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Welcome to Meta! edit

Hello Wittylama, and welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). Happy editing!

-- 10:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia Travel Guide: Naming poll open edit

Hi there,

You are receiving this message because you voiced your opinion at the Request for Comment on the Wikimedia Travel Guide.

The proposed naming poll opened a few days ago and you can vote for as many of the proposed names as you wish, if you are eligible. Please see Travel Guide/Naming Process for full details on voting eligibility and how the final name will be selected. Voting will last for 14 days, and will terminate on 16 October at 06:59:59 UTC.

Thanks, Thehelpfulone 22:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Research talk:Timestamp position modification edit

+1, looks a dead horse though. You'll probably be more effective by nagging sysops on their talk pages across all projects, pointing to the research and telling them to tweak the wiki's MediaWiki:Common.js. The "proper implementation" has already waited for 6 years since this was first tried, it's well possible it will wait 6 more. ;-) --Nemo 22:31, 2 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Welcome to the IEG Committee edit

Hi Liam,
I was so happy when you added your name to the list :-)

Thanks for signing up to join the Individual Engagement Grants Committee! It is my pleasure to confirm your membership. We’ve got a lot to accomplish together, particularly during the next 6 weeks, and it will be awesome to have your help. Here is how to get started:

To make your membership official, please do 2 things by February 11th:

  1. Introduce yourself in the IdeaLab.
  2. Send your email address to IEGrants wikimedia.org, so that we can subscribe you to the committee mailing list.

Then there are 2 first tasks' for active committee members to start on right away:

  1. Review information in the Committee Workroom (your new organizing hub on meta), including responsibilities and the review process. Feedback and questions are very welcome at this stage.
  2. Start giving feedback on open ideas, drafts and proposals. Asking questions to gather information you’ll need to make a recommendation helps prospective grantees think their projects all the way through, and will give us more great proposals to choose from.

Our formal review of proposals starts February 22nd. I’ll be posting information about scoring and selection of proposals on the committee mailing list and in the Workroom soon, so please keep an eye there!

Thanks again for joining this new grantmaking program...I hope we’re going to see some amazing impact from these grants! :-) Siko (WMF) (talk) 06:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Convidando o Brasil edit

Pleas, I would ask your attention to the comments of the committee evaluation, thank you.Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 01:13, 15 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Grantmaking Barnstar edit

  Individual Engagement Grant Barnstar
Liam, for all of your encouraging support, thoughtful picking apart of proposals, amazing questions, terrible knock-knock jokes, and generally awesome presence in discussions, I am grateful to you. Thanks for making this first round of IEGrants work - we could not have done it without you! Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 29 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost edit

Dear Liam,

I've emailed you on a Signpost matter.

Kind regards, Tony (talk) 02:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/Board_elections/2013/Questions/1#Improving_quality edit

Hi. Thanks for your answer to the above. You've mischaracterised my question, though. I wasn't suggesting there should be WMF employees "specifically dedicated to supporting the improvement of content related to a particular subject area." I wouldn't support that. I didn't intend making specific suggestions, as I didn't want to limit my meaning. But, WMF could employ researchers to develop a reliable picture of the quality of our content across topic areas, evaluate the existing quality-improvement models and possibly propose models for testing, if something were to occur to them. But that's not, I hope, all the WMF could do, to help the movement improve the projects' quality and comprehensiveness.

As some candidates haven't yet responded to my question, would you consider amending your answer in case it misleads them?

