> Welcome to Wikimedia Poland. ;o)
Greetings too.
> I think this has to be written in the bylaws.
> Wikimédia France is a legal representant of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. in
> France, as defined in the bylaws.
This is written in the bylaws, yes, and we have two contractual agreements with Wikimedia Foundation, one for logo / trademarks use, one for legal stuff.
Regards
Nicolas Weeger
Accédez au courrier électronique de La Poste : www.laposte.net ;
3615 LAPOSTENET (0,34/mn) ; tél : 08 92 68 13 50 (0,34/mn)
Hello
A new mailing list was opened this week. Its name is Juriwiki-l(a)mail.wikimedia.org. Its moderator is Soufron.
Primary goals of the list
In the past few months, we observed an increasing need of legal counselling. Needs may be related to the following issues
* requests from editors or readers with regards to our content from a legal perspective (in particular copyright violations, defaming content etc...)
* setting up of new chapters (e.g. bylaws to write and discuss)
* contracts with other organisations (e.g. hosting contracts, CD Rom publishing contracts...)
* trademark issues (official request of trademarks, contracts allowing logo uses, recovery of lost domain names...)
* non-profit status, income revenue service...
* ...
Who can post to the list ?
Anyone may post to this list (at least, until we begin to have spamming issues)
Who will be member of the list ?
Only a limited number of people will receive the mails.
The recipiendaries will be
* the members of the WMF board (so, for now, Jimbo, Angela, Anthere, Tim and Michael)
* the presidents of local associations (currently, Ryo for the french board and Kurt for the german board)
* Legal advisors. For now, three have agreed to join, Soufron, Aurevilly and Micha�l Snow. Others have been contacted but have not answered yet. Others might be soon contacted.
Why will be that list quite private ?
All of these issues may require input from professionals essentially, and many of them will require discretion. Hence the choice for a separate private mailing list.
Naturally, when some issues would be beneficial to be discussed in public, the discussions will occur on Foundation mailing list, or meta, or on the irc channel as usual. Similarly, when editors are directly involved in an issue, they will be put in copy of the mails exchanged on the juri list. The limited number of automatic recipiendaries is set up both to garantee discretion on certain topics, and to foster the creation of a team of legal advisors.
Will the number of members stay limited or can it increase ?
We hope that this number increase over the next months. If you are a regular editor of one of wikimedia project and are a professional in the legal field, you are most welcome to join the legal team (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/legal where we will try to keep information updated). If you are an editor and know another editor which could help, please tell us and contact him. We need help in this field, and the bigger we grow, the more help we will need. Obviously, help from several countries will be very helpful, in particular in countries where 1) there is or will be soon a local chapter or 2) we are setting up collaborations with local firms or organisations.
Will the language be english only ?
Preferably, but when enough people share the same language to fix an issue essentially related to a specific country, another language than english should be used if that makes things easier. In this case, very short summaries could be added in english.
Could someone be removed from the list ?
Yes, in case of serious disruption or obvious legal inability. Except I, allowed to be both unable and disruptive :-)
How can you, as an editor or a developer, make use of this resource and help ?
Though this list is not kept secret, I'd like to ask you not to display it proeminently on projects. I think it would be best it is kept open for sending mails, but as soon as too much spam is received, we will have to restrict access. Similarly, this list is not meant to deal with all the daily complaints most projects receive. Most issues can be and should be dealt by editors (example, a person complaining of copyvio or the fact a site is not respecting fully our license... is everyone business and everyone should feel empowered to take care of it as much as possible). So, please, do not liberally hand out this address. However, when you think an issue is getting out of hand, require the board attention or input from a professional, please contact us.
What is the secondary goal of this list ?
Though we managed quite well till now, the growing number of legal threats on the biggest wikipedias suggest that one day or another, a threat will transform itself in a reality. Even if we are entirely in our right, we will need help to defend our case. It is best that we are organised and ready for it when it happens.
Secondly, it was reported more than once, that in front of "professionals", we needed to appear more business-like. Having good legal support in deals we are trying to negociate, should be very beneficial.
We are growing very fast. While we should not fall into bureaucracy, nor give positions which might reveal impossible to give to another one later on... or might cause diplomatic issues, I think it is important we organise team work around some issues. The legal team seemed one of the most required team right now.
There is a last point. Legal issues are amongst those activities which are essentially done behind the doors and I think most of you do not realise they are done at all ;-) Still, people like Aurevilly or Soufron (and others I do not mention here, Aurevilly and Soufron are those I know best) give a lot of this invisible time to the project. Others might have the ability to help... but just do not realise how they could do it. I hope that the existence of the team and of the list will help them realise where they could get involved.
