Just a nice quick reminder of the next Wikimania (2008) meeting, which will
be a general planning meeting.
This will be held on Sunday Feb 10, 20:00 UTC in #wikimania2008. (
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC and select Wikimania 2008
planning if you dont have an IRC client)
Everyone is welcome and hope to see many there :-)
Thanks all
Mark
The submissions phase for the Wikibooks logo selection process is
starting to wrap up:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks/Logo
Discussion about timelines here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikibooks/Logo#Time_to_Move_On.3F
We don't have a firm deadline set yet for when the submissions phase
will be over, but preliminary discussions on the matter are focusing
on mid-march to early april. Of course, this isn't firm yet, but it
should give a good idea of what the timeline is. It's also a warning
that we could have as little as a month left for submissions.
The Wikijunior logo discussion is occuring in parallel, and will
follow the same time schedule as the Wikibooks discussion will. At the
moment, Wikijunior has attracted only a handful (5 or 6, at last
count) of submissions, while Wikibooks has attracted over 25
submissions. Wikijunior does not have a current logo.
I would appreciate any help in getting out a last-minute advertisment
to the various communities, both wikibooks and non-wikibooks, about
this. Ideally, we would like to have a lot more submissions for both
projects, and we would like more people to take an interest in the
selection process. Posting a message to wikien-l, and commons-l (i'm
not subscribed to either list) would be a good start. Translations of
a basic announcement to other languages would also be a big help, so
we could try to involve non-english-speaking wikibookians more in this
process.
I'll post updates once we have a firm timeline.
--Andrew Whitworth
Dear all,
Although a bit later than we would have originally liked, I'm pleased to
announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved
the Foundation's 2006/2007 financial statements.
The financial statements are now posted on the WMF wiki at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report. Direct link:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia_2007_fs.pdf
The financial statements were approved following the Audit Committee's
careful consideration and review of the auditor's report and the
Foundation's own records. We bring in auditors to do an analysis of the
Foundation's financial health - which includes considerable scrutiny of
our expenses and revenues, as well as the Foundation's overall
administration and processes.
"Why the delay?" you might ask. We had originally hoped to post the
statements a few months earlier, but more time was needed at the
Foundation level to review finances and work with our Florida-based
auditors.
And why did we need more time? It’s fairly normal for audits to take
longer to complete than was initially predicted. The Foundation’s
projects (and their popularity) grew significantly over the past year,
which meant that spending (number of transactions) increased. That means
there was more work to be done. Also, there had been some turnover in
Foundation staff (e.g., the accountant), which resulted in some loss of
institutional memory that made it harder to do the audit preparation. So
it isn’t really all that surprising that the audit was fairly
time-consuming. It's complete, and that's what matters.
To that end, the Board would like to recognize the hard work of both the
Foundation staff who spent many hours supporting the campaign, and
helping to concurrently move the offices and analyze our books, Oleta
McHenry and Mona Venkateswaran. I'll would like to give a special thank
you note to Oleta, for the endless hours spent on the books. Mona
particularly helped strengthen (she would probably say set up...) our
financial procedures and controls. I'd also like to personally thank our
Audit Committee for their energies and efforts. This review overall was
no small task - we want to thank everyone involved in getting us through
to this stage.
With this audit under out belt, we have an exciting year ahead of us,
and much to look forward to. There are new projects under discussion,
new research is under way (the UNU-Merit study is a fine example), new
staff have joined the Foundation, there is a new headquarters in the
heart of the silicon valley, and of course the ever-expanding growth of
all of the Foundation's projects and their respective readership.
On behalf of the Board I'd like to thank you for your patience in
waiting for these results. I think you'll agree that it was worth the
time to make sure we were in good shape.
Thanks for your time,
Florence Devouard, Chair Wikimedia Foundation
According to an internetforum I am on Thai politician's articles were
sanitized in the last year ....
