I write this email with much hesitation.
The issue has been raised often, the possible creation of a council.
Naturally, setting up such a structure is bound to be difficult, due to
the following issues to discuss and decide
* what would be the roles of such a council ?
* would that council vote the people to become Wikimedia Foundation
board members ?
* would this council become a sort of goverment of the project ?
* how would people be added to this council (and along with which rules,
depending on project size, languages etc...)
* ...
In short, a nest of questions.
The issue has been raised many times already.
If there are people interested in setting up a proposal, please just
tell me. I am not talking of "discussion" here, I am talking of "writing
down a proposal". On which the board could have a look. On which the
community could comment and then vote.
Anyway, if interested, jsut tell me and we can organise a little chat
and a page about that. If noone interested, time will see :-)
Ant
Hello,
To help cleaning the small wikis, people from the Small wikis monitoring
team have thought about asking people from all projects to create a redirect
from [[Template:Delete]] to the local speedy deletion template. The major
wikis have already set this redirect, but it would be very useful on small
projects where sysops don't come very often. Thus they could check the
linked pages/the related category and deal with the pages containing
nonsense or pages remaining after move vandalism.
Please help spreading this request on your projects and forward this message
to people I've forgotten (I haven't found any mailing list for wikiquote,
for example). Thanks a lot.
On 11/14/06, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Thanks to Tangotango's great work, there is now a working channel
> monitoring 20 small wikis. People willing to help can join us in
> #wikimedia-swmt on freenode
>
--
Guillaume Paumier
Disciplus Simplex
http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile — You will be assimilated.
On 11/21/06, Stan Shebs <stanshebs(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
> What are the odds of getting interested Wikipedians in to take the
> pictures instead? Contractors cost money, getting pictures taken for
> free in exchange for free licensing seems like a better deal for ESA.
> Lest one is concerned about amateur-quality work, I suspect that if ESA
> were to publicly announce inside access for ten photographers, unpaid
> but credited by name, they would have more than enough applications to
> be able to accept only the best.
Right, I am not soooo sure that the ESA (or any other organisation,
NASA included, for that matter) will let any random Wikipedian hop on
the next satellite to take pictures of <insert name of planet here>.
I'd love too, but hey, I don't think this is going to happen any time
soon.
I believe you will also understand the importance of monitoring what
pictures get in and out concerning satellites, space shuttles and
other highly technological objects.
>
> I also think WP could do more to cynically play on European chauvinism
> than it has so far. 1/2 :-) A public statement by Jimbo, saying
> something like "we will not accept unfree ESA images in WP, and while we
> don't want WP to present a US-only view of space exploration, it's up to
> the Europeans to fix this", would likely get reported widely, and
> hopefully put some pressure on ESA to change what is at best a sloppy
> practice.
Let us not jump to conclusions too fast here. :-)
What you call "European chauvinism" I will rather call "lack of
means", "lack of human ressources to write the right contracts with
the n number of national laws involved in the launching of this or
that satellite and the building of this or that camera" etc. There are
reasons for the ESA and other organisations not being able to release
their pictures under a free license and they go far beyond a manichean
"good people who release in the public domain what they produce with
public money" vs "bad people who want to keep stuff for themselves". I
don't think "pressure" as you put it, is the way to go.
Let me also try to maybe tone down the questions that David was trying
to get through here and give a different angle.
The question is not that the ESA or these other organisations *do not*
want to release their pictures for a wider use. As a matter of fact,
it is the ESA who came to us (Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia
France) and asked us for advice on how to go about this, and how they
could make their pictures (more) freely available. However, they have
some conditions.
Some of our licenses (the one I use, for example) also add conditions
(CC-BY-SA - share alike is a pretty drastic condition, when you think
about it).
One of their condition is that those images can't be used for
political propaganda, for example.
Now let me try and shift the debate a little here. Let us consider
that the ESA, or whatever other organisation, comes up with a licence
of their own. Let us imagine they allow free use of their images (in
our free sense) *except* for political propaganda. Would that in any
way be an acceptable thing to go by? Or is that definitely something
we can't accept? It's a real question, I have no real opinion about
this.
To bounce on something David said, there is much work to do in the
evangelisation of those organisations, and a lot to explain about the
pros and the cons of "free material". Most of their objections need to
be understood in the light of what these organisations can do (with
the restrictions that apply to them) and what they want to do. My take
is that what they "want to do" can easily be changed, by patient,
pedagogic and comprehensive explanations. What they "can do" is then
another story altogether.
What I understand David was trying to say here is that maybe there is
a mid-term agreement that can be reached, somewhere along the path.
Are the Organisation X images worth us being just a tad less free (no
political use of the images), are they not? It's a difficult question,
but one that is worth debating.
One thing I am certain of is that saying "Organisation X must change
their ways" is definitely not the right answer. I'd much rather have a
stance that goes "How can we make organisation X change their way for
everyone's best interest?"
Delphine
--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.
To be a little more exact, the ad agency contacted us about using the logo
for the ad. We all discussed it in the office, and agreed that there should be
some compensation. I asked, and they agreed. Nothing too spectacular.
Danny
In a message dated 11/25/2006 9:48:43 PM Eastern Standard Time,
messedrocker(a)gmail.com writes:
Yup, Danny Wool negotiated with Cisco to use Wikipedia in the commercial.
If I remember Danny correctly, he said he got the Foundation a nice sum of
moolah for it.
On 11/25/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey(a)wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
> I jsut saw a television commercial on the SciFi where CISCO shows a 3
> second spot with a laptop computer using Wikipedia.
