I like clear threads.
On 8/12/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
know about Wikipedia, so they ignore the rest. So then the thing to do is change the journalists. :)
As Florence mentionned, this has been done, especially in countries where 1) there is a chapter 2) there is a strong figure in one of the projects but no chapter 3) there is both
In short, it takes people on the ground to change the journalists, it's not something that happens on a top down basis. Most European press has now learned to address either the chapter/the community members responsible for press or the Foundation depending on the nature of the article they want to write. And if not, it should be a very clear things for the chapters as well as for the Foundation to direct them to the right people, "on the ground".
On 12/08/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
What would be real cool would be to try to keep a written state of each project, what is hot, what is working, what is not working, technical wish list, biggest issues, big figures etc.... so that all participants could "follow" what is going on. I know all this is actually available, but only in a very dispersed manner, so not so easy to find out.
[snip]
On 8/12/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
OK here is an idea for Florence. Write a post to foundation-l addressing all projects (e.g. enwikipedia, frwikisource). Ask them to put together a 'state of the wiki' report, with the things you mentioned:
- progress reports on pages, users, admins, policies
- success of any special projects like printed material, wikiprojects
- any special policy or practice that they have developed, that is not
seen on other projects
- technical wishlist
- "perennial debates" - controversies that often come up in the community
Tell them it's optional to submit a report, and they have a month to write it.
If nothing else it would make for seriously interesting reading. :) And the Board can just, you know, publish it on the foundation wiki. They don't have to do anything else with it. But just having this kind of 'official' request may make people think about these kind of things.
This is, unfortunately, not a new idea. Quarto [1] lived and died a beautiful death and was exactly about that. Making sure that all projects had a place to express themselves, raise their issues, tell about the state of their project.
So let me try a different approach. Rather than waiting for Florence to try again something that she and other people have tried before, or for "the Foundation " to issue a dealdine, why don't you, Brianna, come up with a "state of commons" that you broadcast across lists and projects and ask for the same from other projects, just because you're interested?
I am a fervent believer that top down has its limits, and that a call from a "fellow community member" might be better heard altogether. My take being that an "official" request is not always the answer to everything, on the contrary.
Delphine
[1]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Quarto
On 13/08/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/08/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
What would be real cool would be to try to keep a written state of each project, what is hot, what is working, what is not working, technical wish list, biggest issues, big figures etc.... so that all participants could "follow" what is going on. I know all this is actually available, but only in a very dispersed manner, so not so easy to find out.
[snip]
On 8/12/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
OK here is an idea for Florence. Write a post to foundation-l addressing all projects (e.g. enwikipedia, frwikisource). Ask them to put together a 'state of the wiki' report, with the things you mentioned:
- progress reports on pages, users, admins, policies
- success of any special projects like printed material, wikiprojects
- any special policy or practice that they have developed, that is not
seen on other projects
- technical wishlist
- "perennial debates" - controversies that often come up in the community
Tell them it's optional to submit a report, and they have a month to write it.
If nothing else it would make for seriously interesting reading. :) And the Board can just, you know, publish it on the foundation wiki. They don't have to do anything else with it. But just having this kind of 'official' request may make people think about these kind of things.
This is, unfortunately, not a new idea. Quarto [1] lived and died a beautiful death and was exactly about that. Making sure that all projects had a place to express themselves, raise their issues, tell about the state of their project.
Indeed. Well, it was such a good wheel, I think it is still worth reinventing. :)
So let me try a different approach. Rather than waiting for Florence to try again something that she and other people have tried before, or for "the Foundation " to issue a dealdine, why don't you, Brianna, come up with a "state of commons" that you broadcast across lists and projects and ask for the same from other projects, just because you're interested?
I am a fervent believer that top down has its limits, and that a call from a "fellow community member" might be better heard altogether. My take being that an "official" request is not always the answer to everything, on the contrary.
Hm, well I very very much doubt that my call should be better-received than Florence's, or another Board members'.
Florence said "What would be real cool would be to try to keep a written state of each project..." Having the Board make a request is maybe one way to make that happen. I did not intend to attack or blame Florence or anyone else for not having done this.
I guess underlying this discussion is some lack of certainty about what is the exact relationship between the Board and the projects. Probably all Wikimedians have slightly different visions about what they want the Board to be or do. Where some favour a "hands-off" approach maybe others prefer intervention.
The Mission statement says "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content... the Foundation provides...an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects..." ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission )
So is that empowering and engagement anything more than keeping the websites up, keeping the servers running? Should it be? What is the organisational framework?