This may sound a bit terse - I don't know. I'm very sick and tired at the moment, and at my least diplomatic. I support your candidacy and will be urging my colleagues to. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:01, 23 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

responded on AnthonyCole's talkpage. Wittylama (talk) 11:13, 26 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Why people avoid Meta-Wiki edit

Hi. I read this answer of yours. And it made me think of this ongoing discussion. There's an attitude prevalent in the discussion (that I'm surely guilty of perpetuating as well) that Meta-Wiki is an internal wiki meant to serve the Wikimedia (editing) community. There's a feeling that Meta-Wiki is an internal project that should stay internal. When you consider other wikis such as http://outreach.wikimedia.org or http://strategy.wikimedia.org or http://collab.wikimedia.org, I think it becomes kind of easy to see why people working with people outside the Wikimedia editing community might want to avoid Meta-Wiki. It's a cultural quirk that has to be changed here, I think. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:07, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

The initial idea that this was a place for all sorts of 'meta' discussion was a much better one, I think. It inspired poetry and essays on the philosophy of collaboration and neutrality and knowledge, all of which are useful to our mission and to capturing the spirit of our culture, if not a specific current project. And that spirit strongly welcomed other stops on the wiki tourbus and other communities of practice who found such essays and enjoyed them; some of those people helped sort out early wikipedia problems. Others merged their work with one of the sister projects. All of this seems more central to our global/cultural success than the internal / bureaucratic aspects that also appeared here. SJ talk  19:26, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Important announcement: Election delayed by one week edit

The Election Committee regrets to advise that it is necessary to delay the start of voting in the WMF Elections 2013 for one week. This delay is being implemented for three reasons:

  • We have been unable to verify that the list of eligible voters is complete and that all voters meet the published criteria
  • We have been unable to verify that the SecurePoll setups for the election are properly functioning
  • The voter interfaces have not been translated and are not currently available in any language other than English, thus disadvantaging Wikimedians who do not read English.

The following changes are now made to the Election timeline:

  • 8-22 June 2013: elections
  • 23-25 June 2013: vote-checking
  • 25-28 June: publication of results.

For the Election Committee, Risker (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Ideas edit

Dear Liam, I am very glad you stood in this election. I hope we can gather some of the good ideas raised in the questions - make them more like proper dialogues - and fix what isn't working well. See phoebe's suggestion here. Warmly, SJ talk  07:43, 25 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Australian Aboriginal Wikipedias edit

Hi there, Good luck getting on the wiki board.

I'm from Canberra too. I haven't been able to find any Australian Aboriginal language wikipedias. Is there a reason for this? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Does the intensively private nature of many stories and rituals of aboriginal life preclude Aboriginal Language Wikipedias, or is there lack of interest?

Endo999 (talk) 05:55, 15 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Responded on your talkpage. Wittylama (talk) 06:58, 15 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Really sorry edit

Hi, I hope you are doing fine and that you are not too disappointed by the results of the elections. I wanted to thank you for your answers and especially to tell you also you were one of my favorite candidates and I feel sorry you didn't make it. I hope your ideas and vision will prove useful even if you are not in the Board, you have done a really good work so far and I am sure you'll bring a huge amount of other good things too in the next future. Take care, sincerely, Claudi Balaguer/Capsot82.251.41.143 19:52, 25 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

IEG Committee update edit

Hi Liam, I miss you and hope you're well - I've seen some of what's new with you via Ocaasi's TWL conversations...I hope the rest of your life these days is similarly awesome and productive too! I wanted to let you know that as we're finalizing the round 2 committee this week, I moved you to the list of inactive members today. I imagine you're quite busy and I definitely understand how this goes :) But if you'd ever like to be involved again in the future, we're always happy to have your help (thank you thank you thank you for everything you added in round 1 - I feel really lucky to have had your support in the pilot!). Please just send me a message to let me know if you do decide to join back in, and add yourself to a working group. Meanwhile, I hope to run into you soon on other channels. Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 5 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Please fill out our brief Participation Support Program survey edit

Hello, the Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback on the Participation Support Program! We have created a brief survey to help us better understand your experience participating in the program and how we can improve for the future. You are being selected to participate in our survey because you submitted or commented on Participation Support requests in the past.

Click here to be taken to the survey site.

The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. We really appreciate your feedback! And we hope to see you in the Participation Support Program again soon.

