As you may know, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees approved a new "Access to nonpublic information policy" on 25 April 2014 after a community consultation. The former policy has remained in place until the new policy could be implemented. That implementation work is now being done, and we are beginning the transition to the new policy.
An important part of that transition is helping volunteers like you sign the required confidentiality agreement. All Wikimedia volunteers with access to nonpublic information are required to sign this new agreement, and we have prepared some documentation to help you do so.
The Wikimedia Foundation is requiring that OTRS volunteers sign the new confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015 to retain their access. You are receiving this email because you have been identified as an OTRS volunteer and are required to sign the confidentiality agreement under the new policy. If you do not sign the new confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015, you will lose your OTRS access. OTRS volunteers have a specific agreement available, if you have recently signed the general confidentiality agreement for another role (such as CheckUser or Oversight), you do not need to sign the general agreement again, but you will still need to sign the OTRS agreement.
Signing the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information is conducted and tracked using Legalpad on Phabricator. We have prepared a guide on Meta-Wiki to help you create your Phabricator account and sign the new agreement: Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information/How to sign
If you have any questions or experience any problems while signing the new agreement, please visit this talk page or email me (gvarnumwikimedia.org). Again, please sign this confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015 to retain your OTRS access. If you do not wish to retain this access, please let me know and we will forward your request to the appropriate individuals.
Thank you,
Gregory Varnum (User:GVarnum-WMF), Wikimedia Foundation
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Greetings! You are receiving this message because, at some point in the past, you have participated in a discussion around the topic of harassment. The Support and Safety team is holding a series of consultations gathering feedback on the best potential solutions to the problem. The next stage is a workshop where we hope to narrow the focus to individual actionable ideas and explore how to bring some of these ideas to life.
Things have been quiet with our User Group, though that should soon change! Please take a glance at the following updates:
This is the first monthly newsletter of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group. From here on out, each letter will detail the previous month's activities, as well as keep members informed of upcoming events in the Wikimedia community.
We'd like to get monthly virtual meetings up and running soon. If you're interested, please express your interest at the talk page.
Our homepage has been updated with a new banner, information, upcoming events, and more. Members now have markers to mark what organizational parts of the User Group they are involved with. If you'd like to get involved in newsletter drafting (see March's!), social media management, or event coordination, feel free to add a marker next to your name.
We are a new organization and there are plenty of directions for us to pursue. If you have any ideas, thoughts, or suggestions for the organization, don't hesitate to open a discussion on our talk page.
August 9-13, 2017 - Montréal - Wikimania 2017, the annual Wikimedia conference! Scholarships are due very soon on February 20th (submit here). Several Ohio Wikimedians will potentially be carpooling to the event; this will be discussed in more detail closer to the event.
Online
The 50,000 Challenge is an English Wikipedia event organized by WikiProject United States. The aim is to improve or create 50,000 articles related to the United States. There is also a subgoal of 1,000 article improvements for each state - if interested, be sure to sign up to improve articles related to Ohio!
Recent Happenings
This section will typically summarize events and accomplishments within Ohio's Wikimedia community in the last month. Since this is the first newsletter, this section will cover some of the major happenings since October 2016.
October 2016
Three Ohio Wikimedians and Wikipedia Connection members attended and presented at WikiConference North America 2016 in San Diego, October 7 - 10. Kevin Payravi and Maria Rimmel presented on Wikipedia Connection and Wikipedia student organizations at-large (link to presentation), while Addis Wang presented on existing and potential translation efforts on Wikipedia.
Spanish & Portuguese Edit-A-Thon, hosted by the Department of Spanish and Wikipedia Connection at the Ohio State University: This edit-a-thon brought over 60 Spanish and Portuguese students together to translate articles on Latin American women from Spanish and Portguese into English. In doing so, students improved their Spanish and Portuguese skills for class.
Wiki Loves Monuments 2016 in the United States has come to a close, as supported and organized in-part by several Ohio Wikimedians. The event resulted in over 11,000 photo uploads, and the winners of the national event can be viewed here. Over 700 photos of historical and cultural sites in Ohio were uploaded, which can be viewed here!
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
Organizers throughout Ohio are now hosting at least four Art+Feminism events in the coming weeks! Find an event near you in Columbus, Cincinnati, Oxford, and Oberlin. You are welcome to attend, and if you are an experienced editor, you are encouraged to provide your Wikipedia expertise to new contributors. See the 'Upcoming Events' section below for dates and links.
We're aiming to schedule the Ohio Wikimedians' first online meeting next week - learn more here and provide your availability if interested!
Montréal - Wikimania 2017, the annual Wikimedia conference!
Online events
The 50,000 Challenge is an English Wikipedia event organized by WikiProject United States. The aim is to improve or create 50,000 articles related to the United States. There is also a subgoal of 1,000 article improvements and creations for each of the 50 states - if you're interested, be sure to sign up to improve articles related to Ohio!
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
Our first virtual meeting will be on April 20 at 8:30 PM EST! We'll have introductions and discuss preliminary plans for future events. Visit the meeting page for more information, a link to join the meeting, and our agenda. Feel free to contribute to the agenda, and add yourself to the participants list if you plan to attend.
