When I joined Wikipedia more than 2 years ago, I
remember much unhappiness due to lack of information
of some parts of the project. For those who may not
have this memory (omg, I feel old in saying this),
lack of information lead to a fork. Though a fork is
certainly very unlikely these days, I believe the
growing feeling that fair process is not respected, is
bad for general spirit.
I remember that situation improved a lot, partly
because mailing lists were reorganised, partly because
meta became multilingual, and mostly partly because
people made an effort to
1) give information and
2) give it at the right place
3) discuss things before deciding it (or at least gave
people the opportunity to discuss it)
Sorry to say that, but I think we are on the bad slope
again. And I think we should seriously think about it.
Typical signs which I believe show information flow is
broken again ?
-> I hear people complain on irc
-> We start mail crossing again in an attempt to
restructure mailing flow
-> Things are learned again, not by regular channel,
but by personal information network.
Couple of points
* I think that software improvement should follow
needs, not the reverse. It may be either because
there is open and pressing request from users, or
because there was a suggestion and a developer had a
great idea. But it is curious that soft improvements
are made without users knowing (ie, without the
improvement been mentionned elsewhere than on
wikitech). Could soft improvement be mentionned on
wikipedia-l then ?
* When a soft improvement is done to fit legal
requirements, please, could it be discussed on
foundation-l to check if that complies with the legal
requirements ?
* When a hardware update is being done, please, could
it be announced on wikitech, or on meta, so that when
users wonder what is going on, there is something else
to answer than "no idea"
* When a change is made in the purpose of donations,
could it be mentionned on foundation-l (rather than
only on en:) so that all projects could change the
initial purposes given by Jimbo ?
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
I have just come across the user page of
Enforcer(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enforcer),
a troll who has today challenged the right of
Wikimedia to seek charitable donations outside of
Florida .
He says he has done research finding that the
foundation is breaking the law, and appears to have
groomed "potential complainants" to file lawsuits
against the Wikimedia Foundation in their respective
states. I'm no legal person, so could anyone tell me
whether what he is saying is correct, whether anything
needs to be rectified, who he really is (in terms of a
user), and how he can be dealt with?
- Gabriel Beecham / Kwekubo
____________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping"
your friends today! Download Messenger Now
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html
Tim Starling wrote:
>"Enforcer" appears to be Bird, not 142. And as far as I can see he's not
>making a legal challenge or encouraging anyone to do the same, he's
>encouraging people to complain to the relevant regulatory body. That's his
>right and I wish him luck. Wikimedia is a serious organisation and can't be
>intimidated every time some disgruntled user calls the cops. If Wikimedia
>really was breaking the law (and I accept Jimbo's assurance that it is not),
>then that is a problem that I hope we would all be interested in seeing
>addressed.
>
Like Tim, I find Jimbo's assurances completely satisfactory.
Regulation of charitable solicitations is primarily designed to prevent
deceptive practices. The reason states require nonprofits to register
and report is to discourage unscrupulous and fraudulent organizations
from preying on people's charitable impulses. They don't care about
where you register, or what exactly constitutes "solicitation", except
as a means to that end. The laws would be more "vigorously enforced" if
some Attorney General had credible information indicating that Wikimedia
was seriously misusing funds.
Jimbo's detailed response covers most of the ways donations could be
misused, and shows that Wikimedia is not doing anything remotely
fraudulent with the money. The other major concern of regulators is the
proportion of charitable donations that is actually used for charitable
functions. The issue here is primarily professional solicitors, who may
take a huge chunk of the money they raise for a charity. As I understand
it, Wikimedia uses no such services, and the only portion of donations
not used directly for the foundation's objectives are the fees deducted
by PayPal for contributions made using that service. This is a small
percentage, and really more in the nature of administrative expenses. If
you compared Wikimedia to almost any other nonprofit, I believe it would
come out way ahead in the percentage of donations that actually served
their intended purpose.
By the way, would it be appropriate to check if Enforcer/Bird is also
the same as the users who were trying to add the Bomis disclaimer to the
Fallujah article? Those users were TruthSayer, JillP, and SaltyDog.
