gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation

On now: European Dialog on Internet Governance

Manuel Schneider — 2013-06-20T09:31:19

Those oft you interested in Internet governance can follow the EuroDIG conference in Lisbon right now via webcast:

http://www.eurodig.org/important/webcast-remote-participation

and / or follow the hastag #EuroDIG in Twitter.

Yesterday we had the General Assembly oft EURALO, the regional at-large organisation where I represent Wikimedia CH and Wikimedia Österreich AS members of ICANN At-Large. I will serve another term von the EURALO board. 
We had a very interesting visit from ICANN's new president and CEO Fahdi Chehade. With its multi-stakeholder approach and also developed and grown based in external needs and in ever-changing environment it faces similar challenges like the Wikimedia movement. This was a surprising understanding for me, having experienced ICANN as a big, bureaucratic organisation. I am aiming toward an exchange, being aware that is still hard to be heard within ICANN but without our critical and demanding voices we give away our ability to influence policy making on the Internet.

/Manue
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Policies to Protect Users from Abuses and Mobbing inthe Wikis

Lars Gardenius — 2013-06-19T21:37:35

Open
Letter Regarding Mobbing and Abuses in the Wikis

I
have during the last several months been the victim of several kinds
of abuses and mobbing in the German
Wiktionary.

There
has for some time been an unfortunate development in the Internet,
with an increasing number of Internet users being subjected to abuses, harassmentsand mobbing.
Especially serious are those cases when children and youths have been
the victims, which have even led to suicide.
There seems to be a spread belief among, probably relatively young
Internet users, that Internet is an arena where you can do things,
not allowed in the society in general. That Internet is an arena outside the law.
However the authorities in care of the administration of justice have
lately become more and more aware of this problematic situation.

I
have to my sorrow seen that these kind of problems are also
present in the Wikis. I will here mainly talk about the
Wiktionaries, since I have worked there myself, but I believe that it
is present also in other types of Wikis. My own experiences
orginates largely from the German Wiktionary.

Many Wiktionaries are very small, i.e. there are very few
regular participants. That also means that a small group of people,
say 5-10 persons, can very easily "take control"
over a Wiktionary. This group can then control, who gets elected as
adminstrator and bureacrat. They can also to a large extent control
decisions over the dictionary, since they, in contrast to other
users, coordinate their voting and act as a group and thus often
overpower other users.

This
may be lamentable, and not good for the development of the
dictionary, but could still not be considered really serious, since
there is always the possibility that these kind of effects will grow
away as the dictionaries get more active users. I must also stress
that there are naturally also Wiktionaries with a few regular users,
who does an incredible job and who does not try to misuse their
positions.

The
Wiki-organization has however a responsibilty since it provide
these platforms that the Wikis constitute. The Wiki-platforms also provide a brand and a goodwill that these groups
can use. However, as it is today, there is nothing that will stop a
small group of users to use these platforms for their own purposes.
These groups can belong to extreme political (extreme right or
extreme left), or religious movements, with goals quite opposite
to the goals of the Wiki-movement. In the German Wiktionary a
group like this has openly expressed their contemp for democratic
values * (see below).

These
groups can on one hand influence the content in a way, that is not in
accordance with current knowledge, but what is perhaps even more
important, they can also through the harassment and bullying of
other users, make sure that only users that obey their rules will be allowed to participate. I have several times observed that
these kind of groups are much more interested in controlling other
users, than to recruit new participants or work with the dictionary.
Rather a few obedient users than many contributors. In the German
Wiktionary this policy has been expressed openly.

The Wiki-organization also has a responsibilty to protect the Wiki
users from being the victims of harassments, insults and mobbing
in the Wiki-community and to guarantee that the wikis really are open
to all people, not only in theory, but also in practise.

I
will below list some weaknesses in the Wiki-organization and
administration that allow certain groups to harass and mob other
users without risking any consequences neither within in
Wiki-community nor through legal means.

To
protect the users and the dictionaries the following reforms are
necessary:

User
names

Since
the Wiktionaries are a humanistic endeavour, every user should
actually be able to use their real
namewithout having to fear harassment. That is unfortunatelynot possible today, so for the time being we might have to accept
that the use of aliases is allowed. This leads however also to that a
perpetrator can hide behind his/hers alias.

However
to stop those groups and individuals from abusing other users one
should introduce the following

1.
That a user most log in to the Wiktionary, before writing
anything on that forum. That is a minimum requirement to be able to
stop abuse and being able to identify a perpetrator. The log in
procedure is also so simple that it will not stop anyone from
participating. Similar Internet sites have this policy.

