efforts to strengthen participation, recruitment and retention of contributors. She has broad experience from the puvlishing sector and from translation, and has lived and worked in Germany and Norway. Jorid Martinsen will be a part-time Project manager With the main objective to increase female participation. She has invaluable experience and Networks as a recent student organizer at the national Level. Tor Arne Bjerke will direct the outreach towards academia, and the chapter's effort to enhance content quality. He will also specifically develop film Projects and produce recruitment film. Tor Arne has more than 10 years experience from the film industry as a producer, and lectures fil at a university college. We are happy to have them all onboard at Wikimedia Norway! -- *Erlend Bjørtvedt* Nestleder, Wikimedia Norge Vice chairman, Wikimedia Norway Mob: +47 - 9225 9227 http://no.wikimedia.org <http://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us>

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Wikimedia-l January 2014