Happy editing,

Siko and Haitham, Grantmaking, Wikimedia Foundation.

This message was sent via Global message delivery on 21:48, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

FDC Election Question edit

Hi Liam!

Given the short time frame before the election starts I just wanted to let you know that a question was asked of all FDC candidates on the Candidate question page. If you want to respond you can do so by editing that section and adding your response after the = sign next to your name. The question section will remain open (both for questions and responses) throughout the election and is linked from the voting interface so that voters can read it if they wish.

Thanks again for choosing to run and for your willingness to serve the community. As always please let me or any member of the committee know if you have questions throughout the process.Jalexander--WMF 06:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Signpost inquiry edit

Dear Liam, I've emailed you (on the address I had already, not the WM email system). Tony (talk) 06:16, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Learnings edit

Thank you for fixing that and for making me grin. It is comparatively rare to see humorous observations on Wikimedia. By the way I think some Meerkats might also use such a word. :) Green Giant (talk) 22:00, 23 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Pings edit

FYI, pings don't work on refactors. mw:Manual:Echo has some more tips. But really, I'm watching. :) --Nemo 08:19, 24 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

How can we improve Wikimedia grants to support you better? edit

Hi! The Wikimedia Foundation would like your input on how we can reimagine Wikimedia Foundation grants to better support people and ideas in your Wikimedia project.

After reading the Reimagining WMF grants idea, we ask you to complete this survey to help us improve the idea and learn more about your experience. When you complete the survey, you can enter to win one of five Wikimedia globe sweatshirts!

In addition to taking the the survey, you are welcome to participate in these ways:

This survey is in English, but feedback on the discussion page is welcome in any language.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was sent by I JethroBT (WMF) (talk · contribs) through MediaWiki message delivery. 01:23, 19 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

'Gold coin donation' in Australia and New Zealand edit

Hi Wittylama,

I am getting back to you regarding your suggestion to refer to a "gold coin donation", we are looking at ways we can test this in the banner in Australia and New Zealand and want to make sure we get it right. The current message we use in Australia looks like this. Did you have a particular idea on how to incorporate your suggestion to test against our current banner message? Thank you for your support! JRobell (WMF) (talk) 14:05, 31 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi JRobell (WMF). Thanks for dropping a note here. I'm pleased to see someone's actually read the messages I put on the Fundraising/2015-16 Fundraising ideas page. While I'm still really frickin' annoyed at how the Fundraising team seems to have made 'stonewalling' into an artform, I hope this means that my messages are at least being seen as constructive and useful in a practical sense.
The key fact about the "gold coin donation" concept (in both Aus and NZ) is that this refers to the $1 and $2 denominations which are "gold" coloured. see the tables in w:Coins of the Australian dollar and w:Coins of the New Zealand dollar to see what I mean. Because these are the largest denominations that exist as coins (the next up is the $5 banknote), saying a "gold coin donation" is the equivalent of saying "$2 please". It's the largest amount you can give in a single coin which is mentally a "small amount of money". So... your test banner, while still allowing for the possibility of people donating larger amounts, needs to be geared around TWO dollars, not THREE as it currently is. This might change the amount of time you list as the time it would take to meet the fundraiser target. Also, if you use the "gold coin donation" line, that would have the added benefit of being able to insert that instead of the cringeworthy "cup of coffee" line.
More generally - what about the broader concept (to which this "gold coin donation" was one example) that I suggested at the aforementioned page: where you create a page for people to suggest culturally appropriate options for the concept of "a small amount of money"? It's nice that you're testing things (like the israeli example of the pastry) but you're not exactly tapping into the resources of the worldwide community if making things culturally appropriate is something you'd like to be doing. [Relatedly, how about getting an actual Community Liaison role for the Fundraising team?] Wittylama (talk) 15:47, 31 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi Wittylama,

