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Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/November 2022

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Invitation to attend “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter” Sessions

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Hello all,

During the 2022 Wikimedia Summit, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) presented the first outline of the Movement Charter, giving a glimpse on the direction of its future work, and the Charter itself. The MCDC then integrated the initial feedback collected during the Summit. Before proceeding with writing the Charter for the whole Movement, the MCDC wants to interact with community members and gather feedback on the drafts of the three sections: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement). The Movement Charter drafts will be available on the Meta page here on November 14, 2022. Community wide consultation period on MC will take place from November 20 to December 18, 2022. Learn more about it here.

With the goal of ensuring that people are well informed to fully participate in the conversations and are empowered to contribute their perspective on the Movement Charter, three “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter" sessions have been scheduled in different time zones. Everyone in the Wikimedia Movement is invited to attend these conversations. The aim is to learn about Movement Charter - its goal, purpose, why it matters, and how it impacts your community. MCDC members will attend these sessions to answer your questions and hear community feedback.

The “Ask Me Anything” sessions accommodate communities from different time zones. Only the presentation of the session is recorded and shared afterwards, no recording of conversations. Below is the list of planned events:

  • Asia/Pacific: November 4, 2022 at 09:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Chinese and Japanese.
  • Europe/MENA/Sub Saharan Africa: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Arabic, French and Russian.
  • North and South America/ Western Europe: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Spanish and Portuguese.

On the Meta page you will find more details; Zoom links will be shared 48 hours ahead of the call.

Call for Movement Charter Ambassadors

Individuals or groups from all communities who wish to help include and start conversations in their communities on the Movement Charter are encouraged to become Movement Charter Ambassadors (MC Ambassadors). MC Ambassadors will carry out their own activities and get financial support for enabling conversations in their own languages. Regional facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance team are available to support applicants with MC Ambassadors grantmaking. If you are interested please sign up here. Should you have specific questions, please reach out to the MSG team via email: strategy2030@wikimedia.org or on the MS forum.

We thank you for your time and participation.

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 15:38, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Philosophical essay on life versus technology

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I have written a philosophical essay: User:Dan Polansky/Technology as a challenger and a threat to living things and their forms and patterns.

I wonder whether its content can be used in any form in the mainspace or whether the subject and treatment are so hopelessly subjective that they are beyond saving. Given this is philosophy, the objective validity and acceptability can be questioned as usual. If there is a chance for mainspace in some form, I would try to find sources that make some of the arguments and trace to them, although the arguments should largely stand on their own; the attempt is at philosophical analysis that depends mostly on generally known empirical facts easily verifiable by anyone. I may be able to address issues raised in a possible peer review. Thank you for any effort.

--Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:07, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Dan Polansky: Wikiversity's mission includes hosting a range of free-content, multilingual learning materials/resources. The essay is certainly a learning resource. Wikiversity doesn't require Wikipedia:NPOV.
I would just ask what you want others to learn from this essay. Are you only sharing your point of view, or do want readers to think through the issues and develop their own point of view? If you're just sharing your view, it's probably fine as is.
If you want others to develop their own point of view, I would consider breaking it up so that there is a main overview page, probably with a much shorter title, and then subpages for each of the different issues raised. That way, each of them can be addressed individually with their own resources, and perhaps expanded in the future by yourself or others.
Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:07, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I am not sure what my goal is. I want to share my ideas with the world (they are not so original so in a way not really my own), but do so in a possibly as objective, neutral and factual matter as possible. I hope reader to be able to use these distinctions, subtopics and arguments as a starting point for learning more and finding more sources online, and to eliminate some of the initial misconceptions. The subobjective is to draw relevant contrasts of analysis and raise key points, and provide some good relevant links for a start, e.g. to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy but also to journalistic sources. The title is indeed rather long, but its point is to make it unabiguous. I could make it shorter, though:
  • Technology as a challenger and a threat to living things and their forms
  • Technology as a harm and a threat to living things and their forms
  • Technology as a harm and a threat to life and its forms
  • Technology as a harm and a threat to life (but I wanted to emphasize forms as well)
  • Technology as a threat to life and its forms
I would probably be quite happy with "Technology as a harm and a threat to living things and their forms". I prefer "living things" to "life" as less ambiguous, and I want the word "form" or "diversity" to be there to emphasize that it is not only about continued existence of the whole but also richness of form. Maybe reducing "harm and a threat" to "threat" is okay, although "threat" suggests potentiality whereas the harm has already been done.
If you are okay with it, I would copy the content to the mainspace under the same title or one of the proposed ones, and then continue working on it there. Editors can then decide what they want to do with it and how to reshape it, but hopefully not delete it. If you have an idea for another shorter title, let's consider it. I considered "life versus technology", "man versus technology", and "man versus nature", but all those are ambiguous or much broader. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 15:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and put it to "Technology as a threat or promise for life and its forms". It can be renamed if wished, and in the worst case deleted, but your comments suggest this won't be necessary. There is some inline sourcing as well, although the linked Wikipedia articles provide many more sources beyond that. Someone could wish to create a wikidebate based on the content or in that direction. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 19:27, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Opportunities open for the Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee

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Hi everyone! The Ombuds commission (OC) and the Case Review Committee (CRC) are looking for members. People are encouraged to nominate themselves or encourage others they feel would contribute to these groups to do so. There is more information below about the opportunity and the skills that are needed.

About the Ombuds commission

The Ombuds commission (OC) works on all Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser and Oversight (also known as Suppression) tools. The Commission mediates between the parties of the investigation and, when violations of the policies are identified, advises the Wikimedia Foundation on best handling. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Chief Executive Officer, or the Board of Trustees of the Foundation in these investigations when legally necessary. For more on the OC's duties and roles, see Ombuds commission on Meta-Wiki.

Volunteers serving in this role should be experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser/Oversight tools OR who have the technical ability to understand these tools and the willingness to learn them. They must be able to communicate in English, the common language of the commission. They are expected to be able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict. Commissioners will serve two-year terms (note that this is different from past years, when the terms have been for one year).

About the Case Review Committee

The Case Review Committee (CRC) reviews appeals of eligible Trust & Safety office actions. The CRC is a critical layer of oversight to ensure that Wikimedia Foundation office actions are fair and unbiased. They also make sure the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t overstep established practices or boundaries. For more about the role, see Case Review Committee on Meta-Wiki.

We are looking for current or former functionaries and experienced volunteers with an interest in joining this group. Applicants must be fluent in English (additional languages are a strong plus) and willing to abide by the terms of the Committee charter. If the work resonates and you qualify, please apply. Committee members will serve two-year terms (note that this is different from past years, when the terms have been for one year).

Applying to join either of these groups

Members are required to sign the Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information and must be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation board policies (such as the access to non-public information policy and the Foundation privacy policy). These positions requires a high degree of discretion and trust. Members must also be over 18 years of age.

If you are interested in serving in either capacity listed above, please write in English to the Trust and Safety team at ca wikimedia.org (to apply to the OC) or to the Legal Team at legal wikimedia.org (to apply to the CRC) with information about:

  • Your primary projects
  • Languages you speak/write
  • Any experience you have serving on committees, whether movement or non-movement
  • Your thoughts on what you could bring to the OC or CRC if appointed
  • Any experience you have with the Checkuser or Oversight tools (OC only)
  • Any other information you think is relevant

There will be two conversation hours to answer any questions that potential applicants may have:

The deadline for applications is 31 December 2022 in any timezone.

Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be qualified and interested. Thank you!

On behalf of the Committee Support team,

MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 11:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You're all invited to a Zoom workshop tonight!

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Hi all!

I'm Greg Stanton, and I'm running a Zoom workshop tonight with my collaborator Brendan Sullivan. With grant support from the Wikimedia Foundation, we're building an exciting new Wikiversity project to promote mathematical literacy. By attending tonight's workshop, you'll be making a huge difference, since we're expecting an education reporter from a major news outlet! Your comments could be featured in the story.

