Discussion and feedback on the update has involved extensive community input: more than 35,000 words over the past year, and almost 55,000 words in the year before that. There have been five revisions at roughly six-monthly intervals, the first in April 2009. Arbitrator Roger Davies told The Signpost that the way the Committee works in practice has evolved significantly since the first policy was ratified in 2005, yet the text has remained static; the proposed update to the policy reflects how things now work in practice, and is structured in a way that is much clearer and more accessible to editors.
All Wikipedians are encouraged to vote in the referendum.
User:Dominic (Dominic McDevitt-Parks) recently began his stay as Wikipedian in Residence at the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) (cf. Signpost coverage of the announcement). Similar to previous projects at other GLAM institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), the job description lists the following broad goals for the residency (a paid student internship lasting until late August):
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As described by Sj on the "Wikilove.in" blog, Dominic has already secured an image donation of 220 high-resolution reproductions of public domain images, responding to an earlier uploading request on Commons for the already available low-resolution versions. It concerns a series of black-and-white photographs dating mostly from 1941–42, commissioned from photographer Ansel Adams – mostly landscape photographs of US National Parks and portraits of native Americans. Sarah Stierch (fellow Wikipedian-in-residence at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, cf. Signpost coverage) pointed out that while Adams' photos are in the public domain, NARA's release of the high-resolution reproduction was nevertheless significant: Adams' work, she said, "is known for being one of the most accessible to the public eye – pleasant and monumental images of the parks of the West, often making their ways into calendars and posters in gift shops ... This accessibility and availability allows for cultural organizations to milk what they can out of licensing; fearing to release their images into the public domain due, claiming they'll lose major income. Many of us within the [GLAM] world know that this is rarely a truth".
The first editing challenge is currently in preparation, and will involve the "Today's Document" section on the NARA website. Dominic told The Signpost that it "will hopefully stimulate article content on Wikipedia to be used or referenced on the National Archives website, as well as bring in high-resolution documents from the National Archives."
Last week, NARA saw an hour-long presentation by Liam Wyatt ( User:Witty lama, who has just left the Wikimedia Foundation's office, where he had spent part of his year-long WMF " GLAM fellowship" about cultural collaborations). In his introduction (as well as in a blog post), David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, said he had "long been a fan of Wikipedia", emphasized the importance of GLAM-WIKI collaborations, and called Liam Wyatt (whom he credited with introducing NARA to local Wikimedians) "one of the [Wikimedia] movement's greatest champions". In January, NARA had already hosted 90 Wikimedians for a one-day "WikiXDC" event celebrating Wikipedia's 10th anniversary ( Signpost coverage).
As reported in the May "This month in GLAM" newsletter, DC Wikimedians were exploring possible collaborations with the Center for History and New Media last week, founded by the late Roy Rosenzweig – known to many Wikipedians for his 2006 essay about Wikipedia, titled "Can History be Open Source?".
The log of last week's office hour with WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner has been posted. Topics included work on the 2011–12 annual plan. Gardner explained that "one of the issues the board grapples with ... is how much emphasis the Wikimedia Foundation should put on growing its operational reserve fund ... balancing the importance of programmatic activities (e.g., Visual Editor) against the importance of yes, having rainy day funding." Another part of the tech budget will go into the "Wikimeda Labs" projects. Brion Vibber said "it's still all a little vague at this point", but that it would include "adapting toolserver-like infrastructure and making it even easier for researchers and experimenters (should be very awesome). [It] will be more flexible than toolserver and we'll be able to let folks run more server-ish tools".
Trustee Kat Walsh talked about several aspects of the Board's work. Gardner also looked ahead to the wrap-up of the Public Policy Initiative, scheduled for September. The WMF intends to make permanent "the most successful elements of that program, and internationalise its work. .... We're also going to fund more 'editor recruitment' in India, and begin some similar work in Brazil. [We hope] to fund a couple of community convenings (gatherings of community members to tackle hard challenges like editor retention)... we're wanting to finally start the [online] shop, so people have easy access to Wikimedia merchandise ... and we'll be spending a little more money on legal work." Regarding financial sources, she remarked "that we (WMF) don't have a 'bad boy' donor policy. Some non-profits explicitly have people they won't take money from: we don't [have such a list]."
Discussion and feedback on the update has involved extensive community input: more than 35,000 words over the past year, and almost 55,000 words in the year before that. There have been five revisions at roughly six-monthly intervals, the first in April 2009. Arbitrator Roger Davies told The Signpost that the way the Committee works in practice has evolved significantly since the first policy was ratified in 2005, yet the text has remained static; the proposed update to the policy reflects how things now work in practice, and is structured in a way that is much clearer and more accessible to editors.