2.
That the user must state his/hers real name when creating an
account. The user shall then be able to use an alias when
contributing to the dictionary. The real name should only be visible
to people supervising the Wiktionaries ( i.e. the stewards or other
type of similar supervising function).

3.
The real name is only revealed to people outside of the supervising
function when e.g. a serious offense is investigated.

4.
The real name will also simplify for the supervising function to prevent the use of multiple accounts. Today there is no
practical way to ensure that groups, that have as goal to harass
other users, are not using multiple identities. By using multiple
identities these groups can seem much larger to the victim than they
actually are, and in that way even more intimidating.

The
weak role of the stewards

The
problem that I have tried to describe above becomes really serious
when it involves a number of administrators at the Wiktionary in
question.

The
solitary user has today no way to defend himself/herself against
these abusing administrators and bureaucrats.

I
have in connection with the abuses against me in the German
Wiktionary, investigated the role of the stewards, and found that it
is very weak function when it comes to upholding the rights and the
protection of the ordinary user.

There
must therefore exist a possibilty for the ordinary user to appeal against a decision. There must also exist a possibility for the
ordinary user to call in an independent investigation when
serious offenses against users are perpetrated.

The role of the stewards thus has to be strengthen or
alternatively another kind of supervising function has to be
established.

Communication
channels

The
Wiktionaries offer three types of communication between users, the talk pages, through chat fora and through E-mail.

The
communication through the talk pages is transparent, every user can
follow this communication, and it is also traceable afterwards,
through the history file. This communication channel fulfills all the
needs for the dictionary work.

The
other two communication channels are very problematic. I can through
own experiences testify that for example the chat is used by
people for plotting and coordinating attacks on other
users. The chat is not transparent, it is not supervised by
anybody in Wiki-organization, it is not possible even for the
stewards to investigate what has been said on this channel, according
to the information I have received from the stewards.

The
same criticism can be launched at the E-Mail communication channel.
If users want to communicate privately through E-Mails they can do
so without the help from the Wiki.

I
can see no need or use for neither the chat nor the E-Mail
communication channel in a Wiktionary that is open to all.

The
Wiki-organization has a responisbility when it provide these
channels, at least to supervise and log the information
transferred, to ensure that they are not used to abuse users, and so
that in the case of an investigation, these channels can be
scrutinized. The Wiki-organization shall also be able to ensure that
these channels are not used, as they are today, to harass and abuse
other users.

Summary

I am strong believer in
the Wiktionary idea, especially since I see the future for the
printed dictionaries as being very precarious.

If the Wiktionaries shall
however be able to prosper, the growing problem of abuses, and groups
acting in their own interest only, must be met with forceful actions.

I believe that the
Wiki-brand today enjoys respect in the society, but if nothing is
done the brand and goodwill of the Wikis will be damaged. When these
problems will be noticed by the media and people not themselves
actively working with the Wikis it will create a problem in
recruiting new members as well as raising money for the Wiki-projects

This letter will be
distributed to a large number of people within the Wiki-organization
as well as to some people outside it.

Lars Gardenius
Physicist and
Entrepreneur
Sweden

* Example of statement
from administrator in German Wiktionary on democracy:
Dann werde ich jetzt ausnahmsweise mal
sehr deutlich:
Wikipedia ist keine
Demokratie. Gleiches gilt auch für Wiktionary. Wir befinden uns
hier in einem Projekt zum Aufbau eines Online-Wörterbuches.
Demokratiespiele bitte woanders spielen. Das Ziel von Wiktionary wird
leider hin und wieder aus den Augen verloren: Es geht hier nicht um
persönliche Eitelkeiten, nicht um ein soziales Netzwerk, nicht
um psychologische Betreuung, nicht um Integration aller Nutzer um
jeden Preis. Es geht hier einzig und allein um den Aufbau eines
Online-Wörterbuches. Wer das nicht akzeptiert und dabei massiv
stört (vor allem, wenn es sich um rechtliche Drohungen wie
Anzeigen bei der Polizei handelt, die direkte Auswirkungen ins
Real-Life haben), hat in diesem Projekt nichts zu suchen. Punkt.
--[[Benutzer:Stepro|Stepro]] <small>([[User
talk:Stepro|Diskussion]])</small> 20:22, 15. Jun 2013 (MESZ)
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New Privacy Policy - Call for Community Input

Michelle Paulson — 2013-06-19T19:50:16

Hi All,

I would like to direct your attention to a new blog post (available on
Meta<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy/Call_for_input_%282013%29>and
the Wikimedia
blog<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/18/input-on-wikimedia-foundation-privacy-policy/>)
about updating our current privacy policy.  Our privacy policy has not been
updated since 2008, and we believe it is time to revisit the policy to
ensure that it reflects where the Projects are today and where they have
the potential to go in the future.