> The commercial aired at 7:33 p.m. Mountain Standard Time. There were
> no screen shots of Windows or any other computer
> software on the commercial apart from Wikipedia's logo. The laptop
> appeared to be a MAC but I am not certain.
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Alors, la situation est elle confirmée par d'autres utilisateurs ?
Quelqu'un a t-il demandé sur wikiar-l ? (peut être des tunisiens ?)
------
Someone reported Wikipedia being blocked in Tunisia.
Is there someone able to second ? Mido ?
Anthere
Hello everyone, I am Littlebtc, a member of Wikimania 2007 planning team.
When we talk to sponsors about web streaming sponsorship, they want
to know how many people will use web streaming to watch the conference
so that they can help us.
So we'd like to know the amount of web streaming listener, or
bandwidth of the streaming website during Wikimania 2006.
I jsut saw a television commercial on the SciFi where CISCO shows a 3
second spot with a laptop computer using Wikipedia.
The commercial aired at 7:33 p.m. Mountain Standard Time. There were
no screen shots of Windows or any other computer
software on the commercial apart from Wikipedia's logo. The laptop
appeared to be a MAC but I am not certain.
Jeff
Since I just linked it from the wikimediafoundation.org contact page,
I suppose this page should really be finished ...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia
That is: a simple *one or two sentence* explanation of how to simply
satisfy each of our common free-content licences, simple enough that
the people who keep calling us asking to reuse articles or pictures
will read this instead and know just what to do. Please help!
(As noted at top, it should probably be moved to meta, but I suspect
we should finish it where it is first.)
- d.
*Wikimania 2007 Team Bulletin*
24 November, 2006<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Team_Bulletin/20061124>
We are starting to recruit volunteers for the preparation work and the
on-site services of Wikimania 2007 Taipei. Anyone who is interested in
contributing to this event, especially those living in Taiwan, is cordially
invited.
- Service location: over Internet or on-site.
- Talents needed:
1. Information pages/packets on Taiwan: help to collect, edit,
and maintain information pages about Taipei and Taiwan on the
Wikimania 2007
website.
2. Secretary: prepare meeting records, distribute notices and
promotional materials.
3. Art designer of web pages.
4. On-site service: reception and other services on site.
5. Other specialized fields: will be selected from volunteers
for further training.
- Please contact: KJ <http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:KaurJmeb> Email:
kaurjmeb [at] gmail.comMSN: cityangelvmp [at] yahoo.com.tw
- The recruitment is open until June 30th, 2007 (subject to change
without further notice).
- Qualifications: No discrimination by age or gender. Applicant should
be interested in Internet culture, have a passion to volunteer, be familiar
with typing on computer, be eager to learn new things, enjoy collecting,
editing, and sharing information, and have spare time every week. Abilities
in foreign languages are preferred but not required.
- Computer skills: All levels are welcome, but those who are skilled
at the following software are especially needed:
1. graphics: Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver
2. website: HTML, CSS, PHP, MediaWiki
- Reimbursement:
1. Service hours can be certified. Hours include those spent in
training and actual services.
2. Discounted admissions to Wikimania 2007.
- Please provide your name, telephone number, email, graduated school
and current occupation, and available time in your application message.
Besides the volunteer recruiting, the Team in Taipei also discussed the
following matters in its November 16th meeting over Skype:
- Intelligent Times <http://www.itmag.org.tw/>, a Chinese magazine by
Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry <http://www.iii.org.tw/>,
will feature a special report on Wikimedia and Wikimania next year. Some
articles will be contributed by Wikipedians in Taiwan.
- The first Wikimania 2007 volunteer training
course<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_training/20061209>will
be held on December 9th.
- The website group of the Team is still looking for people who are
familiar with PayPal, PHP, and API. Please contact
Littlebtc<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Littlebtc>
.
- Ingy <http://search.cpan.org/%7Eingy/> will host the session on
wikiwyg <http://wikiwyg.net/> during the Hacking days.
- Wikimania 2007 will continue to use the 2006 logo.
- A discussion and vote on the Chinese translation of "Wikimania" will
be held on Chinese Wikipedia. Qweaz is in charge of this matter.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave them at...
- http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Team_Bulletin/20061124
- Wikimania-l mailing
list<http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l>
Everyone is welcome to reproduce and distribute this bulletin to their
websites, mailing lists, BBS, blogs, and so on, but please kindly include the
Bulletin's original
location<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Team_Bulletin/20061124>on
the official Wikimania 2007 website in your distribution.
Just to clarify, I will be contacting these people for fundraising purposes
and will be maintaining the lists, so you can also send teh information
directly to me. Alternately, if you have contacts that you think it would be best
to speak with directly, please contact me privately. I will be happy to
discuss ways to make the pitch as effectively as possible and to provide you with
an information packet that will make the pitch easier.
Danny
In a message dated 11/23/2006 7:43:22 AM Eastern Standard Time,
oscar.wiki(a)gmail.com writes:
of course i am willing to share, but the whole point with *high level
contacts* is that they in general go through a personal connection which
should not be bypassed in the first instance.
pursuing this kind of contacts must generally begin with concretely
involving the people with these contacts in my experience.
(the above is not stating anything contrary, but rather complementary)
best,
oscar
On 11/23/06, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> The Board and Executive Director are compiling a database of
> high-level corporate contacts for various uses, such as fundraising.
> If you have high-level contacts with major corporations which you are
> willing to share, or make introductions to, please send an e-mail to
> me or Anthere ASAP. Thank you very much.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org
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