Hello. Wikimedia Spain members wrote an open letter to BoT where we show
our position about the URAA and we support Wikimedia Israel. The letter
says:
==================
We, the members of Wikimedia España, the chapter of the Wikimedia movement
in Spain, support the concerns expressed by our fellow Wikimedia Israel
and other places around the World about the legal norm known as URAA. That
norm, based on the legal status quo, has the effect of extending the
copyright of cultural works for periods even longer than those already in
force.
We do not object in any way to the right of people to live out of the
results of their work, be it in manufacturing, service industries,
agriculture or any other human activity, but those works form the core of
culture as the sum of human knowledge, and their use by all Mankind has to
be protected too. While it is entirely understandable that painters,
writers or photographers have the right to sustain themselves with their
works, it is not reasonable that people who did not author anything should
be allowed to make money out of the works of people who died fifty,
seventy-five or even hundred years before.
Furthermore it has to be taken into account that under the excuse of
protecting the authors' rights, an unduly burden has been charged on the
users of works of unknown authors, anonymous works or the ones of people
who simply did not intend to claim any right at any time at all. The
Uruguay Round Agreements were negotiated by 123 countries. Somebody who
came across some anonymous work that could be dated at anytime in the last
century, could be required to find a negotiator among the more than seven
billion people on Earth, since, otherwise, he/she could be violating some
state copyright law.
Another aspect that URAA does not pay attention to is the fact that many
works remain unattended. When talking about books, it means that they are
not reprinted and are not available anymore. But it does not mean that
somebody could just reprint them in order to make them known to the
public. In that way people can neither buy copies of works nor make them
themselves. Who is profiting by that? In other cases, photographs,
pictures, rolls of film, etc., just sit rotting -literally in some cases-
in storerooms, not only forgotten, also forbidden. Is there any benefit
from it?
So, in spite of all legal terms, we, the Wikimedians from Spain, support
not just our Israeli companions, but the right of all the Human Race to
have a chance to enjoy what has been done by authors. And so we expect the
Wikimedia Foundation, as a provider of free knowledge sources, will do
their best and fight for the shortest copyright terms possible, restricted
as closely as possible to the author's lifetime.
Yours sincerely,
Wikimedia Spain
====================
*Wikimedia España Blog
http://blog.wikimedia.es/2014/02/postura-de-wikimedia-espana-sobre-la.html
*On Meta in different languages:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Espa%C3%B1a/Letter_to_the_BoT_reg…
We encourage you to create a debate about it and work for free knowledge.
Thank you and regards
--
Santiago Navarro
Wikimedia España
http://www.wikimedia.org.es/
Hi all,
I want to draw your attention to two Wikimedia Board of Trustees decisions
that were recently published, regarding funds allocated to the FDC/Annual
plan grant process and Board approval of chapter/thematic organization
status. In a nutshell, the Board decided to allocate approximately the same
amount of funding to the FDC for the next two years. The Board also decided
that new organizations should first form as a user group and have two years
of programmatic experience before being approved as a legally incorporated
entity (either a chapter or thematic organization).
The decisions are published in the meeting minutes here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2013-11-24#Movement_roles
There is also a FAQ on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_FAQ
You will notice these decisions are published in the minutes for the
November meeting. We originally took these decisions at that meeting;
however as the FAQ explains it took us some time to talk to community
groups, clarify our wording and write the FAQ.
Hopefully the FAQ will answer many of your questions about these decisions;
however, if there are other questions please do ask them, here or on the
meta talk page. Thank you!
for the Board,
Phoebe
Dear all,
As you may be aware, Wikimedia UK
wiki<https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Main_Page>was migrated from WMF
servers <https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page> to that of WMUK back in
September. If you previously had an account on the old wiki, but have not
requested password for your account on the new wiki, please do so now.
With the aid <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56938> of the
WMF server ops, we are looking to shut off the old wiki in the next few
days or as soon as possible thereafter. If you haven't gotten your password
to an account on the new wiki yet by that point, and especially if your
account is not unified <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Unified_login>,
then we will have no way of confirming your identity and you will require a
new account.
Regards,
Katie
--
Katie Chan
Volunteer Support Organiser
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 20 7065 0990
+44 (0) 7885 980 534
Wikimedia UK is a Charitable Company registered in England and Wales.
Registered Company No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
Registered Office: 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom.
Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The
Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate
Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
A message I just sent in a wikimediauk-l thread about photographic
negative scanners, which I thought might be of general interest to
Wikimedia organisations.
tl;dr: an archival-quality negative scanner has potential to be a
white elephant* (a donation that is actually a liability), but could
be a useful thing that an organisation could use to make very good
friends with GLAMs and individuals.
- d.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
Date: 15 February 2014 20:00
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] WMUK slide scanner
To: UK Wikimedia mailing list <wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
On 15 February 2014 19:52, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15 February 2014 15:23, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 15 February 2014 15:09, Andy Mabbett <andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
>> > Change of plan: Thank you, but I've been offered the use of one of
>> > these:
>> > http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/scanner/scoolscan_4000/
>> > by a friend who lives locally.
>> Oooooooooooooh you lucky bugger. That's the level of archival-quality
>> piece of kit we could do with for WMUK. Though it would have to live
>> in the office.