It is important to us that the new policy reflects community values, so we
are asking for Wikimedia community input throughout this process.  We would
like to hear from
you<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Call_for_input_on_WMF_privacy_policy>over
the next month about the privacy issues that matter to you.  Once we
have completed a draft of the new privacy policy (with the input we receive
from you over the next month in mind), we will then open a lengthier
community consultation period so that you have the opportunity to review
the draft and provide more detailed feedback.

We ask you to read the blog post for more details and encourage you to
participate in this important process.  We request that you leave your
input on the Meta discussion
page<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy/Call_for_input_%282013%29>only,
so that everyone is equally aware of the topics being discussed and
has the opportunity to participate fully in the discussions that interest
them.

Many thanks,

Michelle Paulson
Legal Counsel

Note: We expect to have translations of this announcement in the next
couple of days.  We would like to ask the international Wikimedia community
to help translate the blog posting and feedback page (which are almost the
same) as well as people’s feedback given throughout the course of this
consultation period.

Announcing four new Community Liaisons (Product)

Philippe Beaudette — 2013-06-19T18:04:05

Hi everyone,

Howie and I are pleased to announce the onboarding of four new community
liaisons for the product team.  Howie has generously allowed me to send
this email, since their initial tasking will be to VisualEditor and the
Change Management team, working with me.  At the conclusion of the
deployment of VisualEditor, they will be assigned as community liaisons to
other groups within the product team.

Please welcome four new contractors:  Erica Litrenta, Sherry Snyder,
Patrick Earley, and (a returning face) Keegan Peterzell.

These positions are temporary, contract-based positions, each with an
initial term of roughly 90 days.  Below, I've pasted below a brief summary
of each of the four so that you can get to know them.  I know you'll join
me in wishing them the best with their new work!
pb

___________________
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.



*Erica / Elitre*
Erica will be initially primarily tasked with supporting the deployment on
Italian Wikipedia, but will also be helping out with other wikis as well.
She edits as User:Elitre <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Elitre> on
the Italian Wikipedia.  Born and raised in Cosenza, Italy, she graduated
from Università della Calabria (with a Master's degree in Foreign Languages
and Literature), and now lives in Bologna.  Her favorite work experience so
far was last year with lettera27 Foundation, where she wrote case studies
for the WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge projects (go GLAMs!) and hunted for
more free contents and institutions to involve (She's been involved with
the Wikimedia Movement and has evangelized about our projects since 2005).
She's  fond of: playing life/construction and management videogames, taking
pictures, making cheesecakes, studying and writing about Italian folklore -
notably the Palio di Siena, listening to symphonic metal/rock.

She's in a romantic relationship with OTRS (yes, you read that right - she
was once dubbed "romantic and dreadful" because of this) since 2006 which,
she points out, is longer than her relationship with her boyfriend: she met
him later.


*Sherry / WhatamIdoing*
Some of you know her well, if nothing else, for her descriptive username ("
WhatamIdoing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WhatamIdoing>").  She
writes:

*My name is Sherry Snyder, better known as "WhatamIdoing" on several
English-speaking projects.  My culinary quest for the summer is a low-sugar
chocolate peanut butter, which those of you with European tendencies should
interpret as "like Nutella, only better."  (In response to this, my husband
says, "POV-inline, dubious - discuss?")  I've been a Wikipedian since
2007.  I am a metapedian by nature and a typo fixer by compulsion.  I'm
still a little amazed that the WMF hired me for this project and happy to
be joining the team that is trying to make the transition to VisualEditor
be more successful and less surprising.
*

Sherry will be supporting the deployment on the English Wikipedia and
non-English speaking projects to be assigned still.  She was a huge help
during the development of the Terms of Use, and I'm looking forward to
working with her.