Does this sound like I am being attacky and saying "this should have all been done yesterday"? I hope not, because I have great respect for all the present and past Board members, and witnessing the evolution of WMF into a professional, powerful, thoughtful and smart organisation. But I hope the end is now in sight for the "working Board" (another year at most?), and that discussions about the project/Board relationship will be welcome.
regards Brianna
On 8/13/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed. Well, it was such a good wheel, I think it is still worth reinventing. :)
lol.
So let me try a different approach. Rather than waiting for Florence to try again something that she and other people have tried before, or for "the Foundation " to issue a dealdine, why don't you, Brianna, come up with a "state of commons" that you broadcast across lists and projects and ask for the same from other projects, just because you're interested?
I am a fervent believer that top down has its limits, and that a call from a "fellow community member" might be better heard altogether. My take being that an "official" request is not always the answer to everything, on the contrary.
Hm, well I very very much doubt that my call should be better-received than Florence's, or another Board members'.
Well, a call from a fellow community member hasn't been tried yet. Call from the Foundation/officials have been tried and have failed. I am convinced that trying otherwise is worth at least the try.
Florence said "What would be real cool would be to try to keep a written state of each project..." Having the Board make a request is maybe one way to make that happen. I did not intend to attack or blame Florence or anyone else for not having done this.
And this is not what I thought you had done. To tell you the truth, I was amazed that Florence was actually saying this, because I remember her spending nights on end trying to stir the communities to write something for Quarto at the time, to no avail. How one forgets...
I guess underlying this discussion is some lack of certainty about what is the exact relationship between the Board and the projects. Probably all Wikimedians have slightly different visions about what they want the Board to be or do. Where some favour a "hands-off" approach maybe others prefer intervention.
Agreed. At this level though and for what you ask, I have witnessed the fact that the board asking just "doesn't work". At least it "didn't" a few months/a year ago. Maybe it would have changed today, maybe not.
The Mission statement says "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content... the Foundation provides...an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects..." ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission )
So is that empowering and engagement anything more than keeping the websites up, keeping the servers running? Should it be? What is the organisational framework?
Those are very good questions, as always with you. I am not sure however that to "empower" entails asking the community/ies to "do" anything it/they don't feel like doing in the first place.
In the past few months, I have observed the reactions of "the community" at every single decision the board has made, or every single request for comments board members have called for. I must say that the response rate has been, at least in my eyes, rather disappointing on the one hand, and the critics have been, at least in my eyes, rather upsetting on the other hand.
My take at this stage, and that is a personal opinion, is that it is high time that people like you and I, who feel they are part of "the community", organize themselves so as to be able to present a valid partner to the organisation.
By valid partner, I meant that saying "this is not working, fix it" is in my opinion, not the way to go. I'd rather hear something along the lines of "this is not working, here is how to fix it, here are the people that can fix it and here is how much it takes to fix it. Give us the money -- organisational framework in my acception of the term-- to fix it".
Does this sound like I am being attacky and saying "this should have all been done yesterday"? I hope not, because I have great respect for all the present and past Board members, and witnessing the evolution of WMF into a professional, powerful, thoughtful and smart organisation. But I hope the end is now in sight for the "working Board" (another year at most?), and that discussions about the project/Board relationship will be welcome.
No, don't worry, you don't sound attacky. At least not to me. :-) And please do not take any of my remarks personally because they are not personal, but just happen to fall in this thread/conversation with you.
Of course, we can ask the board/the Foundation to ask "the community" to provide a "state of the projects" before the x deadline. But I would only urge the Foundation to do so if I was certain that "the community" will not, three days after the deadline, say that really, the Foundation does not communicate. Communication is, and should always be, a two way street.
My observation to this date is that the expectations seem to be voiced always on the same side. Does that mean that the Foundation does not need info from "the community"? I think not, Florence has voiced it clearly in her previous email.
Mind you, this is true on different levels such as chapters not communicating well enough, etc. I am not trying to "blame" this on anyone or any organisation. I am just tempted to say that all of us should make an effort not to "demand", "request" or "ask" from the other, but to start by "giving" to the other. I am convinced that if information really starts coming from those who ask for it, it will flow as it should have done from the very beginning.
Not sure I am very clear here, but I hope so.
Delphine
On 14/08/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
Hm, well I very very much doubt that my call should be better-received than Florence's, or another Board members'.
Well, a call from a fellow community member hasn't been tried yet. Call from the Foundation/officials have been tried and have failed. I am convinced that trying otherwise is worth at least the try.