Our goal is to help students wield math as a tool for understanding their world. Since our project combines current events and math, we call it Eventmath. Basically, it's a Wikiversity learning project where math educators can share math lesson plans based on current events. Each lesson plan is based on a news article or social media post.

During the introductory talk, we'll explain that this approach to building mathematical literacy has special advantages. There will be an interactive portion afterward, where you'll have a chance to ask questions or make a small contribution to the project. The workshop runs over Zoom from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern Time. You can register for the event through a short online form. No preparation is required to attend. You just need to show up! And of course, like everything on Wikiversity, the workshop is free.

P.S.

If you cannot attend but are interested to know about future events, you're welcome to join the Eventmath mailing list. If you fill out the workshop form, we'll add you to the mailing list automatically.

Thank you so much! --Greg at Higher Math Help (discuss • contribs) 18:32, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Intent to deprecate RoundBox templates

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A number of pages on this wiki use these templates to apply background colors to sections of the page. While this adds a pleasant splash of color, it comes with a nasty drawback: it makes those pages incompatible with the visual editor. Any text or other content present between these two templates is treated as a single block of "template content" by the visual editor and cannot be edited normally. Users must either open the page in the source editor and edit the wikitext directly (which inexperienced users may be uncomfortable doing), or open the block in the template editor and edit the wikitext content there (which is even more cumbersome). Since the visual editor is used by default for most pages on Wikiversity, this has the effect of making it much more difficult for users to edit resources which use these templates, which may discourage them from contributing.

For an example of this behavior, view the article Ruby, then open the visual editor and try to modify any of the text on the page.

Unless there is any objection, I'd like to modify these templates to make them no longer transclude any content onto the page. This will remove the formatting they applied to pages and make it possible to use the visual editor on those pages. Once this is done, the templates can safely be removed at a later date. I realize this will make these pages less visually appealing, but usability for editors (especially ones who are new to the site!) feels like it should be a higher priority than appearance. Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 00:49, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'd rather just remove the templates from pages in main space and leave the templates themselves as is. If a user wants to have round boxes in user pages, for example, it's up to them. Once the templates are removed from main space pages, we can look at any templates that include them to see if they need to be cleaned up as well. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:44, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Having just looked at the templates involved, I want to redouble this recommendation. Altering the base templates is not the way to go. Too many pages will be negatively impacted unnecessarily. The correct solution is to not include these templates in pages typical users would edit. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:49, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My initial concern was the sheer number of pages involved. There are 1000+ transclusions of RoundBoxTop in the main namespace alone. That's why my initial recommendation would be to disable the template at the source. That way, not only are all the pages fixed at once, but the styling can be restored if we come up with a way to make it compatible with the visual editor - doing a batch edit is slower and more intrusive, and would be harder to revert.
If you're concerned about allowing these templates to be used in userspace, it should be possible to implement that in template logic using the {{NAMESPACE}} macro. I have a bit of experience doing crazy things with templates. :) Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 05:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect the right way to do this is with mw:Help:TemplateStyles. I don't have time to work on it right now, though. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:36, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be sufficient here. TemplateStyles would allow the CSS in the RoundBox templates to be extracted to a separate page, but the visual editor problems are caused by the HTML elements those templates create to apply their styles to, not by the styles themselves. In this case, those element are a table, but EDIT: I've now confirmed that any other HTML element would have the same problem. Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 03:43, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be up to the project or the primary editor whether or not to use this. For example, this is a primary design choice in all of the Motivation and emotion chapters. That's 10+ years of work by real-world students with a professor who is still active and using this resource. Likewise, any use in user space should be preserved as a choice by the user, which it was.
On the other hand, I am happy to see it removed from resources like Introduction to Computer Science. So far, I'm not sure this can or should be automated, though. Many of the resources using this are 15 years old and need more attention than just hiding the boxes. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  Support for your comment, Dave Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 10:30, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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