*Patrick / The Interior*
Patrick is from Kamloops, British Columbia (yes, another Canadian!), a
logging and cattle town in the Interior of the province.  He edits enwiki
as "The Interior <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Interior>".  He
has studied library science and film, and has worked a variety of
interesting jobs so far, including wildland firefighting, documentary
filmmaking, treeplanting, sorting books at a second hand store,
cataloguing, screenwriting, teaching English in Taiwan and, now, liaising
for the WMF! He currently lives in Vancouver in the aptly named Mount
Pleasant neighbourhood.  He wishes to point out that he uses Canadian
spelling.  :P

Patrick has been a Wikipedia editor since 2008. He loves working on
geography and both natural and human history.  He has worked with the
Education Program, hopes to be more involved in GLAM projects in the
future, and is very interested in the Wikipedia/library interface.  Patrick
will be focused on non-English speaking wikis.

*Keegan*
Some of you will remember that
Keegan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan> previously
worked with us  on the 2010 Fundraiser.  He has been editing since 2005,
and has a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of
Tennessee-Chattanooga.  An English Wikipedia administrator, oversighter,
and CheckUser, he served a year-long appointment to the audit subcommittee
for 2011-2012.

Globally he is a volunteer response team leader (OTRS admin) and member of
the Communications committee.

He says that he's not an article writer, so he tries to give back in other
ways. Keegan will be reprising his role from the 2010 fundraiser, where he
was a workhorse in communicating with non-English wikis.
___________________
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

415-839-6885, x 6643

philippe< at >wikimedia.org
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Grassroots campaign for free access to Wikipedia oncellphones

Victor Grigas — 2013-06-19T16:05:03

Hello Wikipedians:

There is a class of impoverished high schoolers in South Africa who started
a campaign on Facebook for free access to Wikipedia on their cellphones so
that they can do their homework. I just shot a film about the class
(currently editing) and published a blog post on the WMF blog about it:

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/19/movement-for-free-access-to-wikipedia-south-africa/

I'm looking for Wikipedians who might want to be involved with this
campaign. Please contact me off list.

Thank you!

'Periodic Table of Economics': Mapping the GlobalEconomy

Alex Peek — 2013-06-19T01:13:31

Project Home page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Economic_Map

The goal of my project is create the *periodic table* for economics
readable to laypersons. To my knowledge, no other economist has attempted
to make a 'periodic table' for economics. I am using Wikipedia as a
platform for this project to gain recognition.

I demand that my project gets global attention. I cannot emphasize how
important this is. The current political leadership has shown incapable of
addressing our current problems. Change is needed. A new economic
perspective is needed. This project will enable the voting public to
clearly see the injustices of today's world economy.

I feel morally responsible to stand on top of a mountain and yell for
attention. My intentions are altruistic.  People are dying of starvation
everyday and I will not shut up until they have food. We must build schools
in developing countries with taxpayer money in rich countries. We have the
power to fix a lot of the world's problems if we only allocated our
resources properly.

I have listed below draft article that I have been working on (not
finished). Please check them out. I would love any help I can get.

1. United States:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_the_United_States

2. China:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_China

3. Japan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Japan

4. Germany:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Germany

5. France:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_France

6. Brazil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Brazil

7. United Kingdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom

8. Italy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_Italy

9. India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_India

10. Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_Russia
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Wikipedia for Diplomats (June 21)

Everton Zanella Alvarenga — 2013-06-18T18:27:42

Hi all,

a friend of mine is moderating a debate about Wikipedia for diplomat,
professor Marília Maciel, and I think it is of interested of some
wikimedians. Please, see more infomation bellow

http://www.diplomacy.edu/calendar/webinar-wikipedia-diplomats

Diplo Foundation has cood courses on Internet Governance that may be of
interest of those participating of some recent threads I've seen here.
Share also with your local community.

Regards,

Tom

Policies to Protect Users from Abuses and Mobbing inthe Wikis

Lars Gardenius — 2013-06-19T21:37:35

Open
Letter Regarding Mobbing and Abuses in the Wikis

I
have during the last several months been the victim of several kinds
of abuses and mobbing in the German
Wiktionary.

To
protect the users and the dictionaries the following reforms are
necessary:

User
names

However
to stop those groups and individuals from abusing other users one
should introduce the following

3.
The real name is only revealed to people outside of the supervising
function when e.g. a serious offense is investigated.

The
weak role of the stewards

The
problem that I have tried to describe above becomes really serious
when it involves a number of administrators at the Wiktionary in
question.

The
solitary user has today no way to defend himself/herself against
these abusing administrators and bureaucrats.

The role of the stewards thus has to be strengthen or
alternatively another kind of supervising function has to be
established.

Communication
channels

The
Wiktionaries offer three types of communication between users, the talk pages, through chat fora and through E-mail.

