Talk:WikiJournal User Group/Archive 2020

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Evolution and evolvability in topic Diamond Open Access survey


Technical feature discussion

As part of the sister project application, there is a discussion about possible technical features here. It may also be useful to organise and summarise the outcomes at this page. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 07:28, 25 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

The technical feature list is beginning to look good. Any edits to update the relative priorities and technical feasibilities will be good to work out what order we tackle these in, and how large a developer team may need to be assembled to implement the most important ones.
Any opinions welcome here or at this discussion link. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:08, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Sister project and Thematic organisation applications

 

As part of the User Group's expansion, there are two applications in progress that people are invited to contribute to:

  1. The final form for becoming an Thematic Organisation affiliate (now that the bylaws have had their initial check by the affiliations committee)
  2. The cover letter for presenting the Sister Project application to the WMF Board of Trustees
  3. Prioritising which items on the technical features wishlist should be included in an initial grant application

Please feel free to contribute/comment/discuss! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 05:59, 19 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

The proposal cover letter has now been submitted to the WMF board of trustees along with the five letters of support (link). The pageviews and discussion looks like it has plateaued, with two spikes corresponding to dissemination events listed here. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 12:30, 25 September 2019 (UTC)Reply
The WMF board has confirmed that they have received the application and will be discussing it at their next in person meeting Feb 11th and 12th of 2020. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 03:12, 11 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Possibly of interest: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes/2020-02#WikiJournal --Denny (discusscontribs) 00:44, 6 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Extension:InterwikiExtracts

Hi! As promised in the afterparty of the October meeting, I created the Extension:InterwikiExtracts so that we can transclude articles directly from Wikipedia. Here are a few demos for you (don't forget to click on "View source"):

The extension is also able to do some other things, but I think these are the functionalities that may be most useful for WikiJournals. Should we request the WMF to review and enable this extension on Wikiversity through meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2020? Cheers! Sophivorus (discusscontribs) 02:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

@Sophivorus: Brilliant! I think it should definitely be added to meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2020. From the example you showed, it also seems to transclude the necessary templates, is that correct? Can it also transclude just a template for use in another page (e.g. {{#InterwikiExtract: template:Dyslexia|wiki = wikipedia|format = html|parametersforthattemplate=...}}). There are quire a few templates currently imported form Wikipedia that are only used once (e.g. template:Dinogloss), so inter-wiki transclusion could be more robust. ps, I have hyperlinked your mention of the October meeting. Please revert if you prefer to keep you comments exactly as posted. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 04:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Very good ! This extention match perfectly with my technical wish proposal : Community Wishlist Survey 2020/Wikiversity/Transclude wikipedia pages (template, module, etc) on small project as Wikiversity Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 10:03, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Nice work, simple to operate, that should be very useful. Chiswick Chap (discusscontribs) 11:19, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Unfortunately the extension cannot be used to transclude templates and make them usable (sorry). The extension transcludes already parsed HTML. For that reason, I think InterwikiExtracts is not adequate for solving the request at Community Wishlist Survey 2020/Wikiversity/Transclude wikipedia pages (template, module, etc) on small project as Wikiversity (see my comment there) and we should therefore start another request just for transcluding content pages, for which the InterwikiExtracts extension was designed as is reasonably fit. Sophivorus (discusscontribs) 13:33, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
It's done ! Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 13:56, 7 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Sophivorus: What steps would be needed in order to activate the extension on wikiversity for testing? Does the WMF need to approve it beforehand? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 00:53, 11 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Evolution and evolvability: Yes, they need to do a code review and security review before enabling it on any Wikimedia wiki. Steps are detailed at mw:Writing an extension for deployment. I'll try to get the ball rolling asap, if no one else does it first. Sophivorus (discusscontribs) 01:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Judging by my past experience trying to enable a simpler extension on Wikiversity, and failing after two years of waiting, I'd say we should wait and see if this task gets a positive response. Sophivorus (discusscontribs) 13:37, 31 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Wikimedia Summit Berlin 2020

original comments that are re-formatted below

Hello, I would like to be present as Wikijournal group delegate at the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin in April 2020. Thomas were there last year and I don't know if he want to be there a second time or if there is other candidate. I am not the oldest or most active person on the Wikijournal Board, but I have several reasons to be present at the Berlin meeting. The first one is that I want to get more involved in the Wikijournal project, this representation would therefore be an opportunity for me to prepare the summit and by the way be more involved on the promotion of the group and the explanation of our necessities. The second is that it would be an opportunity for me to participate for the first time in this meeting, and this experience should a great opportunity in one hand to collect useful informations for my doctoral thesis on the Wikimedia movement, in second hand, to make a very complete English report about the summit for the members of the user group. The third and lastly, is that I am in Belgium, not very far from Berlin, and I am free from April 3 to 5, 2020. Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 12:16, 11 November 2019 (UTC) P.S. Oh yes, I've forgot... The WikiJournal user group is also the only way to have a representative of the Wikiversity community during the summit and I'll be glad to assume this role as fr.wikiversity administrator.Reply

Great point bringing this up. It was a very valuable meeting last year (summary) and the 2020 Wikimedia Summit will be at a very relevant point in Wikimedia's current WM2030 strategy. I agree that someone other than me should go this year. If any others volunteer then we can vote (final decision deadline Dec 16). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 05:39, 12 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

See Wikipedia:User:Dr.khatmando/sandbox#Dr.Jason Dixon delegate submission, per Wikiversity:Request custodian action. Any responses should be @Dr.khatmando: -- Dave Braunschweig (discusscontribs) 21:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hello - I am Jack Nunn and I am the Strategy Liaison for the Wiki Journals and am passionate about improving how the journals can help more people get involved in publishing open access, peer reviewed content for free. Here is a summary of what I have been working on for the Wikimedia Foundation and how I hope to build on this work if I attend the Berlin Summit:

  • I recently ran a ‘Youth Strategy Salon’ for the WikiJournals, in partnership with 'Science for All', with the report and recommendations here [1]. I would value a chance to build on the online meetings I have had by attending face to face and meeting colleagues from around the world to discuss this issue. Some of the issues included how to respectfully and appropriately incorporate the knowledge of Indigenous peoples into Wikimedia projects. I am working with a number of Aboriginal organisations in Australia and I would be keen to use this Summit as a chance to meet people from other parts of the world that face this important challenge.
  • I am on the Editorial Board for both the ‘WikiJournal of Science’ and the ‘WikiJournal of Humanities’, giving me a perspective which spans these disciplines, helping see commonalities. Attending regular meetings and facilitating online discussions has helped me reflect on better ways of gathering and prioritising the needs of our community, which I would like to discuss with others at the Summit.
  • As Director of the charity 'Science for All' I run a number of projects to involve the public in doing science, including leading a project to involve people in writing up a citizen science project in the Wiki Journals [2]. The Summit would give me an opportunity to share my learning about this process and hear from others about ways of improving the work of the Wiki Journals.
  • I am on the Cochrane Advocacy Advisory committee, working to build links between them and the Wikimedia Foundation. One of the ways I have been doing this is through leading the development of Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT) [3]. Working with colleagues from the Wiki Journals, Cochrane, the National Institute for Health Research (UK), the Campbell Collaboration and others, we have published a pre-print summarising a way for people to share standardised data about initiatives. The aim is that the Wiki Journals will host this, with anyone able to complete reports. This will help improve transparency about research and enable people to critically appraise the trustworthiness of research, articles and data. We have published a pre-print about this work and are inviting anyone to be a co-author of a peer-reviewed paper [4]. The Summit in Berlin would be an important opportunity to discuss ways of partnering with other people in order to improve this work.
  • I am currently doing a PhD exploring public involvement in genomics research. Developing evidence informed methodologies for involving people as equal partners in the research is important. This PhD has given me a chance to develop thinking about reporting involvement, and I hope to work with the Wiki Journals to make them a world leader in this area, using STARDIT as a starting point. The Summit would provide an opportunity to learn and share best-practice. Jacknunn (discusscontribs) 02:21, 25 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

I've reformatted the above applications so that they are presented similarly for voting. Registration closes on Dec 16th so I reckon we should aim to conclude voting by Dec 9th to give plenty of safely margin. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 03:34, 25 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Proposal for a deliberation

Sorry if I come a bit late with this proposition. But I think than a poll can provoke a bad feeling for the one who won't be selected and have as consequence to harm the relationship in our group.

The best way should be to discuss until a consensus is reached as is ideally done in Wikimedia decisions, but I don't know if we have time enough and if the two candidate are open for this option.

If the time is too short and consensus is not reached, then I think it would be better to draw lots between the two candidates.

I don't know what the other members of the group and Jacknunn in particular think about it ?

Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 15:34, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

P.S. As I don't have an answer to my message, I will send the link via the mailing list. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that my presence at the Summit is important for my PhD research on the Wikimedia movement. And I argue that putting two candidates in competition is not a wise choice. In such a context, I feel compelled to compare myself to Jacknunn in terms of online participation within the movement as meritocratic value and it is a delicate and uncomfortable exercise for me. Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 14:19, 2 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

@Lionel Scheepmans: Sorry for the delayed response! I agree that a consensus method rather than a numerical vote would be better next time (though both methods have their limitations when there are multiple competing options). I'd initially been thinking about if from the point of view of how the ASBS nomination was done, but I appreciate that's a rather different situation. It's definitely difficult to have to select a single representative of the whole user group at the strategy meeting.
For this year: we could restructure the subsections below into a mixed discussion beneath the two applications rather than comments separately enumerated under each. There are still another 2 weeks until the final nomination deadline (16th Dec), so consensus may yet emerge. Closer to the time we can also prepare a communally-decided priority set for the representative to use in their decision-making at the summit.
For next year: we should also probably better define the aims and requirements of the representative at the strategy summit.
On a related note, given the existence of dedicated user groups for several of the other sister projects, it'd be logical for Wikiversity to form an additional one (I've added a discussion over at the colloquium). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 05:29, 3 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Hi Evolution and evolvability, the situation seams clear now with the actual state of the poll. No more discussion seams necessary for me. Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 15:10, 5 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
In that case, given the current comments below, I'll notify the committee that Jacknunn is this year's representative at the summit. Sadly we didn't discuss the nomination system at the latest conference call meeting, however I'll make sure that next month's keeps to time better. Two ideas that people have put to me are 1) a public consensus discussion over a longer period or 2) people send in application seen by the boards only, who discuss and decide on the representative internally then announce the selected representative. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 03:14, 13 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Lionel Scheepmans

Hello, I would like to be present as Wikijournal group delegate at the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin in April 2020. Thomas were there last year and I don't know if he want to be there a second time or if there is other candidate. I am not the oldest or most active person on the Wikijournal Board, but I have several reasons to be present at the Berlin meeting. The first one is that I want to get more involved in the Wikijournal project, this representation would therefore be an opportunity for me to prepare the summit and by the way be more involved on the promotion of the group and the explanation of our necessities. The second is that it would be an opportunity for me to participate for the first time in this meeting, and this experience should a great opportunity in one hand to collect useful informations for my doctoral thesis on the Wikimedia movement, in second hand, to make a very complete English report about the summit for the members of the user group. The third and lastly, is that I am in Belgium, not very far from Berlin, and I am free from April 3 to 5, 2020. Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 12:16, 11 November 2019 (UTC) P.S. Oh yes, I've forgot... The WikiJournal user group is also the only way to have a representative of the Wikiversity community during the summit and I'll be glad to assume this role as fr.wikiversity administrator.Reply

  1.   Support - I love how all candidates have strong academic involvement. They are all strong candidates. I think we need more people acitvely involved in Wikjournal. One way is to send out people who haven't represented at summits before. It would also be great to have more French languague involvement in Wikjournal. This is a whole area where also the English language WikiJournal can profit from. All the best, Taketa (discusscontribs) 10:01, 28 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Jack Nunn

Hello - I am Jack Nunn and I am the Strategy Liaison for the Wiki Journals and am passionate about improving how the journals can help more people get involved in publishing open access, peer reviewed content for free. Here is a summary of what I have been working on for the Wikimedia Foundation and how I hope to build on this work if I attend the Berlin Summit:

  • I recently ran a ‘Youth Strategy Salon’ for the WikiJournals, in partnership with 'Science for All', with the report and recommendations here [5]. I would value a chance to build on the online meetings I have had by attending face to face and meeting colleagues from around the world to discuss this issue. Some of the issues included how to respectfully and appropriately incorporate the knowledge of Indigenous peoples into Wikimedia projects. I am working with a number of Aboriginal organisations in Australia and I would be keen to use this Summit as a chance to meet people from other parts of the world that face this important challenge.
  • I am on the Editorial Board for both the ‘WikiJournal of Science’ and the ‘WikiJournal of Humanities’, giving me a perspective which spans these disciplines, helping see commonalities. Attending regular meetings and facilitating online discussions has helped me reflect on better ways of gathering and prioritising the needs of our community, which I would like to discuss with others at the Summit.
  • As Director of the charity 'Science for All' I run a number of projects to involve the public in doing science, including leading a project to involve people in writing up a citizen science project in the Wiki Journals [6]. The Summit would give me an opportunity to share my learning about this process and hear from others about ways of improving the work of the Wiki Journals.
  • I am on the Cochrane Advocacy Advisory committee, working to build links between them and the Wikimedia Foundation. One of the ways I have been doing this is through leading the development of Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT) [7]. Working with colleagues from the Wiki Journals, Cochrane, the National Institute for Health Research (UK), the Campbell Collaboration and others, we have published a pre-print summarising a way for people to share standardised data about initiatives. The aim is that the Wiki Journals will host this, with anyone able to complete reports. This will help improve transparency about research and enable people to critically appraise the trustworthiness of research, articles and data. We have published a pre-print about this work and are inviting anyone to be a co-author of a peer-reviewed paper [8]. The Summit in Berlin would be an important opportunity to discuss ways of partnering with other people in order to improve this work.
  • I am currently doing a PhD exploring public involvement in genomics research. Developing evidence informed methodologies for involving people as equal partners in the research is important. This PhD has given me a chance to develop thinking about reporting involvement, and I hope to work with the Wiki Journals to make them a world leader in this area, using STARDIT as a starting point. The Summit would provide an opportunity to learn and share best-practice. Jacknunn (discusscontribs) 02:21, 25 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
  1.   Support reading through the excellent contributions here I think this one gets my vote due to the broader coverage and multidisciplinary approach. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 18:28, 26 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
  2.   Support Although all three candidates are excellent, I think that Jack has had the most experience with the workings of the WikiJournals and in the monthly meetings. Additionally, as strategy liaison, I have found Jack to be proactive and engaged in the current Wikimedia strategy process. COI: I work at the same institution as Jack, so have had greater opportunity to interact than I have with the two other candidates. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 08:53, 28 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
  3.   Support Both candidates sound good but I'm voting for Jack with his connections and experience. Chiswick Chap (discusscontribs) 16:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
  4.   Support for reasons outlined by Chiswick. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:46, 2 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
  5.   Support Based on knowledge and experience. --Saguaromelee (discusscontribs) 14:37, 5 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Technical editor

As mentioned in recent discussions at wikijournal-en lists.wikimedia.org, it should indeed be the primary responsibility of peer review coordinators to arrange peer reviews, but I do think a technical editor can offer to help out, at least in apparently overdue cases. I made a separate page for the role (here), now with the following wording for the discussed task:

"Assisting in arranging peer reviews, by regularly checking the potential upcoming articles, and offer assistance to peer review coordinators at least in articles with delayed progression. Such assistance may be in organizing lists of names, credentials and emails of potential peer reviewers."

I've also started a draft of a potential contract there:

One issue is the amount of compensation. Although it might be an idea to determine fixed amounts for specific tasks as mentioned in the October meeting, for now I think we have to apply an hourly rate, and focus on hiring someone who seems reliable in reporting the total time spent. At least initially, it's also important for the technical editor to document the time spent for different tasks. Even if it won't lead to a decision to put a price tag on each task, such detailed reports will help us decide what tasks the technical editor should do. As for the exact hourly amount, it varies worldwide, for example in US being $29 to $38 per hour [9], and in India being about $4 per hour [10]. I think we can start offering something closer to the latter. Since it is a non-profit organization, I think the position can still appeal to high income countries, and we could always increase it if we don't find any fitting candidate willing to do it for that salary. To have somewhere to start the discussion, I put $5 in the current contract draft. I appreciate suggestions for improvement to it.

Mikael Häggström (discusscontribs) 02:48, 26 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Applications

Applications are now open for becoming a technical editor of WikiJournal. The description page of the job, the hiring process, and how to apply, is still found at: Meta:WikiJournal_User_Group/Technical_editor. As mentioned there, the hiring process will consist of first looking among current project participants.

Applications are made at Meta:Talk:WikiJournal_User_Group/Technical_editor, and community discussions regarding applicants can be made there as well. Mikael Häggström (discusscontribs) 21:31, 18 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Update: We do have an application under discussion. Please add comments there: Meta:Talk:WikiJournal User Group/Technical editor. Mikael Häggström (discusscontribs) 19:22, 25 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
Also brought this up at the most recent monthly meeting. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 21:57, 27 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Additional task for technical editor

I also think the technical tasks involved in onboarding new editorial board members and associate editors should be handled by the technical editor, once approved by each board. These tasks are given in the templates {{WikiJournal_accepted_associate_editor}} and {{WikiJournal accepted board member}}, as exampled at bottom of Talk:WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Editors/Archive_2020. Fellow board members can then say welcome through the email list. Any objections? Mikael Häggström (discusscontribs) 19:22, 25 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Treasurer

Hi everyone.