Yes. I have rather too many projects going at the moment so I will decline this one for now. anyone else reading this is welcome to take it up.
So is that empowering and engagement anything more than keeping the websites up, keeping the servers running? Should it be? What is the organisational framework?
Those are very good questions, as always with you. I am not sure however that to "empower" entails asking the community/ies to "do" anything it/they don't feel like doing in the first place.
Well I guess we come to the crux of the problem. :) Nothing can be demanded of volunteers. Or can it? The Board members are volunteers too, but they voluntarily take on more responsibility. Implicitly they give up the right to simply stop showing up, stop logging in, they give up the right to leave in a sulk if something happens they don't like, or they find a more interesting hobby. Of course they can still leave... but they are more entangled.
Well you don't need to look very long at the projects to realise the huge variety in commitment, of the volunteer editors. There is no official way to recognise that. I don't know if there should be.
My take at this stage, and that is a personal opinion, is that it is high time that people like you and I, who feel they are part of "the community", organize themselves so as to be able to present a valid partner to the organisation.
By valid partner, I meant that saying "this is not working, fix it" is in my opinion, not the way to go. I'd rather hear something along the lines of "this is not working, here is how to fix it, here are the people that can fix it and here is how much it takes to fix it. Give us the money -- organisational framework in my acception of the term-- to fix it".
I like this idea and I like to think I have already started to work like this. (Well, I say, 'this is not working, toolserver person that is my friend, can you please write something that does a close enough job?' - it's doing pretty well for us so far. *grins*)
But this is a little problematic. When should a person feel they can start to speak on behalf of their project, or even a faction within their project? Because if all volunteers are equal, or equally volunteery, then there is no compelling reason to listen to one more than another. Does this make sense? If I was to try and approach a group that I thought could make a good partnership with Commons, what can I say? None of the volunteer editors have any authority to speak on behalf of their project or the Foundation. "I'm one of two hundred other geeks with way too much spare time. is that compelling?" :)
Maybe no one feels like they can or should speak with authority. For editing a huge collaborative project that seems to actually work reasonably well. But in other aspects, for example figuring out a priority list of problems, I suspect it works less well.
I also think with some trepidation of the Wikibooks-Lulu press debacle of July 06. Danny's posts were not encouraging: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2006-July/021541.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2006-July/021569.html Jimmy having the book removed from Lulu http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2006-July/021567.html Danny: "It is the bad result of people acting unilaterally on behalf of the Foundation without fully understanding the implications of what they are doing." Jimmy: "this is not an issue of the foundation versus the community, but rather about an individual versus both the community and the foundation. We should have been told first, there should have been a discussion and some consideration given to a number of important factors."
Obviously we are not the same people we were then...
Nonetheless we (and by "we", I mean "I") intend to act in a way that is more bringing solved -problems to the Board, and asking for the official tick-off, rather than the traditional approach of "we're drowning, rescue us NOW".
Anyway, the point is that Commons now has some plans for some good initiatives, and Official People are at least vaguely aware of them, and thus we can expect our relationship to progress to a thing of symbiotic beauty revered by all. Or something. I spent too long trying to word this right and now it's time for tea. :)
cheers Brianna
Brianna Laugher wrote:
On 14/08/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
My take at this stage, and that is a personal opinion, is that it is high time that people like you and I, who feel they are part of "the community", organize themselves so as to be able to present a valid partner to the organisation.
By valid partner, I meant that saying "this is not working, fix it" is in my opinion, not the way to go. I'd rather hear something along the lines of "this is not working, here is how to fix it, here are the people that can fix it and here is how much it takes to fix it. Give us the money -- organisational framework in my acception of the term-- to fix it".
I like this idea and I like to think I have already started to work like this. (Well, I say, 'this is not working, toolserver person that is my friend, can you please write something that does a close enough job?' - it's doing pretty well for us so far. *grins*)
But this is a little problematic. When should a person feel they can start to speak on behalf of their project, or even a faction within their project? Because if all volunteers are equal, or equally volunteery, then there is no compelling reason to listen to one more than another. Does this make sense? If I was to try and approach a group that I thought could make a good partnership with Commons, what can I say? None of the volunteer editors have any authority to speak on behalf of their project or the Foundation. "I'm one of two hundred other geeks with way too much spare time. is that compelling?" :)
Maybe no one feels like they can or should speak with authority. For editing a huge collaborative project that seems to actually work reasonably well. But in other aspects, for example figuring out a priority list of problems, I suspect it works less well.