The
same criticism can be launched at the E-Mail communication channel.
If users want to communicate privately through E-Mails they can do
so without the help from the Wiki.

I
can see no need or use for neither the chat nor the E-Mail
communication channel in a Wiktionary that is open to all.

Summary

I am strong believer in
the Wiktionary idea, especially since I see the future for the
printed dictionaries as being very precarious.

If the Wiktionaries shall
however be able to prosper, the growing problem of abuses, and groups
acting in their own interest only, must be met with forceful actions.

This letter will be
distributed to a large number of people within the Wiki-organization
as well as to some people outside it.

Lars Gardenius
Physicist and
Entrepreneur
Sweden

New Privacy Policy - Call for Community Input

Michelle Paulson — 2013-06-19T19:50:16

Hi All,

I would like to direct your attention to a new blog post (available on
Meta<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy/Call_for_input_%282013%29>and
the Wikimedia
blog<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/18/input-on-wikimedia-foundation-privacy-policy/>)
about updating our current privacy policy.  Our privacy policy has not been
updated since 2008, and we believe it is time to revisit the policy to
ensure that it reflects where the Projects are today and where they have
the potential to go in the future.

It is important to us that the new policy reflects community values, so we
are asking for Wikimedia community input throughout this process.  We would
like to hear from
you<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Call_for_input_on_WMF_privacy_policy>over
the next month about the privacy issues that matter to you.  Once we
have completed a draft of the new privacy policy (with the input we receive
from you over the next month in mind), we will then open a lengthier
community consultation period so that you have the opportunity to review
the draft and provide more detailed feedback.

We ask you to read the blog post for more details and encourage you to
participate in this important process.  We request that you leave your
input on the Meta discussion
page<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy/Call_for_input_%282013%29>only,
so that everyone is equally aware of the topics being discussed and
has the opportunity to participate fully in the discussions that interest
them.

Many thanks,

Michelle Paulson
Legal Counsel

Note: We expect to have translations of this announcement in the next
couple of days.  We would like to ask the international Wikimedia community
to help translate the blog posting and feedback page (which are almost the
same) as well as people’s feedback given throughout the course of this
consultation period.

Announcing four new Community Liaisons (Product)

Philippe Beaudette — 2013-06-19T18:04:05

Hi everyone,

Howie and I are pleased to announce the onboarding of four new community
liaisons for the product team.  Howie has generously allowed me to send
this email, since their initial tasking will be to VisualEditor and the
Change Management team, working with me.  At the conclusion of the
deployment of VisualEditor, they will be assigned as community liaisons to
other groups within the product team.

Please welcome four new contractors:  Erica Litrenta, Sherry Snyder,
Patrick Earley, and (a returning face) Keegan Peterzell.

These positions are temporary, contract-based positions, each with an
initial term of roughly 90 days.  Below, I've pasted below a brief summary
of each of the four so that you can get to know them.  I know you'll join
me in wishing them the best with their new work!
pb

___________________
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.



*Erica / Elitre*
Erica will be initially primarily tasked with supporting the deployment on
Italian Wikipedia, but will also be helping out with other wikis as well.
She edits as User:Elitre <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Elitre> on
the Italian Wikipedia.  Born and raised in Cosenza, Italy, she graduated
from Università della Calabria (with a Master's degree in Foreign Languages
and Literature), and now lives in Bologna.  Her favorite work experience so
far was last year with lettera27 Foundation, where she wrote case studies
for the WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge projects (go GLAMs!) and hunted for
more free contents and institutions to involve (She's been involved with
the Wikimedia Movement and has evangelized about our projects since 2005).
She's  fond of: playing life/construction and management videogames, taking
pictures, making cheesecakes, studying and writing about Italian folklore -
notably the Palio di Siena, listening to symphonic metal/rock.

She's in a romantic relationship with OTRS (yes, you read that right - she
was once dubbed "romantic and dreadful" because of this) since 2006 which,
she points out, is longer than her relationship with her boyfriend: she met
him later.


*Sherry / WhatamIdoing*
Some of you know her well, if nothing else, for her descriptive username ("
WhatamIdoing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WhatamIdoing>").  She
writes:

*My name is Sherry Snyder, better known as "WhatamIdoing" on several
English-speaking projects.  My culinary quest for the summer is a low-sugar
chocolate peanut butter, which those of you with European tendencies should
interpret as "like Nutella, only better."  (In response to this, my husband
says, "POV-inline, dubious - discuss?")  I've been a Wikipedian since
2007.  I am a metapedian by nature and a typo fixer by compulsion.  I'm
still a little amazed that the WMF hired me for this project and happy to
be joining the team that is trying to make the transition to VisualEditor
be more successful and less surprising.
*

Sherry will be supporting the deployment on the English Wikipedia and
non-English speaking projects to be assigned still.  She was a huge help
during the development of the Terms of Use, and I'm looking forward to
working with her.