Cleveland native Wizardman was recently featured in the Wikimedia blog post, "The big bear of a mission to chronicle the 1948 Cleveland Indians"! Give it a read here.
August 4th is the annual Ohio Private Academic Libraries Conference in Berea, OH. While not finalized, Kevin Payravi will potentially be attending to present an introduction to Wikidata. If any other Ohio Wikimedians would like to attend the conference and/or help present, contact Kevin (Talk / Email). This will be an exciting event and a great networking opportunity with other librarians.
Ohio saw at least 4 Art+Feminism in March, with three of them occurring on university campuses; Art+Feminism initiatives are continuing and growing in Ohio!
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
A Wiknic will be taking place in Columbus on July 9th; more details to come in the next newsletter.
Wikipedia Takes Columbus took place last month, resulting in over 180 photo contributions of Ohio State University and the greater Columbus area. Check out all the photos on the Commmons here.
August 4th is the annual Ohio Private Academic Libraries Conference in Berea, OH. While not finalized, Kevin Payravi will potentially be attending to present an introduction to Wikidata. If any other Ohio Wikimedians would like to attend the conference and/or help present, contact Kevin (Talk / Email). This will be an exciting event and a great networking opportunity with other librarians.
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
The second annual Great Buckeye Wiknic will be taking place in Columbus on the afternoon on Sunday, July 9th! The event will be at the Women's Field House in Lincoln Tower Park at Ohio State University; please see the event details for more information. Travel reimbursements are in the works. If you're interested in attending / want details leading up to the event, please sign up on the event page.
Addis Wang has been featured in the Wikimedia Foundation blog: Building communities to support free knowledge: Addis Wang. Read about how Addis, an Ohio Wikimedian, has engaged and helped bring new editors to Wikipedia through is work in China, Ohio, and Ohio State University.
August 4th is the annual Ohio Private Academic Libraries Conference in Berea, OH. While not finalized, Kevin Payravi will potentially be attending to present an introduction to Wikidata. If any other Ohio Wikimedians would like to attend the conference and/or help present, contact Kevin (Talk / Email). This will be an exciting event and a great networking opportunity with other librarians.
Upcoming and Ongoing Events
Offline events
JUL 9
Great Buckeye Wiknic in Columbus Taking place at the Women's Field House at Ohio State University; if interested, sign up here.
AUG 4
OPAL Conference in Berea, OH Ohio Private Academic Libraries Conference. Contact SuperHamster if you'd like to attend and/or help present on Wikidata.
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello! In the past few months, the Wikipedia Library User Group has been undergoing some major planning and developments. We just finished our very first open call with the user group members, which was a great success (see the meeting minutes). If you joined us during the meeting, we’d like to thank you for your interest. If not, not to worry, we have lots of things planned for the user group in which you can participate.
This message is to inform you that based on the input received from the user group members and the founding members, it was agreed that the Wikipedia Library User Group’s name be reconsidered by a voting process. As a valued member of the user group, we’d like to invite you to vote on the list of potential names. You can vote by following this link. The poll will run for a timeframe of two weeks. Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of user group founding members --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:59, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Dear WAM organizer,
I’m Erick Guan, the coordinator of WAM 2017. Welcome to Wikipedia Asian Month 2017. Here is some information about organizations of events at a national level.
The event lasts a month for the participants. As of the beginning of the event, please:
Invite previous participants to join. We have a template you may want to use.
Setup your WAM page in your local wikiproject if you haven’t done that.
Link your WAM page at Wikipedia Asian Month 2017. It’s important for others to understand and connect to your community! Remove the X when you done that. WAM is organized at national level. So I have to ask you to put your country in front of your name if you haven’t done that.
Publish a notification about WAM in site notice as well as village pump. Go public!
Connect with us. Generally send me an email so that we can reach you for future information!
Become the jury member in a campaign on Fountain which is an amazing tool for you to supervise participants’ articles. If you don’t have the campaign set up, please contact us! And put a link to your community’s campaign page for participants’ navigation.
Organize a off-site editathon event. A coffee bar, internet and laptops. Though it’s optional. If you want to do that, please contact me.
In the following days, you should answer the questions from your community and supervise the submissions. Hope you have fun!
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi SuperHamster! As promised by the Wikipedia Library team at the inception of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group, we are conducting an open-election for the steering committee with 5 to 8 positions. Nominations will be accepted from 3 January 2018 to 9 January 2018. If you are interested in being a part of this committee, you can nominate yourself starting January 2nd next year. This position should attract Wikipedians and librarians with dedication and time to lead the user group in its first year. The elections will happen following the nominations phase starting from 10 January 2018 to 23 January 2018. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact WikiLibraryUG [at] googlegroups [dot] com. A message will be sent shortly before the dates linking to the venue for nominations and election. Thank you! On behalf of the user group founding members--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:40, 13 December 2017 (UTC)Reply
Wikimedia and Libraries User Group Steering Committee Election Nomination Phase
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello again SuperHamster! As stated in our previous message, nominations for the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group steering committee elections are now open and will remain open until the 9th. If you are interested and have read the instructions, please nominate yourself on the election page. Please forward your queries to librarieslists.wikimedia.org, and for private correspondence, please get in touch with one of the founding members. And finally, wishing you a prosperous and happy new year on behalf of the user group founding members! On behalf of the user group founding members --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
Ohio Wikimedians User Group: January 2018 newsletter
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
A happy new year to you! It's been a while since an update has been sent out to the Ohio Wikimedians User Group. Below you'll find a recap of what's been going on over the last few months, including annual reports and offline events.
