Hi everyone,
I'm thrilled to announce that Wikidata metrics are now easily viewable on
the Dashboard.
Here's a short blogpost the details the hard work that went into this
project:
https://wikiedu.org/blog/2022/04/07/more-wikidata-metrics-on-the-dashboard/
We owe a special thank you to our Outreachy intern, Ivana
Novaković-Leković, who worked on the Dashboard code to make this possible.
You can see it in action here:
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Yale_University/Dura-Europos_…
Thanks!
--
Will Kent (he/him/his)
Wikidata Program Manager
WikiEducation
@wikieducation
will(a)wikiedu.org
Dear Wikimedians,
The wait is over!!!🤩
The Multilingual Launch Webinar for #WikiForHumanRights is happening live
tomorrow 14th April 2022 14:00UTC via zoom.
Don’t forget to register- https://bit.ly/36FIJIJ
Read more about the event on diff- https://bit.ly/3NCTv3b
All are cordially invited!
Cheers,
Ruby
Dear Wikimedians,
I write to invite you all to WikiAfrica Hour episode 12, where we shall be
engaging our special guest, Maryana Iskander, CEO of Wikimedia Foundation.
It's been four months into her Wikimedia Foundation CEO job, what has
Maryana Iskander been up to? What's she currently working on? What plans
does she have for the movement? Come find out on WikiAfrica Hour episode
12.
*Date:22nd April 2022. Time: 4pm UTC. *
*You can drop questions for her on the "Questions" page of WikiAfrica Hour
Meta page*. Details:https://w.wiki/3E6L
Best regards,
Ceslause Ogbonnaya
*WikiAfrica Hour Host*
Dear Wikimedians,
On behalf of Wiki In Africa, the organizer of Wiki Loves Africa, I wish to
inform you all that the deadline for submitting entries for Wiki Loves
Africa 2022
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2022>
themed *Home
+ Habitat*, has been extended to *30th April 2022*.
Make your entries that are related to the theme and stand a chance to win
awesome prizes bit.ly/wla22_enter!
Best regards,
Ceslause Ogbonnaya
Tl;dr Urgent need to address the note denying race and ethnicity as
“meaningful distinctions among people” in the Universal Code of Conduct
(UCoC). The current wording is highly problematic and can result in
endorsing systemic and individual discrimination and violence on the basis
of race and ethnicity, rather than preventing it.
Dear Wikimedians,
We are writing this letter as the Whose Knowledge? user group, both to
Wikimedia-l, as well as adding it to the talk page for the UCoC.[0] We
endorsed the UCoC in the community voting process because we are committed
to its principles and intentions (indeed, some of us have been expressly
working towards it within the movement for a very long time, in multiple
ways).
However, we continue to be deeply concerned about the current wording of a
specific note in the UCoC: under Section 3.1 about Harassment, the note
under Insults states that “The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race"
and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people. Their inclusion
here is to mark that they are prohibited in use against others as the basis
for personal attacks." (emphasis ours)[1]
This is both manifestly incorrect and entirely against what we believe to
be the principles and intentions of the UCoC. Other Wikimedians have
already pointed out the deeply contradictory nature of this statement,
including WJBScribe on the talk page in May 2021,[2] but their comments
appear not to have been considered yet.
By stating that "The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and
"ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people," those responsible for
this text do not seem to fully grasp that:
-
Even though the concept of ‘race’ as a biological distinction has been
refuted, ‘race’ as a social construct has been fully accepted by modern
scholars.[3] Even more importantly, we know historically that the concept
of ‘race’ was created and developed to serve and justify European
colonialism in its quest to enslave, marginalize, oppress, dominate and
exterminate black, brown and indigenous peoples in the lands they
colonized. This form of “racial science” was also responsible for the
genocide of Europeans who would otherwise be racialized as white outside of
Europe, in particular during World War II. Since then the concept of ‘race’
has been used to develop and create some of the most wide ranging systems
of power and privilege that currently marginalize and oppress the majority
of the world.
