http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_meeting/june_2007
----------
Hello everyone,
The board of Wikimedia Foundation held a face to face meeting on the
1st, 2nd and 3rd of june 2007.
Just as in january 2007, this meeting took place in the Netherlands,
home country of two of our board members, Jan-Bart and Oscar. Board
members present for the three days were Kat Walsh, Florence Devouard,
Erik Moëller, Jan-Bart De Vreede and Jimmy Wales. Oscar Van Dillen
joined us saturday morning. Other guests were also present, including
Carolyn Doran, our COO. Most of us actually gathered in Amsterdam during
thursday, so that long-distance travellers could have the time to
recover from their trip.
Contrariwise to the previous time, the meeting did not take place in
Rotterdam, but downtown Amsterdam. We were hosted in two different
hotels, a rather cool idea to force us to walk a little bit at least
twice a day :-) (and get the opportunity to collect stroopwafels, gouda
and tulips). The hotel hosting the meeting itself actually overbooked
its meeting rooms so we were moved to another very nice hotel and
confortable meeting room. You should have the opportunity to see this
place one day or another, since on top of the board meeting guests, we
welcomed the presence of the wikidocumentary crew . A good part of the
board meeting on saturday afternoon was recorded for posterity...
On saturday evening, a wikimeet took place as well. Do not ask me to
report on this, I was sick and could not assist to it, much much to my
regret :-( Maybe one guest will have taken pictures and could add them
here ?
I will only very generally mention the topics discussed, a fuller
report, with published resolutions and more specific announcements will
follow in the coming days. I will link all those on this page so that
you get a fuller picture.
We spent a large part of our time discussing what we perceive are the
two most critical issues to solve very urgently, hiring a new ED and a
new legal person.
A large place was given to a list of legal tasks, the future fundraiser
and the audit (the fiscal year just ended last week).
On the way, we updated the resolution about the "Access to nonpublic
data policy", we also agreed on a "whistle blower policy" as well as on
an "audit charter". All those will be published shortly on this page and
links added below.
Amongst other items discussed, board elections (in particular voting
system), wikipedia.com, Wikimania, trademarks registration.
Overall, it was a fruitful week end. Next face to face meeting is
planned just prior to Wikimania (1st and 2nd), two days during which the
board, plus previous board members (if not reelected), plus advisory
board members will work together to define a 3-year plan for WMF.
Then, the next board meeting will probably occur around end of september
or early october, in Florida.
Anthere
Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons staff) and Jimbo Wales have left
comments in favour of accepting Creative Commons 3.0 into our own
commons, but ultimately the decision seems to be up to the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees, as no one else is willing (or able) to
make a final decision. The issues have been discussed ad nauseam, and
it's decision time. Please make one soon.
Peter Halasz [[user:Pengo]]
Discussion below copied from:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing#Creative_Commons_3…
I invited Creative Commons staff member Mike Linksvayer to weigh in on
the discussion of CC-3.0, and he's left comments. The conversation has
again gone stale since then: [[Commons talk:Licensing/Creative Commons
3.0]]. When are we going to move towards allowing CC-3.0 licenses, and
who makes the decision? Are we just going to ignore it while there are
lingering doubts? For people who want to allow Wikipedia to use their
material, it's enough trouble to explain that they have to use BY or
BY-SA licenses, and not the others listed on creativecommons.org. But
it's just going too far having to say "you need to hunt down an
outdated creative commons license... one which isn't even listed at
creativecommons.org". The 3.0 licenses create no new conditions which
don't already exist in law. Let's take them on already. [those are my
thoughts, not CC's] Pengo 05:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the real important question is "who makes the decision?"
But yes, it seems to me that the don't accept them camp can always win
by stalling. Meanwhile, more and more free content appears on the web
under CC-3.0 that we can't use. --Selket 06:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to invite you to participate in a survey about Wikimedia's
brands, their uses, and possible changes to our brand strategy:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_brand_survey
Thank you.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
Looking at the new branding survey on meta, i'm struck by the fact that
"Wikibooks" isn't trademarked. Is it an error that it's trademark simply
wasnt listed on the page with the rest, or is the name simply not
trademarked at all?
Not having that name is a little scary to me because an external entity
could take it and demand that we quit using it. I know some people are
interested in rebranding, but that should be an internal decision, not a
hostile external one.
--Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________
Like the way Microsoft Office Outlook works? Youll love Windows Live
Hotmail.
http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migrati…
ACCOMMODATION NOTE TO REGISTRARS (2nd June, 2007)
1. Those who have registered with accommodations before 15th May ,
please *PAY BEFORE 5th JUNE (00:00 UTC), OR YOUR REGISTRATION AND
ACCOMMODATIONS WILL BE CANCELED*.
2. The organizing office is arranging accommodation for speakers,
scholarship awardees now. *All SPEAKERS AND SCHOLARSHIP
AWARDEES*please do as follows:
1. Register right after you know your paper accepted or
scholarship approved.