I also think with some trepidation of the Wikibooks-Lulu press debacle of July 06. Danny's posts were not encouraging: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2006-July/021541.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2006-July/021569.html Jimmy having the book removed from Lulu http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2006-July/021567.html Danny: "It is the bad result of people acting unilaterally on behalf of the Foundation without fully understanding the implications of what they are doing." Jimmy: "this is not an issue of the foundation versus the community, but rather about an individual versus both the community and the foundation. We should have been told first, there should have been a discussion and some consideration given to a number of important factors."
Obviously we are not the same people we were then...
Nonetheless we (and by "we", I mean "I") intend to act in a way that is more bringing solved -problems to the Board, and asking for the official tick-off, rather than the traditional approach of "we're drowning, rescue us NOW".
Anyway, the point is that Commons now has some plans for some good initiatives, and Official People are at least vaguely aware of them, and thus we can expect our relationship to progress to a thing of symbiotic beauty revered by all. Or something. I spent too long trying to word this right and now it's time for tea. :)
cheers Brianna
I have been munching over this in the past few days. Tough, because it involves many issues, amongst which, the latter:
I also remember the debacle of the Lulu story. Since then, many points have been discussed internally, and I think it is fair to summarize it this way.
The content is public. Anyone can publish a book, or a DVD or a calendar or whatever, without having to ask any authorization to anyone. That's the point of the free license. As long as the license is respected, that is fine.
The logos (such as Wikipedia) are copyrighted by the Foundation. The names are trademarks. Some are registered in some countries, not all of them; but even non registered, there is something to consider. As such, any use of these (logo or name) must get the approval of the Foundation (or of a chapter, but let us keep things simple :-)). Ideally, the authorization should be given on a written document (contract). There are many reasons for this, which I will not detail here.
There might be a financial interest (if we negociate a financial compensation for the use of logo+names), but even beyond financial considerations, there are serious PR and legal reasons. As soon as the logo and the name appear on an object, from a public perspective, the Foundation appears to be the one in charge of the product. At a minimum, the Foundation appears supportive. If one distribute a calendar of free landscapes, this is very nice. If one distribute a calendar with pictures of naked children, this is far from a good idea.
So, in short, any project involving the use of the name and logo, should get the green light of the Foundation. If it involves only content, and the Foundation complains, you can tell us to shake it of.
Now, the second thing is about the authority. This might be the stickiest point. And believe it or not, this is one of my big worry for the future. Let me pick up a couple of examples, which, I am *sure* will resonnate in your brain. I was working on our organigram today. This is hopeless. I can somehow draw some lines of authority, some lines of communication, but the whole lot is messy. And my biggest fear right now is how the balance of authority will settle between volunteers and staff members.
If I pick up accounting, that's really easy. Aside from the board, no volunteers deal with accounting any more. And why would they ? Accounting is just a mean to reach our goals. It is not a position of "decision", at least, not on the projects.
if I pick up legal, there is a good sense that the lawyer of the Foundation will have final authority on legal matters threatening the Foundation. Fair enough.
If I pick up communication, this is already more tricky. 5 years ago, before I was on the board, I used to handle press a lot. I helped writing press release, I answered journalists. Just as a volunteer. Usually anon. Now, a lot of press stuff is handled by 1) staff, 2) communication committee and 3) chapter people. With the arrival of Sandy, when there is a sticky topic, we get "speaking points" from Sandy. The current trend (the one I see :-)) is more and more a situation where someone of authority in the staff, write down the official view of the Foundation. And this view, you better respect, as if you do not, you are sharply told you should avoid showing any disagreement between board members publicly. Public announcement are written by the staff, even if announced by chair. And then speaking points are used by communication committee members. And sometimes chapters. Whilst this has obviously important benefits, it is a bit disturbing trend. In a situation where committees are not very open, not very diverse and not easily renewed, this results in a certain mindset. Now, if a project community writes a press release, which is corrected by WMF staff and which lists as press contacts exclusively WMF, what happens ? Who communicates ? If WMF staff know wikimedia commons very well, that is cool, but what if not ? Who has the "authority" to answer the press ? to inform the press ? Besides, WMF being forced to have a physical location, and this one being in the USA, quite naturally, most staff hired will be american, and chance is that a large part of it will not be an original wikipedian. This constitute my fear for the future. Growing is necessary. But growth should not occur with WMF being in charge of too many areas, but only of those where it really make sense. Community must stay in charge in a large part, with the support of the Foundation.