Thank you for your message and sorry for the delay in replying. It’s busy times for fundraising, but we certainly do read your messages and appreciate your feedback and your ideas.
Thank you for your detailed feedback regarding the ‘one coin price’. This is all clear and would indeed be interesting to test. We are working on a creating a banner like this to test in Australia and New Zealand and will keep you updated as we move forward.
As I wrote on the fundraising ideas page, we are setting up a form on our fundraising translation page where community members can sign up if they are interested in contributing with feedback regarding localization and translation. I am however hesitant to create another page dedicated to the ‘price of a cup of coffee’. We already have a number of fundraising related pages on Meta and adding one more might just make it even more confusing for everyone. Instead I will add this question to the talk page of the fundraising translation page and suggest that people leave their feedback and suggestions there.
Regarding your comment to have a community liaison role within the fundraising team, as mentioned on the fundraising 2015 ideas page, we are working together with the Community Engagement team on how we can improve on this point. Thank you very much for your support and your patience. JRobell (WMF) (talk) 13:20, 11 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Last call for WMF grants feedback! edit

Hi, this is a reminder that the consultation about Reimagining WMF grants is closing on 8 September (0:00 UTC). We encourage you to complete the survey now, if you haven't yet done so, so that we can include your ideas.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was sent by I JethroBT (WMF) (talk · contribs) through MediaWiki message delivery. 19:08, 4 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

What future IdeaLab campaigns would you like to see? edit

 

Hi there,

I’m Jethro, and I’m seeking your help in deciding topics for new IdeaLab campaigns that could be run starting next year. These campaigns aim to bring in proposals and solutions from communities that address a need or problem in Wikimedia projects. I'm interested in hearing your preferences and ideas for campaign topics!

Here’s how to participate:

Take care,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation. 03:34, 5 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Future IdeaLab Campaigns results edit

 

Last December, I invited you to help determine future ideaLab campaigns by submitting and voting on different possible topics. I'm happy to announce the results of your participation, and encourage you to review them and our next steps for implementing those campaigns this year. Thank you to everyone who volunteered time to participate and submit ideas.

With great thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation. 23:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Inspire Campaign on content curation & review edit

 

I've recently launched an Inspire Campaign to encourage new ideas focusing on content review and curation in Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia volunteers collaboratively manage vast repositories of knowledge, and we’re looking for your ideas about how to manage that knowledge to make it more meaningful and accessible. We invite you to participate and submit ideas, so please get involved today! The campaign runs until March 28th.

All proposals are welcome - research projects, technical solutions, community organizing and outreach initiatives, or something completely new! Funding is available from the Wikimedia Foundation for projects that need financial support. Constructive feedback on ideas is welcome - your skills and experience can help bring someone else’s project to life. Join us at the Inspire Campaign to improve review and curation tasks so that we can make our content more meaningful and accessible! I JethroBT (WMF) 05:38, 29 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was sent by I JethroBT (WMF) (talk · contribs) through MediaWiki message delivery.

Open Call for Individual Engagement Grants edit

 

Greetings! The Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) program is accepting proposals until April 12th to fund new tools, research, outreach efforts, and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds (up to $30,000 USD), IEGs can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.

With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources 15:57, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for creating FDC Deliberations page edit

 
Cat-with-glass-by-belle-johnson

Hi Lyam,
Thank you for creating this page, it is so, so useful. And thank you for using icons. I do believe that it makes accessibility easier for people all over the world.
As a token of my appreciation, please regard the cute cat photograph, a work in the Public Domain.  
Warm regards, María (WMF) (talk) 08:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Cross-wiki watchlist edit

Hi! You voted for the cross-wiki watchlist as an important suggestions in the community wishlist survey last year. I'm pinging editors who showed interest in that task to tell them we have some suggestions for how things could look, if you'd like to glance at them and give us some feedback. You can find them on the project page on Meta. If you'd like to share any comments, you're very welcome to do so on the talk page. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 00:54, 21 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for participating in Learning Day, Wikimedia Conference 2016 edit