*Patrick / The Interior*
Patrick is from Kamloops, British Columbia (yes, another Canadian!), a
logging and cattle town in the Interior of the province.  He edits enwiki
as "The Interior <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Interior>".  He
has studied library science and film, and has worked a variety of
interesting jobs so far, including wildland firefighting, documentary
filmmaking, treeplanting, sorting books at a second hand store,
cataloguing, screenwriting, teaching English in Taiwan and, now, liaising
for the WMF! He currently lives in Vancouver in the aptly named Mount
Pleasant neighbourhood.  He wishes to point out that he uses Canadian
spelling.  :P

Patrick has been a Wikipedia editor since 2008. He loves working on
geography and both natural and human history.  He has worked with the
Education Program, hopes to be more involved in GLAM projects in the
future, and is very interested in the Wikipedia/library interface.  Patrick
will be focused on non-English speaking wikis.

*Keegan*
Some of you will remember that
Keegan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan> previously
worked with us  on the 2010 Fundraiser.  He has been editing since 2005,
and has a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of
Tennessee-Chattanooga.  An English Wikipedia administrator, oversighter,
and CheckUser, he served a year-long appointment to the audit subcommittee
for 2011-2012.

Globally he is a volunteer response team leader (OTRS admin) and member of
the Communications committee.

He says that he's not an article writer, so he tries to give back in other
ways. Keegan will be reprising his role from the 2010 fundraiser, where he
was a workhorse in communicating with non-English wikis.
___________________
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

415-839-6885, x 6643

philippe< at >wikimedia.org
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Grassroots campaign for free access to Wikipedia oncellphones

Victor Grigas — 2013-06-19T16:05:03

Hello Wikipedians:

There is a class of impoverished high schoolers in South Africa who started
a campaign on Facebook for free access to Wikipedia on their cellphones so
that they can do their homework. I just shot a film about the class
(currently editing) and published a blog post on the WMF blog about it:

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/19/movement-for-free-access-to-wikipedia-south-africa/

I'm looking for Wikipedians who might want to be involved with this
campaign. Please contact me off list.

Thank you!

'Periodic Table of Economics': Mapping the GlobalEconomy

Alex Peek — 2013-06-19T01:13:31

Project Home page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Economic_Map

The goal of my project is create the *periodic table* for economics
readable to laypersons. To my knowledge, no other economist has attempted
to make a 'periodic table' for economics. I am using Wikipedia as a
platform for this project to gain recognition.

I demand that my project gets global attention. I cannot emphasize how
important this is. The current political leadership has shown incapable of
addressing our current problems. Change is needed. A new economic
perspective is needed. This project will enable the voting public to
clearly see the injustices of today's world economy.

I feel morally responsible to stand on top of a mountain and yell for
attention. My intentions are altruistic.  People are dying of starvation
everyday and I will not shut up until they have food. We must build schools
in developing countries with taxpayer money in rich countries. We have the
power to fix a lot of the world's problems if we only allocated our
resources properly.

I have listed below draft article that I have been working on (not
finished). Please check them out. I would love any help I can get.

1. United States:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_the_United_States

2. China:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_China

3. Japan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Japan

4. Germany:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Germany

5. France:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_France

6. Brazil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Brazil

7. United Kingdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom

8. Italy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_Italy

9. India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_India

10. Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_Russia
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Wikipedia for Diplomats (June 21)

Everton Zanella Alvarenga — 2013-06-18T18:27:42

Hi all,

a friend of mine is moderating a debate about Wikipedia for diplomat,
professor Marília Maciel, and I think it is of interested of some
wikimedians. Please, see more infomation bellow

http://www.diplomacy.edu/calendar/webinar-wikipedia-diplomats

Diplo Foundation has cood courses on Internet Governance that may be of
interest of those participating of some recent threads I've seen here.
Share also with your local community.

Regards,

Tom

If you are passionate about world hunger, sustainability and global issues please read this

Alex Peek — 2013-06-17T18:56:37

Homepage: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Economic_Map

The goal of this project is to improve public understanding economic data
and serve public administration.