Somebody fiddled with a lot of Thai entries last year. e.g. All the
negative information about Thaksin's son suddenly disappeared, among
other things. Also, a certain less than popular national figure had his
entry sort of sanitised.
http://www.thai360.com/fbb/showtopic.php?fid/8/tid/525412/pid/659489/post/l…
According to a poster whom I know quite well and is reliable.
Waerth
Or should I say, How is that, Kul?
Look mate (I hope you don’t mind me calling you this, as I’ve been in your
position too many times),
I understand that you have a rod up your back created by the Foundation’s
philosophy. So can I throw in a few heresies here, and a direct comparison
with Rotary, as it’s a philanthropic whose Foundation’s philosophy (I think)
is not dissimilar to the WMF’s.
The WMF’s founders are no doubt innovators; they have created a “new star”
which has tens of thousands of people’s hopes up. But they are not
Entrepreneurs, they are Philanthropists. At least, by their actions, that is
how they see themselves. The problem here is that they sit on the combined
goodwill of their star gazers without shifting economic resources out of an
area of lower, into an area of higher, productivity and greater yield”
(using J,B. Say’s definition: around 1800 “The Entrepreneur shifts economic
resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity
and greater yield”)
The only people making money (yielding) out of Wikipedia, etc are PR
companies who charge their customers for keeping their articles current. If
you’d like some ammunition for this argument I can provide it. The founder’s
honest beliefs have led to the time consuming distraction of gaining revenue
via lots of little donations; quite logical if you are a philanthropist. But
even Rotary produces magazines and newsletters around which they (and their
chapter’s publishers) wrap advertising revenue. And I would never suggest
that these ads would be sold on the basis of the content produced. This is a
point of contention for every publisher and, whether it’s admitted or not at
the moment, this is a business that the WMF is in.
So until the attitudes change, which they undoubtedly will, if for no other
reason than to acknowledge that some volunteers around here know so much
more about a subject than PR professionals and should be paid accordingly, I
can only hope that the donor meetings serve good food and are entertaining.
In the meantime, as an experiment in how much time and money is lost in
asking for donations instead of simply offering a space for a dollar
figure/month or minute, why don’t you just test the water and ask an
advertising agency how much for just the one spot ?
The board should at least be informed as to what they are saying NO to these
days.
We can see that good talent is everywhere. If we consider Erik’s elevation
to a high rank as an example of a process in action, then Germany is made
poorer by him not having had an apprentice, who steps in to fill his old
role. This is the point I’m trying to make. Go outside the community and
you’re bringing in professionals like yourself. That’s great. But be aware
that this is a new form of philanthropy. Wikimedians don’t need “a service”
provided to them other than a decent technical infrastructure, and treating
their work as anything but professional is denigrating. So they need proof,
and hope that if they work hard, they might be elevated too. Enough heresy
for today. Good luck. simon
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1263 - Release Date: 6/02/2008
8:14 PM
Sorry I failed to send this to the list the first time
--- Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:20:18 -0800 (PST)
> From: Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia-wide
> global blocking mechanism?
> To: effeietsanders(a)gmail.com
>
> I will grant you that it easier in the short-term to
> not use an opt-in system. However I strongly
> disagree
> that in practice the results would be the same as
> requiring opt-in. Even the most wonderful idea can
> have disastrous results because of poor
> communications. I can agree with the principles of
> this idea, but I also also think that such changes
> in
> principle require comprehensible notification. If
> you
> are not willing to bother with the
> communication(either through annoucements or using
> opt-in), you are setting yourselves up for failure.
> Personally I think opt-in is more workable than
> blanket notifications in local languages. Using an
> opt-in system will mean it will take some time for
> the
> system to reach full effect. But you should still
> get
> the feature you desire, and I believe you will save
> yourselves a great deal of difficulty in the long
> run.
>
>
> Frankly I am surprised your argument against opt-in
> is
> that it would be easier for the stewards to do
> otherwise. If someone does not wish to bother
> communicating with small wikis and wikis which have
> trouble with English, I wonder why they ever thought
> to become a steward.
