Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07-01/News and notes



Train the trainer programs
The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Program has for a number of years been the Wikimedia Foundation's primary mover and shaker on the Indian subcontinent. This week they published a promotional blog post to the Wikimedia Blog highlighting the heritage of the center's creation of a train the trainer program. The program hosts a yearly event where the organization invites experienced editors from various distant places in the country and brings them to the center's location in Bangalore for several days' of community engagement and leadership training. The idea is that by training experienced Wikipedians in editor engagement and basic project management, the center can encourage a large population of supportive editors to organize and assist "first-generation" editors both locally and online, helping to extend the reach and the impact of the movement.

Signpost coverage of this years' event containing more information on its particularities can be found here. It is worth pointing out that this editor engagement model aligns well with the engagement paradigm currently being pursued by the WMF's, Funds Dissemination Committee and some affiliated chapters, and so the CIS-A2K event seems to have become an increasingly popular template for other events of the same type elsewhere around the world. The general comments published by the FDC this year ahead of community review of the second biannual funding round reflect this fact, containing a few words from the committee regard 'TTT' programs, reproduced below:

In related news, the WMF Board of Trustees this week approved the FDC's recommendations for the second annual round of annual plan grants. Funds have now been disbursed to Wikimedia Armenia, Wikimedia Italy, Wikimedia Norway, Wikimedia France, and the Center for Internet and Society.

Vice president of engineering Damon Sicore leaves the Foundation
The unusually widespread and high-level suspension of the accounts of Wikimedian vice president of engineering Damon Sicore in mid-June prompted discussion on the mailing list which at the time did not lead to anywhere in particular. Community advocate James Alexander explained at the time that "We adjust the rights of, or access to, staff accounts for many different reasons ... sometimes we can't disclose reasons prior to taking an action, or discuss them immediately." Community member Liam Wyatt clarified the issue by stating that the response he had received from several Foundation staffers was that "Damon is on two weeks leave", but also stated that this was an official statement given to all WMF staffers but were instructed not to state as such in print, only orally: "as a non-WMF employee who has asked WMF-employees for info, and have received the official response, I am sharing the official response here in writing because they are not allowed to: Damon is on two weeks leave." Although Alexander cited the account suspension as temporary, Wyatt correctly stated that per the block logs, WMF-wiki accounts are only ever permanently suspended when an employee leaves the Foundation; if they are rehired, the block is lifted as a part of the on-boarding.

Whatever the issue was at the time, the two weeks have now passed; executive director Lila Tretikov posted on the mailing list that Sicore is indeed leaving the Foundation. Not quite illuminating the reason for the sudden departure. Tretikov said: "Damon's departure is a personnel issue, so we are not able to comment on it." In the interim, teams will directly report to Tretikov and/or to chief operating officer Terence Gibley—Sicore was in charge of the engineering and product department, employing the lion's share of the WMF's funds, so this is a significant executive shortfall to fill.

The Foundation is thus now accepting applications for three new executive positions. Two were planned more in advance: the first position is the VP of staff experiences (a modern term for HR); the hiring form indicates the future creation of a new department called "Staff Experience". The WMF has not had a chief HR person since chief talent and cultural officer Gayle Karen Young left the organization in March; current (then incoming) COO Gilbey has already been overseeing those responsibilities in the meantime. The WMF also put out forms for a chief technology officer (a position that is, in fact, already set up but blank at the WMF's internal staff and contractors page). This hiring is consistent with a letter from executive director Lila Tretikov to the community posted on the mailing lists in April. A new vice president of engineering will now need to be hired, but only afterwards&mdash;Tretikov indicated that filling the CTO role would be the first priority.

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:


 * 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.