It's time that we create a standardized model that everyone can understand
and relate to. Given the challenges that our world faces today, our
civilization must realize the economic reality that we live in. Global
warming, world hunger, education and unemployment are all economic issues
that require a new perspective.

The voting public must be provided the materials to properly allocate
resources. We can end world hunger with foreign aid. We can create a modern
day renaissance by building schools around the world. We should put more
public money R&D into renewable energies and create a cheaper alternative.
The world must understand wake up to the reality.

This format can be repeated for all 196 countries, every locality and city.
There can also be a standardized format for every company (model does not
exist yet).


Countries ranked by 2011 GDP

1. United States:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_the_United_States

2. China:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_China

3. Japan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Japan

4. Germany:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Germany

5. France:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_France

6. Brazil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_Brazil

7. United Kingdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom

8. Italy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_Italy

9. India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_India

10. Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economic_summary_of_Russia
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[Wikimedia Announcements] Toby Negrin joins WikimediaFoundation asDirector of Analytics

Erik Moeller — 2013-06-17T16:58:04

Hello all,

it’s my great pleasure to announce that as of today, Toby Negrin is
joining the Wikimedia Foundation as the new Director of Analytics.
Toby will be responsible for leading the analytics team, which is
responsible for enabling data-driven decisions in the Wikimedia
Foundation and the broader Wikimedia community.

As of today, the team consists of: Diederik van Liere, Dario
Taraborelli, Andrew Otto, Evan Rosen, Dan Andreescu, Stefan Petrea
(contractor), Erik Zachte (part-time), and Aaron Halfaker
(contractor). Newly integrated into the team are Dario, Evan and
Aaron.

Toby joins us from DeNA (formerly ngmoco), a $2B Japanese mobile
gaming company where he was Director of Analytics in the US from 2011
to 2013. He enabled data-informed decision making throughout the
company, established an Insights team and scaled the Analytics team to
21 members. He managed a 300+ node Hadoop platform, multiple data
driven applications and led the effort to open source Mobilize, a
script deployment and dataviz framework developed in-house at DeNA.

Prior to DeNA, Toby was Director of Product Management for Cloud
Platforms and Hadoop at Yahoo! from 2008-2011. Leading 10 PMs at peak,
through this group Toby was responsible for interfacing between the
hundreds of internal users of analytics, storage and other cloud
services and the developers/maintainers of said infrastructure. There
aren’t many jobs that could prepare you for Wikimedia’s complex
network of analytics stakeholders, but this surely is one of them.

Toby has worked as a software engineer for many years and holds a BS
Equivalent in Computer Science from California State University, an
MBA from NIMBAS Graduate School of Management in Utrecht, and a BA in
Visual Culture and History from University of California, Santa Cruz.

After growing up in the Bay Area, Toby’s lived recently in Stockholm
and Amsterdam so he’s using his spare time to explore California’s
wilderness on two feet and two wheels with his family. His two
daughters keep him pretty busy!

Toby is looking forward to making the shift to a mission-driven
non-profit organization. When I asked him what he’d be doing if not
Wikimedia, he expressed an interest in urban planning, green cities,
and public transport. In an alternative universe, San Francisco is
becoming a greener city with a more reliable public transport system.
In this one, we get awesome Wikimedia analytics instead. There are
always tradeoffs. ;-)

Toby’s incredibly excited about working with the team to tackle
Wikimedia’s analytics challenges and the increasing hunger for data
across the organization and the movement. Please join me in welcoming
him on board. :-)

All best,

Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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WCA/Journal: if you report anyway,why not in the Journal, too?

Ziko van Dijk — 2013-06-16T20:12:02

Hello,
In the WCA telephone conference we talked about the Journal. We were
discussing on useful content: what happened in your chapter, what events,
what contacts with national authorities, did you decide to become a FDC
chapter... a lot of things to report about. And we report anyway, in our
chapter reports, so why not putting the highlights in a short contribution
for the Journal?
Kind regards
Ziko

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Journal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ziko van Dijk
voorzitter / president Wikimedia Nederland
deputy chair Wikimedia Chapters Association Council

Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
http://wikimedia.nl
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UN subscribe me from Wikimedia---IMMEDIATELY

Isaacs — 2013-06-16T19:30:27

I request to removed from the lists of people interested in receiving information from Wikimedia. 
 
UNsubscribe my account Immediately.  
 
My E-Mail Address:   dwimki< at >yahoo.com
 
I will EXPECT  to receive a confirmation that my Wikimedia Account is PERMANENTLY  CLOSED.

