Dear Wikimedians,
I am very happy to provide you with the two final information regarding the
Wikimedia Conference 2014.
Please find the results of the feedback survey here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2014/Feedback_evaluati…
And the financial overview can be seen here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2014/Budget_and_financ…
It was a great pleasure to organize this year’s conference.
Thanks to all people who made it possible.
Kindest regards from Berlin!
Wenke
---------------------
Wenke Storn
Eventmanagerin
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
http://wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Hi everyone,
I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsten Lans to the Wikimedia Foundation, as
the first ScrumMaster [1][2] hire into the newly formed Team Practices
Group [3]. Kristen will be taking over ScrumMaster duties for the Mobile
Web and Mobile Apps Engineering teams.
Prior to joining WMF, Kristen worked for six years with the TED
prize-winning Encyclopedia of Life project [4], a free, open resource that
aims to provide access to knowledge about all life on Earth. Kristen helped
to pilot and facilitate the Encyclopedia of Life organization's agile
development and planning processes, and enjoyed working with the project's
global community of contributors. Kristen is thrilled to be continuing to
work towards open knowledge sharing for all at an even larger scale.
Kristen currently lives in Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband and
dog, and is planning to relocate to the Bay Area by the end of the year,
and is looking forward to eating her way through the San Francisco's tasty
restaurants and taking advantage of the amazing outdoor activities in the
area.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ScrumMaster#Scrum_Master
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering/imported/Mobile…
[3]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/Team_Practices_Group
[4] http://eol.org
--
Arthur Richards
Team Practices Manager
[[User:Awjrichards]]
IRC: awjr
+1-415-839-6885 x6687
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Hi folks,
It’s my great pleasure to announce Arthur Richards as Team Practices
Manager for WMF. Arthur will lead a group of ScrumMasters and coaches
to scale up our ability to support teams in developing robust
processes for software delivery. In this new role, Arthur will report
to the VP of Engineering (currently, me).
Arthur’s first engagement in this role will be with the MediaWiki core
team in October. He’s also still transitioning responsibilities for
the mobile web team to Kristen Lans, who just joined WMF as
ScrumMaster. I am very excited about the work ahead. Please join me in
congratulating Arthur and wishing him success in this new role. :-)
What follows is some more background about this new group and about
Arthur’s leadership in case you’re interested (long):
Arthur joined WMF in June 2010 [1] to support fundraising tech. In the
context of team process pains, this team was the first one to adopt an
agile development process (specifically, Scrum), and Arthur was in the
middle of it all. He took this experience with him when he joined the
mobile development team under Tomasz Finc in 2012. The mobile team,
too, would soon adopt Scrum, and Arthur took on the role of
ScrumMaster later that year to be the "process owner" for the team.
What does that actually mean? It means facilitating the "rituals" that
are part of an agile team’s work (e.g. the daily stand-ups, the sprint
planning meetings, retrospectives, etc.) and continually facilitating
the team’s discovery of improving the way they work. Say it turns out
week after week that the team is introducing preventable regressions
-- in a situation like this, the ScrumMaster will work with the team
to better understand what’s going on and work towards a solution
(e.g. collaboration with QA, improved test coverage, etc.).
In my experience, every team benefits from process improvement, and
the highest performing ones view this as a continuous part of the
team’s work. Arthur embodies this and I've long viewed the mobile web
team as the canonical example in our org that illustrates the benefits
of agile development done right.
Throughout his experience as ScrumMaster, Arthur has always made a
point of emphasizing the spirit of agile (continued iteration and
improvement, problem solving from the bottom up) rather than sticking
dogmatically to a specific methodology. He’s also led the development
of new processes in the organization that reduce siloed development
and improve coordination, e.g. the Scrum of Scrums.
Through most of this time we relied on external consultants to get
other teams up to speed on agile development practices. While this has
worked reasonably well, the ever-changing personal relationships (a
new consultant for every project) and the lack of institutional memory
has meant that it was hard to customize and scale the process to our
needs.
When we spun up the Flow team last year, we had to make a decision:
Will we continue to rely on external consultants, or will we start
building internal capacity for this? We decided to experiment with the
latter, and Arthur Richards and Tomasz Finc led a one-time agile
workshop with the team which was universally well-received and didn't
suffer from some of the false starts of consultant engagements.
So, in the budget planning cycle this year Tomasz and Arthur made a
pitch to formalize this function in the organization: the Team
Practices Group [2]. Given his experience, Arthur is perfectly
positioned to lead this group. He’s demonstrated level-headedness,
patience, and openness that you want from a coach, guiding teams
gently and always focusing on improvements that will be carried
forward by the team as a whole.
After consulting with multiple teams who were hungry for more support
(e.g. a full-time ScrumMaster, or just agile process support), we
decided that Arthur would initially bring on two full-time staffers.
It’s already become clear that this won’t be sufficient. For example,
Analytics is expressing a strong need for a full-time ScrumMaster to
support the growing team so that developers can focus on development.