--Michael Snow
One of our frequently banned users is making a variety of legal and
financial accusations that I wanted to respond to early and firmly
lest any of these things take root in any way shape or form as
reflective of reality in any way.
1. First, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently in full compliance
and more with all legal requirements for filings, etc. It is my
intention that we remain so, and that indeed, we are proactive about
doing whatever is necessary to go above and beyond what is required of
us in terms of organizational transparency, etc.
I am always eager to hear suggestions for improvement in this regard.
2. Second, there are no plans of any kind to release a 'for-profit'
version of the Wikipedia, for the separate benefit of me or Bomis or
any other company that I own, control, work for, etc. We *will* be
working to release Wikipedia on CD-ROM, in paper format, etc., but
these will be projects *of the foundation*, carried out with perfect
consistency with our nonprofit mission.
Such efforts will necessarily and properly involve the work of
for-profit publishers, but of course any contracts entered into will
be to the benefit of the Wikimedia Foundation.
3. There are no current plans for salaries for anyone. In the
future, I do intend that as we grow, we will become a large
organization patterned after the National Geographic Society, the
International Red Cross, and so on. This will eventually necessitate
employees, etc. But for now, any suggestion that I am personally
trying to get money from Wikipedia is beyond ludicrous.
It is commonly thought that I'm a wealthy person, but I'm not really.
I'm a very committed person who drives a 4 year old Hyundai and lives
in an ordinary middle-class American home in an ordinary neighborhood,
while spending far more in the last 5 years on my dream of a free
encyclopedia than I have on my own salary, none of which, of course,
is derived from Wikipedia in any way.
I do this because it matters to me. There are lots of ways to spend
money in life, some frivolous, some meaningful. To me, doing
something meaningful is the best reward.
4. As of June 1, 2004, I am resigning as CEO of Bomis, and my partner
Tim Shell will take over that role. This is primarily to reflect the
reality of the situation, which is that I spend virtually all my time
on Wikipedia and non-Bomis work. But it is also in part to further
emphasize and underscore the fact that the two are unrelated. Bomis's
ongoing provision of free hosting for the Wikimedia Foundation as a
gesture of appreciation of "giving back" to the free software
community whose software has helped us to do so much is not going to
change. But that ongoing gift is the only relationship between Bomis
and Wikipedia, period.
5. One troll has suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation needs to
disclose something about it's relationship to Bomis. This is a
classic propaganda technique: to demand the disclosure of some shadowy
secrets, with ominous overtones, when there is actually nothing to
disclose. I am happy to answer any questions that anyone has about
it, but there's not much to say.
While I was a futures and options trader, I founded Bomis partly as a
sideline hobby. It was eventually successful enough for me to retire
from trading and do it full time. The company rode through the
dot-com boom with good times and bad, and has always prospered enough
to provide me with a decent living.
I eventually became consumed with the passion to create a free and
freely licensed encyclopedia, and started to spend money on it. In
the early days, I thought of it as a possible business venture like
RedHat. Nupedia was an expensive failure, Wikipedia was a big
success.
But through that process, it became apparent that in order for
Wikipedia to achieve it's full potential it needed to be owned by a
non-profit organization. I promised then to give it all away to the
non-profit organization, and I did. I did so fully and completely and
with no regrets. My reward will be a Nobel Peace Prize, ha ha.
Why has Bomis funded Wikipedia? Because my partners in Bomis shared
my vision and let me do it. Bomis had servers, technical employees,
etc., and was the original owner of Nupedia/Wikipedia. The transition
was natural and spontaneous, and that's where things are today.
6. I have said before that although there are no plans for it at the
current time, and no need for it, it would please me greatly to have
the Wikimedia Foundation grow into a large enough organization that it
would be sensible for me to accept a salary for running it. If and
when that time comes, of course my compensation will be decided
according to the standard practices for charitable organizations, i.e.
through a vote of the other members of the Board of Directors, and in
accordance with the advice of an independent outside compensation
agency.