If I pick up technical, another situation occur. Part of the technical control is in the hands of the staff. Of course ! Both because they are known and trusted by the WMF management. And because they have tech access. Not so for other developers. Who are not so well known, who may not know who to contact, or when, who do not have shell access. It seems logical that the hardware be in charge of the WMF, since we are hosting. But not so logical that we control the software so much, as the evolution of this latter should primarily be driven by community needs. Should WMF be more of a facilitator or more of a leader ? Who should make the software decisions ? How much authority results in being in the staff, versus not ? How to make sure to hear the voices of those not in the staff ? Again, this is a fear I have.
What I know however, Brianna, is that the more volunteers will take the lead, the more chance there is that the Foundation is a facilitator. The more volunteers will adopt a passive attitude, will voice expectations rather than push their own dreams, the more people will take the easy road, the more "authority" will get in Foundation hands.
Anyway, the point is that Commons now has some plans for some good initiatives, and Official People are at least vaguely aware of them, and thus we can expect our relationship to progress to a thing of symbiotic beauty revered by all.
Fully agree. But remember that "Official People are at least vaguely aware". Stress the "vaguely" :-)))
ant
On 8/18/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
The content is public. Anyone can publish a book, or a DVD or a calendar or whatever, without having to ask any authorization to anyone. That's the point of the free license. As long as the license is respected, that is fine.
The logos (such as Wikipedia) are copyrighted by the Foundation. The names are trademarks. Some are registered in some countries, not all of them; but even non registered, there is something to consider. As such, any use of these (logo or name) must get the approval of the Foundation (or of a chapter, but let us keep things simple :-)). Ideally, the authorization should be given on a written document (contract). There are many reasons for this, which I will not detail here.
Not sure if this idea was already brought up, but how about a new logo, similar in style but different from the other wikimedia logos, that can be used without permission, under the condition that the majority of the contents (might need some legalese phrase here) originates in a wikimedia project?
So, if I want to make a lulu book from commons images, I can slap this "made with contents from wikimedia" logo on it. The logo thereby would be used to indicate the source, not to convey any kind of Foundation approval. Like "Made in Germany", which is often seen as an indicator of quality products ;-) without saying "this product was made by the German government".
The "made with" text could be part of the logo, or mandatory to print next to it. I have no idea what such a logo should look like, though. If we only had a mailing list that would be read by people who know how to make nice images... ;-)
Magnus
On 8/19/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 8/18/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
The content is public. Anyone can publish a book, or a DVD or a calendar or whatever, without having to ask any authorization to anyone. That's the point of the free license. As long as the license is respected, that is fine.
The logos (such as Wikipedia) are copyrighted by the Foundation. The names are trademarks. Some are registered in some countries, not all of them; but even non registered, there is something to consider. As such, any use of these (logo or name) must get the approval of the Foundation (or of a chapter, but let us keep things simple :-)). Ideally, the authorization should be given on a written document (contract). There are many reasons for this, which I will not detail here.
Not sure if this idea was already brought up, but how about a new logo, similar in style but different from the other wikimedia logos, that can be used without permission, under the condition that the majority of the contents (might need some legalese phrase here) originates in a wikimedia project?
So, if I want to make a lulu book from commons images, I can slap this "made with contents from wikimedia" logo on it. The logo thereby would be used to indicate the source, not to convey any kind of Foundation approval. Like "Made in Germany", which is often seen as an indicator of quality products ;-) without saying "this product was made by the German government".
The "made with" text could be part of the logo, or mandatory to print next to it. I have no idea what such a logo should look like, though. If we only had a mailing list that would be read by people who know how to make nice images... ;-)
We've also had this conversation on other lists... But the same thing comes back again and again. If the Foundation gives its approval on such a logo, isn't the Foundation officializing it in some kind of way?
I mean, it's a bit of the chhicken and the egg thing.
There is a community logo, that was neither approved, nor disapproved by the Foundation. The question always being... who takes the responsibility in the end?
In the Lulu.com case (or any other kind of publishing venture) thre must be a very clear position from the Foundation that says either:
1) yes, we might be publisher once 2) no, we will never ever in any way assume the role of publisher, however safe it can be (and images are much safer than text, for example), because it is not our role.
I would of course advise 2) and say that we need to work on the (dusty-but-often-talked-about[1]) trademark and logo policy that makes it VERY clear which logo can be used for what, when, and under what circumstances, with what implications. Unfortunately, this is still a "work in progress". :/
Still, I think your idea is worth a try, if we have a legal text which interpretation will be the same in as many law-frames as possible. Such as "this is NOT a publication of the WMF" ;-)
Delphine
[1]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Logo_and_trademark_policy