  • Am starting this topic to discuss the Treasurer position as per the meeting earlier today. So far I have volunteered to assist with determining the selection criteria and eventually filling this position. In non-profit organizations, within the board of these, it is needed that several positions be in existence. Within our Editorial Board several of these are effectively already in existence. However we do need an official treasurer. As was discussed it looks like we will probably be moving the current arrangement for finances from Sweden to the USA. So this would make it helpful if the Treasurer was in the USA as they need to be directly responsible for both banking and taxation requirements and that will be in accordance with US law if the finances of WikiJournals is held in the USA.
  • One of the initial steps in this is that at minimum a selection committee should be involved in this process, made up of people (I would say at least 3-5) who are also currently on the editorial board or at least associate editors, though am open to other views on this. Formally selecting a treasurer in a non-profit cannot be done by one or two people, it needs a sub-committee who then upon decision present this to the board for ratification. So I would ask for anyone willing to assist on this sub-committee to add their names please. This is a committee that should be willing to assist the eventually selected Treasurer as there are some tasks that are difficult to do alone.
  • @Evolution and evolvability: today summarized some of the selection criteria ideas these need formulated it some concrete selection criteria to use in the selection process for anyone that volunteers for this position. Some of the responsibilities of the Treasurer (in the USA) are reconciliation of bank statements, reports to Board, yearly reports to IRS, using forms they will provide. Paying bills and ensuring they are properly invoiced and obtaining receipts, receiving money from grants etc., and any conditional requirements on the use of that money. So obviously some experience or understanding of this role is important.
  • So this initial post is to form a sub-committee that will do this selection job and oversee the process, I would ask that if you are considering applying for Treasurer please do not go on the sub-committee, thanks Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 04:55, 11 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Note this discussion also Talk:WikiJournal of Medicine/Financials cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 15:04, 11 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
I think the suggestions above are reasonable. I have practically been holding the organizations finances, and have it registered in Sweden, but I will move to the US in May. I would strongly prefer if the someone with knowledge in handling organizations in the US would take over the position, who could also at least assist in registering WikiJournal as a non-profit organization in the US. I can then transfer the existing finances and then cancel the registration in Sweden. Mikael Häggström (discusscontribs) 17:21, 25 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Faendalimas: Thanks Scott, and apologies for the delayed reply on this. I agree that these are a very sensible set of points above. For a selection committee, in addition to any volunteers, I'll nominate a few people for the commitee who have relevant experience: Mikael Häggström (as current treasurer), Eric Youngstrom (HGAPS), . Could also consult Stuart Ray (WikiProjectMed Foundation) and/or LiAnna Davis (Wiki&Edu User Group) for advice. I'll leave it up to the committee as to how to attract applicants. So that there is a link from here, note that there was also an expression of interest by Peter Chisholm in October at this link. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 03:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Possible Open Journal Systems back end

As part of improving the technical side of the WikiJournal User Group journals (Technical wishlist), discussions are ongoing about using OJS to address several of our inefficient back-end processes. Relevant meeting minutes at this link (2019-11-29 & 2019-12-18). This would be an alternative to full from-scratch features development (form examples, bot request), especially as structured input forms was not selected this year by the WMF's Community Wishlist Survey for implementation. On-wiki structured input forms and the suggested bot may still be useful, but would be less critical with an OJS implementation and APIs moving data back and forth. Ideas and input welcomed! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 01:11, 20 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Isn't this orthogonal to the attempt of becoming a Wikipedia sister project? In the discussions for that attempt, the confidential nature of some transactions was criticized. With OJS, we would go closer to traditional journals and further from Wikipedia. Is it realistic to try a synthesis, or should we choose one way or the other? Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 20:07, 20 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
I think it could be useful to present both as options to the WMF trustees (using OJS as a ready-made back end, or development of a fully mediawiki back end). So long as mediawiki can still be used for the front end, any use of OJS would require ensuring that current transparency is retained or increased (e.g. reviews, reviewers, editors, changes, decision making process). Although OJS doesn't reveal peer reviewer identities currently, it seems from the meetings that it should be possible for an API to be written that would export that info to wikidata and wikijournals to keep it open. The main restriction could if the ongoing costs are prohibitive (though being open source, the foundation can opt to host the software locally if that works out better). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 07:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Experiment outcome and discussion

The experiment of trying to peer review a Wikipedia article that is selected by an editor (rather than submitted by an author) is apparently a failure. See the details here. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 22:00, 20 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Disappointing, but definitely useful to know. If you think it useful there's no reason whey the experiment couldn't be repeated, but for the moment it seems as though the w:WP:JAN system for existing Wikipedia aritcles will probably be best. I've added a couple of extra comments at the discussion link you noted. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 07:04, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Under what circumstances should articles be deleted

Please centralize discussion at Talk:WikiJournal_of_Science#Declined_articles:_what_happens_to_reviews_if_the_draft_is_deleted?. It is confusing and counterproductive to have multiple discussions about the same topic on different pages. --mikeu talk 14:51, 8 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.
Published WikiJournal of Science articles have been corrected with respect to WikiData identifiers. --Marshallsumter (discusscontribs) 23:04, 8 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

It's all right. The rejected article submitted might have few acceptable thoughts discussed which may have consensus univerasaly. So, as long as wiki policy allows let it may continue. Thanks. PARTHASARATHI.N (discusscontribs) 06:28, 23 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thank you to PARTHASARATHI.N for the comment here and at that article's talkpage, since it's not an easy subject to discuss. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 13:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)Reply
I've also added some updated comments a the thread here. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 13:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Research projects at Wikiversity

Wikijournals are not the only way Wikiversity can be used for doing open science. I am currently experimenting with publicly writing research projects, see the four examples there.

The idea is to get feedback on these projects, and to coordinate efforts with other researchers in the field.

In contrast to other research pages at Wikiversity, this is only about planning research, not actually doing research. Moreover, there is a standard structure with the sections Motivations - Type of project - Known results - Work to be done.

I would welcome feedback on this experiment, information on comparable existing experiments, comments on the proposed structure for project pages, etc. Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 20:10, 21 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Report for 2019, and upcoming grant application

Now that a new year is here, a draft report is now available for 2019: Meta:Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2019/Report
It is nice to see such a growth in both participation and article creations.

I think it would be optimal if this report is submitted simultaneously with the rapid grant application for 2020: Meta:Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2020

In short, the requested grant contains the technical infrastructure as well as continued membership in Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Otherwise, we still have the $1.400 remaining from last year for hiring a technical editor, since we still haven't hired anyone (see #Technical editor section above. This counts towards the maximum grant amount of $2.000, so there's no more room for additional ideas in his grant application. It doesn't stop us from making more than one application this year in case we want to fund new initiatives, but in such case I'd like it to be handled by someone else, preferably someone who is willing to become official treasurer of the organization (see #Treasurer section above). In any case, I appreciate further improvements of the reports, before asking the community to endorse it.

Mikael Häggström (discusscontribs) 00:25, 26 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

2020 ideas and priority discussion

As 2020 kicks off, it'd be good to brainstorm possible ideas in one place. I'll start it off with some items on journal structure, indexing, reaching out to authors, reviewers, process and content drawn from today's conference call meeting. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 23:38, 27 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Potential ideas:

  • Forward STARDIT for reporting contributor roles (and get Wiki Journals more involved) (draft publication link)
  • Increase directly reaching out to potential authors
  • Formalize some relationships with universities? Credits for writing or reviewing a paper/article
    • Some WikiJournal editors are also course organisers in WikiEdu
    • WikiEdu also considering professional development for academics - suggest a WikiJournal liaison
    • Put together an information pack and talking points for easy forwarding to departments/faculties/societies about wikijournals
  • Possible new article format - 'partner/parallel article'
    • An extension of the 'encyclopedic review' format that is intended for direct integration to Wikipedia
    • A partner article could sit alongside a Wikipedia article as 'further reading'
    • Example: Dioxins page in Wikipedia and much more technical/indepth partner article in WikiJMed (a bit like opposite of opposite of Simple Wikipedia)
    • Maybe easier for academics to write companion articles – even if not as valuable to Wikipedia
  • Prioritise and better organise indexing applications
    • SCOPUS and PMC
    • SciMago and CoFactor
  • Article prize across the three journals as incentive to recruit more authors
  • We could increase the number of conferences that the journals could be presented at (WikiJournal_User_Group/Calendar)

Survey

I forward the following survey invitation from Wikimedia Foundation: Mikael Häggström (discusscontribs) 02:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Please help the Wikimedia Foundation by completing this brief survey so that we can learn about your group's experience in the course of pursuing a shared mission and vision. We will use this information to better support WikiJournal User Group's work.

