It should come as no shock to a reader of any of the Wikimedia projects that volunteers are chronic inter-communicators. Whether it’s on any of the millions of article discussion pages, or via Wikimedia’s dozens of contributor-maintained email lists, conversation and communication is central to the success of the projects.

But among that mix, you may not be aware of four projects that contributors have been working on for a number of years.

One is Wikizine, an independent, internal news bulletin which has been around since late 2005. Wikizine, under the confident helming of long-term volunteer Walter, provides a Wikimedia wide view of new technologies, challenges, and editorial observations from the projects. Other volunteers are welcome to contribute, and it’s also routinely translated into German and Spanish.

The Wikipedia Signpost, which started in 2005, is decidedly Wikipedia focussed, hence its name. Founded by one of our current board members, the Signpost, like all of Wikimedia’s projects, is 100% volunteer driven. Regular WP users can insert scripts into their user page, or on any relevant page to have the Signpost delivered right to their door. Aside from diving into WP related stories, there’s also WikiWorld, a regular comic strip, featured media, and reports of ongoing wiki dispute resolution and arbitration.

If audio is more your flavor, also consider subscribing to the Wikipedia Weekly podcast, or the aptly named sister project, Not-The-Wikipedia-Weekly podcasts. Two well-programmed approaches to user-generated discussions.

Beyond that there are dozens, if not hundreds of further discussions about the projects both in-wiki and in other off-line formats. Add a comment with your links and additions to this not exhaustive list.

J. Walsh
Head of Communications

Greetings from Palo Alto, California!

Some folks from Wikimedia have joined the ranks of numerous wiki enthusiasts at this year’s Recent Changes Camp.  Big questions and conversations circulate…

• who wikis?
• how can we wiki better?
• what will wikipedia look like in 20 years?
• how to retain and grow users and volunteers

Among dozens of great discussions and presentations, Ed Chi of PARC talked about some of their recent research on the users of Wikipedia, how they edit, and what that looks like – including the WikiDashboard.

Lots of photos on the Wikimedia Commons.

The camp continues tomorrow!  Still time to drop by. Thanks to Socialtext, Wikihow, Aboutus, WIkia, SolSeed.net, and Atlassian – and to all the volunteers who are making it happen.

J. Walsh, Head of Communications<

Over at his fine blog, Jakob Voss has highlighted some neat work by design students at Texas State University.

From Jakob’s blog:

Mike Perez, design student at Texas State University, and his fellow students Mark Decker and Jacob Brubaker have created a wonderful campaign for Wikipedia in their design class. The posters or ads each show a straight view of an everyday person as an expert on a specific subject and a mind map of their thought process. This are the best ads for Wikipedia that I have seen since the Wikipedia promotion images that André created back in 2005 for the German Wikipedia. Just have a look (photos at flickr only because of copyright restrictions) and enjoy if you like Wikipedia as much as I do!

Nice work! Let us know if you’ve seen any other creative treatments…

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications<

Greetings from Maker Faire 2008 here in San Mateo, California! This busy event is attracting hordes of people from all over the Bay Area and beyond. The Wikimedia booth, manned by volunteers and staff alike, is getting a constant barrage of persons interested in all of the Wikimedia sites.

A number of people are shocked when they find out they can edit themselves, and for a few, their first experience in editing is taking place today, right here at the Wikimedia booth.

I’ve included a few photographs to demonstrate a bit of what took place. More photos are available at the Maker Faire gallery on Wikimedia Commons.

Cary Bass, Volunteer Coordinator.

Earlier today Jan-Bart de Vreede, the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees announced some significant changes to how our Foundation’s Board is structured – including details about length of terms for serving and how the Board appoints roles internally.

These changes stem from discussions that took place during the Board’s first meeting in our new San Francisco offices in April 2008. A Q&A, diagram, and the original announcement from Jan-Bart are available to help describe the changes.

Some of the significant elements of the restructure:

• there are now four ’specific expert’ seats
• a ‘community founder’ seat has been established
• the chapters can now select two seats as well.
• with the three community-elected, that brings the total to ten seats

I’m sure we’ll hear more in the coming months as the board gets closer to its full roster of seats. I suspect this was a pretty big task for the Board to bring about. We’ll be looking forward to seeing the results!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

We are very pleased to be posting three new job opportunities on the WMF wiki. All three are fundraising and development related and be found here or below.

• Job openings/Head of Major Gifts (Major Gifts Officer) – OPEN until May 15, 2008
• Job openings/Head of Community Giving – OPEN until May 15, 2008
• Job openings/Development Specialist – OPEN until May 15, 2008

Please spread the word, encourage application, or apply yourself. Support our mission and help spread free knowledge!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

I received an email recently inviting me to RecentChangesCamp 2008, which is, from what I have seen a gathering of people into all things wiki.  After one of my wiki-sprites (thanks Alex) did some research, I was able to find information on a previous RCC at RecentChangesCamp 2007 — Portland, Oregon.

Its description is as follows:

RecentChangesCamp was born from the intersection of wiki and OpenSpace – a very wiki-like way of organizing gatherings. A lot of cool people into wiki, community and collaboration will be there – what do you want to talk with them about? Every participant is invited to lead their own sessions; the guideline is to take responsibility for what you love. In addition to general and technical conversations about – and actual coding on – wikis and other software, session topics from past RCCs have covered subjects from art to social organizing to philanthropy, playing a creative conversation game, and individual & group coding practices. See the past conference wikis for more complete lists and session notes.

Anyone and everyone is invited to attend. You will especially enjoy Recent Changes Camp, if you happen to be any of the the following:

* Member of any open wiki community or someone who uses wikis at work, school or in any other context
* Interested in community, action, collaboration, creativity or any other activity in which the self-organizing power of wiki might be helpful
* Interested in the OpenCulture and/or OpenTechnology movements
* Interested in knowledge creation and sharing knowledge
* A generally curious and inquisitive person

It’s scheduled to take place in Palo Alto, California, on May 9-11, 2008. More information can be gathered from their site,
http://rcc2008.blueoxen.net/.

RecentChangesCamp is open to the public. Everyone can attend.

If you’d like us to post your wiki or free culture related event, by all means, send us an email or leave a comment on this post!

Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator<

We’ve been graciously invited to participate in the 2008 Maker Faire here in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 3/4 of this year. In case you don’t know, Maker Faire (now in its third year) is a two-day, do-it-yourself, craft/technology extravaganza here on the US west coast. Last year the event attracted audiences of 40,000 – a great chance to spread the word and recruit more WMF project contributors.

For the Wikimedia Foundation this will be our first-ever, official appearance at a major public event (we recognize most chapters and active volunteers have been at it for a while :) ).

Some gracious bay-area volunteers have offered to help, but we’re always looking for more! Let us know (via email below) if you’re interested. We have comp tickets too!

But here’s the real push: we want to profile the very best works of the Wikimedia projects from around the world on some big screens – and we need your help. Add your suggestions to this page, make a comment, or drop us a line and let us know what you think are the very best or as-yet-unseen projects, pages, or articles – whether it’s a project you work on, or one you think deserves exposure. We’ll incorporate them into a rotating presentation and get the word out to thousands of people on the ground. We’ll rotate this call and keep the list active for future presentations as well.

This is one of many public events to come! As chapters grow and the word gets out we hope to have an even bigger on the ground presence.

Thanks!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications
jwalsh@wikimedia.org