-
By denying or not ‘endorsing’ the existence of race as a “meaningful
distinction among people”, the Wikimedia movement is not doing non-white
people any favors or helping to end racism or racist demonstrations, such
as insults based on race. As we’ve said before, being silent about racism
doesn’t make it go away. It only creates the perfect environment for the
continued existence of the deep structural powers and privileges that
created it in the first place.[4]
-
Additionally, it is equally manifestly important to acknowledge the ways
in which the concept of ‘ethnicity’ is used to create “meaningful” -
including violently discriminatory - “distinctions” amongst people,
including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism as two obvious examples. It is
equally obvious that the concepts of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are not
equivalent and/or interchangeable, and cannot be used so.
-
By including such a problematic statement, the UCoC contradicts the
movement’s commitment to knowledge equity, clearly stated and approved as
part of our Wikimedia Movement Strategy for 2030. The Universal Code of
Conduct of a movement that doesn’t “see” race or ethnicity or acknowledge
the historical and current effects of our racialized and ethnically-driven
world, cannot and will not be able to “focus our efforts on the knowledge
and communities that have been left out by structures of power and
privilege.”[5]
-
Leaving this wording in, also negates the ongoing efforts by individuals
and organizations across the movement who work with passion and commitment
towards knowledge equity in different ways, including through challenging
racist and ethnically discriminatory behavior in our projects.
As long-time members of our movement, we assume good faith, and recognize
that this current wording may have happened through honest intentions gone
badly wrong. As Wikimedians who believe in shared improvements through
collective editing, we hope that this mistake too will be immediately
acknowledged and removed from the UCoC. We are not entirely sure who is
ultimately responsible for this change, but if the Wikimedia Foundation
Board is in charge of reviewing the policy, we believe it is incumbent upon
the Board to share with us what possible next steps they will take, towards
this.
We look forward to a UCoC that lives up to its principles and intentions,
and we commit to its practice as Wikimedians.
With love, respect, and solidarity,
Adele and Anasuya with the Whose Knowledge? team, advisors, and friends
[0]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#Open_Letter_…
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct#3.1_%E2%80%93_Har…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#%22The_Wikim…
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)
[4]
https://whoseknowledge.org/media-section/creative-commons-global-summit-201…
and
https://whoseknowledge.org/media-section/toward-a-wikipedia-for-and-from-us…
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strate…
--
*Anasuya Sengupta*
+44 7367 868585
*Reimagining and redesigning the internet to be for and from us all*
http://whoseknowledge.org
*We just launched the first ever State of the Internet's Languages report
<http://internetlanguages.org>!*
*There can be no love without justice... The moment we choose to love we
begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose
to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate
ourselves and others.*
*(bell hooks)*
Dear Wikimedians,
I wanted to share a quick update following Wikimedia Deutschland’s
announcement of the Wikimedia Summit 2022 last week.
I am Cornelius, Event Coordinator at the Wikimedia Foundation’s Movement
Strategy and Governance team, and the contact person for all things around
the Summit at WMF’s side. The Movement Strategy and Governance team
collaborates with Wikimedia Deutschland on planning and organizing the
Wikimedia Summit.
-
We heard the feedback about the *tough timeline for the application.*
Talking to everyone involved, we were able to adjust the timeline for the
application: the application deadline is now April 24. This leaves the
organizing team about a week to review all applications, the final invitee
list for the in-person attendance will be published nevertheless on April
29.
-
*We’d like to clarify that each affiliate can (and needs) only apply
once*. Add the name of your primary representative to the form. If your
affiliate has a paid staff member in the position of an Executive Director,
please let us know via a short email to wmsummit(a)wikimedia.de, so you’re
‘on the radar’.
-
We have received and heard repeated questions and suggestions to *open
up the online participation/attendance for this event* for more
affiliate representatives and individuals interested in Movement Strategy.