Whether this is always the right answer remains to be seen. Arthur
will work with teams to find a good balance between custom tailored
solutions and process consistency for the org.
Ultimately, this new group’s function will be similar to what in
traditional organizational models would be a "Project Management
Office" - except that, instead of having a group of Project Managers
assign work, we want to facilitate self-organizing and increasingly
fluid teams coming up with a process that works for them.
We draw lots of inspiration from other orgs (e.g. Spotify’s seminal
Scaling Agile paper [3]) but also need to account for the unique
requirements of our org (transparency, commitment to open source,
etc.).
Working with Arthur is a privilege and a pleasure, and I’m thrilled
that he’s agreed to take on this new role. If you're interested in
being part of the ongoing conversation about process improvements, we
have the public teampractices mailing [4] list for this purpose.
Warmly,
Erik
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-June/000027.h…
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/Team_Practices_Group
[3] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1018963/Articles/SpotifyScaling.pdf
[4] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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Hi all,
A few weeks ago, the Transition Team, which the Supervisory Board of
Wikimedia Deutschland has tasked with organising the search for a new
Executive Director, held its constitutive meeting. Today I would like to
inform you of the work of the Transition team and about the last week’s
further developments.
I am very pleased to announce the appointment of Jan Engelmann as Interim
Executive Director as of 1 September 2014. Jan has worked as the Head of
the Politics & Society department of Wikimedia Deutschland since 2011. He
has already deputised for the Executive Director on a regular basis over
recent years. As Interim Executive Director, Jan will manage the department
on a provisional basis.
Up to 31 August Pavel Richter will remain Executive Director of Wikimedia
Deutschland, with all corresponding duties and responsibilities. After this
time – I am particularly pleased to report – Pavel will work with Jan in an
advisory capacity during the upcoming transitional period. For the time
being this role is set to end on 31 January 2015.
Why have we chosen this solution? What is the difference between Executive
Director and Interim Executive Director? What are the next steps? I would
like to answer these questions by taking a look at the primary task of the
Transition Team: for a new Executive Director to be appointed, the
commission has to recommend a candidate to the Supervisory Board. This
process will require a considerable amount of time. It will no doubt be
several months before this task is complete. So far – over the past three
weeks – all members have been appointed to the Commission, have met with
one another and specified their respective responsibilities. The members
also agreed to report publicly on milestones of their work[1].
For the Transition Team to be able to complete its work, it must be able to
depend on certain conditions. These include, in particular, minimising time
pressure and ensuring knowledge transfer and continuity. The association
can ensure this with the support of Jan and Pavel. As Executive Director,
Pavel has many years of experience and expertise that can remain within the
association thanks to this cooperation.
By appointing an Interim Executive Director, the Supervisory Board is
following a proposal that was developed by the Transition Team. This
solution was unanimously agreed at the Supervisory Board meeting after
consultation with the relevant parties. In this role, Jan Engelmann’s task
is to manage WMDE operations until a new Executive Director is appointed.
I would like to thank Jan, who has agreed to take on this crucial task. I
would also like to thank Pavel for enabling the Association to reliably and
thoroughly prepare for the future.
Most of the members of the Supervisory Board and the Transition Team will
also be at Wikimania in London and happy to answer any questions you might
have.
Best regards,
Tim Moritz Hector
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Transition_Team
--
Tim Moritz Hector
Chair of the board
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | D-10963 Berlin
Tel.: +49 (0)30 - 219 158 260
http://www.wikimedia.de
tim-moritz.hector(a)wikimedia.de
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free
access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. Help us
make it reality! http://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B.
Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Re: http://pro.europeana.eu/pro-blog/-/blogs/sharing-multimedia-on-wikipedia-no…
Liam has just published this Europeana blog post about the first big
projects using the new GLAMwiki Toolset uploader (GWT). The main image
is one of the unusual "photochrom" prints from the 1890s that I
uploaded as a Wikimedia UK sponsored project - these hand coloured
prints feature locations from around the world and were incredibly
popular to send as gifts in that period, a time when colour
photography was still experimental; this high quality
chromolithographic process was to virtually vanish within a few years.
We are hoping that there will be a lot of interest in new GWT projects
at Wikimania (and the hackerthon beforehand) both from GLAM
professionals and keen volunteers. It's certainly worth browsing some
of the projects delivered so far that the tool has made possible,
especially if you think you might reuse some of the images. Those of
us who helped create the tool are looking forward to this transforming
Wikimedia Commons into a standard home on the internet for the public
to find high quality GLAM materials.
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Hi All,
I'm happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation has won a significant
defamation lawsuit in Italy brought by Italian politician, Antonio
Angelucci, and his son, Giampaolo.
You can read more about this victory on the Wikimedia blog:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/07/22/victory-in-italy-based-on-freedom-of-u…
Best,
Michelle
--
Michelle Paulson
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
mpaulson(a)wikimedia.org
415.839.6885 ext. 6608 (Office)
415.882.0495 (Fax)
*NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation and for legal/ethical
reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
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