Brief notes
- Discussion of interest: A discussion of interest occurred this week on the Wikimedia-l mailing list regarding the history of Wikimedian chapters and user organizations in the United States, and whether or not a regional chapter (Wikimedia US) can, could have, or should have occurred. Quoting Risker:
“ | Ironically, ... the "decision" to not have a US chapter was made around 10 years ago at the strong urging of other chapters. The theory (as I understand it) was that the US was the home of the WMF itself, which in the view of the era, meant that the US didn't need the "protections" that came from a chapter; the WMF itself was perceived to speak for US Wikimedians. (Given the times, back when there were literally only enough employees to run the servers and sort of keep an eye on MediaWiki, this was perhaps an incorrect assessment.) Then US regions started to form chapters, first New York then DC; there are now a significant number of user groups. If there had been a US chapter formed back at that time, there would only be one US chapter; the rest would never be recognized at the chapter level. Instead, we now see the specter of what could come, since the US alone as a nation with a large number of Wikimedians does not have the opportunity for a single chapter: given a little bit more organization, and the ambition to do the paperwork to become a chapter, the US could have as many (or more) chapters than exist in all of Europe in a few years. One has to wonder if some other countries, especially those with a large number of Wikimedians or a massive geographic area, might wish they had gone with regional affiliates rather than a national one. | ” |
- Metrics and activities: This month's Metrics and activities meeting took place on July 2.
- Wikimedia Conference 2015 Follow-up: The Wikimedia Germany personnel who hosted the recently concluded Wikimedia Conference 2015 in Berlin are organizing a WMCON Follow-up Day to be hosted at the coming Wikimania 2015, to be held July 15–19 in Mexico City. The day is "designed to be a space for participants of the Wikimedia Conference and other interested people to discuss topics of the Wikimedia Conference and develop them further."
- Press release on Wikimania 2015: The WMF published a press release this week on the coming Wikimania 2015.
- API portal: A new portal is being constructed to teach developers the basics of the Wikimedia query options available. You can read more about it in a posting to wikitech-l explaining what the big deal is.
- Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 post-op: A Wikimedia France member posted a write-up of the outcomes of this year's headliner Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 in Lyon, France to the Wikimedia Blog.
- Africa: Wikipedian Ian Gilfillan this week made a post on his personal blog highlighting points of interest in the growth of African Wikipedias. "While the English Wikipedia makes the news due to the declining number of editors, and has a particularly bad reputation (as can be seen in the mailing lists) amongst African editors who’ve had experience with some of its trigger-happy bureaucrats, how are the African language Wikipedias themselves faring?" The results are troubling: as with the English Wikipedia growth rates are static or declining across the board.
- In a separate and unrelated blog post Wikipedian Don Osborn (author of "African Languages in a Digital Age") published another post to his own blog, this one discussing "Wiktionary as a tool for African language learning". The recommendations have also gained some traction in a discussion on the mailing list.
- NSA lawsuit update: The WMF legal team published an update to the WM Blog as to the whereabouts of the Foundation's much-lofted lawsuit against the NSA. The first hearing is scheduled for September 25.
- June in Education: The June issue of This Month in Education has been published.
- New administrator: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Ser Amantio di Nicolao.
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