User talk:Siko (WMF)

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Thoughts on individual grant size

Dear Siko,

I was thinking about fellowships and IEG proposals recently. And thought about how the fellowship program encouraged amazing work, adding to but not more amazing than the best work done without such support; and at the same time created a large gap between those supported (at full-time salary for months, with frequent blog posts and other spotlights) and everyone else (who got if lucky the occasional blog mention.) The current IEG creates slightly smaller gaps -- many applicants are asking for support for group projects, or projects with significant material expenses. Some are asking for very little, but it seems they may be excluded by virtue of being so small. The target average grant size is still a large and, to some, offputting amount to give the "winning" proposals... and again the alternative is no support.

A less divisive way to bootstrap individual support might be gradually, with small amounts. In my mind there is a sweet spot around ~$1k/mo for 1-6 months. That's enough to cover housing for people in almost any part of the world; and enough to support a team of 5 working full-time in places with the lowest cost of living. It could be given to dozens of individuals/groups a year; and is at the same time Not a Big Deal yet also being Totally Awesome. So the issue could simply be "ask for this if you need it, don't if you do not." rather than "apply for this Reward if you think your idea is Best and will Win". Stipends of roughly that low amount also helped get Global Voices off the ground without feelings of discontent or resentment. In that case there was expressly a reach out to find someone who could take on a granted/stipended role once there were enough volunteer projects/blog reviews in that area/language-group. And every paid role both produced something new and facilitated the work of others.

Once small grants were available for individual support, it seems less disheartening to me to also have some larger grants for those who feel they need them for a particular epic project.

None of this is related to your own oversight and facilitation, which as ever I find inspiring; thank you. I know that the current program is set on its course, and look forward to seeing what comes of it. –SJ talk  08:27, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi SJ! I've got some similar concerns about the amounts requested for IEGrants in this round, actually. I hope that ideas asking for the smaller amounts of funding won't be dismissed by the committee - we'll be able to give out more grants if we don't spend the total amount on just a few grants for $30k each, and spreading out the number of projects and ideas we can test with a pot of grant money among more grantees feels like the right way to go, even with the current model for somewhat grand-scale projects (the thing I love most about people in this community: big dreams! the thing I'd love to encourage more of: dream big, scope small). I'd love to see us make a range of grants, maybe one large and several small, and see what comes as a result. I guess we'll have to see how that plays out in this round before making further tweaks, and depending to what degree WMF is willing to continue investing in grants to individuals, I think there is some more room to play with a program specifically for smaller grants as you say...the Global Voices model is totally fascinating. Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts here - I'm a little distracted trying to "meet the deadlines" on the current course obviously, but not so much that I'm not interested in tossing around other models we should try in the future :-) Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Ineligible proposals

Hi, I have changed the status of four proposals to ineligible, those were empty/incomplete, no responses from anybody per obvious reasons. Hope you don't mind. And I thought I should let you know. And I replied at my talk page regarding IEG design. -- ɑηsuмaη ^{ʈ ᶏ ɭ Ϟ} 22:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ansuman, thanks for letting me know. I had not marked those that were incomplete with status ineligible for a specific reason, actually. Incomplete proposals are sent intentionally back to the IdeaLab rather than marked ineligible, because they can be worked on to be improved for future rounds still...eligibility is a particular status that WMF staff determines from the eligibility criteria, so it is somewhat different than a measure of completeness. It is not a big problem, but in the future it would be better to not change eligibility status yourself, because in this round we've assigned this action to WMF staff and I would prefer to not confuse people by having non-staffers also adding that status to pages right now. Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:59, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Re:6 months or 2 years?

Hi Siko, thanks for reminding. I just changed the plan from 2 years to 6 months to make it eligible. And thanks for providing information about WMF Grants. Please let me if anything I can do.--AddisWang (talk) 02:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Grants:IEG/MediaWiki and Javanese script

Siko, I've replied your question on the talk page. Based on the current proposal, would this proposal fit to the eligibility criteria? ✒ Bennylin 14:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Bennylin, sorry if that was confusing. Yes, you're eligible, that review template at the top of your proposal talk page basically means you'll be considered by the committee during this round :-) Siko (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Idea Lab

Per Grants talk:IEG/Backlog pages for all WikiProjects moving over to the Idea lab sounds like a good one, but I'm not sure how one would do that. Thanks! Biosthmors (talk) 05:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Done! Looking forward to seeing this take shape more for the next round :-) Siko (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate it! Biosthmors (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Re:Verification

Hi! Can you talk a bit more about verification? If you plan to verify as the Chinese Wikipedia Community (and I appreciate why you are doing that, thanks for being clear!), what exactly would be needed from the WMF end to support this? Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I found another page for details. Since I'm not the Staff of WMF, I need "An Authorization Letter for maintaining the Weibo account with Company’s seal or legal person’s signature" and a copy or a photo of "The Company Registration Documents" at the end.--AddisWang (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I've checked with WMF communications and legal and they do not believe WMF will be able to provide verification, unfortunately. Here is the reason:

All chapter/community/volunteer oriented twitter or social media handles managed by volunteers have been created by those groups and are maintained solely by those groups. If WMF was to provide a seal or corporate confirmation of any sort (even certifying that the account is volunteer-run), this presents a risk because we can then be held accountable for anything done or said on the account, including if an account was hacked etc. WMF cannot approve or verify a social media account on behalf of a group of volunteers or contributors at present - particularly if it means maintaining that approval with a third party.

Sorry to be the bearer of disappointing news! That being said, it sounds like your project budget was not really intended to be used for the verification, but rather for engaging the community that you connect with via this Weibo account. So, given that, I am wondering if you believe your project can still continue as planned and be successful without WMF-assisted verification? Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:14, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Siko. Yes I had bad feeling when I got the information. I can understand the WMF policy which is the reason I try to avoid the issue happened in maintenance. According to the data of the account, we attract at most 30 followers everyday. Which is six months will be 3600. With the prize I mentioned in the plan, it will work for attracting thousands people to follow us. But the boom will not gona to happen. I'm sure we can achieve a lower level of success without verification. Depends on that, I will change the criterion of the application. But I'm not sure should I remove the verification part from the plan or just keep it. Thanks!--AddisWang (talk) 00:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I suggest updating the plan to reflect that verification is not possible. You can add a note at the top of the page mentioned it has been updated from the original submission based on the talk page discussion, if you like. Thanks! I am hoping all the best for your PR efforts, whatever happens :-) Siko (WMF) (talk) 01:22, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Questions at proposal pages!