General Updates
Information:
Phase 1 of the Wikimedia Movement strategy has concluded, and so far over 80 organized group have given their endorsement. If interested, please take a look at our User Group's talk page for more information, and to lend your support or opposition to the Ohio Wikimedians User Group endorsing the strategic direction by January 20th.
The Ohio Wikimedians User Group's Annual Report for July 2016 - July 2017 has been released, viewable here. The report provides a summary and list of events, with event pages providing more details respectively.
Wikipedia Connection's annual report for the 2016-17 academic year has also been released, viewable here. The report provides an overall summary, stats, acknowledgements, list and details of events, and more.
The #1Lib1Ref campaign is taking place from January 15 - February 3 this year! The goal of the campaign is to get librarians to add just one reference to Wikipedia. This is a great opportunity to outreach to local librarians you may know. See the event page for more information.
Recap:
Back in July, Ohio hosted its 2017 Wiknic at the Ohio State University. Four Wikipedians from Columbus were in attendance.
Back in October, Wikipedia Connection members Emery and Jon joined an edit-a-thon at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health labs in Cincinnati. It was a great success, with Wikipedians working with NIOSH scientists to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics such as 3D Printing, Dustiness, and Nanotechnology. A shout-out to Emery and Jon from Wikipedia Connection for attending the event, and a special thanks to John Sadowski and everyone else at NIOSH who made this event possible.
Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in the United States has come to a close. Over 1,400 individuals uploaded more than 8,000 photos of historic sites to the Wikimedia Commons. Of these photos, over 150 of them were of historic sites in Ohio. You can browse the Ohio photos here. A thank you to all who participated and helped improve coverage of Ohio!
Upcoming and Ongoing Events
Offline events
None currently planned.
Online events
JAN 15
–
FEB 3
#1Lib1Ref The goal of the campaign is to get librarians to add just one reference to Wikipedia. This is a great opportunity to outreach to local librarians you may know.
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello once again! We are happy to announce that the steering committee election 2018 is now open for voting. Because you have joined the user group by 21 January 2018, you are eligible to vote. As mentioned under the instructions for voters, you can vote support for multiple candidates, at most one support for each candidate. Also, oppose votes are not allowed, but discussions are welcome on the talk page.
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Hello! I just found out that WikiConference North America 2018 will be in Columbus this year! If that comes to pass that would be great news and would like to do whatever I could to help it along. I was wondering if you had any suggestions to that end as I'm sure you're happy with this news as well. Best regards -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 21:38, 10 February 2018 (UTC)Reply
Hi @Sixflashphoto: Great to hear from you :D I'm actually one of the main organizers for WikiConference NA, and we're thrilled to have it in Columbus this year! I'll send out an Ohio Wikimedians newsletter in the next few years to the rest of the group members to inform them of the news.
Some background on the conference: The first two days (Thurs + Fri) will likely be filled with tech-oriented events (a hackathon, technology demos, etc.), as well as our annual Culture Crawl, where we partner up with local cultural institutions to host tours, edit-a-thons, etc. The last two days are typical programming days, which involve scheduled presentations, lectures, panels, discussions, and lightning talks between participants.
Right now we're still in the early planning stages, but are happy to be working with the Ohio State University Libraries who is generously providing space for us. We've also got the support of the Columbus Library, Columbus Museum of Art, and the OCLC. In terms of planning, most of the work moving forward is bureaucratic stuff the WikiConNA team is working on (funding, scholarships, programming, etc.). If you have any ideas for the conference and/or have thoughts on other partnerships we could form (whether for sponsorship or the Culture Crawl), would love to hear them! Feel free to talk here or shoot me an email.
I'll add you to the list of folks we can reach out to for tasks that might need doing - appreciate the offer of help.
Otherwise, you should see updates about the conference as the date nears, as well as a call for volunteers at the event itself. The event needs all sorts of volunteer support for things like registration, photographers, setup/cleanup, session moderators, and tech support. The call for volunteers is several months away, but if that's something that interests you, we'd love your support.
@SuperHamster: Hello again! As this continues to near closer while this has always been in the back of my mind the anticipation has continued to grow. I am curious how the planing has continued to come along since February. It is great to hear that as of February Columbus Library, Columbus Museum of Art, and the OCLC have agreed to provide support as well as cooperation from Ohio State University Libraries. Has anyone else been reached out to such as The Ohio History Connection (Ohio History Center)? It appears at the end of the Culture Crawl during the 2017 Conference there was a meet up in an historic part of town. I think that is a fine idea but I wish I could think of something other then German Village. Possible it's just me but it seems over done. I'm sure it would be fine though.
I wouldn't want to intrude on your organizational processes. I would imagine there are staff familiar with the process but if there is anything I can do, especially locally, I'm certainly willing to offer any assistance I could.