Thank you in advance for taking this survey, we look forward to connecting and collaborating with you along the way as we move towards a new and exciting 2030 strategic direction.

Link to survey: https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6z2rDBS5Iom0NKt


Thank you

Wikimedia Foundation Learning & Evaluation team

WikiJournal User Group as signatory to the Wellcome statement on data sharing in public health emergencies?

the recent statement made by Wellcome statement on open access for all 2019-nCoV coronavirus research.

They are inviting additional signatories to the underlying statement of principles:

"If your organisation is committed to supporting these principles, please contact us (d.carr@wellcome.ac.uk) and we will add your organisation to the list of signatories"

What would people think about the WikiJournal User Group being a signatory? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 13:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

I've therefore gone ahead and contacted the organisation to indicate the WikiJournal User Group's support. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 23:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Stop publishing Wikipedia articles on WJ

Hi, I come back about a topic than we always not fixed any issue. That's concern re-publishing Wikipedia article on WJ.

It is clear that this practice is problematic for many reasons :

  1. It's out of the Wikiversity policy and scope. Wikiversity is a place for collecting pedagogical contain and original research not for copy past encyclopedic contain coming from Wikipedia.
  2. It's an unfair promotion of only one editor to put his or here name as the main editor without real transparency about his participation on the article edition. How to control the participation of the main author of a article published on WJ on the original Wikipedia article ? Is there some where a links between WJ author and Wikimedia user name ? And what about an article than the biggest editor has edit only 43.5 ? And what's about an WJ article published in the name of some one who edit only 18.9% of the text and less than the biggest contributor ? Is that ethical position of our journal really acceptable ? People working in academic sphere know well than a name on a published article in a peer review journal can make the difference during an applications for academic funding. Even for a job or for general reputation WJ publication could be use on CV. Recycling Wikipedia articles on this purpose could definitely not be part of the scope of WJ.
  3. The WikiJournal article coming from Wikipedia will stay static when the article on Wikipedia will still uprate and thus probably became better than the WJ one.
  4. The peer-review process can take place directly on Wikipedia for the profit of by Wikipedia project including academic workers in Wikipedia editorial system.
  5. Wikipedia article have more visitors than WJ articles. Why thus duplicate contain to a less visiting place ?
  6. ...

This topic only focus on article coming from Wikipedia and published in WJ. The WJ is a good Idea in term of real free and open scientific editorial system, there is no doubt about this.

If this problem of importation of Wikipedia contain to WJ don't found issue here, maybe it will be probably time ask some help from Meta-Wiki.

Best regards, Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 11:28, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Peer-reviewing WP articles is my motivation for participating in WJS: in physics, wikijournals are too far from the usual tools (if only in format) to be adopted for original research. Let me answer Lionel Scheepmans's points in turn:
  1. If this was really a problem we could peer review WP articles at WP itself, or elsewhere. But so far, did anyone from Wikiversity complain?
  2. Authorship is indeed a perennial problem. If the 'et al' is not enough we could give another name (instead of 'author') to whoever submits an article and sees it through publication. OK, this role will not quite fit in the current academic system, but we are trying to change the system, right? See also WikiJournal_User_Group/Open_questions.
  3. Yes, the traditional peer review process is not quite suited to evolving articles. Still, peer reviewing an article at one point in time can be very useful. Again, this does not quite fit in the current notion of a publication. So what?
  4. Yes, but we still need to reward authors with a publication for their CVs, and to attract reviewers by posing as an academic journal in the accepted sense. See WikiJournal_of_Science/WP_Experiment.
  5. Duplicating content might indeed not be necessary. But this is a relatively minor technical point. Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 20:22, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
Apologies for the length here but these are some interesting and valuable points.
1) I appreciate the point that review-style WikiJournal articles will not always in include original research (though that's true of many Wikiversity pages currently, e.g. the page on DNA). Eventually I agree that it would be useful for WikiJournals to have a separate sister project site (currently with WMF board of trustees) given that it's scope doesn't not perfectly overlap with any existing wikimedia sister project. I'd be very keen for increased publication of research articles, as has been seen in WikiJMed as it has matured. Some of the difficulties for publishing original research articles may also be lessened by technical improvements (either directly in mediawiki, or via integrating elements of OJS).
2) I'd be interested in other ways of better presenting additional contributors. Currently we list submitting authors who can fulfill the ICMJE criteria, but I'm keen to better represent at the top of the page all contributors, such as those who edited the original WP article, copy editors, handling editors, peer reviewers etc and storing that in wikidata (example) and having more detailed stats and info pup up pon mousing over the authorlist. It could also be good to have some automated bot to notify an article's talkpage when it's submitted to w:WP:JAN. So far we've only ever had someone submit a WP article for peer review who was a major contributor to it (the same is generally true over at wikipedia's w:WP:GAN and w:WP:FAC), but the ethics statement was written preemptively to avoid something egregiously problematic. Regarding Andrew Dalby, WikiWho indicates that he did major updates to the WP page over the last decade and wrote 48% of the current text, with the next largest contributor having not edited it since 2010. He also addressed the reviewer comments, and included additional info in the attributions section in addition to the hyperlink to the full contributor list. I think it is reasonable to state that he has satisfied the ICMJE requirements for authorship in that case. STARDIT contributor reports or similar may also be a way of more granularity represent and acknowledge contribution (e.g. it is currently common for medical writers to not be included in the author list), so long as we are cautious to not just be increasing admin burden.
3,4,5) As for peer reviewing articles at a single point in time, I'm very keen on the idea of versioning articles (rather like textbooks), having another round of peer review every few years if there have been significant updates. This would address the issue of review articles being published as separate articles with relatively minor differences and updates (e.g. cyclotides as drugs in 2002, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017 ...). Storing the stable version after peer review is a necessity for assigning DOIs, but the fact that it's on wikiversity is a historical artefact of the fact that the journals started up on this site. In an alternative universe, I could have imagined WikiJournals growing out of something on Wikipedia by organising outside peer review, like the Parkinson's article experiment, w:Wikipedia:Expert_help, or Sylvain's experiment. We could definitely copy peer reviewer comments onto relevant Wikipedia talkpage, though we do already link to them in the references section of the relevant Wikipedia mainspace page. Again, it'd be better to do so by bot or cross-wiki transclusion to minimise additional manual steps. Overall, I'm keen to maintain a route for from-scratch review articles to be copied over to Wikipedia (example) and for Wikipedia articles to be treated to the same peer review systems (example) whist keeping the interface and process as unified as possible.
T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:11, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
Hi Sylvain Ribault, hi T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo), thank for replying to my post. Let's come back to all point one by one:
1. There is at least on person questionning with me the actual problem : Mu301.
2 & 4. Yes in deed, we are trying to change the system but on WJH we just, copy past the old one on Wikipedia article. The competitive academic sphere slave of editorial institutions in a absurd ranking system have to found an alternative. If WJ is innovating in open publish model in one hand, it should be good if this innovation touch the authorship system to. Showing just a name of one person than don't wrote the main part of the article is unfair for the others authors. I wonder why nobody still react before me. The question is not avoid rewarding people but rewarding fairly all of them and also respecting the CC.BY.SA licence witch is not very clear right now.
3 & 5 duplicating Wikipedia article is not a silly "minor technical point" but a major waste of time and non respect of the scope of wikiversity and Wikimedia movement.
Regarding the lack of positive reaction to my post, I'm feeling lonely for supporting this ethical claim and issue. Maybe the rest of the community just don't worry about what's happen. Maybe WJ is just a deel concerning an academic user group born in the Wikimedia movement. If this assumption is right, I doubt about a real innovation. Best, Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 16:59, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
Yes, there are issues, and the workflow is still very much experimental. Still, peer review at Wikijournals has had some success in improving Wikipedia articles, and in getting researchers to engage with Wikipedia. At the moment I know of no better organization for this activity than Wikijournals. How could this activity part ways with Wikijournals without disappearing? Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 11:10, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
I've been supporting the publication of original research in the WikiJournal of Science since its beginnings. Each article I've helped get reviewers for I've also added some editorial and content suggestions that include items of original research. While these probably did not get into the Wikipedia articles they are definitely original research even if only a minor theoretical fact in the article. And, I will continue to do this. We also need more original research articles themselves. For example, Geochemistry to produce Widgiemoolthalite is an original research article not yet ready for submission. --Marshallsumter (discusscontribs) 03:44, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for chiming in late. Yes, I'm opposed to Wikiversity Journals spending time and effort on republishing encyclopedia articles. (with some rare exceptions) A strong argument could be made that this is strictly outside the scope of our project as a duplication of effort. Basically this is just a redundant process to mimic what GA/FA on Wikipedia and wikiedu.org do. Despite the claims - you are not adding value by pursuing this. I don't find any of the arguments that I've heard so far in favor of this practice persuasive. When I read the justifications I hear long-winded explanations that involve resume building. If academics really believe in and are commited to contribute to open source they should create an account and become active on-wiki. Bending over backwards to accomodatie content experts who want to participate by private email is not strengthening the open source movement and the dissemination of free knowledge. We're placing the desire of the authors before of the needs of the recipients.