>
> Birgitte SB
>
> --- effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > no or barely a community. Most of the wiki's are
> > small sized, and many
> > show little activity. It is much easier, and would
> > in practice be
> > almost the same, to just automatically opt in
> > projects...
> >
> > BR, Lodewijk
> >
> > 2008/2/1, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com>:
> > > The problem with opt-out is that a wiki must
> know
> > this
> > > even *exists* in order to opt-out. So if you
> are
> > > capable of notifing all the village pumps in a
> > > language they can comprehend, this is
> reasonable.
> > If
> > > you are not capable of that, opt-out is not
> > > reasonable. If this is mainly for wiki's with
> no
> > > community, then allow stewards to "opt-in" such
> > > wiki's. If they have no community, they will not
> > > object.
> > >
> > > Birgitte SB
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --- effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I agree with your concerns. However, currently
> a
> > > > similar system is
> > > > already active, proxyblocker. This system
> blocks
> > > > some (I dont know how
> > > > many) proxies, detected somewhere in 2005.
> Dont
> > > > worry, no new blocks
> > > > are being added, but some are still in place.
> > The
> > > > user just gets a
> > > > message that he is blocked by proxyblocker. We
> > could
> > > > pick a logical
> > > > name to appear in the message, that would
> point
> > to
> > > > meta. Maybe
> > > > CrosswikiBlocker, or VandalbotBlocker or
> > something.
> > > >
> > > > Opt-in is not workable. This new thing is
> mainly
> > for
> > > > wiki's with no
> > > > community. You can only opt in if you have a
> > > > community. Hence, opt in
> > > > would not work. After all, the stewards mainly
> > have
> > > > to block bots on
> > > > wiki's with no or almost no normal edits. when
> > there
> > > > are people
> > > > around, and they have sysops and a community,
> > they
> > > > can handle it
> > > > themselves generally. However, I would plea
> for
> > > > opt-out.
> > > >
> > > > For the unblocking, I do not think that should
> > be a
> > > > major issue, if we
> > > > would choose for a maximum of a block in the
> > range
> > > > of 1 day-1week. In
> > > > that case, the chance that someone is affected
> > by
> > > > that block, but is
> > > > not the person who was doing the malicious
> > edits, is
> > > > quite slim.
> > > > Furthermore, that person will survive to wait
> a
> > day
> > > > or a week, no big
> > > > harm done. If it proofs to be a major blocker
> > for a
> > > > specific
> > > > community, ie they would only have one IP for
> a
> > > > whole country or
> > > > something, they could opt out.
> > > >
> > > > BR, Eia
> > > >
> > > > 2008/1/31, Birgitte SB
> <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com>:
> > > > >
> > > > > --- Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > On 31/01/2008, Birgitte SB
> > > > <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > This is the key problem. I think that
> > unless
> > > > we
> > > > > > are
> > > > > > > capable of notifing all wikis of about
> the
> > > > > > workings of
> > > > > > > this process in a language they are
> > proficient
> > > > > > taking
> > > > > > > blocks Wikimedia wide will cause a lot
> of
> > > > harm.
> > > > > > Of
> > > > > > > course an opt-in system would be very
> > > > workable.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Would logging it in the local block-log
> > system
> > > > be an
> > > > > > acceptable method
> > > > > > of notification?
> > > > >
> > > > > I was more thinking first about a
> notification
> > > > that
> > > > > this ability even *exists* before addressing
> > > > > notification individual blocks. However
> > regarding
> > > > > individual blocks what language are you
> > proposing
> > > > the
> > > > > local log entry be written in?
> > > > >
> > > > > The only reasonable way to do this is to
> have
> > the
> > > > log
> > > > > entries be a consistent pre-arranged formula
> > that
> > > > > links to a local page explaining the system
> in
> > the
> > > > > local language. The best way to ensure that
> > all
> > > > this
> > > > > is set-up is to use an opt-in system that
> > requires
> > > > > these things be set-up before blocks .
> > > > >
> > > > > Anything else means some wiki(s) will wake
> up
> > one
> > > > day
> > > > > to realize there are inexplicable blocks in
> > place.