I think my biggest contribution could end up being photography. To that end, I'd really like the opportunity to shoot this event well and any information you could give me in advance (any advance time would be welcome, but more is better) such as meeting locations would be invaluable to figuring out the best vantage points and choosing what lenses to bring. I can also imagine where I could want different setups for different activities/events, and I would need to know that beforehand. Also I'm someone who tends to use ambient lighting to its maximal extent but what are your policies on flashes? Note, I tend to hardly ever use them outside of studio work. I've seen other WikiConferences in previous years have somewhat large group portraits. Some look great with the ambient/interior light but in that composition could see off camera flashes being very useful. Before I forget I hope someone captures some photos of the preparation for all of these events at the conference as well! I'd like to have an idea of exactly what I should to bring so I don't have a lot of gear with me. I hope to have fun myself here too! I'm sure it will be a great time. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 20:21, 17 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Sixflashphoto: Hey there! Apologies for the late response. Things are going well with the organizing - as you may have seen in the message I just sent on your talk page, we're wrapping up submissions and scholarship applications. We haven't reached out to the Ohio History Connection yet, that's a great idea. It might not be the easiest to have a Culture Crawl activity with them at their center due to transportation, but it's something we could explore. At the very least, great idea to have their presence at the event.
Locally, we'll want to explore some options for food donations, inviting representatives from local institutions and libraries to attend, things like that...any ideas you have would be good. A concrete list of tasks isn't something we've documented yet.
Photography for the event would be fantastic. Our conference will be centered in the Thompson Library, which provides some great photography opportunities I think. I'll get back to you with more details on time and location tonight. Thank you very much! ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs18:17, 15 August 2018 (UTC)Reply
@SuperHamster: I'm sorry for my own late reply. I got your message on en:wp and will certainly be attending the event. I should be free except for a block of time I need to make on the 20th. The Metro Parks are celebrating their birthday at Blacklick woods, and I'm going to shoot that. It's an all day event so I can move that time around, and it certainly wont take all that long. Other then a part of that day I should be free and I am looking forward to going. I'd like to volunteer as a photographer if that wouldn't be stepping on any one else's toes. How would I go about getting in touch with the right person? Thank you for all your time and your help. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 20:27, 2 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello everyone! The steering committee election for the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group is finally over and the results you were patiently awaiting for is here! We had many great candidates with awesome skillsets and experience, unfortunately not everyone could make it to the final eight. We are grateful to all the candidates for stepping up and boldly throwing their hat in the ring. It was a difficult choice and they made it. Now, the results. The candidates who made it to the final eight are,
On behalf of the founding members, the TWL team and the user group members, we congratulate the candidates on their successful run and welcome them to the committee. The steering committee and the founding members will soon meet to discuss the handover and next steps of the user group. Thank you--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:56, 16 February 2018 (UTC)Reply
Ohio Wikimedians User Group: March 2018 newsletter
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
WikiConference North America 2018 is coming to Columbus, Ohio! Organized by the WikiConference North America user group and hosted by the Ohio State University Libraries, this conference will take place from October 18 - 21, and will feature exciting activities such as tech demos, a Culture Crawl, edit-a-thons, presentations, discussions, and more.
It would be fantastic to have Ohio Wikimedians User Group members help out with the conference as it nears. The conference is in the early planning stages as the conference works to secure grant funds and partnerships. Ohio Wikimedians User Group organizer SuperHamster (Kevin Payravi) is one of the organizers of the event; if you would like to help out with the conference, or have any ideas for the conference (partnerships, sponsorship opportunities, etc.), please feel free to reach out to him! As the event nears, the conference will need more hands as well as volunteers to help out at the event itself - stay tuned for more information on that.
March is the month for Art+Feminism! There is currently one Art+Feminism event scheduled in Cincinnati, hosted by LOOK on Saturday, March 17. See more details and RSVP on the Facebook event page.
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Curd Rice
Hello! After the successful pilot program by Wikimedia India in 2015, Wiki Loves Food (WLF) is happening again in 2018 and this year, we are going International. To make this event a grant success, your direction is key. Please sign up as a volunteer or sign up on behalf of your affiliate here.--Abhinav619 (talk) 16:11, 27 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
On a related note, a proposal on the Village Pump has been created about having a banner in support of Net Neutrality displayed for Wikipedia users in the United States. If you have thoughts on this proposal, you may add your comments here.
The Art+Feminism campaign took place in March and April, and Ohio saw two Art+Feminism edit-a-thons take place! A Cincinatti edit-a-thon was hosted by LOOK, and a Columbus edit-a-thon was hosted by Wikipedia Connection at the Ohio State University. Great job to all attendees and organizers!
The 50,000 Challenge is currently 5.74% complete, with the goal of writing 50,000 articles on U.S. topics. If you're interested in writing Ohio-related articles, consider contributing as part of this event and recording your articles under Ohio!
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi SuperHamster! Greetings from the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group. Yes, you heard that right! We are now officially known as the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group (previously, Wikipedia Library User Group). New group contacts are User:Merrilee and User:Sodapopinski7. The elected steering committee has been meeting twice a month ever since their election, working on the organisation and details of user group functioning. Progress is being made and we'd like to keep the members updated.