Hi, please see the last discussion. The questions at proposal talk pages (I guess there'd be similar questions at other proposals) about budgets, I found it inappropriate. Isn't there a better way to do this, like asking by wmf staffs or discussing privately. Anyway we are mentioning the amount publicly. What you think! (Asking as a committee member!) -- ɑηsuмaη ^«T» 21:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the response and clarification. I actually think, prefer this kind of discussions should be done publicly, but I found this inappropriate the way I was asked. That's why I reacted. I have made the changes and replied there again. Thank you! -- ɑηsuмaη ^«T» 04:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Grants talk:IEG/Consolidate wikiArS to involve art schools

Hi Siko, I've seen the feedback evaluation from committee. Should I answer the comments (specially first and second)? Where? Inside or outside the score template? Thanks! --Dvdgmz (talk) 09:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi! You aren't obligated to respond, as those comments are mostly intended for you to consider as input if a) your project is selected for a grant in this round and we enter the fine-tuning adjustments phase to your project plan or b) your project is not selected in this round but you'd like to improve your proposal and resubmit in a future round. However, you'd be most welcome to address them on the talk page now too of course. I might suggest just creating a new section outside of that template called something like "response to aggregate scoring feedback." Make sense? Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Oups, just now I see your answer. I'm going to prepare the comments and we can comment also in our call . --Dvdgmz (talk) 15:17, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

interview

Hi Siko
Sorry for delayed response. I just sent an Email though "Email this user" about the interview you mentioned on my talk page. Let me know if you don't get it. Thanks a lot!
--AddisWang (talk) 18:53, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Addis - I just emailed you back, let me know if you don't get this one either. Hope to speak soon :-) Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Working Wikipedian's Barnstar

Working Wikipedian's Barnstar

Thanks for the work, perseverance, patience, and skill in spearheading the IEG program. Thanks especially for responding patiently and carefully to my countless questions and comments. I enjoyed working with you and I'm grateful for all that you've done. --Pine^✉ 21:35, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Herding Cats Barnstar

Thanks for being so patient and thorough and kind with us! It musn't have been easy dealing with people from all around the world with such different backgrounds, but I think you did beautifully. It was a pleasure working with you, I peronally learned a lot, and I look forward to future rounds. (You made my day with that unexpected barnstar, I hope this makes you smile too!) Raystorm (talk) 10:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for the barnstar! In the process of reviewing applications, I learned a lot of new stuff! It was exciting to be a part of the IEG committee and I enjoyed collaborating with other members and brainstorming ideas. I am a bit disappointed that I could not work as hard as I wanted. I plan to get more active during Round 2! Netha Hussain (talk) 12:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Ditto for the thanks Sbouterse!Sadads (talk) 20:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for your message. I am afraid that my availability might change until August, so I am not sure I will be able to apply again. In any case, I appreciate all of the feedback and the way the evaluation process took place. GoEThe (talk) 12:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I want to thank you as well for your message in the IEG process. I am in a similar situation as the last participant. I am not sure I will be able to apply again but in any case I appreciate all the feedback. We'll be in touch. --Marcmiquel (talk) 16:31, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The Idealab design

Hiya Siko. I didn't follow the idealab design, I recently saw the pages. I absolutely love what you guys did, I love the kitten, I love the clean design and all the organization there. I don't know if you are the only one to credit, I'm sure Ms. Walls had a large part in it. So, please accept this as Job well done! I commend both of you. I hope a little bit of that levity, and charm gets carried over in other staff projects as well, most of them look very serious. Please pass on this appreciation to anyone else involved in the design. Good job! (I would make a minor critique though, that the main page(Grants:Idealabs) is a bit too long and can be tightened up but it's a trivial concern.)- Kind regards. Theo10011 (talk) 21:55, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, Theo! Levity is definitely what we've been going for, and I'm happy to hear you think more fun in staff projects would be a good thing, because I'm hoping we'll keep on like this (where appropriate) in the future :-) Much credit is indeed due to Heather Walls, so I'll make sure she sees this too. We're also working on a sprint of IdeaLab improvements this month, and will end up with a new, shorter main landing page and more sub-pages instead, so hopefully that should be even better (totally agree with your critique). Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

You have new messages

Hello, Siko (WMF). You have new messages at Netha Hussain's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

commons:User talk:Rillke/Discuss/2013/2#looking for info about Wikivoyage logo voting

I am sorry for the belated reply there; that's why I'd like to make you aware of it. You'll receive the material on 6th or 7th August. If there are questions left (also after reading the material), feel invited to ask me (at Commons). I hope this is ok for you, if not, just tell me right away. Thanks for your interest. Best -- Rillke (talk) 11:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Reveille

Good morning! --Pine^✉ 07:03, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

And breakfast too! Thanks, Pine, just what I needed :) Siko (WMF) (talk) 14:43, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Grant input

Hello! I wanted to let you know that I've prepared a good portion of the grant over at Grants:IEG/Reimagining WP Mentorship, but I'd really appreciate your review and input as soon as it is convenient for you! Feel free to just make changes, especially in regards to budgeting (unsure of prospective values), additions, and changes in wording. Thanks! --Jackson Peebles (talk) 02:51, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Please fill out our brief Participation Support Program survey

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,

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IEG: Maps

Hello Siko,
The Wikimania HK and your interaction with us encouraged us a LOT to go ahead for the IEG. Our grant request is posted there /Wikimaps Atlas. Are we still allowed to edit our proposal following the comments we start to get ? Yug (talk) 19:15, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Yug! I'm so glad you were encouraged and submitted your proposal. We'll be posting some more info on your page later this week. Meanwhile, yes, you are absolutely welcome to make edits and updates during this discussion period - it is a good idea to consider this your living project plan :) Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 00:40, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thank! Yug (talk) 10:19, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Siko: thanks for our HK talks, the Wikimaps group got 2 IEG requests ready for review, Wikimaps Atlas & Sharemap. Nice ! Yug (talk) 20:44, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Hong Kong

Was an excellent situation to sound out about the ideas, and I must say the ideas lab was very helpful in a number of ways. Now I am on the ground in a sort of way after some post Hong Kong diversions, the general application will be worked on as soon as I can organise. Thanks. sats (talk) 09:38, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Glad to hear it, SatuSuro! Looking forward to more soon, Siko (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Comments on ShareMap Grant page

Hi Siko,

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:IEG/ShareMap

Thanks for commenting ShareMap grant page I tried to answer your questions in both discussion page and in grant description

If you have any further question or something needs clarification just let me know

--Jkan997 (talk) 10:36, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Now i remember the conversation

I have just remembered the main conversation we had in Hong Kong.

On Wednesday 23rd I have an umissable component of the project arise which I have to attend to, and have stated as such on my talk page for the IEG, and am begging leave from whoever might be examining it on that day that there are some edits due in thet evening or the following day due to the wiki takes event trouncing all other commitments.