Thank you for all those who give invisible work in any cases :-)
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Better first dates. More second dates. Yahoo! Personals
--- Aphaia <aphaia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Ma che`re Florence,
>
> Let me join the chor of condolences for your loss and grievance. And I
> am appreciate you to let us share it.
yes - me too. I'm very sorry to hear about your loss ant.
-- mav
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
I would like to speak with an open mind here.
Some rumors have been circulating in the past 2/3 days, which I find
quite disturbing. Just today, two totally unrelated people told me (in
good faith) that they just learned I was resigning.
Since I did not say I resigned, but rather spent a big number of hours
last week on the press release for the yahoo agreement, preparation of
next week presentations, and discussion on juriwiki-l issue, I do not
see very well where this comes from.
So, I call it a rumor.
I do not know who launched this rumor, but I cannot help thinking that
this is related to the forthcoming elections, and part of a strategy of
some candidates campaigning or others supporting some future candidates.
I think this is very highly improper. I suppose that many games are
acceptable when running for an election, but still...
So, I would like to clarify things.
First. I am not resigning from the board. My ethics is such that while I
engaged myself to be on the board for one year, I will be there for the
full year. I may be there a lot, or not there a lot, or on a wikibreak,
but that does not mean I resign.
In one year, I made 3 breaks. One week in summer when I was at my mom's.
Two weeks at christmas when I went in Algeria. One week in february to
ski... The rest of the time, I have always been there, every day.
Somewhere in february, I expressed my terrible tiredness. I was
pregnant, and suddenly, could not handle any more having a full time job
during the day, taking care of the kids and husband, spending the night
on wikipedia, throwing up several times a day, and being very drowsy
from the new life in me growing; Additionnaly, several editors bugged me
so much, that I thought of the expression "get a life !".
I consequently expressed my strong desire for a break.
Because frankly, as much as I care for the project, there is a point
when you think "what on earth am I doing here getting exhausted by
buggers, when I should just be having a rest ?".
It could never be, as the next day, I had 3 phone calls... and issues to
take care of. However, I made an agreement with myself, to go to bed
everyday before midnight :-) I respected it overall.
Two weeks ago, it became obvious something was badly going on with the
baby. If only because I was less tired... Last week, I went to medical
care where they told me it was very likely dead, and ask me to wait a
week. The baby is now gone, and it is hard to say how it feels to lose a
life after 3 months. Those who already lived this know. This whole week
of plain despair, I was here nevertheless. Because there were things to do.
In a few hours, I will leave for northern europe, to spent a whole week
of my real life holidays presenting wikipedia. I am still having
contractions. Very likely, you will not hear from me, because I have no
portable computer.
That does not mean I am resigning. Right ?
I wish that discussions over next elections start soon and that 2 or 3
people propose themselves for the organisation of them. I also wish that
people remember we have the same goal and take care of keeping a decent
behavior... such as proving how great they could be as board members,
rather than using methods to lower others.
Do I sound harsh ? Sorry if I do. Last 10 days have been hard.
ant
Anthere a écrit:
> The privacy policy (lonnnnng awaited) was approved by the board at the
> last meeting. It was just copied on foundation wiki.
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
>
> It would be great that the policy be translated in all languages (see
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy). Once most languages are
> translated, we would like to link it from the footer of pages.
>
> Ant
Could somebody please look at the Main Page for tt.wiktionary.org I was
checking a few interwiki links only to find that this main page was
redirected to a page advertising the Xinghuo Packaging Machinery Co.
*All* the most recent recent changes there seem to be this kind of
vandalism, and it has no admins at all.
Ec
I may have not explained myself well enough in my previous mail.
Sorry, I will go again on a rant (beware !)
First, I would like to thank Jimbo for the servers and the deal with Yahoo. It is extremely good for us. This will be extremely helpful from a technical perspectice, will improve access for all of us (directly or indirectly), and politically speaking, I think the fact of setting them in Asia is important. This deal, however, respect a couple of principles we think are important, and a couple of principles the community considers important. We stay independent (and the more partners we have, the more independent we stay), we stay out of advertisement, we foster collaboration between organisations across the world. In short, we do not stay �inside wikipedia�, but we invite the world to join the concept. We expand it. This is also why it is good that we set such collaborations.
Jimbo is good at negociating such deals, and honestly, we should be extremely thankful of this. Why do I mention it ? Well, simply because some leaders do not scale. Some guys started a little internet thing during the .com boom, and finally found themselves in front of celebrity, commercial deals to set, political power and so on� and were just unable to handle it. Jimbo does and does it very well. Our leader could have been great to start Wikipedia, but basically useless once the project is successful. This is not our case, and Jimbo�s ability to handle all this so successfully is one of the reason of Wikimedia projects success. Right ?