All Wikipedians are encouraged to vote in the referendum.
User:Dominic (Dominic McDevitt-Parks) recently began his stay as Wikipedian in Residence at the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) (cf. Signpost coverage of the announcement). Similar to previous projects at other GLAM institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), the job description lists the following broad goals for the residency (a paid student internship lasting until late August):
“ |
|
” |
As described by Sj on the "Wikilove.in" blog, Dominic has already secured an image donation of 220 high-resolution reproductions of public domain images, responding to an earlier uploading request on Commons for the already available low-resolution versions. It concerns a series of black-and-white photographs dating mostly from 1941–42, commissioned from photographer Ansel Adams – mostly landscape photographs of US National Parks and portraits of native Americans. Sarah Stierch (fellow Wikipedian-in-residence at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, cf. Signpost coverage) pointed out that while Adams' photos are in the public domain, NARA's release of the high-resolution reproduction was nevertheless significant: Adams' work, she said, "is known for being one of the most accessible to the public eye – pleasant and monumental images of the parks of the West, often making their ways into calendars and posters in gift shops ... This accessibility and availability allows for cultural organizations to milk what they can out of licensing; fearing to release their images into the public domain due, claiming they'll lose major income. Many of us within the [GLAM] world know that this is rarely a truth".
The first editing challenge is currently in preparation, and will involve the "Today's Document" section on the NARA website. Dominic told The Signpost that it "will hopefully stimulate article content on Wikipedia to be used or referenced on the National Archives website, as well as bring in high-resolution documents from the National Archives."
Last week, NARA saw an hour-long presentation by Liam Wyatt ( User:Witty lama, who has just left the Wikimedia Foundation's office, where he had spent part of his year-long WMF " GLAM fellowship" about cultural collaborations). In his introduction (as well as in a blog post), David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, said he had "long been a fan of Wikipedia", emphasized the importance of GLAM-WIKI collaborations, and called Liam Wyatt (whom he credited with introducing NARA to local Wikimedians) "one of the [Wikimedia] movement's greatest champions". In January, NARA had already hosted 90 Wikimedians for a one-day "WikiXDC" event celebrating Wikipedia's 10th anniversary ( Signpost coverage).
As reported in the May "This month in GLAM" newsletter, DC Wikimedians were exploring possible collaborations with the Center for History and New Media last week, founded by the late Roy Rosenzweig – known to many Wikipedians for his 2006 essay about Wikipedia, titled "Can History be Open Source?".
The log of last week's office hour with WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner has been posted. Topics included work on the 2011–12 annual plan. Gardner explained that "one of the issues the board grapples with ... is how much emphasis the Wikimedia Foundation should put on growing its operational reserve fund ... balancing the importance of programmatic activities (e.g., Visual Editor) against the importance of yes, having rainy day funding." Another part of the tech budget will go into the "Wikimeda Labs" projects. Brion Vibber said "it's still all a little vague at this point", but that it would include "adapting toolserver-like infrastructure and making it even easier for researchers and experimenters (should be very awesome). [It] will be more flexible than toolserver and we'll be able to let folks run more server-ish tools".
Trustee Kat Walsh talked about several aspects of the Board's work. Gardner also looked ahead to the wrap-up of the Public Policy Initiative, scheduled for September. The WMF intends to make permanent "the most successful elements of that program, and internationalise its work. .... We're also going to fund more 'editor recruitment' in India, and begin some similar work in Brazil. [We hope] to fund a couple of community convenings (gatherings of community members to tackle hard challenges like editor retention)... we're wanting to finally start the [online] shop, so people have easy access to Wikimedia merchandise ... and we'll be spending a little more money on legal work." Regarding financial sources, she remarked "that we (WMF) don't have a 'bad boy' donor policy. Some non-profits explicitly have people they won't take money from: we don't [have such a list]."
Discuss this story
I'm surprised that the ongoing discussion about changing the RfB promotion threshold was not included here. -- (ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 20:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Rennes panels
Another form of unwanted modification of one of the physical Wikipedia articles in Rennes, quite similar to what one might on the wiki: [1]
Seb35 has drafted another report about the event in Rennes (apparently unaware that the topic had already been covered here, but the draft may still interest some readers).
Regards, HaeB ( talk) 01:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC) reply
Erm, what's a "quadratic hole"? -- Dweller ( talk) 22:12, 4 June 2011 (UTC) reply