Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia Foundation

Question

Is this page for informing the community what the WMF does/provides? I often see people asking for the WMF to intervene in debates, decide article issues, and other things that are not within the remit of the Foundation. I figured this page was to clarify the WMF's role in the projects and what they do/provide for the various communities. Could I get clarification on this please? Thanks. 64.40.54.22 (talk) 21:44, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• Reading through the post at VPM again, I'm guessing you're looking for more of a directory of WMF folks that handle community relations. Is that it? 64.40.54.108 (talk) 03:40, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The purpose is to explain to English Wikipedia editors what the WMF is, what it does, and how "the community" interacts with the WMF. For example, if someone wants to improve the existing software, or if somebody happens to have an idea on how to develop software that would likely need WMF approval, it gives them avenues and ideas about how to make progress. Hint hint. Hint hint hint hint hint hint. =) Maybe you could help out by sharing some of your knowledge? Thanks! Biosthmors (talk) 18:42, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Slightly tangential, but if you haven't already read it, I'd recommend going slowly through this archived discussion, and then my denselypacked comment at Wikipedia talk:User Advocacy (plus the 2 threads there). –Quiddity (talk) 19:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Wonderful. I'll get to those. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 19:53, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
  • But to completely answer you, I think both of those things would be helpful. I would only add that in its ideal state, this page should also give English Wikipedia editors a sense of which WMF projects are likely to affect the English Wikipedia (or not) and to what degree. Biosthmors (talk) 19:03, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I also said that as well. Biosthmors (talk) 19:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. I understand much better now. Regarding "I think newcomers have a very hard time wrapping their mind around where the community ends and the WMF begins." there are a lot of people in the same situation. I don't know when or where it happened, but many people believe the Foundation and the community are seperate. The truth is they are the same thing. The Foundation grew from people that made up the community at the time and, if I'm not mistaken, the majority of the Foundation is made of regular editors like you and me. These people volunteered to take on management type roles and over see things. Of course some specialists have been brought in over time, but the Board and most of the employees started as voluteer editors editing articles just like everybody else. Also, the community "controls" the Foundation as it were. We elect the members of the Board, we give them advice and provide our input through surveys and polls, etc. So we, as the community, set the direction of the projects. If we don't like the way things are going, we elect new members, give different advice, etc. But I understand where you're coming from. A large percentage of the community believes the Foundation and the community are seperate. Many also believe they are at odds with each other and that is why the Foundation has been hiring more people to help with that situation. For example, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-19/News and notes#In brief (New hires section) and mailarchive:wikimedia-l/2013-June/126678.html for the latest editors that are now WMF contractors. 64.40.54.22 (talk) 05:02, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

And then those were typically great Wikipedians who then don't have as much time to volunteer... right? So then who decides what the community priorities are? And where money should be spent? And when to hire? =) Just rambling. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

WMF blog moved in August 2018

The See Also section links to the Wikimedia Foundation blog using the [[wmfblog: namespace, which links to blog.wikimedia.org, but that page notes that the blog moved to wikimediafoundation.org. A year later, how do we go about updating that? —KGF0 ( T | C ) 00:04, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikitia taking drafts without attribution

I'm a teahouse and help desk volunteer. We're starting to see complaints of Wikitia taking drafts, some still in the process of being edited, and posting them on their site without proper attribution. Wikitia seems to be just churning things out such as this [[1]]. Is there a way to contact them and ask that they provide proper attribution to the articles? Conversely, is there a way to alert new Wikipedia editors that by submitting their copy, the creative commons rights they are assigning suggest their content will likely turn up on Wikitia. It could help our response load. Perhaps enhance the warning that appears with new draft pages? "Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions. This includes submitted content appearing on mirror sites unrelated to Wikipedia." TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:54, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 February 2021

I need to edit CoolBoiy (talk) 20:04, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 20:14, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 March 2023

I believe the "A timeline of recent events surrounding the Wikimedia projects" hyperlink is broken, as it does not seem to redirect to a working page. Big Joenner (talk) 00:12, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Pinging GorillaWarfare. ––FormalDude (talk) 00:26, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@FormalDude: I replaced the link with the archived url. M.Bitton (talk) 00:33, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

 Partly done: M.Bitton (talk) 00:33, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know FormalDude, and sorry about that! The live version is back up, I'll leave it to you as to whether you want to restore it or leave the archived version. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 02:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

No worries! Restored the original URL. ––FormalDude (talk) 03:48, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Do we still need this page?

Not going to MfD this myself, but a lot of this article's material and information comes from ten years ago. There also seem to be a number of other sources for the same information that are kept much more up-to-date.

Apologies if I've missed something - perhaps this is much more of a utility than I realize.

JuxtaposedJacob (talk) 05:44, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

yes I have no idea how to add link Iliketankstomuch (talk) 23:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion on steps taken by WMF liable to reveal the identity of editors of an Indian article

May I draw everyone's attention to an important discussion on Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) headed "The Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation situation". We are close to reaching the stage on 8 November when WMF intends to reveal the identity of editors accused of misrepresenting the activities of ANI. It seems to me we should take all possible steps to avoid any details leading to the personal identification of editors who have acted in good faith. I hope both WMF collaborators and others interested in WMF activities will be able to take appropriate action.--Ipigott (talk) 14:46, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Draft open letter now published for support

In this connection, an open letter has been published and is taking signatures.--Ipigott (talk) 16:10, 7 November 2024 (UTC)