Global Reach/Announcements

Announcements

We're very excited to share with you all the different news about existing and future projects and collaborations to extend our mission! Feel free to ask anything or leave comments or thoughts on the respective Talk page.

New hires!

Welcome our new additions to the team!

• Edna Medina (LATAM Partnerships Consultant) based in Bogota, Colombia;
• Rudolph Ampofo (Sub-Saharan Africa Partnerships Manager) based in Accra,Ghana;
• Maryana Pinchuk (Senior Manager, Tech & Product Partnerships) based in Kansas City, USA;
• Nicolas Perry (Manager, Tech & Product Partnerships) based in San Francisco, USA;
• Adelle Tanuri (Strategic Partnerships Associate) based in Jakarta, Indonesia

Relevant blog posts

• “Wikimedia and UN Human Rights partner to expand Wikipedia’s knowledge” - (Blog, August 16th, 2019)
• “Google and Wikimedia Foundation partner to increase knowledge equity online” - (Blog, January 22nd, 2019)
• “Wikimedia Foundation and Kiwix partner to grow offline access to Wikipedia” - (Blog, July 18th, 2018)
• “Wikimedia Foundation partners with the GSMA to expand digital literacy in emerging countries.” - (Blog, June 21st, 2018)

Google and Wikimedia Foundation partnership update - blog post from Jan 22, 2019

This Wikimedia Foundation blog announcement covers several recent partnership initiatives between the WMF and Google. These include:

• Google.org contributing $1.1 million to the Wikimedia Foundation and $2 million to the Wikimedia Endowment
• Summary of Project Tiger/GLOW
• Support for Google translation engine in Wikipedia’s content translation tool
• Access to Google Cloud Custom Search API and Cloud Vision API for Wikimedia editor tools at no cost

Click on the link to read our FAQ about this announcement.

Expansion of Project Tiger (aka GLOW)

In 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation and Google launched Project Tiger, an initiative to support editors in expanding and improving articles in underrepresented languages on Wikipedia. Working in close collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Wikimedia India chapter (WMIN), and local volunteers, we hosted a pilot program to increase locally relevant content in 12 Indic languages.

Google provided Chromebooks and internet access to support volunteer editors with content creation as well as insights into popular search topics on Google for which no or limited local language content exists on Wikipedia. Through a three month writing competition, volunteers created nearly 4,500 new Wikipedia articles across 12 languages, nearly double the initial benchmarks for the project. After positive feedback and discussion with our volunteer communities, including at the annual Wikimania conference in Cape Town last year, we will be expanding this pilot into something we’re calling the “GLOW” program—Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia. We will be working with Wikimedia affiliates and volunteers in India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Middle East and North Africa, and Nigeria to include 10 more languages.

Click on the link to read our FAQ about this project.

Bahasa Indonesia Search Pilot with Google

Expanding access and availability of local language content is critical to the Wikimedia mission. In cases where local language content does not yet exist, we see this pilot as an impactful, interim method to extend knowledge and information access. The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Indonesia have been working with Google on a pilot to support changes on how Google presents machine translated content in search results for Bahasa Indonesia language users. Currently, there are 5.7 million articles in English Wikipedia, and only 444 thousand articles in Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia. Click on the link to read our FAQ about this project.

Wikipedia Zero

Wikipedia Zero program discontinuation

As of February 2018, the Wikipedia Zero program has been discontinued. For more information, please see this announcement on the Wikimedia blog: Building for the future of Wikimedia with a new approach to partnerships

How do we prevent copyrighted material uploaded without permission via Wikipedia Zero?

Uploading copyrighted content without permission on the projects is a violation of the Foundation’s Terms of Use, various community-developed policies, and our mission to share freely licensed educational content on the Wikimedia projects. Wikipedia editors remove copyrighted content as it’s reported, as is standard practice. Editors may also temporarily or permanently block users if they repeatedly violate copyright policy or other Wikipedia policies. The Wikimedia Foundation has looked into a number of technical approaches, and has created a tool for editors to quickly identify content that may violate copyright policy from Wikipedia Zero networks. This tool, in combination with other existing on wiki practices, has reduced the number of copyright violations from users accessing the sites through Wikipedia Zero. We will also be working with the community in the coming months to determine other approaches that account for good faith edits while also making it easier for editors to remove content that violates policies. In addition, local chapters are also focusing on educating users about relevant copyright policies to help ensure that contributions added to the Wikimedia sites are in line with our policies and mission as a movement.