----
In short, if anyone has *any* questions or concerns about legal or
financial matters, I ask you to please write to me privately and
express those concerns openly and honestly, so that I can resolve
anything of this sort to everyone's satisfaction. If, after you've
talked with me privately, you find that you have any remaining issues
that you don't feel I've addressed, then by all means I encourage you
to go public with your complaints.
That's my biggest problem, really, with what this troll is doing.
He's issuing a lot of lies (anonymously of course) and insinuations,
attempting to make a public stink, rather than honestly and simply
raising the issues with me in an appropriate manner. I don't actually
fear any actual legal action, because in order to file a legal action,
he or she would have to reveal his or her true identity, which would
then enable us to finally take legal action to permanently ban them
from the website, as well as providing an opportunity for me to file a
libel claim against him.
Anyhow, really, I wanted to say all this because I want you you all to
know my keen interest in openness, transparency, fairness, etc. I
want to do whatever I need to do to make sure that the Wikimedia
Foundation is looked to as a shining example of how a nonprofit should
be run, with tight attention paid to expenses, good stewardship of
donor money, etc.
--Jimbo
hello,
from time to time I would like to use <span> tag for inline element
styling, but it's not supported, so I have to use <div> and dirty tricks to
get it done, but it's not the same: since DIV is not an inherent inline
element, it's very hard to use it for blending something into the normal
text flow (like math for example, see my hack on meta/mediawiki user
guide/math using div instead of span).
maybe i'm wrong and there shouldn't be such styling on wikipedia pages
(people against tags would say "it makes wikitext harder to read for nontech
people"), so please share your opinion. I would like to use span, and would
like to have it enabled in mediawiki pages. As far as I know it does not
present cross-scripting or other vulnerabilities (I didn't explore this topic
too deep though).
if nobody objects or convinces me that I'm on the road to hell I'll try to
convince brion (which is probably the hardest part :)).
thanks,
peter
IANAL, but IMHO:
* We already list *all* contributors for the page, in the page history.
I'd say that the single click required to see it is comparable to
turning a page in a printed version, which is not too much to ask, under
any legal system I know of.
* If you want to find the main contributors, go ahead and use the diff
function. By listing them all, we also listed the main editors.
* The fact that noone *ever* demanded to see his/her name on the article
page itself indicates to me that there is strong community
(=contributor) consensus regarding our current practice in that matter.
* Everybody's free to use their real name as user name, or to write it
on their user page. The additional click required should be tolerable,
for reasons stated above.
If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare the
whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself? [Translation to
legalese would be required]
Magnus
Anthere wrote:
> I was just made aware of this thread, and I realise that potentially a
> legal issue is discussed on wikitech. I would like the opinion of our
> lawyers on this specific point.
>
> So, tel me if I understand well, to comply with the gfdl the best we can
> (and we already know it is problematic), what you suggest is to list
> first the real name contributors, followed by pseudonymes, then by ips.
> Of course, the number of names is limited. We can expect that on many
> articles, the number of names will be over 50 or more.
>
> I understood the gfdl "normal" requirement is to list the 5 main
> contributors. We probably know that we can define who the 5 main
> contributors are. Indeed, unless the number of contributors is below 5,
> there is no way to report with honesty the legal requirements.
>
> This said, if we can't report reality, why would we report a group of
> contributors more than another ? If a pseudonyme wrote 95% of an
> article, and 5% officially real names corrected typos, is that really
> correct to indicate these 5 real names and not the pseudonyme ?
>
> I would say it is not. Legally, that is incorrect. From a community view
> point, that is setting a case which I am not sure is really positive.
> It think that it would be more correct to make random choice among
> pseudo or real names, or to choose among the last ones.
>
> I will forward this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, since I believe
> this is more than a technical issue.
>
> Evan Prodromou a écrit:
>
>> So, I'd like to add a little block of attribution data to each page
>> (optional, per-installation; I'm guessing Wikipedia wouldn't use
>> this). Something along the lines of:
>>
>> This article last edited on April 21, 2004 by Evan Prodromou.
