Hi all,
Just a follow up - the below IRC office hours will take place in about 12 hours from now in #wikimedia-office. Hope to see lots of you there.
Steven Zhang
Community Fellow, Wikimedia Foundation
szhang(a)wikimedia.org
On 24/07/2012, at 9:31 AM, Steven Zhang <szhang(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I'd like to invite you all to an IRC Office Hours this coming Saturday, 28th July 2012 at 19:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office (time zone information: http://tinyurl.com/bq74jux).
>
> In this meeting, I will be there to answer any questions about my fellowship - what I've been doing, what I've learned and what my plans are. I'll also appreciate any feedback, comments or suggestions on things that I could work on, or on dispute resolution in general.
>
> Please mark this date in your calendar if you wish to participate in the
> discussion. I will send a reminder about this on Friday.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steven Zhang
> Community Fellow, Wikimedia Foundation
> szhang(a)wikimedia.org
>
>
On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Charles Matthews <
charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> The point really is who actually cares about ArbCom decisions
>
I am really surprised to see a former member of ArbCom say this. Everybody
on this list cares about ArbCom decisions, most of the time, and so does
the entire body of administrators in the English Wikipedia. For the record,
ArbCom members derive their authority from 300 to 600 supporters' votes.
Wikimedia UK board members, from 40 or 50.
ArbCom had a number of reasons for their decision to ban Fae. These
included that he operated about a dozen different accounts, refused to
disclose all of them to ArbCom, and had in their view attempted to deceive
both the Wikipedia community and ArbCom itself.
Fae used commercial porn sites as biographical sources in Wikipedia. In one
case in June last year, he linked directly to a video clip showing the
biography subject, a black woman author, having sex (these were scenes from
a video she had tried to suppress), and vigorously defended that BLP
sourcing. He has since apologised for this error in judgment, but this must
be seen against the backdrop that it was Fae who, only a few weeks later,
told Parliament and the Charity Commission that the English Wikipedia had
an effective BLP policy, which was being effectively maintained by the
site's administrators, such as himself.
Refusing to acknowledge any problem, and beating up on ArbCom instead,
really is the least well advised strategy to deal with this situation.
I love it when people who have no idea what they are talking about,
pretend to know what they are talking about, and then even worse, gets
submitted to Slashdot, because apparently they might know what they
are talking about. But they don't know what they are talking about.
Person of ignorance in question:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/on-the-ugliness-of-wi…
Megan Garber believes Wikipedia's apparently extreme ugliness to be
scaring away people. Because, we all know what Wikipedia is about,
it's not about content, it is about layout. Less text and more
images.
In any case, I just thought I should let you know not to change the
layout of Wikipedia because of this article. And if any of her
recommendations is taken into account, I may get mad. I am looking
for a Facebook-Wikipedia hybrid.
I believe this recent statement from the board of WMUK is of interest to this list.
Seddon
> From: michael.peel(a)wikimedia.org.uk
> Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:02:36 -0700
> To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] [WMUK Board] Statement regarding Ashley Van Haeften, Chair of Wikimedia UK
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm sending this statement on behalf of the WMUK Board:
>
> --
>
> As some members of Wikimedia UK will know, our Chair, Ashley Van Haeften, user name Fae, has been the subject of sanctions by the Arbitration Committee of the English Wikipedia (Arbcom), the volunteer committee that exists to provide binding remedies to Wikipedia disputes. In particular, he has been banned from editing the English language Wikipedia for at least the next six months, after which he can appeal the ban.
>
> The Board of Wikimedia UK notes the decision of Arbcom.
>
> The Board is united in the view that this decision does not affect his role as a Trustee of the charity. His work at Wikimedia UK has always been enthusiastic and diligent. In particular, his knowledge of charity governance, and his ability to bring about consensus at WMUK's board meetings, have been particularly valuable.
>
> The Board points out that the editing issues were fully public before, and during, the recent elections to the board, and were openly and publicly discussed. Our membership placed their trust in him by electing him as a Trustee. He was then elected unanimously as Chair of the Board. He continues to have the full support of the Board.
>
> --
>
> Thanks,
> Mike Peel
> Secretary, Wikimedia UK
>
> Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). It is an independent charitable organization with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
>
> Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited. Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No. 1144513. The Registered Office is at 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT, United Kingdom.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
When you're running an event, sometimes you want to help lots of people
create accounts on Wikimedia sites. To prevent spamming/vandalism,
ordinarily there's a cap on the number of accounts that can be created
from one IP address in a single day. But there's a way to ask for a
temporary removal of that restriction. The Foundation's Maggie Dennis
has written a quick HOWTO:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_request_lift_of_an_IP_cap
and so please feel free to link to it in your outreach HOWTOs, event
planning checklists, and so on. Thanks, Maggie!
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Greetings, all.
And apologies. This resolution approving the Wikimedia Chapters' selections
to the Board of Trustees was unanimously approved, in-person, on July 11,
2012.
It took much longer to publish than it should have due to a procedural
issue.
It has finally been published at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Board_appointments_July_2012
Best
Bishakha
Hello everyone!
We are in need of revamping the Wikimania Scholarships Process, and your
help is needed! Please participate in the discussion on meta[1]:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships
Talk to you on meta -
Jessie
BACKGROUND:
Every year, the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Chapters, and outside
organizations sponsor the attendance of individuals to the international
Wikimania conference. In 2012, over 150 scholarships were awarded to
recipients from over 60 countries. These scholarship recipients were chosen
from 1,113 applications. Each recipient was selected primarily on the basis
of his/her participation in the Wikimedia projects and his/her future goals
for participating in the Wikimedia movement. The scholarship recipients
were chosen through a confidential application and selection process run by
the Wikimania Scholarship Review Committee. The committee was composed by
Wikimedia volunteers and one Wikimedia Foundation staff.[2]
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships
[2] For more information on the 2012 scholarship process, see the April
blog post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/25/wikimania-2012-scholarships/
--
*Jessie Wild
Global Development, Manager
Wikimedia Foundation*
*
*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Donate to Wikimedia <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>
Hello,
For your information, I have made a proposal for a project to be
adopted by the Wikimedia Fundation. It is called Ratiopol, and it's
about politics, if you want more informations, you can go here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ratiopol
Feel free to contact me.
Regards,
Bretwa