Now, there is a third point. And this is why I am thankful Jimbo mentionned it. I did not make a lot, but�how it happened is important I think. This is why I really want wikipedians to realise how the shortcuts thing happened.
Three years ago, when I joined wikipedia, I also met some editors who were editing MeatBallWiki. I followed links there, and loved the place. However, I could never really participate over there as I was under a pseudonyme then, and they had a policy of using RealName. Still, I met Christophe Ducamp over there and he invited me last year to do a presentation of Wikipedia in Lyon. At that time, I discovered Christophe website, CraoWiki (another wiki, entirely french). I very rarely go there (no time�). Still, last summer, when I was thinking of starting a blog, I was looking for free software in french� and thought of going to Crao to ask for suggestions. Over there, I met St�phane Gigandet, who is the author of a french blog software, Joueb (see Joueb.com) (if my memory is not failing�). He proposed to offer it to me, which I actually refused as it is non free software (eheh). I finally decided for WordPress, which was probably not a good idea, as I do not understand how to
customized it� Most of my attempts were disasters. This is the reason why I have no trackback on my blog� :-)
Anyway, what I absolutely did not know at that time is that St�phane was also working for Yahoo� so he recontacted me some months later when he and others at Yahoo had an idea and wanted to check if possible. I mostly explained to them what was possible and what was not, and simply encouraged them.
What I want to insist on �. is simply that this happened not because of a top-down decision. It was a group of yahoo people, who contacted a wikipedian they knew due to a totally unrelated discussion. This was not a boss deciding something and contacting another boss. It could have been anyone. All what was needed were 1) people 2) idea and 3) relation between people.
And this is actually very important. Networks, bridges between communities is very helpful and people knowing they can have ideas and it can happen is very important. The fact anyone has power to do things is what I like best in Wikipedia :-)
Again, thank you for being yourself Jimbo :)
and thank you for your help in the last days (no, this is not only syrop, this is really serious guys...)
ant
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page
My compliments to everyone who managed to keep their lips zipped this
time around.
I'd be interested to learn, since I don't have enough occasion to use
language-specific searches on places like google.fr or de.yahoo.com - is
the integration of Wikipedia into Yahoo's French-language shortcuts a
particularly novel step? Obviously a number of players in search-related
businesses now use some type of encyclopedia to deliver more focused
results in English-language searches, but I don't know how much this has
spread to other languages yet.
--Michael Snow
We are pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation and Yahoo!
have reached an agreement by which Yahoo will provide hosting capacity
to Wikimedia.
Yahoo will dedicate a significant number of servers in one of its
Asian facilities for hosting Wikimedia's free content websites.
As of today, Yahoo! will also test the integration of Wikipedia
content in its French-language Yahoo! Search shortcuts to be followed
by other languages to accommodate users in Asia, Latin America,
Europe, and the U.S. The shortcuts will show contextually relevant
abstracts of Wikipedia articles in response to user queries.
For full details, please see:
*Announcement: <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_announces_Yaho…>
*Press release: <http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050407/75258.html?.v=1>
*Jimbo on the Yahoo! Search blog:
<http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000100.html>
Angela
--
Angela Beesley
Wikimedia Foundation
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
> Christopher Mahan wrote:
> > I say the opposite is true. We should have a policy that says:
> "It
> > does not matter how much money, content, or goodwill you send our
> > way, we are not putting your logo or anything else in the
> wikipedia."
> > Our NPOV policy would prohibit that, now that I think about it.
>
> Nothing about NPOV prohibits us from recognizing people or
> organizations who help us in an appropriate place in an appropriate
> and tasteful fashion.
Dang you must be behind on e-mail, I feel for you...
The thing is that once you start, where do you stop?
Xyzzy Corp gives us 15 grand and 5000 images. We put their logo on a
page. Then ACME corp says: Hey, we'll give you 25 grand and 8000
images, but we want our logo above Xyzzy's. And if we give you 30
grand, could you please put our logo at the top of the page, a little
wider, and maybe for an extra $5K, we can have our animated logo and
brand line in Flash?
The difference with advertizing would be what again?
I say: Donate if you like, but no preferrential placement. It's a
slippery road because it leads to a race, and the corp with the
deepest pockets wins. There are corporations out there drooling to
put ads of any sort on Wikipedia, including like those on NPR, which
I find distateful at best, such as "Funding for this program provided
by
AGM, Building a better future through innovation."
The instant we get megacorps on our "list of esteemed partners", we
will have a much harder time getting wikipedia accepted as impartial
in, shall we say, less capitalistic societies.
If this makes no sense, just ignore it and press delete.
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
chris.mahan(a)gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/
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