>> Based on work by Alice Notaperson, Bob Alsonotaperson, users
>> Crankshaft, Deckchair and Eggplant, and anonymous editors.
>>
>> For each (distinct) person who's listed in the old table, it'd show
>> their real name if it's set, or their user name if not. All anonymous
>> edits would be lumped under "anonymous editors". Contributors would be
>> listed with real-named folks first, then pseudo'd folks, then
>> anonymous. There's no particular reason for that; it could be any
>> other way (although I don't see a big point making it configurable).
>>
>> The goal here is to make it easy for redistributors to comply with
>> license provisions that require author attribution (such as some
>> Creative Commons licenses), without having to dig through a whole
>> bunch of history pages.
>>
>> Anyhoo, the Metadata.php code already does most of this logic, albeit
>> for output in RDF format. I'd like to take that stuff and put it in
>> the Article class, in a method like "getContributors". The method
>> could then be used both from the attribution code and from the RDF
>> metadata code.
>>
>> getContributors would return an array of arrays, each of which would
>> contain:
>>
>> 0. User ID
>> 1. User account name
>> 2. User real name, if set
>>
>> Another option would be to create User objects for each entry in the
>> returned array, but a) I don't think that most of the User object
>> fields (email, preferences) are needed, and b) I'd be worried about
>> slingin' around incomplete User objects. So, I think the arrays are
>> the best bet.
>>
>> Does returning an array of arrays seem insane? Would it be wrong to
>> add this method to Article? If so, where else would it go?
>>
>> ~ESP
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
If there is anyone who would like to speak at this meeting, which I
will be unable to attend, please make a request to me privately
They are looking for someone to speak about the GNU FDL in particular, so
the successful applicant should be able to speak about that.
----- Forwarded message from Alexandre Dulaunoy <alexandre.dulaunoy(a)ael.be> -----
From: Alexandre Dulaunoy <alexandre.dulaunoy(a)ael.be>
Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 16:43:19 +0200 (CEST)
To: jwales(a)bomis.com
Subject: EU Wikipedia member to speech about GNU FDL and Legal at LSM2004
Hello Jimmy,
I would like to know if you have found a wikimedia/wikipedia member in
Europe that could talk about the legal part and the GNU FDL to replace
your intervention.
Thanks a lot,
have a nice day,
adulau
--
** Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) **** http://www.foo.be/ **** 0x44E6CBCD
**/ "To disable the Internet to save EMI and Disney is the moral
**/ equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the
**/ livelihood of monastic scribes." Jon Ippolito.
----- End forwarded message -----
Magnus Manske wrote:
> IANAL, but IMHO:
> * We already list *all* contributors for the page, in the page
> history. I'd say that the single click required to see it is
> comparable to turning a page in a printed version, which is not too
> much to ask, under any legal system I know of.
I agree.
> * If you want to find the main contributors, go ahead and use the diff
> function. By listing them all, we also listed the main editors.
It has been pointed out (and even illustrated by complaints over McFly's
choices of whom to credit) that identifying "principal authors" is
highly subjective at best. I think this requirement is one of the
silliest things in the GFDL; it might be better if the GFDL just
required a Modified Version to list the same authors as the Title Page
of the original Document, plus the authors of the modifications.
> * The fact that noone *ever* demanded to see his/her name on the
> article page itself indicates to me that there is strong community
> (=contributor) consensus regarding our current practice in that matter.
An excellent point. I have a longer argument to present here, but I
definitely support this approach to the problem.
There are two sections of the GFDL that require author attribution,
section 4B and section 4I - Title Page and History, respectively.
History we provide. Because we are not in printed format (yet), Title
Page should mean "the text near the most prominent appearance of the
work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text." For us,
I take that to be at the top of the article, where it says something like:
Title of article
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(the latter part meets the requirement of section 4C, that the Title
Page state the name of the publisher)
Section 4B allows the authors to release you from the requirement to
identify five principal authors. Since the title of the article
functions as the Title Page for GFDL purposes, and because we have
never, as far as I know, identified principal authors along with the
title of the article, I would argue that the release applies. Given our
existing practices, we should take the position that all contributors
have implicitly released us from the requirement to list authors on the
Title Page. This would also neatly eliminate the problem of how to
identify "principal authors".