The steering committee invites you to participate in this poll to help the committee plan activities this year.
The committee decided to use the librarieslists.wikimedia.org and has started making announcements on the list. Please join the list for future announcements and for internal discussions and communications.
The latest meeting minutes of the steering committee meeting (May 14-15, 2018) is now available on Meta.
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi SuperHamster! Greetings from the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group. Thank you for participating in the poll to help the steering committee plan activities for the year 2018. We received 84 responses, and the results can be found on the resources page. In addition to that, there are a few more things we'd like to share with you.
If you are attending Wikimania,
Bring your books! You can participate in the book swapping we have planned, and swap/leave your books on the table. More details here
If you are not attending Wikimania,
we have you covered too!
Please help us plan activities for this year by sharing your suggestions on how to implement the top two ideas from the poll results. The discussion is open on the user group talk page.
The latest meeting minutes of the steering committee meeting (June 28-29, 2018) is now available on Meta.
The news: Themes are coming to Timeless! Your infobox and navbox templates in particular are probably going to look absolutely horrible in the new built-in night mode.
For more information, background, plans and progress updates, please see the full issue on Meta, complete with a ridiculous list of phabricator task links, gratuitous mention of other skins, and me complaining about the current state of MediaWiki skinning in general.
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi,
You get this message because you’ve previously participated in the Community Wishlist Survey. I just wanted to let you know that this year’s survey is now open for proposals. You can suggest technical changes until 11 November: Community Wishlist Survey 2019.
You can vote from November 16 to November 30. To keep the number of messages at a reasonable level, I won’t send out a separate reminder to you about that. /Johan (WMF)11:25, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
Welcome to the third issue of the Timeless newsletter, complete with a somewhat dubious explanation of where I've been all this time.
Somewhat dubious explanation of where I've been all this time:
I suffered a rather bad concussion in October, which knocked me pretty much completely out of commission through November, and I'm still recovering even now. One person = bus factor of one, even though it wasn't actually a bus but a very short flight of stairs.
Updates:
Random bugs have been fixed. More bugs have been found. For a full list of horrors, see the workboard.
Implementing themes (T131991: the dark/night mode and winter variants of the skin) has proven far more complicated than initially thought, lacking either the extension, or preferably, some core support for this functionality. Thus:
I have submitted a Request for Comment proposing to merge Extension:Theme into core - this will enable skins to specify style variants as distinct options for users to select in their preferences by letting the skin specify the styles separately for each, a much neater way of implementing this than some of the existing hacks.
Jack Phoenix has already submitted a patch to do this. We simply need the buy-in and consensus to merge it, and to resolve whatever issues may arise from this wider review.
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello SuperHamster! We are happy to announce that the steering committee election 2019 is now open for voting. Because you have joined the user group before 28 February 2019, you are eligible to vote. Not unlike last year, you can vote support for multiple candidates, at most one support for each candidate. Also, oppose votes are not allowed, but discussions are welcome on the talk page.
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
To facilitate casual conversations between members, we now have a Facebook group! If you're on Facebook, feel free to request to join.
Kevin has prepared a 2019 Activities Rapid Grant to support our user group's activities through the end of the year. This includes funding for edit-a-thons, Wikipedia Connection activities at Ohio State, and other potential events. Please give it a review, and provide endorsements at the bottom and/or comments on the talk page. If you would like to plan an activity or can think of something that could be funded that isn't already included, please bring it up! The goal is to have the grant submitted for review early in the week.
Our membership list has been revamped and supports the addition of new details (such as name, picture, location, and titles). Members are welcome to update their entry if they wish (all details are optional).
Movement Strategy
Sam (PonyToast) and Maria (Rimmel.Edits) have signed up to serve as our Organized Groups Strategy Liaisons; through December, Strategy Liaisons will act as a conduit for ideas, questions, and updates between the Movement Strategy and organized groups such as our own. Thank you to both members for taking this on!
The Wikimedia Summit 2019 just came to a conclusion. Maria Rimmel (Rimmel.Edits) served as our representative this year, following her work at the Ohio State University and WikiConference North America. This year's event had a heavy focus on the Movement Strategy Process and its Working Groups. Maria will be providing updates and outcomes of the conference on the user group talkpage soon - keep an eye out!
Upcoming and Ongoing Events
This May is the election for two Affiliate-Selected Board Seats for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. The Ohio Wikimedians User Group will be eligible to cast one vote. Be on the lookout for updates on how we will decide our vote.
Two edit-a-thons are being hosted for Ohio State Department of Spanish and Portuguese students this month. One edit-a-thon is focusing on improving Wikipedia's coverage of female and under-representated language scientists, and the other on Latinx studies.
Recent Events
WikiConference North America 2018 (Oct 18-21) at the Ohio State University was a great success! Over 200 attendees (including those representing over 15 Wikimedia affiliates and 25 academic institutions) attended the 70+ sessions we had. A big thanks goes to all the event's organizers, volunteers (including those from Ohio Wikimedians), sponsors, and session hosts. View the full report (work in progress) for more details and outcomes. You can also check out the photos on the Commons.
"By doing an event like this, we can show people that you can edit; your contributions are valid; your contributions are valued. Beyond valued: necessary," Dalesio said.