Exceptions might include a vetted article that is intended for distribution via paper in geographic areas where internet access is limited. An example that I've used is health topics. A malaria article distributed as a flyer in the tropics is a good example. COVID-19 where the best recommended practices are changing from day to day is not.

I agree with many of the comments from @Lionel Scheepmans: but the above are my first reactions. --mikeu talk 23:59, 21 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Mikeu: Let's put it more succintly. The Wikipedia article on Surface tension lost GA status as a result of peer review at WJS, after two non-anonymous experts wrote critical reviews. This illustrates the need for more contributions from experts. But the experts' careers are driven by publications in official, indexed journals. Wikijournals provide a mechanism for generating official publications from Wikipedia articles. This incites experts to contribute as authors and reviewers. Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 10:09, 23 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Strategy feedback

Hi everyone,

It's Jack here, your friendly Strategy Liaison. Just a reminder that Wikimedia is seeking feedback on their strategy before the 21st February (with later opportunities to feedback)

If anyone has any feedback, you can comment here, comment in our user group/ or follow other instructions below.

I'll be discussing any strategy ideas or issues at the next meeting if people wanted to raise points then too, so plenty of other opportunities.

Jack [user: JackNunn]


We’re in week 4 of community conversations about the movement strategy recommendations. Thank you to everyone who has already taken part. The community conversations will continue until Friday, February 21 - you can get involved on Meta[1] in Arabic, English, French, German, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese, strategize with your community or organization, or send the core team your feedback to strategy2030@wikimedia.org.

This current round of community conversations is the last opportunity to suggest improvements to the recommendations. They will be finalized before the end of March, and then published for the movement to understand them, reflect on what they mean in their project, local, or thematic context, and move into implementation.

Movement feedback: what happens next

All feedback is being collected, reviewed and analyzed on an ongoing basis. Here are the next steps after February 21:

  • Week commencing February 24: the core team will summarize all the

feedback received in a report. You are welcome to continue commenting and discussing during this time, but the discussions will not be as closely facilitated and documented.

  • Week commencing March 2: the core team will publish the above report

on Meta to give the movement an opportunity to review the content and give feedback as to whether it accurately reflects their input. The closing date for this is March 6. This summary report will then be finalized and published.

In mid-March, the feedback from the Board of Trustees, movement conversations and reviewers' input will be considered in the creation of the final, improved set of recommendations. A rationale for things that have not been considered will be provided, too. Our aim is to have the recommendations finalized and published in late March. More about the actual integration work coming soon.

Video and podcast about our work; one-pager

Members of the core team - Tanveer Hasan, Information and Knowledge Liaison, and Mehrdad Pourzaki, Information and Knowledge Manager - recently held a presentation about all the recommendations at the Wikimedia Foundation All Hands. They provide a quick, concise overview of every recommendation and also some insight into how each was developed. Video of the presentation [2] and the presentation slides [3] are now on Commons.

Jan Ainali has interviewed me for his podcast Wikipedia Podden. I’m speaking with him about the past, present and future of movement strategy[4].

The one-pager created by Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado) has been very popular. Again, a big thank you to Andrew for putting this together. In addition to Arabic, English, and Hindi versions, it is now also available in Farsi [5, 6].

Meeting notes from the office hours

We have published a condensed summary of the meeting notes [7] from the office hours that were held by the core team on Thursday, January 30. The notes provide an overview of the key points and questions that were raised during the two calls as well as summaries of the responses.

Do you have further questions?

Members of the core team will join the upcoming Wikimedia Café on February 15 [8], which will focus on the movement strategy recommendations. The Wikimedia Café is a community-led meeting hosted by User:Pine and User:Bluerasberry, and we are happy to take part and help answer any questions people may have about the recommendations. Additionally, if you are looking for more information about any of the above topics or about the movement strategy in general, take a look at our FAQ section [9].

Happy weekend, Nicole

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_movement_strategy_recommendations_presentation_at_WMF_All-Hands_2020.webm [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Movement_Strategy_at_WMF_All_Hands_2020.pdf [4] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WP_72_-_Wikimedia_2030,_a_strategy_interview.mp3#%7B%7Bint%3Afiledesc%7D%7D [5] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One-page_overview_of_the_first_version_of_the_Wikimedia_2030_movement_strategy_recommendations.pdf [6] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D9%85%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%91%D8%B5_%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%B5%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%8A%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%A9_2030.pdf [7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Reports/Movement_strategy_office_hours_notes [8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Caf%C3%A9 [9] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Frequently_asked_questions Jacknunn (discusscontribs) 06:10, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

WikiJournal of Humanities

Why is it that this Journal always seems to be lagging behind the other two? –MJLTalk 21:33, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Maybe MJL because this part of the science is more than other deeply linked, controlled and dependent of classic publishing house. I would like to propose a first original research (not a Wikipedia plagiarism) but it's written in French and I don't know yet if the Wikijournal is ok to accept other languages than English. I hope to get more information about this in reply of this message. Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 17:44, 18 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
Currently the journals are only set up to organise the peer review in english (more available peer reviewers) and I don't think WikiJHum has sufficient french speaking editors to coordinate it entirely in french. However if an english translation can be made (I fully appreciate that's non-trivial!), it could be submitted and the fr+en copies co-published at the same time. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 00:52, 19 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
More generally about WikiJHum, I thikn it's hada slightly less active editorial board overall and early submissions for WikiJMed and WikiJSci were largely from proactive inviting of potential authors before sprontaneous submissions started to pick up. Possible solutions: specific invites of potential authors, general outreach to wider reseach community, grow editorial board? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 00:52, 19 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
Ok T.Shafee, so, let's go to translate the French version ! Do you know if the translation tool work on en.Wikiversity and or if there is here such a volunteer team for helping in this kind of task ? Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 13:08, 19 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
Sounds excellent! I'm not certain about the translation tool (like so many native English speakers, I'm mono-lingual). The best place to ask is Wikiversity:Colloquium. After translation, I will gladly proofread the English copy (and I am sure that others will too). It will be a useful example to then be able to invite others to similarly contribute. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 19:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
Ok perfect T.Shafee. So let's go in that direction. This will be all the more useful as the article is a plea for open science. The message on the colloquium is posted. Cheers, Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 21:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

I used Google translate to convert a German Wikipedia article to English. I found that the machine translation was quite good and I only needed to clean it up a bit for a native speaker. Your mileage may vary for highly technical subjects. --mikeu talk 00:53, 20 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi mikeu, it sounds like the ultimate solution. Before, I'll try to import the page on Meta-wiki and try there the translation tool. Thanks for your response. Evolution and evolvability, some advisements for a bilingual preprint ? I'm just thinking about doubling the bidding with an English title. What do you think about : WikiJournal Preprints/When the Wikimedia movement challenges how to do science or maybe WikiJournal Preprints/When the Wikimedia movement questions the way of doing science Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 14:14, 20 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Lionel Scheepmans: I think the first title works well. We can also start to write up some best proactive guidelines based on this experience. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 05:29, 21 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo), Ĩ've started the job. It's a big deal... May the force be with us ! Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 00:12, 22 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
Hi T.Shafee, I've just finished the job. What do you plane for the "proactive guidelines based on this experience" ? Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 19:55, 24 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
To start with, ideas and guidelines could be drafted in WikiJournal_User_Group/Languages/Draft. Later it can be summarised and linked to in author guidelines. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 23:09, 24 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

ReimagineReview survey design  

ReimagineReview has asked if anyone from WikiJournals would like to be involved in designing a survey to monitor current innovations in peer review (author, editor, and reviewer motivations and perceived benefits). The current question set has been drafted with the advice of Philip Cohen (SocArXiv), Micah Altman (MIT), Thomas Lemberger (Review Commons), Bernd Pulvever (EMBO Press), Mate Palfy and Claire Moulton (Company of Biologists) and is inviting additional feedback before being sent around journal editorial boards. If you're interested in the peer review landscape and would like more details (including the link to the current draft survey questions), contact me or ReimagineReview's Victoria Yan. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:43, 5 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is looking for new members!