> > > > > Likely with logs entries they cannot read.
> > And
> > > > very
> > > > > likely when they start making inquiries no
> one
> > > > will be
> > > > > able to explain what has happened to them
> own
> > > > language
> > > > > leading to further misunderstandings.
> > > > >
> > > > > Seriously make a system to handle these
> blocks
> > and
> > > > > require every wiki wishing to join the
> system
> > file
> > > > a
> > > > > bug and things will go much more smoothly.
> If
> > the
> > > > > stewards find they are doing tedious manual
> > blocks
> > > > on
> > > > > a certain wiki, they can encourage the that
> > wiki
> > > > to
> > > > > file the bug.
> > > > >
> > > > > Birgitte SB
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
> > > > > Looking for last minute shopping deals?
> > > > > Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
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> > > > >
> > > > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > Unsubscribe:
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > Unsubscribe:
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
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> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
> > > Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.
> > > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> > >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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> Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
>
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(for those not willing to read a long email, just jump at the end of it
to read the 6 proposed values)
--------
I would like to propose to the board to finalize (-> approve) the values
of Wikimedia Foundation.
What is it about ?
It would be a collection of common words or ideas which reflects what is
important to us, as an organization. It comes on top of
* the vision tagline, which is our bold goal
* the mission statements, which describe what the organization is doing
to reach its goal
The values represent the principles we share together
What is the difference with the Wikipedia pillars ?
The values I am talking about are the *organization* (WMF) values, not
the projects values. Obviously, many values will be shared, but not
necessarily all of them. For example, Wikipedia has NPOV as a pillar,
the Wikimedia Foundation does not have NPOV as a pillar.
What is the difference between "vision", "mission" and "values" ?
Imagine you are a WMF staff member, you are at a dinner with your
grand-mother and she asks "so tell me about your job, is it interesting
? do you have to wear a suit ?"
Your answer might be "eh, we want to give access to information to every
one in the world (vision). So, to make that happen, we host some freely
accessible internet web sites where people can add information
(mission). My own job is to make sure we have enough cash to operate, so
I raise money from people and companies (my job). What is real cool is
that I am not the only one doing that, but many volunteers from all over
the world help as well; sometimes it is not easy, because I need to keep
them informed a lot of what I am doing even though they are not my boss.
Also, it is very important to us to stay independant, so I have to find
funds from various sources. It makes things more complicated, but it is
super exciting ! As for the suit, the team is very geek like, very
diverse set, most have already been living in other countries. So, as
long as we are clean and careful not to hurt anyone sensitivities, no
need to wear a suit on a daily basis !" (values)
Why do we need that ?
Some of you would consider that unnecessary. I would respectfully
disagree :-)
There are two main reasons we should have these values written down, one
is related to "branding" (public perception of our uniqueness), the
other to "management" (training of our staff members).
It is important that "outsiders" (donors, partners, governments, civil
society...) understand what is important to us, what is welcome and what
is non negotiable.
Donors will give us money more easily if they know what is important to
us, and actually agree with our values.
Potential partners will not lose our valuable time and their valuable
time proposing proprietary software deals if they know it is a
deal-breaker for us.
Wikipedia in particular, currently enjoys very much support because it
is clearly identified as a brand. Other Wikimedia projects are not as
well clearly identified yet (there are still people wondering what
Wikiversity exactly is about for example).
During the past year, the WMF motto has been "we are a non profit", and
still many people think it is a business company. People do not approach
a non-profit and a for-profit in the same way. In any cases, most people
have no idea of the existence of WMF, and when they do think about
organization, they believe we have 10.000 employees somewhere in the
Silicon Valley, and open big round shocked eyes when they learn the truth.
There are also beliefs that, as a web 2.0 company, every one can do
whatever they want on the websites, and no one is responsible. We should
kill such an idea in the egg, and make sure that the common view becomes
that thriving to quality is one of our major motto.
Values are not only what make us stick together, but also general
guidelines for what we want to become, what we are really trying hard to
do, and what we want to be known as specific about us.