Mary K. Isaacs
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UN subscribe me from Wikimedia---IMMEDIATELY

Isaacs — 2013-06-16T19:30:20

I request to removed from the lists of people interested in receiving information from Wikimedia. 
 
UNsubscribe my account Immediately.  
 
My E-Mail Address:   dwimki< at >yahoo.com
 
I will EXPECT  to receive a confirmation that my Wikimedia Account is PERMANENTLY  CLOSED.

Mary K. Isaacs
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Swedish Wikipedia reach 1 million (with support ofbots)

Anders Wennersten — 2013-06-16T11:30:16

Yesterday sv:wp reached 1 M articles. The one who did the passing was a 
bot generated article of a butterfly 
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erysichton_elaborata.

The bot behind this article is Lsjbot who creates articles from the 
database  Catalogue of Life 
http://www.catalogueoflife.org/services/res/2011AC_26July.zip which  
(complemented by other databases) which holds data of around 1.5 million 
species. The bot genrates about 5000 new articles per day and has 
generated just under 400 000 of the sv:wps million and continues...

The guy who runs he bot is a member of the Swedish chapters board 
http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kandidater_2013/Sverker_Johansson and is in 
his civil life a University teacher. In this capacity he is also a guest 
lecturer at the university of the Phillipines where he stayed the last 
couple of months (and the bot was on hold). He is there active in 
Cebuano-Wikipedia http://ceb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unang_Panid and 
supporting their local community, and he is now running his bot on their 
wikipedia as well as on the Warai-Warai Wikipedia 
http://war.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syahan_nga_Pakli. So perhaps at the end of 
the year these two language versions will also pass the 1 million mark!

Anders
PS out other major botgenerating effort of all lakes in Sweden is also 
making very nice progress, done 25% of all DS

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[wca] next phone meeting

Markus Glaser — 2013-06-15T22:30:08

Hi WCA and friends,

we will have a phone meeting on Sunday, 16th of June < at > 19:00 UTC [1]. 
More details and the agenda can be found here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013-24 


If you want to join, please contact me for the phone meeting number.

Please note there is an agenda point about current issues in the 
chapters. If you have anything trouble (or, of course, good news) you'd 
like to discuss, that's the time to do it.

I think we also should talk about the board elections and a chapter 
perspective on the candidates.

Best,
Markus

[1] http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20130616T1900

prism and certificate authorities, snooping https

rupert THURNER — 2013-06-15T21:48:44

hi,

i saw on the wmf statement on meta that https everywhere should calm
people. thats a good start already. 3 years ago the EFF (electronic
frontier foundation) warned about https. Soghoian and Stamm write
about especially about certificate authorities (CA):

[...] Microsoft’s Root Certificate Program includes he
governments of Austria, Brazil, [...], the United States and Uruguay.
[...] each of these states has the power to facilitate attacks on
encryption anywhere in the world — not just in its territory or
Internet domain.
[...]
“Packet Forensics’ devices are designed to be inserted-into and
removed-from busy networks without causing any noticeable interruption
[. . . ] This allows you to conditionally intercept web, e-mail, VoIP
and other traffic at-will, even while it remains protected inside an
encrypted tunnel on the wire. Using ‘man-in-the-middle’ to intercept
TLS or SSL is essentially an at-tack against the underlying
Diffie-Hellman cryptographic key agreement protocol [. . . ] To use
our product in this scenario, [government] users have the ability to
import a copy of any legitimate key they obtain (potentially by court
order) or they can generate ‘look-alike’ keys designed to give the
subject a false sense of confidence in its authenticity.”
[...]
Individuals living in countries with laws that protect their
privacy from unreasonable invasion have good reason to avoid trusting
foreign governments (or foreign companies) to protect their private
data. This is because individuals often receive the greatest legal
protection from their own governments, and little to none from other
countries. For example, US law strictly regulates the ability of the
US government to collect information on US persons. However, the
government can freely spy on foreigners around the world, as long as
the surveillance is performed outside the US.

the conclusion is also interesting:
when a company that uses a certificate authority located in a
country different than the one in which it holds user data, it
needlessly exposes users’ data to the compelled disclosure by an
additional government.

so, by getting the certificates from digicert, the traffic can easier
be snooped by the u.s. government. and only u.s. citizens are
protected by u.s. law. this gives a lot of trust :)

links:
* https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/researchers-reveal-likelihood-governments-fake-ssl
* http://files.cloudprivacy.net/ssl-mitm.pdf

rupert

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