The main role of the Affiliations Committee is to guide groups of volunteers that are interested in forming Wikimedia affiliates. We review applications from new groups, answer questions and provide advice about the different Wikimedia affiliation models and processes, review affiliate bylaws for compliance with requirements and best practices, and update the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees as well as advise them on issues connected to chapters, thematic organizations and Wikimedia user groups.

The committee consists of fourteen members, selected every twelve months for staggered two-year terms. Those joining the committee during the current process will serve a two-year term ending in December 2021.

AffCom continues to closely monitor the Wikimedia 2030 Strategy process that was initiated in 2016. While the affiliation models continue to be discussed as part of the broader strategy discussion, as no decisions have been made to change the current affiliation models yet, AffCom will continue to work in the same manner with regard to affiliate recognitions and intervention support for affiliates with issues of non-compliance in 2020. Specifically, AffCom will continue to process applications for user group and chapter/thematic organization creation, while we await the strategy next steps and begin to prepare for a smooth transition of the committee and affiliates ecosystem to any changing movement structures and systems in 2021.

Being a part of the Affiliations Committee requires communication with volunteers all over the world, negotiating skills, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to understand legal texts. We look for a healthy mix of different skill sets in our members.

Extended content

Across all committee members there are additional relevant skills as well as requirements which help to support the committee and its sustainability which include both required and relevant general skills

Required Skills

  • Fluency in English
  • Availability of up to 5 hours per week, and the time to participate in a monthly one and two-hour voice/video meetings.
  • Willingness to use one's real name in committee activities (including contacts with current and potential affiliates) when appropriate.
  • Strong track record of effective collaboration
  • International orientation

Relevant Skills

  • Skills in other languages are a major plus.
  • Public Communications (English writing and speaking skills)
  • Strong understanding of the structure and work of affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • Documentation practices
  • Interviewing experience
  • Knowledge of different legal systems and experience in community building and organizing are a plus
  • Experience with, or in, an active affiliate is a major plus.
  • Teamwork
    • Focusing on shared goals instead of disagreements
    • Focusing on the conflict at hand and not past ones
    • Ensuring each member of the team has a clearly defined role, which can help reduce disagreements over areas of responsibility
    • Project and people management to coordinate different parties on a shared plan and seeing it through to completion.
  • Problem-Solving
    • Ability to evaluate various solutions
    • Ability to consider multiple interests and points of view
    • Willingness to revisit unresolved issues
    • The capacity to recognize and respond to important matters
    • The ability to seek compromise and avoid punishing
  • Ability to work and communicate with other languages and cultures.

Given the expectations for maintaining course in 2020 and preparing for potential 2021 transitions, it is important that we are also clear about two different skill sets critical to committee support at this time. The first skillset is oriented to understanding affiliate dynamics and organizational development patterns to successfully process affiliate applications for recognition; the other is oriented to conflict prevention and intervention support for affiliates in conflict.

Affiliate Recognitions Relevant Skills

  • Administration
    • Willingness to process applications through a set, perhaps bureaucratic process.
    • Attention to detail
  • Monitoring & Strategic Development
    • Readiness to participate in political discussions on the role and future of affiliates, models of affiliation, and similar topics.
  • Organizational Awareness
    • Understanding of and community building and organizational development
    • Understanding of group dynamics
    • Awareness of the affiliates ecosystem and models

Conflict Prevention & Intervention Relevant Skills

  • Communication
    • Active listening
    • Reading nonverbal cues
    • Knowing when to interrupt and when to stay quiet
    • Being culturally sensitive at the same time remaining clear and concise when explaining a concept or opinion
  • Stress Management
    • Patience
    • Positivity
    • Ability to inject a dose of humor to dilute anger and frustration when needed
    • Taking well-timed breaks that can bring calm in the midst of flared tempers
    • Ability to manage stress while remaining alert and calm
  • Emotional Intelligence
    • Being emotionally aware,
    • Ability to control emotions and behaviors,
    • Ability to practice empathy,
    • Impartiality,
    • Don’t take anything personally,
    • Being aware of and respectful of differences.
  • Facilitation skills
    • Meeting facilitation experience
    • Peer or community mediation training
    • Peer or community mediation experience

Do you have any of these skill sets and an interest to support movement affiliates?

We are looking for people who are excited by the challenge of empowering volunteers to get organized and form communities that further our mission around the world. In exchange, committee members selected will gain the experience of supporting their world-wide colleagues to develop their communities as well as personal development in guiding organizational development, facilitating affiliate partnerships, and professional communications.

Selection process

As a reflection of our commitment to openness, transparency, and bilateral engagement with the Wikimedia community, the 2019 member selection process will include a public review and comment period. We invite you to share with us you applications, specifying your focus area you’re interested in. All applications received by the committee will be posted on Meta, and the community will be invited to provide comments and feedback about each candidate.

At the end of the public comment period, the applications will be voted on by the members of the committee who are not seeking re-election, taking into account comments put forward by the committee's members, advisors, Wikimedia Foundation staff and board liaisons, and the community. A final decision will be made by mid-January 2020, with new members expected to join later that month.

How to apply

If you are interested in joining the committee, please post your application on the nomination page and send an email announcing your application to AffCom{{{1}}}lists.wikimedia.org by 10 January 2020. Your application must include the following information:

  • Your full name and Wikimedia username
  • A statement describing your relevant experience, skills, and motivation for joining the committee.
  • Answers to the following questions:
  1. How do you think affiliates work best together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
  2. What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
  3. What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you uniquely qualified?
  4. Which subcommittee are you most interested in serving on: Recognitions OR Conflict Prevention & Intervention?

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me and/or the committee as a whole. We are happy to chat or have a phone call with anyone about our work if this helps them decide to apply. Please distribute this call among your networks, and do apply if you are interested!


On behalf of the committee,

Camelia Boban, AffCom member

Podcast

Hello, I made a podcast with Evolution and evolvability about WikiJournals. It's on Wikimedia Commons, or on Wikipediapoddens website if you prefer a more podcatcher style. I hope it can be useful! Ainali (talk) 21:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Proofreading by English native speakers requested

Hi folks, I've just finish this article translation for the WikiJournal of Humanities and I would like to see if some English speakers and member of our Wikiversity community could proofread it. That a direct translation of a French article made with the free version of deepl.com translator. Let's see the quality of this translation tool ! Thanks in advance and all the best to everyone in this crisis time. Lionel Scheepmans Contact (French native speaker) 19:51, 24 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Doing... I left some questions on the talk page of the preprint as well --DannyS712 (discusscontribs) 21:56, 24 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

WikiJournals and COVID topics

Discussion at this link: w:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Non-wikipedian_epidemiologist/virologist_input_for_COVID19_articles. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 00:03, 25 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Evolution and evolvability: where is the meeting you mention? IRC? --DannyS712 (discusscontribs) 02:25, 25 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
Ah, yes, the meetings are listed here. If you're interested in attending let me know and I'll send you the jitsi & google doc links. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 03:03, 25 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, but I'd prefer to keep my privacy and anonymity --DannyS712 (discusscontribs) 03:05, 25 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DannyS712: It is possible to participate in IRC while remaining anonymous. See meta:IRC/Cloaks. --mikeu talk 20:20, 25 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
jitsi and google docs aren't irc - I have a cloak --DannyS712 (discusscontribs) 20:33, 25 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
For reference, the meeting minutes are now on-wiki at this link. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 07:22, 29 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Test translation of WikiJournal articles

In an effort to begin to become more multilingual, would any multilingual participants be interested in translating a published article's abstract or its entirety into an additional language?

  • If just the abstract: we can link between the different language versions as normal in wikimedia projects
  • If also the whole article: we could also have the translation double-checked, assigned an additional DOI and added to crossref.

What do you think as a first step towards increasing multilingualism? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 05:57, 28 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

I think it's a great idea! The only caveat I offer is to consider cross-checking translations with a professional translator. If a WikiJournal translator gets a thumbs up from a professional translator, then no additional cross-checks would be needed. I realize this costs money. We would need to balance the financial outlay on the one hand with publishing translations that might not be accurate or understandable on the other hand. There are some Open Source journals out there that routinely publish translated articles where the translations are mediocre at best and poor (incomprehensible) at worst. I cross those journals off my list, i.e., "If they publish bad translations of articles, where else are they taking shortcuts?"   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

I faced many copyright questions on translating Wiki articles. Is it clarified anywhere? --MLibrarian (discusscontribs) 17:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Meeting Schedule?