Which is also why it is important to management.
The bottom line concept is that the staff is ultimately trying to
achieve the VISION, thanks to operational activity (the MISSION), and
deep respect of the VALUES.
The put it bluntly: no decision should be made that could hurt the
values. Any time a decision is on the plate, the staff and volunteers
should keep in mind "does it go along with our values, or against our
values ?"
Example:
It seems that past and recent discussions show how important it was for
the community that our entire projects be build upon free software,
using free format and free standards. It goes beyond the simple notion
of creating freely-licenced content, as described in the mission
statement. Whilst supporting, defending, developing, the free mouvement
is NOT our goal, nor even within our mission, it seems to be an
important value to most of us. Hence, the very notion of listing our
support to freedom is a VALUE, which has been clarified in a recent
resolution.
As a value, anytime the staff is thinking of making a deal with a
partner, it should ask himself, "is that all right with the freedom
value" ? If it is not, no deal. Period.
Other values have other impacts. When we talked to Sue last summer
before hiring her, we made super clear that it was super important to us
to hire staff with international awareness (either non US staff, or US
staff having lived outside of the US, or at a minimum, US staff being
multilingual). Sue has been extremely careful to take such guidelines
into account, and all recently hired staff is in one way or another,
respecting these guidelines. Practically, if a staff member was at some
point voicing such opinion that "non US people are jerks", I would
consider that ground for being fired.
---------
Last summer, the board + advisory board brainstormed together over our
values. We further discussed the issue on this list, as well as here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values
I have been thinking over it in the past few weeks, and here is the
result of my list.
* Community
* Diversity
* Quality of service
* Transparency
* Freedom
* Independance
Text is rough draft for now
Our community is our biggest asset
We are a community-based organization. We must operate with a mix of
staff members, and of volunteers, working together to achieve our mission.
We support community-led collaborative projects, and must respect the
work and the ideas of our community. We must listen and take into
account our communities in any decisions taken to achieve our mission.
Commitment to openness and diversity
Though US-based, the organization is international in its nature. Our
board of trustees, staff members, and volunteers are involved without
discrimination based on their religion, political beliefs, sexual
preferences, nationalities etc... Not only do we accept diversity, but
we actually look forward to it.
Quality of service is a priority
We will try our best to give access to high quality Wikimedia project
content 24 hours a day and 7 days, as well as provide access to
regularly updated, user-friendly, and free dumps of Wikimedia project
content.
To insure world-wide, unrestricted, dissemination of knowledge, we do
not enter into exclusive partnerships, with regards to access to our
content or use of our trademarks.
Freedom
We make extra efforts to use only free software on our own servers, and
to support open and patent-free media formats that are viewable and
editable with free software.
Transparency
We must communicate Wikimedia Foundation information in a transparent,
thorough and timely manner, to our communities and more generally, to
the public.
Independance
As a non-profit, we mostly depend on gifts to operate (donations,
grants, sponsorship etc...). It is very important to us to ensure our
organization stays free of influence in the way it operates. For this
reason, we strictly follow a donation policy, reserve the right to
refuse donations from a limited number of sources, and try to multiply
the number of sources.
----------
are they comments at this point ?
Sorry for the verrrry long email :-)
Ant
All -
in the next few days, I'll try to put together a coherent Wikimedia
Foundation FAQ on partnerships with other organizations and companies:
What we do, what we don't do, how we decide things, who to talk to,
etc. This is meant to ease the workload of staff & volunteers
responding to external inquiries.
I'm still in the note-taking phase - feel free to add to:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Partnerships_FAQ
If there are existing pages & FAQs I should be aware of, please let me know.
Please note that this will be written on the basis of the current
resource constraints: We really do not have a lot of organizational
bandwidth to effectively execute partnerships right now, so in many
cases, the best we can do is provide guidelines and help people to
work with community volunteers. Even when we do hire a head of
partnerships (and that will be very much dependent on our finances as
we go forward), they'll only have a very small staff to work with.