While we’re reviewing this at the moment with the intention to do so, we’d
just like to emphasize our need to make this decision consciously, and not
just based on pure logistical questions. It has a huge impact on the
concept of the event and the program design overall (especially in the
hybrid setting), and will also set a precedent for the upcoming years. We
will publish an update on this soon.
-
Last week, we have hosted two “Questions and Answers sessions” around
the Wikimedia Summit. We have published the questions and answers as notes
on Meta. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2022/FAQ
Thanks for all your feedback and engagement around this event. We’ll keep
you posted on the usual channels. If you have any questions in the
meantime, please reach out to the organizing team via wmsummit(a)wikimedia.de
Cheers
Cornelius
--
Cornelius Kibelka (he/him)
Event Coordinator
Movement Strategy + Governance
2030.wikimedia.org
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate.
<https://donate.wikimedia.org/>*
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Dear Wikimedians,
We are excited to be dropping the first episode of WIKIMOVE
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WIKIMOVE>, the new podcast on everything
Wikimedia Movement Strategy.
What’s in this episode?
We introduce the concept of the pod and then chat about the latest news in
our movement. Then, as the main topic of this episode we discuss one of the
two pillars of movement strategy: Knowledge as a Service. During our guest
interview we learn more about the origin story of the strategic direction
and discuss its relevance for the future of our movement and for the way we
provide our services.
Our guests are…
Tochi Precious, Founder of the Igbo Wikimedia User Group
Toichi has been working on developing the creativity of young African
editors and increasing the number of African language Wikipedias.
Guillaume Paumier, Principal Program Manager, Advancement, Wikimedia
Foundation
Guillaume was instrumental in the earlier stage of movement strategy
development and helped write the strategic direction.
You can find the audio podcast here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiMove_-_Podcast_Folge_1_final.ogg>
and a shortened video version here.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNg1NGxHHHA> Please visit our meta page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WIKIMOVE> to react to the episode and
subscribe to get notified of each new release.
The topic and guests for our next episode will be announced soon, stay
tuned!
Looking forward to your feedback,
Movement Strategy and Global Relations, Wikimedia Deutschland
--
Eva Martin
Project Assistant Movement Strategy and Global Relations
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Keep up to date! Current news and exciting stories about Wikimedia,
Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our newsletter (in German):
https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/
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.
Hello All,
We would like to thank the over 2300 Wikimedians who participated in the
recently concluded community vote on the Enforcement Guidelines for the
Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC)
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Universal_Code_of_Conduc…>.
At this time, the volunteer scrutinizing group has completed the review of
the accuracy of the vote and the final results are available on Meta-wiki.
A quick summary can be found below:
-
58.6% Yes, 41.4% No
-
Contributors from 128 home wikis participated in the vote
-
Over thirty languages were supported in the ballot
What this outcome means is that there is enough support for the Board to
review the document. It does not mean that the Enforcement Guidelines are
automatically complete.
From here, the project team will collate and summarize the comments
provided in the voting process, and publish them on Meta-wiki. The
Enforcement Guidelines will be submitted to the Board of Trustees for their
consideration. The Board will review input given during the vote, and
examine whether there are aspects of the Guidelines that need further
refinement. If so, these comments, and the input provided through Meta-wiki
and other community conversations, will provide a good starting point for
revising the Guidelines to meet the needs expressed by communities in the
voter’s responses.
In the event the Board moves forward with ratification, the UCoC project
team will begin supporting specific proposals in the Guidelines. Some of
these proposals include working with community members to form the U4C
Building Committee, starting consultations on training, and supporting
conversations on improving our reporting systems. There is still a lot to
be done, but we will be able to move into the next phase of this work.
Many people took part in making sure the policy and the enforcement
guidelines work for our communities. We will continue to collaboratively
work on the details of the strong proposals outlined in the Guidelines as
presented by the Wikimedians who engaged with the project in different ways
over the last year.
Once again, we thank everyone who participated in the ratification of the
Enforcement Guidelines.
Regards,
Stella Ng on behalf of the UCoC Project Team
Senior Manager, Trust and Safety Policy