Do we have a meeting schedule for WikiJournal User Group and the individual journal editorial boards? I recognize that scheduling meetings for an international organisation is a daunting task, and those of you who have undertaken that task have done a superb job. :) At the same time, I imagine other folks are like me and want to check online for the date and time of the next meeting (in addition to email notifications). I did search for a meeting schedule, although my search parameters could have been ineffective, so if there is a Meeting Schedule page, please post the link, and I will humbly thank thee.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 14:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Markworthen: Sorry for late response, my own schedule has been as little disrupted of late! So far we've not had a defined meeting schedule because the date and time has been decided by doodle poll month-to-month organised via the mailing lists by User:Saguaromelee (particularly trying to move times to allow max participation from multiple timezones). The closest thing is the list of meeting minutes that is uploaded afterwards. It might be worth revisiting whether we want to just have a regular schedule through (would save work, and make it easier to plan ahead), though could mean the same people end up repeatedly excluded by the time. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 05:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hey all, I posted a question over at Template talk:Cite book if anyone's better at templates than I am. Thanks! —Collin (Bobamnertiopsis)t c 23:58, 6 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Bobamnertiopsis: Hmm, I had a first look when you posted this and it the required LUA scripting was a bit beyond me. Now that I go back to re-visit, it seems to have been fixed is that showing up for you too? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 00:22, 15 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Covid WikiJournal

This seems like the right time for a 1-year popup wikijournal reviewing COVID-19 preprints.

From the notes linked above, there was mainly this item on the todo list:

  • Investigate interest in publishing peer-reviewed translations (e.g. to/from Chinese) (Melanie, Roger)

A full journal - focused on reviewing preprints, highlighting overview papers, and translating abstracts as soon as they come out, would be most uesful. SJ+ 19:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC) Could be useful indeed, I agree --MLibrarian (discusscontribs) 17:23, 29 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Original Research Prohibition

Given that WikiJournal articles are peer-reviewed publications that have, in many cases, been cited in other peer-reviewed publications, I'm very confused why original research put forth in these articles cannot be integrated into Wikipedia (with a citation of course). I was initially very excited about using WikiJournals as a way to document non-graphocentric societies, so that elements of their culture (e.g., oral history, myths, language) could be added to Wikipedia without violating the OR guidelines. Right now, I guess I don't really get the point of the journals if their original research articles cannot be used on Wikipedia as sources.--Gen. Quon (discusscontribs) 15:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Wikijournal articles can be used as sources in Wikipedia just like articles from other scientific journals, subject however to Wikipedia rules or guidelines, such as: preference for secondary sources, neutral point of view, notability. A research article typically serves as the basis for at most a few lines in Wikipedia. Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 16:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Sylvain Ribault: Thanks for the response! That's how I originally understood this project, but I was thrown off by this line under the "Publishing" section of the WikiJournal of Humanities page: "Original research, such as tentative conclusions, personal perspectives, outlook, or opinions can be included in a separate section for the published journal version of the article; it will be omitted from Wikipedia." This seems to suggest that if, in a hypothetical WikiJournal article about Book XYZ, I developed a new idea or interpretation of said work (which by definition, is original research), I wouldn't be able to add it to Wikipedia proper, even though it had at that point been vetted and peer-reviewed.--Gen. Quon (discusscontribs) 21:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
I feel like I'm having trouble explaining it, so I whipped up this example: Suppose, for instance, I published a WikiJournal article, and in the text I said, "Book XYZ is the best book ever written." Would it be inappropriate to include in the Wikipedia article for Book XYZ a line like, "According to Critic ABC, Book XYZ is the best book ever written."[1] Or is it only inappropriate if the text is dumped in wholesale without a citation, thereby failing to identify that the bit of 'original research' is actually from a refereed article?--Gen. Quon (discusscontribs) 21:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Also, I just saw this: "WikiJournal of Humanities articles should currently not themselves be used as references in Wikipedia articles, but this may be permitted in a near future (pending reception of such usage from WikiJournal of Science)." So now I'm very confused.--Gen. Quon (discusscontribs) 22:55, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Original research must be omitted when material from a Wikijournal article is copied to Wikipedia. However, original research can be cited in Wikipedia to support some statements. The opinion of critic ABC on book XYZ might be appropriate, provided the critic is notable enough: articles on books, movies, etc, often have material on their critical reception. As for not using Wikijournal articles as references, I guess this was because we should wait until Wikijournals are considered "reputable peer-reviewed sources" per w:Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Whether this is already the case is debatable. Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 07:21, 24 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Gen. Quon: Yes, seconding Sylvains points, part of the confusion is because there are two separate use cases: a) copying text from WJ→WP, and b) citing WJ within WP.
  • For review WikiJournal articles, text&images can be copied to Wikipedia (e.g. thisthis), however any original research in those WikiJournal articles (e.g. opinions/perspectives/outlooks) have to be omitted from Wikipedia (example from similar format). I.e., review articles can contain original research, but its best for it to be easily identifiable to avoid copying to Wikipedia.
  • For original research articles, these can be cited in the normal way. Note that the WikiJournals are not yet indexed in SCOPUS (see applications), so there discussions at w:WT:FAC and w:WT:RS have the consensus that they are not yet WP:RS for Wikipedia.
Hopefully that's a little clearer! So for your example, if you wrote a WikiJournal article that included an opinion, and it passed peer review, it would then be reasonable to cite that WikiJournal article as a record of that opinion (with the caveat that if the opinion is controversial, the ref may be challenged on Wikipedia in the normal way of weighing sources against one another). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 07:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Evolution and evolvability: Thank you for the comments that does help me understand this a bit more. One thing I guess I'm still stuck on is the OR distinction between WJ and WP. Say I wrote an original WikiJournal article about a language, about which there are hardly any reliable sources. Once passed, could not the body of that article be ported over to Wikipedia in its entirety, with WJ citations being used to back up bits of OR in the original article? For instance, if the WJ said:
Egaugnal is a language spoken by 10 people, all of whom live in West Dakota.[1]
[1] Oral interview with Very Important Person, yada yada yada.
Could not that be copied over into a Wikipedia article that reads:
Egaugnal is a language spoken by 10 people, all of whom live in West Dakota.[1]
[1] Some Scholar, "Egaugnal," WikiJournals, vol. 4 no. 3 etc.
Sorry for my copious use of goofy examples!--Gen. Quon (discusscontribs) 15:11, 24 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
That would be fine if you were citing a w:WP:RS, a "reliable source". However, so far, as Thomas has said above, WJ is not (yet) a reliable source as Wikipedia defines it. So, no, you can't cite WJ today in Wikipedia. Maybe one day. Chiswick Chap (discusscontribs) 07:25, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Wikipedia rules do not have to be applied that rigidly, see w:WP:IAR. In the case of sources, we should not necessarily judge a text from the journal it appears in. For example, while the typical Wikijournal article may not be a reliable source, what about WikiJournal_of_Science/Spaces_in_mathematics by well-known mathematician w:Boris Tsirelson? Conversely, a Nature article on w:Water memory should not be treated as reliable. Sylvain Ribault (discusscontribs) 07:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, I fail to see how it isn't a reliable source. It's literally just an open-access journal that uses Wiki technology to expedite the peer review process. Many WikiJournal articles are even cited in other peer-reviewed articles. I feel like it being deemed not an RS is a failure of the entire project. I get that this isn't something one person can change, but it's a bummer.--Gen. Quon (discusscontribs) 22:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Default editing interface (VisualEditor or Source editor)

The default interface for this site is currently source code editing. A vote is occurring at this link on whether to activate VisualEditor as the default interface for new users (see description of difference here). Please take a moment to comment/support/oppose at the above link. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 12:21, 15 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications

Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications Statement is inviting publishers to endorse their statement of principles (Statement of principles, Adopting organisations):


From my reading of it, it seems strongly in line with how WikiJournals aim to operate (e.g. map of journal editor locations). What do people think about endorsing it? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion

As brought up in this email chain, it's important to follow through with actions. E.g. How to best reach out to academics from universities in under-represented regions (examples), since they are likely already bombarded with emails from predatory publishers? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 05:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

The journal group has now been included as a signatory of the list. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 01:28, 25 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Wikidata integration

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on improving the ways we can draw metadata from wikidata to improve synchronisation and automation. Previously, metadata (like author lists) was kept manually as parameters of templates on article pages and in their volume summaries (oldid examples article, volume). Now, {{Article info}} should be able to pull the relevant metadata from wikidata (current version of same examples article, volume) so that we only need to keep it up to date in wikidata (parameters can still be overridden locally if necessary). I've finished switching over all the volume lists and will do the articles one by one as I check their metadata in wikidata. One open question is where to store author information in wiidata:

  • store on the item describing the article (example)
  • store on the items describing each author (example)

I think the first option is probably best for contact address to avoid putting people's email addresses directly on their wikidata items, but storing affiliations would be most useful to keep on the item for each person (like their orcid is). I'll also start working on automating tables for articles currently in review to reduce the duplicate work on those, and the {{review}} template. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 01:49, 23 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Additional information / author declarations sections

Raised by another editor originally, so I've also pasted here for the record. Currently the submission skeleton page is below. Benefits of just having on the submission skeleton page: more flexible (but authors sometimes don't fill in).