 
Certificate of participation in
Learning Day
Wikimedia Conference 2016
Wittylama, we hope the resources you took on this day help you to expand your projects and coach other peers in your local community!
Make sure to keep the learning wheel rolling: (1) share something you learn via a Learning Pattern; (2) share any new resources you create on our portal and social media.
Warmly, the Learning Day team. María (WMF) (talk) 21:22, 26 May 2016 (UTC)Reply


Thank you for engaging at Wikimedia Conference 2016 Learning Days! edit

    This Certificate of Appreciation awards Wittylama for being a great
Teaching Lead
at one or many Learning Days session(s) in Wikimedia Conference 2016
Wittylama, we hope this experience has empowered you to continue sharing your experiences to enlighten others in your local community... and beyond! We hope to continue to foster together peer-to-peer learning. Warmly, the Learning Days team. María (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 27 May 2016 (UTC)Reply
 

Through June, we’re organizing an Inspire Campaign to encourage and support new ideas focusing on addressing harassment toward Wikimedia contributors. The 2015 Harassment Survey has shown evidence that harassment in various forms - name calling, threats, discrimination, stalking, and impersonation, among others - is pervasive. Available methods and systems to deal with harassment are also considered to be ineffective. These behaviors are clearly harmful, and in addition, many individuals who experience or witness harassment participate less in Wikimedia projects or stop contributing entirely.

Proposals in any language are welcome during the campaign - research projects, technical solutions, community organizing and outreach initiatives, or something completely new! Funding is available from the Wikimedia Foundation for projects that need financial support. Constructive feedback on ideas is appreciated, and collaboration is encouraged - your skills and experience may help bring someone else’s project to life. Join us at the Inspire Campaign so that we can work together to develop ideas around this important and difficult issue. With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:46, 31 May 2016 (UTC) (Opt-out instructions)Reply

That terrible terrible thing edit

I have tried (in vain) to make the Round 2 recommendation appear on this page. I did end up at some point on the template and saw this edit of yours, which makes me think I am missing something. But for the life of me, I can't find what to do to make the recommendation link appear. Ideas? Thanks. :) Delphine (WMF) (talk) 10:58, 20 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

Fixed (diff)! I think the issue was that User:Mike Peel had been adjusting the naming conventions for the FDC docs in the meantime, so it no longer has the word "portal" in the article title. Wittylama (talk) 13:13, 20 June 2016 (UTC)Reply
Oh man, I spent at least half an hour first looking for the place to fix it and then looked at it in vain, hoping to find something that would fix it. Thanks a bunch. ;) Delphine (WMF) (talk) 12:36, 21 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

2016 Community Wishlist Survey edit

Hi,

You’re getting this message because you participated in the 2015 Community Wishlist Survey and we want to make sure you don't miss it this year – or at least can make the conscious choice to ignore if it you want to. The 2015 survey decided what the Community Tech team should work on during 2016. It was also the focus of Wikimedia hackathons and work by other developers. You can see the status of wishes from the 2015 wishlist at 2015 Community Wishlist Survey/Results.

The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey is now open for wishes. You can create proposals until November 20. You will be able to vote on which wishes you think are best or most important between November 28 and December 12. /Johan (WMF) (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:17, 14 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

 

Thanks for your participation during the Inspire Campaign focused on outreach to outside knowledge networks from February 2017. I'm interested in hearing your experience during the campaign, so if you're able, I invite you to complete this brief survey to describe how you contributed to the campaign and how you felt about participating. I want to improve how campaigns are run, so let me know if there's something that could be done better for next time.