> A nikon product at the WMUK office? Is that wise:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canon_EOS_DSLR_family_(selection).j…
:-)
Seriously, though: if you want archival quality, the way to go is a
CoolScan. Not only would we be able to scan negatives ourselves
(though it'd be tied to the office, rather than being a loanable
item), we'd be able to make very good friends indeed with GLAMs that
have random piles of unscanned negatives.
It'd be nice if someone with a few hundred quid bought a CoolScan,
scanned their collection, then donated the kit to WMUK when done with
it.
The way it usually goes is: someone buys a CoolScan on eBay, scans
their negative collection, sells it to the next person. WMUK would be
a suitable end point for such a chain.
The main catch is for it to be *someone else's* problem to make sure a
decade-old piece of kit is in usable condition not to be a white
elephant - donating something that turns into a liability is helpy
rather than helpful. CoolScan IV/4000 use FireWire, V/5000 on use USB
... software and supported OS is an interesting question as well ...
III/3000 and earlier do archival-quality scanning, but often have
weird hardware requirements. I think the I and II needed their own ISA
card. This is the sort of white elephant *not* to inflict on a small
charity.
If I had ~£500 to spare I would happily be that person. I'm not though :-)
I'll borrow the Ion (a rather less fragile piece of kit, so
borrowable), but if I had access to a CoolScan I'd happily do 'em
again.
- d.
Dear members of the Wikimedia Movement:
In the past weeks, I've taken the decision to resign to my position of
Executive Director of Wikimedia Argentina. This decision was presented to
the Board of the chapter past Saturday and it was accepted.
For personal and professional reasons, I've decided to return to my
country, Chile, in the following weeks and start a new stage of my life.
Two years ago, I was presented with the opportunity of living in Argentina
and working for one of my passions. This was a big challenge for me: I had
to leave my country and my family and work in a foreign country. These last
18 months have been a unique experience and I've learnt a lot, becoming a
better professional and a more mature person. However, at the same time I
feel that I need to move on and continue with new projects and challenges.
Certainly, this has not been an easy decision for me, because I'm very fond
of this work, the people that have participated in our activities and the
projects we worked on and we are still working on.
I leave the Association in a very different position than when I took
office. We have several ongoing projects and we regularized all the delayed
paperwork. We became the first organization from a developing country to
get an Annual Plan Grant via FDC and have been one of the best-graded
chapters in both processes. We are now a reliable and serious organization,
continuing a process of professionalization that can improve our programs,
making them more efficient and more effective. Clearly, this has not been
only due to my work, which is why I thank the Board of the Chapter that
helped me in everything and to María Cruz, which has been a great colleague
these months.
My main interest is that Wikimedia Argentina continues to grow, which is
why we have decided that my departure occurs at the end of March. This will
allow us to work calmly to ensure the continuity of the ongoing projects of
Wikimedia Argentina and the transfer of knowledge once the new Executive
Director takes office. In any case, I will continue to participate as a
member and Wikimedia volunteer, once this period expires. By request of our
Board, I will also attend the next Wikimedia Conference, so I will be able
to transmit the experiences of Wikimedia Argentina in the last year.
I appreciate the trust placed in me by the Board and all the members of
Wikimedia Argentina and their support all these months. I'm sure they will
continue the great work we have done lately.
Kind regards,
*Osmar Valdebenito G.*
Director Ejecutivo
A. C. Wikimedia Argentina
To whom it may concern.I am Jimmy Mofokeng a young man from XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,I need to know about fund raising for our team KENALEWENA RENEWAL CC.We want to give skill/knowledge by giving them practical training and job too,it's going to be simple for all youth to get close to their dreams/feuture.We doing steel-work(weldingjob)new design product structures/frames looking to register,strugling sponsors can you please help.
WITH THANKS
JMMOFOKENG@KENALEWENA----------
Sent via Nokia Email
Dear All,
I am happy to inform you Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD) has arranged a two day
(February 16 & 17, 2014) Wikipedia program with Grameen Phone (A Telenor
concern). Grameen Phone is the largest telecommunication company based in
Bangladesh. Besides, in Bangladesh Grameen Phone & Banglalink (A Orascom
Telecom and VimpelCom Ltd concern) now provide zero.wikipedia.org &
m.wikipedia.org, which is completely free of cost.
In this two-day program we will arrange different types of Workshops. WMBD
president Munir Hasan will conduct two seminars on wikipedia. Me & our
another Sysop of Bengali Wikipedia Nasir Khan will jointly run 2/3
workshops. Our target audience 70+ I-Genious student. This all I-Genious
students selected by a year-long program arranged by Grameen Phone & The
Daily Prothom Alo all over the country [1]. On the first day 35 & on the
second day 35 students will join this program. During the program we will
deliver hands on presentations, How to edit, how to contribute, How to
donate photo to commons. Moreover, we will enrich some articles those seem
incomplete..
After the successful completion of the program all i-Genious students will
receive certificates from WMBD & Grameen Phone.
In this program we are interested to show a video about wikipedia. It would
be great if anyone can give me a link where i may find the video.
[1]
http://www.telenor.com/media/articles/2012/game-on-mobile-browsing-gets-com…
--
*Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive* | User: nhasive
Sysop of *Bengali Wikipedia*
Bangladesh Ambassador of *Open Knowledge Foundation Network*
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