Alden Library at Ohio University also independently hosted an Art+Feminism edit-a-thon on March 22. Check out the event page for more details. Outcomes included editing 27 articles, including the creation of a new one.
"We will be encouraging participants to use our collections to create and strengthen articles, and Library volunteers will be available help them do this effectively. In doing so, we hope to encourage participants to move beyond the role of information consumer, and to consider how they can enrich the information landscape—and maybe leave the internet a better place than they found it," Jennings stated.
Have something for the next newsletter? Add it to our May 2019 draft.
Welcome to the fourth issue of the Timeless newsletter, with a cat! Or maybe not.
Un chat qui miaule???
It's true! The angry cat, a fundamental part of Timeless, has resulted in confusion and bug reports all across the projects and phabricator. And now it shall be immortalised forever in the new, shiny Timeless logo.
Updates:
After putting off the project for three months because I got hit in the head with a flight of stairs, and then putting off the project for another two months while working out what the status of the grant was, I have now put off the project even more in order to focus on my other project for a bit. So progress lately has been a bit whims-based as a result:
I broke, unbroke, and then sort of sideways broke all the form styles. Help.
Radar:
The French Wiktionary voted to set Timeless as their default skin, with results possibly as you might expect: I ran away and hid, and the WMF said no. A bit of discussion later and we largely agreed that all else aside, this is a bit of a branding issue, but we love the enthusiasm! Also the bug reports that inevitably come out of such a discussion. I'm still working on properly going through those.
Theme support is still stuck in limbo, but now we have another skinning RfC. tl;dr, we wanna replace the entire skinning system, and Skizzerz'll write a prototype later.
I will be fully resuming work on Timeless next week, or maybe the week after, depending on what madness (or illness) comes out of the Hackathon in Prague. Please come talk to me there to discuss strategy!
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi SuperHamster, I had contacted several times about I hadn't received the postcard WAM, also 2017 and 2018. After asking some member, who won the WAM 2018 postcard, they confirm that none of them had received the postcard. Today I write to you, to ask you to help me had the PDF postcard (send to my email, had fill in the form). Thank you so much!--ThiênĐế98 (talk) 13:25, 8 June 2019 (UTC)Reply
Welcome to the fifth and final issue of the Timeless newsletter!
Progress was made. True story.
I am happy to announce that after about a year, this delightful project in which absolutely nothing has gone according to plan is coming to a close. Or at least, the grant-funded portion is. Which means we will now be resuming our regular schedule of random whims-based development, you probably won't notice any difference whatsoever unless you use MonoBook, and there's a report.
What's new from the past two months:
A lot less than we'd hoped, frankly. We:
Fixed various bugs, some of which even weren't for stuff I'd just broken two patches previously.
Resolved sundry compatibility issues for other extensions, templates onwiki, whatever, largely by removing dumb crap from the css.
Brought the total number of open tasks on the Timeless workboard down to 70.
We also wound up with:
Patches resulting in RelatedArticles working in MonoBook, and FlaggedRevisions showing up in Minerva, unless someone actually managed to turn that off as well. (Blame T181242.) It's possible we went a little overboard with the whole 'let's close all the tasks!' sprint.
An unfortunate repeated discovery that themes (the Night/Winter variants I keep insisting will happen at some point) are still pretty far off on the horizon. Um.
Possibly a quite a few more bugs coming your way. This month, and especially the past week, have been a bit of a mess, development-wise. While hopefully none of the worse issues make it to production, please keep the reports coming for whatever you do find and we'll get it fixed as soon as we can. Y'all've been amazing about this, and it's really appreciated.
And I guess that's that. I'm really bad at reporting, and this is a report. For the purposes of the grant, this was a requirement, but do you want me to keep trying to send these out?
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art — Kevin (SuperHamster) and Maria (Rimmel.Edits) have been collaborating with Neal Stimler and the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) to launch WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art on the English Wikipedia! Back in January, the CMA announced its conversion into an Open Access institution—and part of this initiative included the upload of thousands of photos and Wikidata items on CMA artworks. This WikiProject has been created to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to the CMA, such as artworks and artists featured in the Museum's collections, while being able to leverage the great resources that have been released into the public domain. If you'd like to join in, please sign up to be a member here. We have an expanding list of articles to create here.
Mailing list live! — We now have admin access to the previously-deprecated Wikimedia-US-OH mailing list. All members are encouraged to subscribe here. Anyone who would like to communicate to subscribed members can email wikimedia-us-oh@lists.wikimedia.org.
Membership List — Reminder that our membership list has been revamped and supports the addition of new details (such as name, picture, location, and titles). Members are welcome to update their entry if they wish (all details are optional).
Movement Strategy
The Movement Strategy Working Groups have created their recommendations, located here. Community input will be accepted until September 15, so if you would like to provide feedback, be sure to do so in the next couple weeks.
Upcoming and Ongoing Events
Wiki Loves Monuments is back in the United States for 2019. Through the end of September, upload your photos of registered historical sites to the Commons to help document our history and illustrate Wikipedia - and have a shot at winning the national contest. If you're interested in participating, a guide to finding historic sites in Ohio is available here.