Sue & I also think it might make sense to create a dedicated OTRS
queue for potential partnerships. I know a lot of this goes to the
info queue already, but it'll make sense, I think, to build a team of
dedicated volunteers for this space. If you have any thoughts on that,
let me know.
Thanks,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi,
Because of
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Nobel_Pri…,
some users at the Norwegian (bokmål) Wikipedia (no.wikipedia.org) want to
upload it locally, using the equivalent of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-US.
An EDP has to be "in accordance with United States law and the law of
countries where the project content is predominantly accessed," but does a
similar rule apply to the images we consider to be in the Public Domain?
This work was made by Swedish sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg
(1873–1966), and is therefore not in the Public Domain in Norway. Do we have
to follow Norwegian laws, or could we just follow the laws of Florida / the
U.S. ?
-Kjetil (User:Kjetil_r)
Gerard Meijssen HYPERLINK
"mailto:foundation-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BFoundation-l%5D%0A%09h
ttp%3A//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Peer_review_and_the_Wikipedia_process&In-Rep
ly-To=6hfqa5%242p5r5r%40smtp05.syd.iprimus.net.au"gerard.meijssen at
gmail.com
on Tue Feb 5 18:21:23 UTC 2008
said
Hoi,
When you buy into a model, the model determines your answer. With this model
in mind Wikipedia would not have happened. For me it means that this model
is nice but it is broken because it does not consider Wikipedia, a project
that is wildly successful to the extend that many peer reviewed of whatever
level can only be envious.
When you have a model that allows for something like Wikipedia, you have my
attention.
Thanks,
GerardM
>>>Thanks Gerard,
I’m not sure what you mean by “Wikipedia, a project that is wildly
successful to the extend that many peer reviewed of whatever level can only
be envious”.
Every wiki article, we both agree, is peer reviewed to some degree through
editing. And some knowledgeable reader who comes along at some point in time
will want to add or edit something. Five years (say) of editing pages has
produced a library of articles which are seen by a global majority of
viewers to be as good as something produced by “professionals”. And yes,
paid professionals have reason to be envious (if this is what you mean).
The point now, using en.Wikipedia as the most mature library, is that many
researchers will want to use it as “their library”, in the same way as they
do with their professional journals. At least, I think, as a starting point,
where they might offer references to their more in-depth publications. In
this regards, the model offers a global framework for learning. It’s not
like say, the Open Courseware (OCW) initiative, where individual unis offer
“their” me too content on “their” domain, and the duplications are as many
as the domains. Theirs is a model based around the institution, not the
user.
All I’m saying here, is that if we take the wiki model and apply it to
communications in the same way that it’s been applied to building a global
library, then you might be led to the idea that the global groups, who you
can identify by clicking on a history tab, are not always going to be around
(in fact rarely are at the same time). So as a mature page becomes
‘hardened’ then we need to encourage less editing and more understanding of
the discussions which went into making its ‘quality’. Logically, this means
that when a search tool offers a WMF sponsored page to a searcher, then we
should help newbies by offering them a place where they can read through a
synopsis of the FAQ’s which reflect the page’s learning, and perhaps points
to times when they can attend a(n online) conference, ask questions and
tutor one another.
>>When you have a model that allows for something like Wikipedia, you have
my attention.
I hope this clarifies that I’m not trying to introduce a new model here;
just trying to understand its evolution. I agree with you, “the model
determines the answers”. I’m just a little concerned about the HYPERLINK
"http://wikipediasurvey.org/"http://wikipediasurvey.org/
This group from the UNU is a OCW partner. They’re not used to using the same
model as WMF communities do, so if you read their cut and paste “About the
Wikimedia Foundation” = The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a nonprofit
charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and
distribution of free, multilingual content = you might be led to believe
that the Foundation’s aim is about just building libraries. And aims are
only half the story.
Its mission = Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely
share in the sum of all knowledge = implies that people can find a way to
understand why content exists, and explain why (sometimes) its not quite
right. Understanding, as you know, is the last 10% of any learning. It just
happens to be the most important part. Is that OK?
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