In the strictest sense an opportunity presented itself to further the project which requires me to drive 400km + (probably 500km) tomorrow

Hope that it doesnt create a problem for anyone. sats (talk) 12:48, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi SatuSuro. Thanks for the info. The committee will be reading and scoring proposals for over a week, starting on the 23rd, so I don't think you need to worry about this timing interfering with the scoring/review process in particular - good luck with your opportunity! Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

What is about - C'est quoi. A series of communication tools about Wikipedia. Cameroon pilot project

thanks for the feedback. --iopensa (talk) 11:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

You're most welcome, iopensa - I think your scores look quite good overall and I know the committee was pleased with the level of thought and detail that went into your proposal overall, so thanks for seeing this through :) Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:17, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

IEG committee

Hi , Siko , Thank you for informing me. I have quite busy to our WMIN FDC process, so I haven't engage myself this round to much. I would like to works in next round if you like. Thanks Jayantanth (talk) 07:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Jayantanth. I completely understand, and wish you all the best with the FDC process meanwhile! Let's be in touch next round to see how things stand for you then. Best, wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

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New IEG proposal

Hi Siko, I just applied for an IEG here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Global_Economic_Map Do you have any advice on the budget for this project? I'm unsure what amount to assign for each individual expense. Thanks Mcnabber091 (talk) 02:36, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Mcnabber091! Thanks for the ping, and sorry for the slow reply :) I'm happy to see this idea move from the Lab to IEG Proposal - nicely done! We'll start looking at 2014 proposals after the new year (will put out a schedule as soon as we get through announcing the round 2 2013 proposals later this month), so you've got some time to investigate costs for your budget a bit more. I see that Ocaasi gave you some budget advice already, which is great. I'd suggest just putting the total amount (is that 5,000? or 10,000 because an additional 5,000 is for project management?) in your "total amount requested" section. Then, breakdown the costs line by line in your budget breakdown section: $1000 for travel (say what kind of travel you're planning, if possible, so we can help you decide if that cost is high/low/just right), $5000 to hire a contractor (or co-grantee?) to build/develop/herd the bots, $totalamount for project management (I assume that's you, doing the research, usability testing, etc etc), and so on (will you need $ for usability testing? will you need any funds for organizing collaborations w/ Wikidata? etc) Once you've done this, you'll probably be left with a list of a couple of things that you know will take some money but you have no idea what they will cost. If so, feel free to post those questions on the talk page of your proposal and ping me, and we'll see how to lend a hand there :) Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Response

Hi Siko. Thanks for your comments. Have gone offline for further, having made my comments at my talk page. cheers. sats (talk) 00:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

And considering the possibility that I seemed to have misunderstood the process of the IEG process, I have archived the conversations. It would be good to have an off wiki conversation to clarify a few issues if possible thanks. sats (talk) 07:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Grants

Ciao m(r)s. Bouterse.

Surprising you're head of the grants. I was member of GAC and never seen your name. I have an idea to let grow participation here in Valdarno and/or to improve the cooperation of e.g. Italian and Dutch communities. Travel expenses may be an issue? You may contact me via klaasv(at)innocentisart(dot)eu. Thank you very much in advance and kind regards,  Klaas|Z4␟V:  09:39, 1 March 2014 (UTC) BTW are you related to Desi (don't think since you seem not to speak Dutch and he does)?

Ciao Klaas! No, I'm happy to say I'm not related to Desi Bouterse...my father is Dutch though and Bouterse is a not uncommon Dutch name :) Nice to meet you - I've worked at WMF for a couple of years now, but never directly with the GAC or that particular grants program (we have a few different grantmaking programs and areas of responsibilities that have grown up over time, as you may have noticed). It would be great to have your idea added! Travel expenses can certainly be considered for IEGs. For projects that focus on growing local participation, we tend to be most interested in funding new strategies that, if successful, can later be adapted for other contexts in the world too. Please let me know if I can help answer any questions, and looking forward to seeing your idea on-wiki! Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Converting IEG proposals from 2013-02 to 2014-01

Hi Siko, can you point me to the correct procedure converting this and this to a 2014-01 proposal? Thanks in advance. -- Rillke (talk) 21:34, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Rillke, I'm glad to see that we'll have you back again this round :) Basically, you'll just need to make sure that you've got all the required sections for this round - see the example at the bottom of this kit, because a few small changes have been made to the form since last round. I updated the status and round/year in your infoboxes on both your proposals (feel free to just revert me if you change your mind about working on either one for this round). Once you've made any other changes that you want to make to the proposal itself (and feel free to add a note on the talk page to make it clear that you're resubmitting for this round), then just change the infobox status to PROPOSED in order to make the final submission. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any doubts! Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:21, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! That helped me a lot. I've a couple of new questions, though:

• Would it be considered unfair competition, if I would use my Wikimedia Commons administrator-status for distributing a message to all pronunciation recording users?

I think this would be just fine - we want people to reach their target communities anyway they can, and having community input is not just good for your project, it is good for IEGrants in general. Please do use anything available to you to get people to give feedback. Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Is it an issue that I raised the budget multiple times after changing to PROPOSED?

No, that is fine. We think proposals should be living documents, they become your project plan if funded and can continue to develop, so please do continue to update it in response to feedback and new information. Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Can we go on making changes (mainly formal and community involvement-related) until the deadline?

Yes, please do! Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Is joining the Hangouts optional? Is it beneficial? I never used Google Hangouts. I am also not entirely happy that I would have to install the "Google-Spy-PlugIn" (tried joining on Thursday but aborted when I was prompted to download and install). Will there be some IRC-meetings?

It is entirely optional. These Hangouts are a new experiment we're trying for how to give people help in real time - we're just using them to answer questions and discuss ideas with anyone who wants to talk about IEG. When we've hosted IRC meetings in the past, they haven't seemed very useful to people (or maybe the people who needed them didn't end up showing up, I'm not sure). But, if an IRC meeting seems like something that would be very useful for you, please let me know and I'm happy to try again hosting one there as well. Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Thus, it is basically a complementary resource to asking questions and working on-wiki. The Kurier (rough equivalent to the Signpost but without fixed editorial staff) has reported about the fact that Google Hangouts are being used. Therefore, I would be curious, after the first hangout is over, whether you would say it was more productive than the previous IRC meetings? And perhaps something you want to tell the Kurier and therefore large parts of the German Wikipedia Community? I guess Aschmidt, the author is also curious about that. -- Rillke (talk) 11:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me, Rillke. It is true, I strongly oppose using Google hangouts for community projects because it is a commercial service which does not comply with European privacy standards. We have the Freenode network for free-software and free-content projects which is free to anyone and a reliable service. I also do not think that someone interested in a Wikimedia project would not use Freenode. BTW, it is frowned upon that use of Google hangouts is increasing. It just has been announced by WMDE that there will be hangouts within the diversity project. We should not do this.--Aschmidt (talk) 17:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

While Aschmidt used strong words here, the Kurier-aricle is neutral on this. It is just mentioned there ;-) One the one hand, it is entirely optional joining it and if more efficient than IRC meetings and they're preferable for certain users (see Roundtables, for more examples) -- great; on the other hand I share the privacy concerns by Aschmidt. So WMF may consider building a similar infrastructure? Curious Rillke (talk) 19:34, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Rillke and Aschmidt for sharing these insights :) We've had 2 Hangouts so far this month, the second was a bit better attended than the first, and we were able to use the time in both sessions to talk about IEG and workshop a few people's proposals in ways that did appear to be more productive than IRC meetings we've tried in the past. Of course, we won't actually know if this translates into concrete action until later in the process: When we deploy a post-decision survey to IEG proposers, we'll include a question about this aspect of support, to collect more data about how useful it really was, so that we can all benefit from learning more about this experiment. To Aschmidt's point about the Freenode network being the best choice for all Wikimedians, though, I somewhat disagree. We do aim to use open source software whenever we can to meet our needs. For some Wikimedians, it works really well. Others tell me they dislike using IRC and don't show up to IRC meetings. Personally, I find that a variety of communication methods is necessary for working with different sorts of people on different sorts of tasks, and sometimes having voice is quite useful for helping people think something through efficiently, and for making new people feel more confident when some human connection can smooth away concerns. We do still address questions and have discussions about proposals on-wiki, so as Rillke notes these Hangouts are indeed intended to be complimentary to open-source text-based tools, rather than replace them. And I'd be quite happy to try hosting an IRC meeting as well if there is even just 1 IEG proposer who asks me to do so, and who promises to show up - as you can imagine I'd rather prioritize adding this based on real pragmatic need instead of theoretical ideals alone. As for Google, I share your privacy concerns and also wish we had a reliable open source alternative. I have participated in testing some other options in the past, but have always found them to be very buggy conversations, where we spent half the time just trying to get people in...so I'm not sure what the solution is at this point, other than to keep experimenting. I believe that WMF Tech has "real-time collaboration tools" on its roadmap for coming years, and this might help us move away from some of our dependency on Google eventually too...I imagine we'd all like that very much :) Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and for the article in the Kurier (I appreciate seeing that word about IEG is being spread to the German community, even if there are also concerns!) Please let me know if there is any further information I can provide. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 01:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• Where/whom and what do I have to ask if I want to know about the wire transfer fees. My bank? Does it depend on the sender's bank? Never received anything from the U.S.

Your bank is the one that charges you these fees, so you should ask them - I expect that if you tell them funds will be wired from the U.S., they can give you a ballpark number for what they'll charge per transfer. Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Would you prefer to continue/move this talk at/to Grants:IEG/Questions?

Thanks for your patience. -- Rillke (talk) 20:07, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Rillke, thanks for your questions. I'm threading answers to them above, to make sure you've got the quick info you need :) And yes, for the benefit of other applicants, please feel free to post future questions on that other page instead, though I'm always happy to answer specific questions here too! Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko, I am almost done drafting Grants:IEG/Finish Pronunciation Recording. Would you mind having a look at it? Where do you think are still weaknesses / is room to improve? Wow, I know it's a lot what I am asking for but I would be extremely glad having a second pair of eyes on it ensuring I didn't miss anything obvious. Wiktionary contributors already spent a lot of time writing endorsements, reading all this stuff and two of them did a lot more. So I don't want to see their time to be wasted just because I made a formal mistake. Thanks in advance. -- Rillke (talk) 20:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Rillke, I didn't see any formal mistakes in my first scan of your page - looks like you've done a thorough job pulling a LOT of material/info/people together so far :) During the community comments period I'll have a closer look at the details and will add any other suggestions to your proposal's talk page at that point (you'll be welcome to update/iterate on your plan thanks to feedback until formal review starts on April 21, so I think you're in a good place for the time being). Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Upcoming IdeaLab Events: IEG Proposal Clinics

Idea Lab

Idea Lab

Hello, Siko (WMF)! We've added Events to IdeaLab, and you're invited :)

Upcoming events focus on turning ideas into Individual Engagement Grant proposals before the March 31 deadline. Need help or have questions about IEG? Join us at a Hangout:

• Thursday, 13 March 2014, 1600 UTC
• Wednesday, 19 March 2014, 1700 UTC
• Saturday, 29 March 2014, 1700 UTC

Hope to see you there!

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Request for feedback on my GSoC'14 proposal

Hi Sbouterse,

I am planning to work on the project titled "Tools for mass migration of legacy translated wiki content" this summer under Google Summer of Code. I have drafted a proposal for the same over the past few weeks. This project is going to help the translation adminstrators like you in a great way, as it would completely automate the tedious manual task of preparing a page for translation and then importing the translations into the Translate extension. You can check the proposal page for detailed information on how I plan to accomplish this.

As you would be an end user of this tool, it would be great if you could go through the proposal and provide feedback/suggestions. Your feedback would definitely help me improve the proposal as well help in creating an even better tool. You can do the same on the discussion page of the proposal or reply here, whichever is convenient for you. I look forward to hearing from you! Thank you!

P.S: I need to submit the proposal to Google by March 19, 2014.

BPositive (talk) 13:19, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

GSOC : A system for reviewing funding requests

Hey Siko

I am planning to apply for GSOC this summer for the project A system for reviewing funding requests. I would like to know what expectation does Wikimedia have for this project ? What are the requirements ?

Looking forward to hear from you. Kushal Khandelwal (talk) 19:09, 14 March 2014 (GMT +5:30)

Hi Kushal Khandelwal, thanks for your message and interest in this project! Some more information about the project expectations can be found here. Hope that helps, if not please let us know :) Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko. Thank you for the reply. I am very sorry for the late reply. Didn't check my meta wiki page. This is getting very late. But I would finish up with my proposal today and shoot it to you for feedback. Thank you for the information. It gives a good information on the project.Kushal Khandelwal (talk) 17:22, 19 March 2014 (GMT +5:30)

Hey Siko (WMF). Sorry couldn't post a draft to you yesterday. This is an initial draft. I am working on more details and some mockups. Please have look at this draft and if you could provide some feedback. I would complete with timeline for this project. Link : https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Kushal124/A_system_for_reviewing_funding_requests_GSOC Kushal124 (talk) 17:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikiexpedition and Wikitraining in Chernigiv oblast Grant

Hi, Siko! Look at my page and tell is all correct? Thanks! :-) --Nickispeaki (talk) 14:54, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

ّYour Email Address

Hello Siko Bouterse, your email address sbouterse@wikimedia.org is not working.--Khalid Mahmood (talk) 16:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Khalid Mahmood - hmmmm what do you mean by "not working"? I'm getting lots of emails....more than I'm able to respond to very quickly! Maybe try the email user feature instead (though I can't promise I'll be able to respond any quicker that way)? Or, if you'd like to discuss something here that's ok with me too :) Thanks, Siko (WMF) (talk) 16:27, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh now it went, earlier on yahoo it was not going.Thanks.--Khalid Mahmood (talk) 15:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Grants:TPS "refresh"

I forced a refresh, but it kinda made some weird edits (this was not me, but something a previous mark-for-translation did). Are you aware of how weird the navbar looks in monobook? It probably doesn't matter since very few people use it. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging this, PiRSquared17 - I see the input boxes are broken in translation, we'll need to sort it out asap. I wasn't aware of how the navbar looks in monobook, am flagging that to Heather and Jonathan as well (though monobook is likely not their highest priority, as you note). Appreciate you stopping by with these issues! Siko (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Is it still appropriate to make small changes to IEG grant proposal?

Hi Siko, just wanted to ask if it's still appropriate to make some additions and changes to IEG grant proposal. I feel like changing current metrics, and may be also adding more details on project plan (may be Gant chart, or simple text timeline). Would that be OK, or that's too late? --Xelgen (talk) 01:01, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Xelgen, yes please feel free to make changes/additions until April 21! Thanks, Siko (WMF) (talk) 03:06, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia education camp

Hi, I think you and Ocaasi may want to look at Wiki Camp Vanadzor 2014 for ideas in case you decide to re-propose your idea of a camp for young Wikimedians in San Francisco. --Pine^✉ 02:31, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, Pine - will quite likely pick this up again at some point :) Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you!

It was a pleasure to get a chance to talk with you at Saturday's reception and bounce some grant ideas off of you. You are such an encouraging person! You gave me a lot to think about and I'll be going through the grant pages to learn more about past IEG proposals. The challenge is focusing on one element from the many exciting avenues of research we spoke about. Thanks again! Liz (talk) 21:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Liz, I loved speaking with you as well. Can't wait to see future Ideas and hopefully even an IEG proposal for you in upcoming rounds - let's keep the conversation going! I'm always happy to kick new thoughts around or help with focus, so please do keep me posted as things develop on your end. Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, Siko, here's one question I sent to a WMF developer but I haven't received an answer yet! If I wanted to analyze editor behavior on en.wiki (I assume that means working with the WikiMedia API), what programming language(s) do I need to learn? I assume that I'd be doing my own data collection and analysis. I went to MediaWiki but the information there is primarily about creating new wikis and I see a lot of newbie-like questions go unanswered. To make the best case for a grant, I need to acquire these skills but it's unclear to me what would be most useful if I am interested in tracking editor behavior. Some of the information is already available using scripts but manually collecting this amount of data could be very time-consuming.

If you have familiarity with similar projects that have been done or if you could just point me in the direction of someone at WMF who could help me, it would be much appreciated! Thanks! Liz (talk) 21:01, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Liz, it seems like you'd mostly want to run MySQL queries to gather your data, in this case. Although, as a qualitative researcher by training, I'd encourage you to consider bringing that skill-set to bear too. You might either decide to learn to run some MySQL queries to add a quantitative piece to your approach, or perhaps find a research partner to join your project from the quant side, as you see fit. Paging Jonathan Morgan. Jonathan, Liz is an awesome sociological researcher and Wikipedian who I met at Wikiconference USA, and since you love the idea of teaching people to run DB queries, perhaps you'll have more to say on this topic as well :) Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi again, Liz! I'll be working with Ocaasi over the next couple months, showing him the ropes of the Tool-Labs databases and other tools used for data gathering and analysis. You can do a lot with MySQL, and if you want to interact with the API, Python is the best language IMO. Happy to loop you into those training sessions, when we have something scheduled. I'll also have some materials I can point you to to get started, probably next week. Shall I ping you here, or on en.wiki? You can also email me at my WMF address (might be quicker) Best, Jonathan Jmorgan (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Jonathan, what do you think about making this an official IdeaLab Event? Could be a series of training Hangouts plus links to some materials that you share...as a useful capacity-building experiment, opening it beyond 1 or 2 people could bring more researcher-army-building bang for the buck? LMK if you're interested, I'd be happy to nudge this into existence :) Or, however it comes to fruition, glad to see you looping in Liz, thanks! Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I can absolutely lead an event, after Wikimania has passed :) Jmorgan (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Jmorgan (WMF) could you host this as a live event at UW? If it's scheduled far enough in advance I would like to attend. --Pine^✉ 06:41, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for encouraging me to create Grants:IdeaLab/Meetup Creation Tool. I will be busy working on Wiki Loves Pride in the near future, but I look forward to seeing how this idea evolves and I am glad people have already started contributing to the talk page. Pleasure meeting you. --Another Believer (talk) 01:50, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Another Believer, it was my pleasure! So glad you got something started on-wiki and I'm looking forward to seeing how we can continue to grow the idea in coming months! Good luck with Wiki Loves Pride meanwhile! Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:30, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Barnstar

Original barnstar

For another successful round of IEG. --Pine^✉ 06:42, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

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MCruz (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

My name is missing in the Wikimania scholarship report list

Hi Siko, Thank you and the WMF team for the scholarship. I am writing the report right now, and I found out there is no my name on the list "2014 WMF Scholarship Recipients. As far as I know, I am a part from PEG scholarship, and the mail from Janice asked me to put a report on the TPS metapage. --Liang(WMTW) (talk) 06:39, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Liang - sorry for the confusion. A few WMF grantees were given funding to attend Wikimania outside of the official Wikimania scholarships process. As a PEG scholar, your name will not appear on that list, because you technically were not funded to attend via the Wikimania scholarships budget or committee selection process. However, you are correct in understanding that you should still file a report using that page - WMF is asking all people funded via any means to share their experience using that same reporting form. Sorry for the confusion, hope this helps clear it up! I've added a note on the page to help clarify for others in future too :) Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I see. Thank your for the clarification :) --Liang(WMTW) (talk) 12:15, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Reminder

Hi, Siko! Hope you are well. Just a reminder that we might want to inactivate Grants:IdeaLab/Meetup Creation Tool somehow, or add a template to denotes its inactivity because of the updated proposal. :) No rush! --Another Believer (talk) 22:37, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this reminder, Another Believer! Was great seeing you and thanks again for moving your idea forward into the new format :) I just marked the status on your old idea to "withdrawn" (which will take it out of the active ideas list, and notes the status above the infobox), and I think with that and the cross-linking you did, we should be all good. If you think it makes more sense to delete or blank the page entirely at some point, though, we can do that too. Keep me posted! When you hook a developer to help out, I'll be happy to spend some time with y'all discussing where the "Add-me" gadget might fit into your plans too, so let's keep talking. Excited to see where this idea goes! Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Siko! That works. I went ahead and collapsed the page content as an additional sign of inactivity. Until our paths cross again! :) --Another Believer (talk) 16:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Looks perfect, Another Believer, nicely done :) Siko (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Gender gap strategy/Toolkits

Do we know who attended the 2014 Gender Gap strategy workshop? I'm interested for two reasons, in some cases I'm not quite sure what the participants were getting at and second it would be nice to make sure that all of the participants are invited to contribute to these initiatives.--Sphilbrick (talk) 21:46, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sphilbrick - good question! We don't have a list of all workshop attendees (a sign-in sheet would have been smart, in hindsight!), but we did have people at the session signup on flipcharts to participate in each of the 7 initiatives. Alex took that paper list and sent everyone on it a link to the strategy wiki page this week though, inviting them to join on-wiki. We decided we didn't want to add people's names on-wiki for them, to preserve privacy and also to help ensure that these signups represent people who really do intend to be active going forward. Maybe clarifying questions should go in the workspace page for your initiative, to start getting clearer as a working group on what is intended or in-scope? Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

As long as they know to look in here, I'm happy. I may compose some questions where I am unsure what was meant. Thanks for responding.--Sphilbrick (talk) 22:51, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

IdeaLab to IEG or PEG

Hi Siko,

Aaron H. (WMF) and I are setting up a proposal in IdeaLab. I see in the toolkit that there is a suggestion to propose the idea for a PEG or IEG, but how do we transform the page into a PEG or IEG proposal page?

Thanks, --Pine^✉ 01:02, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Pine, soon there will be an "expand" version of the form wizard to fully walk you through this workflow - you'll be able to click one button from your toolkit page, and it will walk you through turning your Idea into an IEG or a PEG via a structured form. That development is not complete yet, though, so meanwhile you will need to either make the changes to your page to manually turn it into either type of proposal, or just start a fresh page (copying over relevant text) via either program. Theres a Kit for IEG that you may find useful in this interim time, to understand what sections an IEG proposal needs to include. I'm not sure what Idea you're talking about and whether you are thinking of going to IEG or PEG with it, though, so hopefully this generic answer helps orient you to begin :) Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko, I moved the proposal from IdeaLab to Grants:IEG/Editor_Interaction_Data_Extraction_and_Visualization but the result is a mess. It appears that the proboxes for IdeaLab and IEG are different, and the IEG main page doesn't know to list our proposal. Is there a way to get the proposal to be formatted correctly for IEG without doing a bunch of manual edits? Thanks, --Pine^✉ 01:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Pine, as I mentioned to you guys this weekend, I added the other sections to your page, but you still need to update your Probox for IEG by adding a few more parameters and changing the values after the equal sign for a few others. The first section of the Kit shows you the complete markup that your IEG probox should contain - just copy it over and replace the values. Should take about 5 minutes. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 16:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko. For some reason Echo didn't ping me about your comment. Anyway, the issue is now fixed. Thanks! Can you take a look at the IEG proposals that are still drafts and see if you can get any of the proposers to move those into proposal space if they'll be ready today? Thanks, --Pine^✉ 18:12, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Ocaasi and I have both been nudging proposals to move from the draft queue for several weeks, Pine, and today is no exception...same happens on the last day of every round ;) Feel free to join in too if you feel like we missed any important ones though. Meanwhile, I assume you're planning to start onboarding for the new committee members soon...who is doing the announcement & welcome messages? Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you

Thanks for meeting on a Sunday! --Pine^✉ 18:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

A past Grant

This, in my view, suggests that the maintainers are having harder times maintaining their tool. The activity substantially dropped after the grant end.

• Activity during initial grant duration
• Activity the whole grant duration (with 2 approved extensions)

What can we do here? Thought it could be useful to give them a second grant, but that's not really how maintaining things should work. Proper maintaining involves writing documentation, UML diagrams, localising the tool, getting more people to join — there is a delicate balance between "get paid to do it" and "community engagement", and it's too shifted toward the former as it is. Gryllida 22:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Agree with you, Gryllida, regarding the balance between creating a tool and ongoing community engagement. I think we need to look carefully at new tools proposals to make sure we fund things with a good community engagement strategy, and aim for things that feel likely to be sustainable (over time with more data points, I expect we'll get better at learning what the signs are for this too). We're not going to get it right every time, and we can't expect someone to maintain a tool forever after 6-months of funding ends, particularly a tool that hasn't demonstrated a large base of users demanding its ongoing maintenance, but I do think we can and should make smarter decisions about what tools are likely to be most sustainably used by a community over the long term. For that tool in particular, I'm not sure it really found a clear target community to use it, and I also expect that the fuzzy ideas around a target audience were visible in the proposal, but this may have been disregarded by the committee when making recommendations on its first set of tool IEGs. I'm glad you're thinking about how we learn from failure as much as success. Perhaps this new round of tools proposals is a place to start focus on this anew - discussing with tools proposers what their strategies will be for this, and seeing if there are gaps that we can catch earlier rather than later. Happy to see you doing this with any tools projects of interest to you! Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Regarding that tool in particular, one more specific note: I understand that the Wikitrack IEG project is considering rolling in some of the Replay Edits work to their mobile app...so perhaps that will grow the life of this gadget beyond something people have to install in their own gadget preferences...Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

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María Cruz, Community coordinator, Program Evaluation & Design (WMF) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:59, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Don't envy you ... and ... reflections on reflection

Gday Siko. As per the "thanks" ping, I do appreciate your kind words, and I don't envy you having to sit and read so many reports on scholarships. You clearly have a passion for the task, and to note that I did consider whomever had to read the reports, so did to try and be somewhat different and give a tinge of narrative.

One aspect that you may wish to consider is a "reflective" component, even sometime afterwards, that follows on from the report (somewhere, somehow, maybe non-compulsory). As three months after, that is what I am building upon now: the missed opportunities, the missed contacts (the how could I do it better if I did it again? or what can I pass on to the next set of recipients?); what do I need now to maintain momentum, the best means to continue the engagement, what are my next steps (what are my building phases? which components to continue the enthusiasm?). Looking to "Yes, and ..." thinking, directing away from the "Yes, but ..." thinking.  — billinghurst sDrewth 22:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, billinghurst - we've actually had a few staffers reading/accepting these reports, so I won't take much credit, but I can definitely say it has been inspiring being reminded of the good outcomes from these scholarships, thanks to this year's reports. I like your idea about making space for reflections...will give this some thought for future iterations. Glad you are considering the "yes, and"s meanwhile :) Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello Siko through you, I want to thank all the staff of Wikimedia, allowing us to meet extraordinary people, their sole purpose is good for humanity without asking for compensation. :)

--Bachounda Med. (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Bachounda, this is such a lovely warm message, thank you! I will pass along your words to other staff as well. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

IEG/Grande Dicionário Livre da Língua Portuguesa

I updated the discussion, sorry for the delay in responding. IEG/Grande Dicionário Livre da Língua Portuguesa --Webysther (talk) 14:24, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Webysther, thank you for letting me know. We already began reviewing proposals for this current round last month, so unfortunately it is too late for yours to be included right now. We will have another round in the spring, however, and so we can be in touch again at that point. Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

IEG/Digitisation_drive_for_Malayalam_Wikisource#Moving_from_IEG_to_PEG

Hi Siko,

I left a comment in Grants_talk:IEG/Digitisation_drive_for_Malayalam_Wikisource#Moving_from_IEG_to_PEG . Please guide us --AniVar (talk) 03:30, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks ...

Thanks for your sane response to those foaming at the mouth. I shake my head in bewilderment at those who jump to conclusions, jump to blame, jump to judgement on limited facts, and without consideration for whatever else is going on in the world, on their expectation of a 2 hour response line, then scream and yell in a forum just for their desire to be seen to be heard. They are so magic and perform well in their own altered realities. :-)  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:22, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, billinghurst. Has not been my most fun week ever, glad you feel like it was handled ok...hope most of us can keep carrying on as calmly as possible :)

We all get burnt at some stage whether it is reasonable or not. Some of their points were probably right, however, the bulk of them had the wrong approach, and completely forgot about AGF. I stopped reading their tirades, though someone like Lodwijk is always worth reading as while having an opinion, he does try to be fair. I thought your commentary was reasonable, though haven't formed an opinion on whether the initial position was reasonable, nor the perfection of your argument. Blame is such a pointless approach. Hope that your weekend has elements of fun within it.  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:57, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

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An idea to explore ...

Hi Siko! Enjoyed your panel talk on KQED. Sounds like you are getting a good handle on things!

You said something in passing about how many hours people spend on online discussion pages. This idea is worthy of some more consideration. One longtime user here called it: "Empowerment of people who are able to devote a majority of their waking hours to Wikipedia at the expense of those generally more experienced and level-headed contributors who have responsibilities outside Wikipedia that limit their participation to an hour or two a day."