In April, two edit-a-thons were hosted at the Ohio State University:
The Female and Under-represented Language Scientists edit-a-thon, hosted by the Hispanic Linguistic Colloquium in collaboration with the Buckeye Language Network (BLN) Student Association. The goal of the event was to improve articles on under-represented language scientists. 11 editors contributed 50+ edits that consisted of 1.54k words across 24 articles, including one new article.
The Spanish & Portuguese Edit-A-Thon, hosted by students from the Spanish and Portuguese department (Dona pipoca and Caesarologia, with support from SuperHamster). The edit-a-thon focused on expanding coverage of Spanish and Portuguese topics on the English Wikipedia, primarily by translating articles from Spanish/Portuguese to English. In doing so, attendees sharpened their Spanish/Portuguese skills, gained experience editing Wikipedia, and learned about new topics. 23 editors contributed 180+ edits that consisted of 15.8k words across 70 articles, including four new articles.
Wikimania 2019 took place in Stockholm this year, with several Ohio Wikimedians attending. If you're interested in some of the sessions, many of them were recorded and are available on the Commons here.
Have something for the next newsletter? Add it to our October 2019 draft.
Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Upcoming and Ongoing Events
Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Anniversary Campaign — January 23rd (today!) is the one-year anniversary of the Cleveland Museum of Art's Open Access program. To celebrate, we are hosting an editing campaign (with postcard souvenirs!) from now through February 9. Help expand and create articles related to the Cleveland Museum of Art (including artists and artworks featured in their collection), and receive a postcard from the Museum. If you'd like to participate, check out the task list and sign up on the event page.
Recent Events
In December, the Cincinnati Art Museum hosted an Art+Feminism edit-a-thon. The museum was an excellent place to have an edit-a-thon, with a café and staff who were helpful in setting up and ensuring there were enough tables, outlets, and plenty of resource materials available. There was a related exhibit, Women Breaking Boundaries, that was of interest to attendees. In total, 9 people attended.
Movement Strategy
The Movement Strategy document, with 13 recommendations, has been released and is located here. You may utilize each recommendation's respective talk page to leave any feedback you might have.
Between February and March 2020, the recommendations will be finalized, incorporating final feedback. By the end of March 2020, the recommendations are slated to be approved by the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees.
Kevin (SuperHamster) will be attending Wikimedia Summit 2020 on behalf of the Ohio Wikimedians. This year's Summit will be focusing on discussing the implementation of the finalized Movement Strategy recommendations. Please get in touch with Kevin if you have ideas and suggestions that you would like conveyed.
Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General Updates
I hope this message finds you well and in good health during these trying times. Below is a list of some online activities that you may be interested in participating in.
The Wiki Global Check In has started! This initiative is gathering check-ins from Wikimedians all around the world, and asks for a photo that captures something related to life in your context or part of the world during the pandemic.
WALRUS (Wikimedians Active in Local Regions of the United States) is now hosting virtual meetings twice a month on Monday evenings. This is a place to discuss anything Wikimedia, as well as a place for Wikimedians to come together and mutually support each other. The next virtual meeting should be on Memorial Day, May 25th. You can sign up for the Wikimediaus-l mailing list to stay up to date on all WALRUS happenings and to receive meeting invites.
Wikipedians have been busy documenting the pandemic. In Ohio, we have articles on the pandemic in Ohio and in Columbus (the latter of which was written by our newest Ohio Wikimedians member, Ɱ!). If interested, you're encouraged to help update and expand these articles, or even consider creating articles documenting the pandemic in other Ohio metro areas.
If you miss visiting your local museums, don't forget that the Cleveland Museum of Art's entire collection is available online and in the public domain (when permissible). Our WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art is currently tracking 44 English Wikipedia articles and 40,322 images, which are now acquiring over 2,000,000 views a month. If you're interested in contributing, there is still plenty of work to be done to expand and create new articles!
Movement Strategy
The finalized Movement Strategy Recommendations have been published! This is a clarified and refined version of the recommendations that were released in January.
The Wikimedia Summit 2020 that was to occur in April was canceled, and Wikimedia Deutschland will not be hosting a virtual replacement. In its stead, Ryan Merkley, members of the movement strategy core team, and external consultants are exploring options to move the contents of the conference into a series of virtual events.
Have something for the next newsletter? Add it to our June 2020 draft.
Here is a guidance of Fountain tool. If you are wondering how to create an editathon on fountain or want to check the editathon be created or not before WAM start, please feel free to have a look.
Fountain cannot accept new articles temporarily because of a problem with the Wikimedia Labs database. It will be back ASAP. Please don’t feel panic. Let's keep fingers crossed for it.
Congratulations! The Wikipedia Asian Month has ended successfully and you've done amazing work of organizing. What we've got and what's next?
We have at least 6,672 articles made during this edition.
Make sure all the jury members judge all articles before December 31st, Once you finish the judging, please update this page.
There will be two round of qualified participants' address collection scheduled: January 1st and January 10th 2021.
Please report the local Wikipedia Asian Ambassador (who has most accepted articles) on this page, if the 2nd participants have more than 30 accepted articles, you will have two ambassadors.