  • Acknowledgements: Any people, organisations, or funding sources that you would like to thank.* Acknowledgements: Any people, organisations, or funding sources that you would like to thank.
  • Competing interests: Any conflicts of interest that you would like to declare. Otherwise, a statement that the authors have no competing interest.
  • Ethics statement: An ethics statement, if appropriate, on any animal or human research performed should be included here or in the methods section.

The authorship declaration form then asks the questions below with basically yes/no tickboxes. Benefits of having in the declaration form: can ensure authors pick an answer (but requires copy-paste to wiki page)

  • Please declare if any authors have received payment or services from a third party for any aspect of the submitted work
  • Please declare if any authors have financial relationships, regardless of amount of compensation, with entities that could be perceived to influence, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing, what you have written in the submitted work. This includes all sources of revenue paid, or promised to be paid, directly to an author or their institution on their behalf over the 36 months prior to submission of the work.
  • Please declare if any authors have patents, whether planned, pending or issued, broadly relevant to the work.
  • Please declare if any authors have any other relationships that could be perceived as potentially constituting and competing interest.
  • Please give details if you have declared any potential conflicts of interest in the sections above
  • All case studies and all works where patient information that is identifiable require the patients' written informed consent. This information must be kept by the author and produced if later necessary. Example consent forms can be found at wikijmed.org/Publishing#Informed_consent.

Also, these should probably be synchronised, or omitted in one so that authors only have to fill it in once. Some Questions:

  • What questions and sections should be included?
  • Should we ask on the wiki page itself, or in the declaration form?
  • Would anyone like to take charge of implementing?

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:15, 23 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Movement Strategy - What Are Your Choices For Implementation

Hello WikiJournal User Group/Archive 2020,

The time has come to put Strategy into work and everyone's invited to participate.

The Movement Strategy Design Group and Support Team are inviting you to organize virtual meetings with your community and colleagues before the end of October. The aim is for you to decide what ideas from the Movement Strategy recommendations respond to your needs and will have an impact in the movement. The recommendations are available in different formats and in many languages. There are 10 awesome recommendations and close to 50 recommended changes and actions or initiatives. Not everything will be implemented. The aim of prioritization is to create an 18-month implementation plan to take some of the initiatives forward starting in 2021.

Prioritization is at the level of your group, affiliate, and community. Think local and relevant! Regional and thematic platforms are great ways to prepare and share ideas. Afterwards, we will come together in November to co-create the implementation plan. More information about November’s global events will be shared soon. For now and until the end of October, organize locally and share your priorities with us.

You can find guidance for the events, the simple reporting template, and other supporting materials here on Meta. You can share your results directly on Meta, by email, or by filling out this survey. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions or comments, strategy2030{{{1}}}wikimedia.org

We will be hosting office hours to answer any questions you might have, Thursday October 1 at 14.00 UTC (Google Meet).

MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2020 (UTC) moved form meta by T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talkReply

Expanding reference guidelines?

Besides that they be used, the current guidelines for all three WikiJournals lists only one guideline for references in submitted manuscripts: "References should preferably be inserted using the   button (which formats using the Template:Cite format)."

This is largely well and good, considering the 2019 study published in PLOS ONE which pointed towards the costly time expenditure of formatting papers to a given journal's preferred style before submission or acceptance. However, might it be useful to consider expanding reference formatting requirements somewhat at least after an article's acceptance, before the generation of the archival PDF?

This question has two parts: what is the expectation and who is responsible for it (and when)?

To the first part: essentially, we have all these different fields within Template:Cite journal, Template:Cite book, etc.: author, date, title, editors, chapter title, journal, volume, issue, location, publisher, page number(s), isbn, issn, doi, pmid, url, oclc, and more. My proposal is that we require the following fields, when available: author(s), date, title, chapter title and editors for books if relevant, journal and volume and issue for journals if relevant, pages, publisher for books, isbn, url for websites, and doi. Other fields (e.g., pmid, location, etc.) may be included or excluded at the authors' discretion, but should be done so with consistency. Internal consistency would be the goal for any given article, such that references, depending on the article in which they were cited might look like Jorm, Tania I.; Blib, Rosie. "New math ideas". J Intern Math 1 (655): 617–619. doi:10.60000/jim16556.  or Jorm, TI; Blib, R. "New math ideas". Journal of Internal Mathematics: 617–9. doi:10.60000/jim16556. ISSN 6060-6060. , but contradicting elements of these two citations (e.g., full versus abbreviated author first names; full versus abbreviated journal titles or page numbers; inclusion of issn or other fields) would not coexist within a single citing manuscript. A WJS article earlier this year, for instance, mostly excluded authors from its reference list but did not do so consistently. A 2018 paper includes some journals' ISSNs but not others'. Another includes some available DOIs but not others. Compare to this one which is significantly more consistent from reference to reference (though still not perfect).

To the second questions, whose responsibility is this and when, I suppose it depends on what burden we want to place on authors to prepare reference formatting and how much of a capacity to aid them in doing it/doing it ourselves we believe we have. Tidying reference sections is something I enjoy doing but I don't expect that I could do it at the scale that WJ articles are currently being published.

All this said, is there any interest in refining the reference formatting requirements to clarify what reference elements we want to see before publication, who is responsible for making that happen, and when? Thanks! —Collin (Bobamnertiopsis)t c 19:24, 8 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Collin: That's a good point. Our current author help and guidelines are still too light, especially since most contributors will be new to using any wiki. At the very least it should indicate how to reuse the same reference multiple times, and warn people that copy-pasting for MSword won't format the references. Would be sensible to also link to further help (e.g. Wikipedia's into to tutorial). I don't think that level of detail would be overwhelming for an author. Of course there will always be A) references which aren't sufficiently formatted by citoid tool and B) some contributors who will inevitably ignore/struggle to use it at all and instead include plaintext, so checking by more experienced editors is super-valuable. You're right though that we've no current system to check that and no pool of established 'guild of copyeditors'. Do you have a feel for what would be most useful? My initial thoughts are some column of these tables to flag articles that have/haven't been checked. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 02:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

WikiResearch Access (WikiRes Access)

Wikipedia has become an online resource that provides information to users worldwide. Ever since the first issue of WikiJournal of Medicine got published, the quality and trust places on Wiki articles has increased. To promote academic readership I am proposing the incorporation of Wiki Research Access, a database for academic research in various disciplines ranging from STEM subjects to advanced disciplines into the Wikiversity and managed through Wikimedia Foundation project as one of Wikiversity’s sister project

The database will be updated on a weekly in order to deliver current literature to its readers. This will complement the highly esteemed WikiJournal of Medicine and will compete with academic databases worldwide.

In the long run we hope to develop citation apps that will be able to extract citations directly from the database to manuscripts. This will also help generate funds as contribution from universities and publishers will be used to keep the project running. Dnnate (discusscontribs) 13:50, 29 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Call for insights on ways to better communicate the work of the movement

copied from meta:Talk:WikiJournal User Group

The Movement Strategy recommendations published this year made clear the importance of establishing stronger communications within our movement. To this end, the Foundation wants to gather insights from communities, including affiliates, on ways we all might more consistently communicate about our collective work, and better highlight community contributions from across the movement. Over the coming months, we will be running focus groups and online discussions to collect these insights. We hope your affiliate will decide to share your thoughts by participating in a focus group or joining the discussion on Meta-Wiki.

ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Diamond Open Access survey

 
responses to OPERAS Diamond OA survey 2020

Here are the responses to a survey from OPERAS about experiences with Diamond OA.

This survey has been conducted by OPERAS Research Infrastructure and a consortium of partners: SPARC Europe, Utrecht University, DOAJ, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and associate partners: LIBER, OASPA, ENRESSH, Redalyc, AmeliCA, and the CSI, in the context of a study commissioned by cOAlition S during the second half of 2020. Its aim is to gain a better understanding of open access journals that are free for readers and authors, and identify concrete ways and funding mechanisms to support and strengthen this sector. The following information has been provided by the respondent during the survey.

I filled it in back in August, but have just been sent a copy of the responses as they're clearing the responses off their server, so I thought I'd upload to commons for the recorded. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 23:11, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks Evolution and evolvability for sharing this document. Best --Alaa :)..! 02:49, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Report

The findings of the study above has now published:

For those interested in a followup webinar by SPARC (9th of April at 2PM CEST), here's the signup link. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Recording of a summary presentation webinar. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:30, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
Return to "WikiJournal User Group/Archive 2020" page.