Please feel free to let me know on my talk page if you have any questions about the campaign or the survey. Thanks! I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 31 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

(Opt-out instructions)

Survey link error fixed edit

Hi there, there was a error with the Inspire survey link that caused the survey to be shown as expired, but has now been fixed. The link in the above message should now bring you to the survey. Apologies, I JethroBT (WMF) 19:20, 31 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Good luck! edit

Hey Liam, I'd like to wish you all the best for the upcoming FDC election. It would be a pleasure and honor for me to serve with you. Warmly, --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 03:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

I second this. Tony (talk) 14:03, 29 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

All the best for FDC election! edit

Hi Liam! I see that you running as me for the FDC election. I'll be very happy to work with you on the commettee. --BamLifa (talk) 16:56, 29 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

Romania 14-18 answers edit

Deal Liam

I sent the request answers via e-mail, to you and Ad Pole, on 21, 23 an 24 of September. Please confirm me if you received at least one of the message. --Macreanu Iulian (talk) 18:50, 24 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

yes Macreanu Iulian, I received the emails of 23rd and 24th. Thank you :-) Wittylama (talk) 19:51, 24 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Help for transfering images from Europeana edit

Liam,

Could you help us with a mass transfer of this images from Europeana. We are develpping a project on our wiki dedicated to the greatest Romanian painter, Nicolae Grigorescu and it will be very useful for us.

On the other hand, there is an instrument that one can use to perform such operations?

Thank you in advance! --Macreanu Iulian (talk) 09:45, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yes Macreanu Iulian - I probably can help you with that! I'll be in the Europeana office in the Netherlands in a week, and I will investigate using the [[commons:Commons:GLAMwiki Toolset|GLAMWIKI toolset] for that. This is request is simplified by the fact that there are these 341 files from the same institution, same artist, and same free-license [1]. Wittylama (talk) 06:47, 14 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

The Community Wishlist Survey edit

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) 11:24, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Photography and consent at upcoming Wikimedia hackathon edit

Hey Liam,

Rachel pointed me to your comments on the Friendly space policy consultation and I wanted to reach out.

I'm helping organize volunteer photographers at the upcoming hackathon. I'm doing this in my volunteer capacity with other volunteer photographers (but have helped with my staff hat on in past years. This dual-life is complicated :) ). I agree with your comments and think we can do better. How can we better setup expectations when orienting photographers to the concerns you raised? I'm drafting an email to folks who signed up to help with photographing the event. We mention the lanyards and say if someone doesn't want their photo taken to please ask them to get an appropriate lanyard. I have some ideas and would love to hear yours. Could we maybe mention more about the expectations of what is uploaded to Commons? Things like making it more clear to consider the educational value before uploading, don't share unflattering photos, share knowledge of the polices around photos of identifiable people, and maybe even remind folks of the process to ask for a photo to be removed from Commons?

I've helped with the photography efforts at the last few Wikimedia Hackathons and have tried to be as thoughtful as possible - ensuring volunteer photographers know the lanyard system, making sure we mention something during opening remarks, etc. There's much more we can do here and I'd love to work with you (or anyone) to champion improvements within my own remit.