2. Mail wikimania-registration(a)wikimedia.org to tell which
nights will you stay (8/1-8/5) *by 5th JUNE (00:00 UTC).*
3. Awardees please pay before 6th JUNE also, otherwise
accommodation and registration fees will be taken out of your scholarship
directly.
3. *Accommodation booking will be re-opened on 7th June.* If you made
your reservation after 15th May, your accommodation booking is not
confirmed. Attendees reserving accommodation after 15th May are on the
waitlist for accommodation, even if your registration is active. Please send
a message to wikimania-registration(a)wikimedia.org with your name and
the nights that you wish to stay at CYOTAC. Important: please indicate if
you are a speaker or scholarship awardee in this message.
4. *NEW REGISTRATION and ACCOMMODATION BOOKING POLICY* since 7th JUNE:
for registration with accommodation, *PAYMENT SHOULD BE MADE WITHIN 48
HOURS. * Otherwise, registration and accommodations will be canceled
by system automatically. Accommodations will be arranged according to the
order of the time you pay. This is a waiting list, so there's no guarantee.
The organizing office will try to do our best for all participates.
Thanks for your cooperation.
--
Ashley Wu
Dear list members,
My name is Ivan Lanin, and I'm a bureaucrat from Indonesian Wikipedia.
We're currently cleaning up our encyclopedia articles. Some of the
articles regarding cities or areas in Indonesia that we have contains
too much details (such as lists of good restaurants, addresses of
public government office, etc.) to be contained in an encylopedia
article. At least that what most of us think.
There have been a discussion in local "village pump"
[[w:id:Wikipedia:Warung Kopi]] discussing this matter. Initially the
suggestion was to set up Indonesian Wikitravel and move the content
there, under the false assumption that Wikitravel is one of the
Foundation projects. That idea was withdrawn when people found out
that Wikitravel is not part of WMF's projects.
Instead, we were discussion of creating a "travel" book inside
Indonesian Wikibooks. We haven't seen any other wikibooks using this,
neither we see any other wikibooks holds information about travel. We
understand that Wikibooks are for "free textbooks contents", but we
think if we format the content just like a book, we could make it a
"traveler's book".
May I ask what the list members think about this? Do any of you have
the same experience as we have. Please share.
Thank you
--
Ivan Lanin
Azdiyy wrote:
>Hello,
>Sorry if i'm in the wrong place, but i wonder what one can do if they
>think their ban on meta is unjustified.
>
>trying to talk to the blocking admin by email or irc (and to others)
>led nowhere.
>m:user:Azdiyy was blocked indef on may 24 with no warning. if meta is
>not suitable
>for my postings i am willing to learn. but an indef ban is too much imo.
>
>many thanks,
>azdiyy
>
>
>
>------------------------------
Guillom said to complain about users on the individual wiki, not Meta. Maybe
your postings were not suitable for Meta (I haven't actually looked at all
your edits, but your most recent ones on talk pages seem rather unsuitable
to me.
Alex (Majorly)
_________________________________________________________________
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Owen Blacker <owen(a)openrightsgroup.org>
Date: 01-Jun-2007 14:35
Subject: [ORG-discuss] US makes Korea eliminate fair use
To: Open Rights Group open discussion list
<org-discuss(a)lists.openrightsgroup.org>, FIPR Alerts <alerts(a)fipr.org>
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/31/us_makes_korea_elimi.html
Korea has just finished negotiating a free trade agreement with the
US that is a complete disaster on copyright. Korea has agreed to give
up all fair use to copyrighted works, and has agreed to shut down many
of its web-hosting businesses. So much for Korea's power as a global
Internet leader. It was nice while it lasted.
In one glaring example, the governments agree to shut down internet
sites that permit unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or
transmission of copyrighted works — without reference to exceptions
for art, education and critique. If the agreement is ratified, both US
and Korean governments will begin shutting down an undisclosed number
of peer-to-peer (P2P) and online storage ('webhard') services. Korea
will also be required to crack down on book copying on university
campuses.
The Korea–US FTA could set a dangerous precedent. If ratified, the US
is expected to push other countries to accept the similar conditions
in their respective FTAs. Much of the 'piracy' that the US wants to
see cracked down on is of materials copyrighted by large US-based
corporations, not individual creators. Since distribution of movies,
news, internet software and images is a core area of the US economy,
the US government has long been aggressively pushing for stricter
copyright and patent regimes in international arenas, including
through GATT and WIPO. The Korea–US FTA, represents a new step in this
process. More information:
http://web.mac.com/ellenycx/iWeb/CSM%40remoPodcast/Blog/3A4A715A-AFE9-4738-…
--
Owen Blacker, London GB
Say no to ID cards: www.no2id.net
Get your mits off my bits: www.openrightsgroup.org
--
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
_______________________________________________
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