(Although I'd like to follow up on the ideas I've put on Meta, on my talks with Bluerasberry about community organization, and find out whether anyone else out there besides me keeps wondering where the cultural organization piece of the movement is, like you, I have to go back to my day job ... :) --Djembayz (talk) 12:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Djembayz! Thanks for your kind words, glad you think the panel went well :) I'm not sure what one would actually do about the hours spent discussing, but agree it is worth pondering a bit further. As are your other ideas! There really aren't enough hours in the day, are there!? And yet, I'm sure we'll get there eventually. Hope you're well, meanwhile. Siko (WMF) (talk) 16:27, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

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IEG Proposals

Hi Siki. I have submitted two proposals namely Wikipedia Takes Rinconada and Run for Free Knowledge. For your comments and endorsement. Thank you very much. --Filipinayzd (talk) 03:23, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

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How can we improve Wikimedia grants to support you better?

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:

• Respond to questions on the discussion page of the idea.
• Join a small group conversation.
• Learn more about this consultation.

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. 21:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

How can we improve Wikimedia grants to support you better?

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback about how we can reimagine Wikimedia Foundation grants, to better support people and ideas in your Wikimedia project. Ways to participate:

• Respond to questions on the discussion page of the idea.
• Join a small group conversation.
• Learn more about this consultation.

Feedback is welcome in any language.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation. 21:50, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

كيف يمكننا تحسين منح مؤسسة ويكيميديا لتوفر لك الدعم بصورة أفضل؟

مرحبًا،

ترغب مؤسسة ويكيميديا بمعرف تعقيباتكم على كيفية إعادة تصور منح ويكيميديا من أجل تحسين الدعم المقدم للأشخاص والأفكار في مشروع ويكيميديا الخاص بكم. طرق المشاركة:

• الإجابة عن الأسئلة على صفحة مناقشة الفكرة.
• الانضمام إلى مجموعة مناقشة صغيرة.
• تعرف على المزيد عن هذه المشاورة.

نرحب بالتعقيبات بأي لغة.

مع خالص الشكر،

I JethroBT (WMF) الاسم، الموارد المجتمعية، مؤسسة ويكيميديا. 21:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

How can we improve Wikimedia grants to support you better?

My apologies for posting this message in English. Please help translate it if you can.

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback about how we can reimagine Wikimedia Foundation grants, to better support people and ideas in your Wikimedia project. Ways to participate:

• Respond to questions on the discussion page of the idea.
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Learning Quarterly: October 2015

L&E Newsletter / Volume 2 / Issue 6 / October 2015
Learning Quarterly

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#ProgramResources

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:31, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Grant for paid portraits

Hello Siko! I am Anna, an editor over at English Wikipedia. I started Donated artwork a while back. So far, I have found no artists who will draw free portrait sketches of notable individuals with no article image. I was thinking of asking for a grant. Do you think there is a chance that Grants:PEG would put a few thousand dollars up? I'm just doing a big off feeling around before making a proposal. Would it have a chance? Best wishes. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:35, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Anna Frodesiak, thanks for reaching out! I can definitely see how finding artists willing to create these portraits is an important challenge. One general rule of thumb we have is to not fund content creation directly, though, because that's considered a core role of volunteers in this movement. So we're happy to fund things that enable content creation (e.g. contest prizes as incentives, time to community organize an art donation drive or lead outreach to an institution or network, etc), but we don't pay people to create the content directly (e.g. paying someone to create images for Commons or Wikipedia articles). I wonder if there might be some other, potentially fundable, creative solutions to the challenge you're seeing? Have you already seen the WikiArs initiative? They had some success getting design students to create images as part of their coursework, and I believe that even included some portraits. Is there an art school near you that might be a good candidate for outreach? Happy to kick around ideas further if you'd like (though just a heads up that I'll be offline for about a week starting tonight). Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 02:51, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

• (Talk page stalker here) Siko, I'm confused a bit. You say that WMF is "happy to fund things that enable content creation (e.g. contest prizes as incentives, time to community organize an art donation drive or lead outreach to an institution or network, etc)", but WMF torpedoed multiple requests at Cascadia Wikimedians in the first half of 2015 for funding for time for outreach, communications, community organizing, and development of infrastructure that supports growth. There seems to be a disconnect somewhere. Was the decline of Cascadia Wikimedians requests done in error? Thanks, --Pine^✉ 21:36, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm sure Siko meant that the WMF would be happy to fund such activities in principle, and not that any particular request for funding would be automatically approved. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 01:29, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks, Kirill Lokshin, that's exactly what I meant :) Pine, I understand that you're upset that Wikimedia Cascadia's funding requests haven't moved forward to-date, but let's keep discussion of Cascadia's particular case on the talk page of that request itself. Your situation is pretty different from the one Anna is inquiring about here, and mixing them together isn't likely to bring more clarity to either of you. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Siko. Thank you kindly for the thoughtful reply. I am a bit busy suddenly off-wiki, so I will reply as soon as I can. Many thanks. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:31, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Siko. Again, thanks for the feedback. I posted on the whole matter here. That pretty much says it all. Best, :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:32, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Anna Frodesiak, thanks for the link and sharing more of your thinking. I can also see that Blue Raspberry has posted a bunch of ideas for how something like this could move forward, and he's got a good sense of what kinds of outreach, contests, etc we're generally able and willing to fund. So, if you decide it is worth pursuing further, I do hope you'll stay in touch! I don't think we're less likely to fund drawn portraits than photos, for what its worth. One way to test the waters without investing too much time could be to think about what a first small pilot would look like first -- say, start by talking to just 1 art school or other institution, or organize just a small contest with funded prizes, and see what you get from that. Some great pilots can be designed, funded, and launched with just a couple of people organizing them. That said, I also totally understand if you're not ready to go down that path, or want to focus your efforts elsewhere on Wikipedia right now. Wishing you best of luck either way! Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:54, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. I'll consider that. I appreciate your thoughful feedback and encouragement. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:27, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Your team to make (more) use of Main Page

Hi. I was just updating Template:Main Page/WM News and I was wondering whether your team was aware of the page. It didn't seem obvious to me that it as widely used, and accordingly the interesting stuff that your team does goes unnoticed except for avid watchers. It would be great if your team could have a look and evaluate whether there is value for it in that page's use. Thanks.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:04, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• @Billinghurst: (talk page stalker) I'm thinking along the same lines. I discussed this very concept earlier this week in relation to my IEG project, and also talked with Marti about more unified communications for grants notifications. --Pine^✉ 06:12, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

  We all have different means for communicating among ourselves and with staff, and as such we all build our own relationships. Some tools will suit some individuals and teams, some will not; sometimes it is about the best value, rather than every avenue. I ask for the reflection and consideration of the thought, not that my specific thoughts are of any particular value.  — billinghurst sDrewth 06:49, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

  Thanks for this reminder, billinghurst - I do tend to forget about that page personally, and expect some others do as well :) Will raise it to the team as an option to remember considering. One reason I probably forget about it is that I'm still unsure how many folks actually use the meta mainpage to navigate to other happenings though (folks who aren't, say, also reading mailing lists or watching other venues) - do you have any sense of this? Happy New Year! Siko (WMF) (talk) 19:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

  I have no sense of it at all, and if you have any means to find such stats, I am interested. And with that said if we don't do it, it becomes even less likely to be used, and for meta that we lose an entry point for meta discussions which would be deleterious and a step backwards IMNSHO. I am asking for the consideration of pertinent additions as you see them, definitely not criticising, nor saying that your team has to do so, as the meta community has been as forgetful. It may be that as the meta components have been professionalised as staff numbers have increased and now utilise other means. It may be that it should be left to die, or we can have the conversation about announcements. I am slowly working my way through the public facing staff groups with a similar prod. I am (simply) seeking opinion and consideration. So thanks for listening.  — billinghurst sDrewth 09:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

  Makes sense, and thanks again for the helpful prod - I appreciate it! Siko (WMF) (talk) 01:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

FDC 2016-17 budget querry

Good Morning Siko,

I am awfully sorry to be late to jump onto the 2016-17 FDC plan talk - I have been in travel + preoccupied with the scholarship submission. I have put my input there, in case it is still not presented. :)

Best Regards, aegis maelstrom δ 18:31, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

No need to be sorry, aegis maelstrom, you were just in time! Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts - I found them useful indeed. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: January 2016

If you are receiving this message for the second time, our apologies! On the first attempt, there was an error with the targets list and only a few users got the newsletter in their Talk Page.