Best, Ckoerner (talk) 20:47, 29 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hi User:Ckoerner - I'd say my main point of principle is that the burden of responsibility currently is the wrong way around (in my opinion). Currently the person being photographed is responsible to chase how their image is being used. This should be the photographer's responsibility. Therefore, as a practical point, I would like to see a position where 'if the person you are photographing doesn't know that you took the photo (e.g. it's a candid shot, and they're not presenting on stage or posing for the camera...) then the photographer should NOT publish the picture on Commons without first checking with the subject. That is: the default lanyard should NOT mean "any and all photograph of me is fine". The default lanyard should mean "I'm 'not against' being photographed". I would ask photogaphers to differentiate between what they consider personal photographs - things they would be willing to put on closed-internet (e.g. facebook and attaching to private messages) and open internet (flickr, Commons). The latter should be a subset, not a complete overlap. Furthermore, you use a key word is "documentation". What is the purpose of making organising photography for this event: it is for documentation purposes - grant reporting, posterity, creating a record of what was done. It is not about being artistic per-se, not about capturing social moments, not about "journalism" for reporting to the media or uncovering some facts. The scope of Commons is 'educational' content and explicitly NOT about cloud hosting personal photography. Thus, in my opinion, only photographs which can plausibly be used in an official report of the event - someone presenting their work, pictures of the whiteboard with stickynotes, the official group photo of attendees... - should be uploaded to Commons. The rest should go on Flickr or Facebook: people drinking together, a couple of people deep in conversation; people typing or walking down the street... Of course, I don't expect that message to either get through to, or be agreed by, wikimedia photographers who are used to our existing norms of behaviour. So, I guess a practical step in the middle ground would be a third-lanyard for "it's contextual: ask me before publishing". Also user:The Land, in agreeing with my comments on the consultation page, has suggested trialling an “active consent” policy for an event.
For some practical examples, I just looked at the commons category:Wikimania 2018 Hackathon: Do these people know they're being photographed?, do they mind? (at least they're not specifically tagged by name, and its not face-on to the camera), but I struggle to find the educational or documentation value in this picture. What about this person who is categorised by name - it's a pretty photograph but does he know about it? what about this closeup group shot?, they're not aware of the camera but it's got them all face-on. this person doesn't know they're being photographed holding their mouth, while for comparison this is a low quality selfie shot that serves no documentation purpose (and neither does this). This is a photo over someone's shoulder of their computer screen - too blurry for useful documentation but clear enough to be a potentially invasive shot considering the subject probably didn't know they were being photographed]]. And what possible value to the scope of does this phototograph of a photograph have. By comparison This is informed consent, arguably this is useful documentation, this is a reasonable expectation of being photographed.
I realise this is a bit of a grab-bag of shots with different complaints about them, but my point is that the current social expectation of our events is that anything at any moment can and will be photographed AND published online with time/place/name metadata, WITH a free-license, REGARDLESS of whether the subject is aware of the picture NOR the quality or journalistic/documentation value of the image. And that's just one category of one event. I did a quick search for categories of "food" at wikimedia events and found these two examples that make my point clear I think: does this lady know that there's a photo of her eating fondu online? Do these three ladies know there's a photo of them chewing salad?, or this lady eating noodles taken with a zoom lens?. These images serve no educational or documentation value... they're just, frankly, creepy. Simply putting a personality rights template on it, and saying 'you can take a no-photo lanyard' or 'you can ask to have it deleted' is not sufficient - and puts the burden of responsibility on the unwitting subject.
Our current audience at Wikmedia events generally doesn't mind or notice because, well, that's just the way things are. But think about how welcoming this would be if you're not already comfortable and friends with a large proportion of the attendees.
Sorry... long reply which is high in questions and low in answers, I know!
p.s. I've copy-pasted the paragraph with all the example links into the FSP discussion page, since it would be useful there too. --Wittylama (talk) 14:53, 30 April 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thanks Liam. I understand if you had more time you would have written a shorter letter. :) [2]. I'm trying to capture the attention and energy around this subject to make some actionable change where I can. I replied on the other talk page for more input. I probably shouldn't be hijacking the Friendly space policy consultation, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Ckoerner (talk) 16:13, 2 May 2019 (UTC)Reply
I do understand your point and just wanted to say that this was my shoulder and I knew that Nahid was taking a photo of the presentation I was going to hold. Light could be better and the photo be improved but I am fine with it so far. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 12:40, 6 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

SourceMD edit

So SourceMD seems to be one of the core tools for WikiCite in general (and underpins a lot of the query-type projects like Scholia). Do you know if there are any plans to get it up and running again? Otherwise wikidata just has a very fragmented dataset for publications. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:00, 11 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

The person to ask for that would be Daniel Mietchen. I personally know of no plans, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Wittylama (talk) 14:49, 11 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Question about e-scholarship edit

I've submitted a question on the e-scholarship discussion page. Would you have time to see it?--BamLifa (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Answered over on that page, with my work user-account. Thanks. Wittylama (talk) 12:31, 24 September 2020 (UTC)Reply