Please update the final version of organizer and jury member list on this page.
If you need some assistance, please feel free to contact us via sending email to info@asianmonth.wiki. To reduce misunderstanding, please contact us in English.
Latest comment: 4 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
@SuperHamster: Thanks for asking me to register, which I did. WikiConference North America was scheduled to begin at 10 AM eastern. It's now 10:59 and I have yet to connect.
I first tried to join via Chat: chat.wcna.wiki. From Firefox, that directed me to https://t.me/joinchat/GtVpexg-LcpRsFBFJ3h21Q/. It said, "WCNA 2020 Virtual: 62 members, 20 online". I clicked "Join Group" and got nothing in Firefox.
I tried the same thing in Safari and got: [tg://join?invite=GtVpexg-LcpRsFBFJ3h21Q tg://join?invite=GtVpexg-LcpRsFBFJ3h21Q]: Safari can't open the specified address, because macOS doesn't recognize internet addresses starting with "tg:".
Somehow I got to https://web.telegram.org/#/login. There I entered my phone number and requested an activation code. It said, "We've sent an SMS with an activation code to your phone. Please enter the code below." However, I've not received any such code ... after trying this at least twice and waiting ... and waiting ... .
Hi @DavidMCEddy: Thanks for registering, and sorry for the technical troubles! Fortunately today is a "slow start", so you aren't missing too much. The current activities are edit-a-thons that you may join via Zoom (links on the program). I don't expect the virtual lounge to be very active until later this evening, and on Saturday/Sunday.
Regarding Telegram: If you are comfortable doing so, I would try installing the desktop application, and then try the link again through Firefox. You can also install the Telegram mobile app on a smartphone. Regarding the SMS activation, unfortunately I don't think there is much I can help with there...if you don't receive a code within say 20 minutes, I would try again. Please keep me posted if you continue to run into issues. Thanks, ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs16:17, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
@SuperHamster: Thanks for the reply. I was able to find Zoom to a presentation but NOT to a Hack-a-thon.
The Wikimedia issue I feel the greatest need for help with now is understanding why I got blocked on the Spanish-language Wikipedia and how to get unblocked. I know part of the story: I created a Spanish-language Wikipedia article on Julia Cagé based on the articles in French and English. I mistakenly clicked "Publish" when I was only about 10-15% done. There were 7 references and an infobox, but an administrator decided that article was not noteworthy and deleted it. The French-language article on Cagé has received 9,355 views in the past 3 days. Prior to those three days, that article had averaged not quite 200 views per day. The English language article on her has not received that many views, but it's still quite a lot. I don't know Cagé personally: I only know she has published research on the economics of media and democracy that has impressed me more than any other work in that area I've seen and that I've cited repeatedly in other work. That's why I spent 8 days creating a Wikipedia article on her. Most of that time was entering 44 different citations into Wikidata to make it easier to cite them in multiple places -- AND (of course) so any maintenance of such references anyplace would improve the quality of the reference in the other places it was used. However, after I recreated the article after it was complete 8 days later, an administrator deleted the article AND blocked me from doing anything more in the Spanish-language Wikipedia. I've tried to follow their instructions on how to get a reconsideration of the deletion and blocking decisions, so far without success.
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi, I'm reaching out to you because you've used Special:MassMessage here in the last couple of months. In phab:T270435 there's a discussion about how to be able to use MassMessage when using the new "Page to be sent as a message" function, which would require an easier way of adding a timestamp. My suggestion is to add it automatically, since MassMassages are going out to discussion pages of different kinds, and should be timestamped. If you have a workflow where you don't want your message to be timestamped, please let me now on my talk page or in the Phabricator ticket. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 14 January 2021 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Thank you for signing up for last year's WikiConference North America 2020! I'd like to invite you to this year's WikiConference North America 2021, taking place online and free, October 8-10.
Registration is open and takes just a few minutes!
Program submissions are also open through the end of the month, though they are being reviewed on a rolling basis—so the sooner you submit, the better! We are accepting presentations, workshops, round tables, or any other type of session format you can think of.
Latest comment: 6 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi! I'm drafting this session proposal and would love to know if you think it's a good idea, if you have thoughts about how to execute the session, or really anything that might help make this a useful and fun event! https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:TBurmeister_(WMF)/GLAMToolhub
@TBurmeister (WMF): Thanks for sharing this! I think it's a solid idea. I know we'll have several members of the community at the conference interested in GLAM tooling, myself included. Andrew Lih (Fuzheado) is one of them, may be worth reaching out to him for feedback if you haven't yet. Cheers, ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs02:36, 6 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Reminder to vote now to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter
This is a reminder that if you have not voted yet on the ratification of the final Wikimedia Movement Charter draft, please do so by July 9, 2024 at 23:59 UTC.
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wikimedia.org). Again, please sign this confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015 to retain your OTRS access. If you do not wish to retain this access, please let me know and we will forward your request to the appropriate individuals.
Editors at Ohio State's A+F event.
Editors at Oberlin's A+F event._-_Group_2.jpg)
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Columbus Metropolitan Library tour
Thursday group photo at the Thompson Memorial Library
Friday group photo at the Thompson Memorial Library
Wiki Education Foundation group photo
