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News and notes

Foundation looking for "storyteller" and research fellows; new GLAM newsletter; brief news

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By Rock drum, Tilman Bayer and Walkerma

Foundation's Community Department searching for "storyteller" and summer research fellows

A job opening for a "storyteller" was posted to the Wikimedia Foundation's web site last week, defining the new position as follows: "The movement storyteller will work with members of Wikimedia communities to teach Wikimedia readers about the world behind the content they rely on everyday." Replying to comments on the Foundation-l mailing list, Chief Community Officer Zack Exley clarified that "there is one important purpose of that job that may be a bit hidden in between the lines: For this position, I'm looking for someone who can help free us from dependence on 'The Jimmy Letter' in fundraising", by making the donation appeal letters from other community members more effective. (On the other hand, their banners – the first step in leading a reader to making a donation, with the letter being the second – already "got similar, sometimes slightly better, click rates as the Jimmy banners". Exley said that a detailed analysis of the fundraiser is in the making.)

A new page about Wikimedia Fellowships has been set up on Meta, reflecting recent clarifications (Signpost coverage) about the program, which was started last year and "offers the chance for volunteers from the projects, academics, and industry professionals to work with the Wikimedia Foundation in a new way."

On the official Wikimedia blog, the "first Virtual Community History Fellowship" program was announced, which during the summer will pair graduate students with community members from Wikimedia projects to write historical accounts of these projects (at the moment, focus is on the Tagalog, Italian, Armenian, Belarusian, Polish, Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Cantonese and Chinese Wikipedias).

Two other summer fellowships for quantitative and qualitative research do not appear to have been posted by the WMF in a public venue, but were revealed last week (the deadline was March 7th) on the Wiki-research mailing list by an independent academic who called them "well-paid". One of them was to gather a small team of PhD graduate students from disciplines "involving large scale data analysis", for work on "developing a community analytics platform to gain a better understanding of [the Wikimedia Foundation's] contributors and readers." The qualitative research internships were offered to "PhD candidates or people who have completed Masters degrees in history, other humanities fields, anthropology and other social sciences", whose task will be "to understand better why the active editor base is not replenishing itself at the same rate it used to – and to present data that can help our communities figure out what to do about it".

In other news, the contracts of Community Associates Christine Moellenberndt [1] and James Alexander [2] have been extended.

New edition of GLAM newsletter

"This month in GLAM" next to Wikimedia logo
Logo of the newsletter

The second edition of This Month in GLAM, a newsletter on Wikimedia collaborations with cultural institutions, has been published on the Wikimedia Foundation's Outreach wiki. Among various other items covered previously in the Signpost, it records the following events for February:

Briefly

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  • Just wanted to say that Meta:Wikimedia Fellowships isn't just a page describing the program... it's an open proposals process, where volunteers can get support for projects that support the movement. The Foundation has strategic goals, but we really do need your ideas and energy for improving Wikipedia. Steven Walling at work 17:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you want people's ideas, you really need to do a better job listening to them. See my comment below for my reason why I see volunteering to help the WMF fundraisers is an utter waste of time. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sven, you cannot perpetually blame everyone at the Foundation for one mistake, or suppose that because one wrong action occurred that we aren't paying attention to what's going on. I completely understand why you might be frustrated about the banners, but that was months ago, I never worked on the fundraiser, and the fellowships process has nothing to do with that. Steven Walling at work 07:14, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can add a little more info about the summer research fellowships. We have had a position listed on the jobs page for a while that is a catch-all for all research-oriented fellowships in the Community Department. What we're trying to do in the Community Department is catch as many extraordinarily qualified Wikimedian and/or academic researchers as they are available. In the department, we have been evolving three slightly overlapping summer research opportunities for which that job listing applies: the History Project team, a small quantitative research team and a small qualitative research team. Ideally, the three teams will support each other, especially the qual and quant teams. What I'm trying to do here is leverage available PhD candidates who are already studying Wikimedia projects to do a bunch of useful work over the summer. There are a ton of them, and as it turns out, many want summer jobs. I'm hoping this will allow us to produce some great work over the summer in collaboration with community members and for presentation to the community. Although these projects have been designed with PhD candidates in mind, that shouldn't stop others from applying. That goes for the catch-all Research Fellowship year round too. In fact, I just changed Masters/PhD from a requirement to a plus. (But I don't think anyone should ever let a traditional requirement in a job listing prevent them from applying for a job they know they can do.) We will be screening candidates for all these positions with research tasks. As for these positions being "well-paid," keep in mind that it was an academic tweeting to grad students, who are used to very low pay. Zackexley (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmm, want donation banners to be more effective? I've got a great idea! Next year don't stick a thumb in the eye of the community by neglecting to use even a single one of the banners proposed on meta! Yeah, way to go WMF, ignoring the volunteers is always the solid choice. I'm sure none of the dedicated and creative people that participated at that page were alienated at all by that one. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa! New skin!

Er, somehow I totally missed the announcement that there would be changes taking effect today, including moving the "edit" tags left. BTW, the edit tag for "Lead" section is taking me to the first section of the body instead. Are they working on this bug? -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lead edit link is a gadget, so the bug would have to be fixed by whoever maintains the gadget. Not everyone is going to see this change though, so it might be tricky. Reach Out to the Truth 22:18, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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