L&E Newsletter / Volume 3 / Issue 7 / January 2016
Learning Quarterly

Frontpage:
#ProgramCapacity
#1Lib1Ref

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:20, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

But ... :-(

So many things that just want to be said to understand. <sigh> I wish you all the best, and know that you will be doing the right thing for you. <sad dog face> Best of luck in the next big adventure.  — billinghurst sDrewth 13:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, billinghurst. I'm still feeling sad too, but I appreciate you stopping by with friendly words as always. I have always enjoyed working with you and I will certainly keep you posted as I figure out what the next adventure is. And meanwhile, just think of the extra time I'll have for the wikis :D Much respect to you, Siko (WMF) (talk) 01:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

HUGS! Hmm phabricator request coming to have a hugs button for a history page

While life's path is full of doggy-do, it is the park benches that we get to appreciate what surrounds us. From your time in the park of Wikimedia, you leave this place being a manufacturer of park benches of quality and sustainability. When you walk out the of park you can look back and see those benches, populated and enjoyed! That is a legacy.[ Now if only I could build that as WikiLove thing.]

AND if you ever get down under, let me know ahead of time.  — billinghurst sDrewth 04:10, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok, now you're just trying to make me cry ;) I love the idea of park benches as legacy, such a sweet image...and will absolutely keep you posted if I make it to "your neck of the woods" (as we say here). Big hugs Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:04, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

billinghurst: Visualization at right (: --Pine^✉ 20:11, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

A Sikoesque park bench amongst the trees (:

No crying, smiling. And to note that I do have woods/forest/bush, about three to four acres apart from the garden, where birds are abundant. The kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas, and koalas are around, though less often and less seen.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:41, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

But... no...

Big, big, big, big, big sad face. :( Thank you for your many contributions to the movement, I wish you only the best in your future endeavors. Please don't be a stranger. -Another Believer (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this warm wish, Another Believer. I still can't quite wrap my head around the idea that I won't see you in Berlin or elsewhere this year! But you can trust that I won't be a stranger, we'll just find some new ways to make mischief together instead ;) Keep being fantastic meanwhile. Hugs, Siko (WMF) (talk) 01:30, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Another Believer and Peteforsyth: perhaps Siko will agree to be a Wikimedia community organizer in San Francisco for the Bay Area User Group! --Pine^✉ 06:08, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: April 2016

L&E Newsletter / Volume 3 / Issue 8 / April 2016
Learning Quarterly

Frontpage:
#GlobalMetricsReview
#EduCollab

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GLAMing Madrid: involving State museums in Spain

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: July 2016

L&E Newsletter / Volume 3 / Issue 9 / July 2016
Learning Quarterly

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#MovementLeadership
#WMCON

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Wikipuentes:a community of educators in Argentina

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:21, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: October 2016

L&E Newsletter / Volume 3 / Issue 10 / October 2016
Learning Quarterly

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#CEInsights
#WMCEE

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:52, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: February 2017

L&E Newsletter / Volume 4 / Issue 11 / February 2017
Learning Quarterly

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#ProgramsDashboard
#InspireCampaign

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Wiki-Med at Tel Aviv University + UCSF

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Who protects 5 pillars

Hello Siko,

This is content of my email to the board. Since I saw your invitation to talk, I would like to share it with you too. Please do share your thoughts about it: As a journalist, I studied about Wikipedia, and I already wrote a few articles about it. What I found as an eminent threat to Wikipedia's 5 pillars is the fact "Decisions and consensus need to be made by the local community itself, the administrators and stewards of the Wikimedia projects do not have authority over the local community". By community, we can consider a large number of editors and participants, but most members of a community don't know each other, they do not have communication or meetings; Even they do not have enough familiarity with the system to reach a consensus. They are administrators who control the flow of information, they pick new admins and they decide which references or articles should be removed or accepted. Considering a group of high-level admins in a given language, they could create a team to control and manipulate the content of a language by themselves. So, they would control the management circle and keep their team small. In this scenario, Wikipedia's article eventually would fail to be neutral. It is while those administrators use Wikipedia's credit, support, and servers for what they intend to present as a neutral article. While Wikipedia itself provides mentioned services, does not take any responsibility. Those admins know that they are immune against any verification and question. In my language of study, many of political articles are biased and almost any attempt to edit them would fail, complaints are not considered while administrators are aware about it. So, who can verify and defend Wikipedia's pillars in this situation (if no one have authority over the local community)?Erfan2017 (talk) 23:59, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

• Hi Erfan2017, Siko no longer works for WMF. You mentioned that you emailed the Board, but if you would like others to see your message as well, you could try placing it on Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard. --Pine^✉ 02:27, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: May 2017

L&E Newsletter / Volume 4 / Issue 12 / May 2017
Learning Quarterly

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#LearningDays
#CCD

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Wiki Loves Africa
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:52, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence

I am applying for a position with the Univesity of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute. What kind of information has to be supplied to the Wikimedia folks to help make this happen?

Best Regards,

Barbara Page

@Barbara (WVS): Sorry, I accidently noticed your message. Siko no longer works for WMF. The new Director of Community Ressources is Katy Love, she is probably the right person to contact — NickK (talk) 13:25, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much!

Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 14:19, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: August 2017

L&E Newsletter / Volume 4 / Issue 13 / August 2017
Learning Quarterly

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#NewVoices
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Iberoconf 2017
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:14, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: October 2017

L&E Newsletter / Volume 4 / Issue 13 / August 2017
Learning Quarterly

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#Learning Days
#CEInsightsReport

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On-boarding new editors:
The skills-focused approach of WMIL

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:45, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: January 2018

L&E Newsletter / Volume 5 / Issue 15 / January 2018
Learning Quarterly

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#LeadershipDevelopment
#CaseStudies

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Raising awareness of Wikipedia in Nigeria, one radio program at a time

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:45, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: June 2018

L&E Newsletter / Volume 5 / Issue 16 / June 2018
Learning Quarterly

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#WikiWomen
#WikiEduAsia

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Karvachar’s WikiClub, when getting knowledge is cool

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:45, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Learning Quarterly: November 2018

L&E Newsletter / Volume 5 / Issue 17 / November 2018
Learning Quarterly

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#CEInsights18
#GenderEquity

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Editatona: Writing women back in history

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)