> If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
> really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare
> the whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself?
That would be highly counterintuitive. It would also defeat our efforts
to provide a history section, since those are done by article (and
before anybody says it, I would not accept Recent changes as adequate
history for GFDL purposes).
--Michael Snow
My idea would be to have a 'List of Main Authors' on each page, and have
this editable by the users via a separate form, where they can select
to add and remove names. People would usually be shown by their nickname,
IP-numbers taken together as 'anonymous authors'.
Start by making these consists of all non-minor editors if that are 5
or more, all editors otherwise. Create an extra Special Page for the
'pages with most authors' so that we can quickly clean up the pages where
this leads to 40 or 50 names.
To easily spot usage of this feature in unintended ways, let the change
have a clear edit summary on recentchanges (and perhaps also on a
separate logbook) - like "Authorship change. Added: John Doe, Eloquence.
Removed: Jimbo Wales, Michael. After this change 10 authors."
Andre Engels
I was just made aware of this thread, and I realise
that potentially a legal issue is discussed on
wikitech. I would like the opinion of our lawyers on
this specific point.
So, tel me if I understand well, to comply with the
gfdl the best we can (and we already know it is
problematic), what you suggest is to list first the
real name contributors, followed by pseudonymes, then
by ips. Of course, the number of names is limited. We
can expect that on many articles, the number of names
will be over 50 or more.
I understood the gfdl "normal" requirement is to list
the 5 main contributors. We probably know that we can
define who the 5 main contributors are. Indeed, unless
the number of contributors is below 5, there is no way
to report with honesty the legal requirements.
This said, if we can't report reality, why would we
report a group of contributors more than another ? If
a pseudonyme wrote 95% of an article, and 5%
officially real names corrected typos, is that really
correct to indicate these 5 real names and not the
pseudonyme ?
I would say it is not. Legally, that is incorrect.
>From a community view point, that is setting a case
which I am not sure is really positive.
It think that it would be more correct to make random
choice among pseudo or real names, or to choose among
the last ones.
I will forward this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l,
since I believe this is more than a technical issue.
Evan Prodromou a �crit:
> So, I'd like to add a little block of attribution
data to each page
> (optional, per-installation; I'm guessing Wikipedia
wouldn't use
> this). Something along the lines of:
>
> This article last edited on April 21, 2004 by
Evan Prodromou.
> Based on work by Alice Notaperson, Bob
Alsonotaperson, users
> Crankshaft, Deckchair and Eggplant, and
anonymous editors.
>
> For each (distinct) person who's listed in the old
table, it'd show
> their real name if it's set, or their user name if
not. All anonymous
> edits would be lumped under "anonymous editors".
Contributors would be
> listed with real-named folks first, then pseudo'd
folks, then
> anonymous. There's no particular reason for that; it
could be any
> other way (although I don't see a big point making
it configurable).
>
> The goal here is to make it easy for redistributors
to comply with
> license provisions that require author attribution
(such as some
> Creative Commons licenses), without having to dig
through a whole
> bunch of history pages.
>
> Anyhoo, the Metadata.php code already does most of
this logic, albeit
> for output in RDF format. I'd like to take that
stuff and put it in
> the Article class, in a method like
"getContributors". The method
> could then be used both from the attribution code
and from the RDF
> metadata code.
>
> getContributors would return an array of arrays,
each of which would
> contain:
>
> 0. User ID
> 1. User account name
> 2. User real name, if set
>
> Another option would be to create User objects for
each entry in the
> returned array, but a) I don't think that most of
the User object
> fields (email, preferences) are needed, and b) I'd
be worried about
> slingin' around incomplete User objects. So, I think
the arrays are
> the best bet.
>
> Does returning an array of arrays seem insane? Would
it be wrong to
> add this method to Article? If so, where else would
it go?
>
> ~ESP
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover