Now that the dust has settled a little bit...
----------
Sabine said
Taipei was chosen - that is a fact. They did great work like all other
bidding teams did. Instead of creating problems could we please look
forewards and help them to make it a great event?
Which is exactly what I feel like saying.
Some people will try to think of better way for the next bid.
But we mostly have a new Wikimania to prepare.
I'd like to say thank you to Hsiang-Tai Chien for his civility and that
I hope we'll do a fabulous Wikimania 2007 in Taipei.
One of the specific request I will have (which is basically the same
that the one of the past two years) is that we try to find funds to help
wikipedians to come from all over the world. We need to start looking
for such funds as soon as possible. And make this event a bridge between
continents.
-------------
Birgitte said
>"Original jury comprises of the members of the Board :
Angela, Anthere, Jimmy Wales, Michael Davis, Tim
Shell, to which will be added the new Board member
elected in September to replace Angela, and also the
core organisation team of Wikimania 2006: Phoebe
Ayers, Austin Hair, Samuel Klein and Delphine Ménard.
Other members are: Andrew Lih.
and
>We should start talking about how future Wikimania's should be selected.
Perhaps the first task is to really define the
relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia. Is it
dealt with through a commitee? Are there any Board
Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania? What exactly
is the connection?
and
>Will any member of the jury be employed by Wikimania
2007? Will any member of jury be in a position to
decide how sponsorship monies are spent (i.e. drafting
budgets or who receives scholarships)?
and
>Any possible perception of corruption should be
avoided at all costs.
My answers to Birgitte
Jury was Angela, Tim, Anthere, Phoebe, Austin, Sj, Delphine and Andrew.
You raised issues of possible corruption and issues of possible conflict
of interest. I'd say pretty clearly that I do not think *any* of us was
corrupted. I absolutely understand the anger of some people, complaints
of poor process may be receivable, but accusation of corruption are
serious accusation and should only be done with proof imho.
Conflict of interest is more likely of course.
In this case, I do not think any of us are meeting a conflict of
interest. Very likely, none of the three board members will be on the
board by next summer (Angela is already gone; Tim is planned to resign
by the end of the year or so; and my term ends in july). So, we were not
planning our next exotic holidays.
Afaik, none of the jury members is planned to be paid to take care of
the organisation. I do not think it will happen, but afaik, none of them
have expressed the slightest desire to be hired to do the job. And this
was not discussed on the board.
Presumably (and hopefully), some of the jury members will merge with the
chinese team so as to offer their own abilities and experience.
Will they be involved in drafting budget ? I do not think so. I presume
this will require one of the chinese team member to work closely with WMF.
Will they be involved in deciding who will receive sponsorship ? Well,
if they are part of Wikimania 2007 team, this may happen of course. I do
not think it represents a conflict of interest though. They could have
done the same for Torino.
"to really define the relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia"
Well, the WMF is the legal organiser of Wikimania. Generally, it is the
organiser of Wikimania, but most of the organisation is delegated.
A better question would rather be (imho) "what are the goals of Wikimania"
"Is it dealt with through a commitee?"
Well, informally, yes. The Wikimania committee. Which is not officially
a committee...
We may wish to formalize this a little bit....
"Are there any Board Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania?"
Afaik, none for this year. I think the only decision was made last year
with regards to Delphine contract. Actually... this was not visible at
all, but I spent a lot of time, with Delphine and Sj, trying to fix an
agreement to define areas of responsabilities. This document and the
pertaining agreement were approved by the board. It was done before the
resolution system, so there is no resolution, but it was amongst the
most documented decision we took.
In the end, the carefull agreement was useless as areas of
responsabilities were largely not respected, which lead to a lot of
tension in the team.
But you have a point Birgitte.
In view of what happened last year, it is best that
1) decent resolutions be passed on Wikimania issue
2) a committee be created, with clear description of each person
involved, area of expertise and area of responsability. This is doubly
important as (at least for I, and certainly for Michael Davis), we know
quite little the chinese team. And important in case the last year team
or others want to get involved.
3) each person involved makes a clear statement of potential conflicts
of interest
I'd like to ask HT if all the chinese wikimania core team could join the
wikimania mailing list, even though it may be that some of you discuss
issues in chinese only. It is important (imho) that at least some non
chinese be involved in the organisation, as it will greatly enrich the
process.
Also, I would like that all core organisers provide a little bit more
information about them, and that the role of each be defined as much as
possible. This will help identify areas where help is missing. And this
will help us identify who the Foundation should be in touch with for
various issues (for example, the Foundation (Michael) MUST be in contact
with the budget person).
ant
Good morning!
At the beginning I was really hesitant to propose this project on these
lists - for the simple fact that it could be seen negatively by some,
but: it is for a good cause, it is Open Content and it is about a
Wiktionary, even if a very particular one.
WiktionaryZ is building the contents for a multilingual dictionary for
all children in the world - all languages are welcome and that's why
this message does not only go to the wiktionary list, but also to
others. Not all projects have wiktionaries and maybe this could be also
their first start into lexicology for their very specific language.
I would like to remind you that the data you provide can be re-used by
your local wiktionary, also uploading it whith the bot, once we have the
dump to be provided to OLPC.
Please find below the original text re. the co-operation. To
participate, please create yourself a profile on http://wiktionaryz.org,
add your babel template and read about the DefinedMeaning
(http://www.wiktionaryz.org/DefinedMeaning). Then tell us or on the wiki
or in the chat ( irc://irc.freenode.net/wiktionaryz or
irc://irc.freenode.net/wiktionary ) we are present in both of them.
If you happen to be in a university or in another adeguate place and
have the possibility to put a print-out of the project description on
the notice board, please send me a short-mail I will happily send you
the pdf. Doing this results in better co-operation with all projects,
since people, who maybe did not consider wikis before do their first
edits. The reason why we ask people to send us an e-mail if they are
interested in contributing is simple: we want to take them by the hand
and show them how to do things. Working on a wiki is not so obvious and
simple as it might seem to us who do it every day.
I will also try to go around the village pumps of the projects to post
the message - of course: you may help me with that - it would be great
:-) I am going to update the project page in English during the day:
http://www.wiktionaryz.org/OLPC_Children%27s_Dictionary - if you have
put the message on your wiki, could you pleas leave a short note on the
discussion page for the project?
Thank you so much for your time and attention and have a wonderful
wiki-day :-)
Sabine
*****
*A Multilingual Dictionary
for the Children
of Our World
*
*One Laptop per Child* (http://laptop.org) is a non-profit association
with a mission to develop a low-cost laptop—the "$100 Laptop"—a
technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children.
Our goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities
to explore, experiment, and express themselves. The laptops are a unique
learning tool, created expressly for children living in the world's most
remote environments.
*The WiktionaryZ Project *(http://wiktionaryz.org) is developing an
open-content dictionary in every language of the world. We are working
with the University of Bamberg to identify relevant word lists and
develop needed applications for managing them
(http://www.uni-bamberg.de/). We are working on a dictionary for
children, to be included on the OLPC laptops.
*You can help!*
Please donate a few minutes of your time to improve the translations and
definitions of *10 words*. Your contribution will reach millions of
children in the world.
To participate, visit http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Translations , or send
an e-mail to:
*kids(a)WiktionaryZ.org*
(Please list the target languages into which you can translate English –
*all* languages are welcome. You will receive a return e-mail with
instructions about which words to work on and how else you might be able
to help us.)
*Thank you so much for your help!*
/Sabine Cretella/
/for the co-operating team/
p.s. Would you like to know my personal dream? Having that dictionary,
or at least a huge part of it, ready in many languages by Christmas ...
it is just three months ahead of us ... can you make it as well your dream?
Image by: http://laptop.org <http://laptop.org/>, licensed under
Creative Commons Attributions 2.5 license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/).
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
Hi Anthere, sorry for the late reply since I have some daily job need to be
done. Also I just have some mail server issue with Yahoo so my last reply to
you is lost. I wish this one can make it to the mailing list. :(
OK, please see my reply as HT> below.
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces(a)wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthere
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 8:03 AM
To: foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org
Subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007
----------
I'd like to say thank you to Hsiang-Tai Chien for his civility and that I
hope we'll do a fabulous Wikimania 2007 in Taipei.
One of the specific request I will have (which is basically the same that
the one of the past two years) is that we try to find funds to help
wikipedians to come from all over the world. We need to start looking for
such funds as soon as possible. And make this event a bridge between
continents.
HT> Thanks, and personally I will join the discussion and the organization
for Wikimania 2007 in the mail lists; I will also participate in the Taipei
team more actively. Although we have a large amount of local sponsorships,
it would always be better if more funds on travel scholarships are
available. The Taipei team is also discussing sponsorship details with China
Airlines (flag carrier of ROC on Taiwan) for deeply discounted tickets.
China Airlines serves many cities in North America and Europe, including Los
Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, Vancouver,
Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Rome, Vienna, and others. We will work closely with
the Foundation in the coordination of sponsorships.
----------
I'd like to ask HT if all the chinese wikimania core team could join the
wikimania mailing list, even though it may be that some of you discuss
issues in chinese only. It is important (imho) that at least some non
chinese be involved in the organisation, as it will greatly enrich the
process.
HT> Some of Taipei team members have already joined the Wikimania-l and
Wikimedia-l mailing lists. We did not participate much in the previous
discussions on Wikimania Taipei because there were too many emotional
comments and invalid questions, and the team was already very busy with the
preparation of the conference. We will ask more members to join the
Wikimania-l for serious discussions on the conference. We welcome any
non-Chinese people to join us and we would be very open for opinions and
ideas because Wikimania 2007 is not just an event for Taipei, but an event
for all Wikimedians over the world. We understand that the bidding result
might let some people feel down but we still sincerely welcome them to
provide constructive ideas for this event.
HT> We will start organizing the Wikimania 2007 page on meta soon, and use
it as a platform for relevant discussions. We have also registered domain
name wikimania.tw for use by Wikimania 2007.
Also, I would like that all core organisers provide a little bit more
information about them, and that the role of each be defined as much as
possible. This will help identify areas where help is missing. And this
will help us identify who the Foundation should be in touch with for
various issues (for example, the Foundation (Michael) MUST be in contact
with the budget person).
Ant
HT> Yes, I will provide a rough member list now:
Team leader: Theodoranian (meta:User:Theodoranian / wp:zh:User:Theodoranian)
Media and public relations: KJ (meta:User:KaurJmeb / wp:zh:User:KaurJmeb)
Sponsorship: KJ and Francis Huang (Academia Sinica, the national academy of
ROC on Taiwan)
English communications: Hsiang-Tai (meta:User:Htchien / wp:zh:User:Htchien),
Dodd (meta:User:Dodd / wp:zh:User:Dodd), and roc (meta:User:R.O.C /
wp:zh:User:R.O.C)
Website: Alex S. H. (meta:User:Alexsh / zh:User:Alexsh), LittleBTC
(meta:User:Littlebtc / zh:User:笨笨的小B), and GLWu
Program: Theodoranian, Tsu-Chiang Liou (Academia Sinica), and KJ
For financial matters, we are still looking for the ideal person.
At the same time, we would like the Board appoint a contact person for us so
we can coordinate lots of matters with the Board.
Thanks and best regards,
H.T.
___________________________________________________
您的生活即時通 － 溝通、娛樂、生活、工作一次搞定！
http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/
While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here.
Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught quite by
accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important issue,
relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure the
veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given the
other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake
island with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can
certainly have a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can even get
people to read up on them and take their money. And if you look the company up,
it is on Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious
problem. Wikipedia provides credibility.
There are two problems with this. Both are, in my mind, serious ethical
issues.
1. Given our size and reputation, we are in the process of transforming from
a medium that reports fact to a medium that can, potentially, create fact.
Colbert and the elephants is symptomatic of that (for people who don't know the
reference, see Jimmy's opening remarks at Wikimania). In the particular case
of Porchesia, someone has just argued on the mailing list that it should be
kept because it is now an internet meme. The fact that it has been on
Wikipedia for ten months ensures that
(_http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html_
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html) ). This is worrying. Are we now reporting on what we
report? Where do we draw the line between reporting information and creating
information? I believe that this issue is sufficiently serious to warrant
discussion among all Wikimedia participants, not just the people on WP:EN.
2. The second issue is more sinister. Several months ago we received a call
in the office from a major police agency. Someone created a false identity
and used it to extract money from unsuspecting victims. When people questioned
how important he was, they were told, "Just look me up on Wikipedia." Were
the people who gave him money stupid? Yes. So are the people who answer tragic
emails telling them that their long lost but fabulously wealthy relatives
were killed in car crash in Togo. And yet, people continue to answer those
emails. The article on EN was quietly deleted, the man was likely arrested, but
the problem remains. Given our position and the respect we receive, Wikipedia
in all languages is an open target for spammers and con artists. I believe
that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the larger community, and
not just limited to WP:EN.
There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and
Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are to maintain
both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up with creative
solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the English
Wikipedia.
Danny
On 26/09/06, James Hardy <wikimediauk(a)weeb.biz> wrote:
> Uploading the original PDFs to a publicly accessable website would most
> likely be a copyright violation, so we wouldn't want to do that anyway.
In the UK, not in the US.
> Another question is what to do about about diagrams (assuming that there are
> some), I would imagine that if the the RS claims copyright of the scans we
> can't just extract them and use them. Simple ones I imagine we can (and
> probably should) convert to SVG, but for more detailed ones, that could be
> tricky.
So no-one in the UK should do this, but someone in the US may say "you
claim you own a scan of a diagram from 1720 and no-one else can touch
it? O rly. Sue and be damned." This is something we would need to be
*quite* clear that we were or were not going to say ahead of time, of
course.
(Though put like that, it looks very like the National Portrait
Gallery issue. Have they ceased the vague attempts at legal
intimidation after Jimbo indicated Wikimedia's attitude would in fact
be "sue and be damned"?)
cc: to foundation-l on this issue.
- d.
Hi,
today I was informed that the German subsidiary of AFP (Agence France
Presse), a news agency seems to have taken a significant amount of
text about the Amish from de.wikipedia.org.
In a phone call, the AFP office confirmed that the text was from
Wikipedia and stated that this was against "AFP policy" because
"wikipedia is not a citable source". They refuse to retract or ammend
the story with proper attribution for Wikipedia and the license.
On the other hand, AFP sued Google News in 2005 because in AFP's point
of view, Google was violating their copyright.
A short report about this event from today can be found (in German) at
http://mathias-schindler.de/index.php/2006/10/03/einladung-zum-textvergleic….
I will update or correct anything there. Feel free to translate the
text or refer to it.
Mathias
On 10/3/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
> Quote below first posted to <wikimediauk-l.Wikimedia.org>
>
> Below are two extracts from an article from the THES (Times Higher
> Education Supplement) Friday 22nd September 2006.
>
> If this is a research, then fine. But I am told that Wikipedia is not
> in the business of original research.
>
This is largely irrelivant since this would not be the area of law the
wikipedians would be looking to use.
--
geni
To what extent is this true under US law?
The claim to ownership of a scan from 1665 is odious. Perhaps it's just me.
- d.
On 26/09/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Hurst, Phil" <Phil.Hurst(a)royalsoc.ac.uk>
> To: <jwales(a)wikia.com>
> Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 11:34:56 +0100
> Subject: Royal Society Digital Journal Archive
>
>
> Dear Jimmy
>
> It has come to our attention that there is some confusion regarding the
> copyright status of the Royal Society's digital journal archive.
>
> The entire digital archive is covered by copyright. This mean that
> systematic downloading and hosting by third parties is prohibited.
>
> Thank you for your attention.
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Phil Hurst
> Publisher
>
> tel +44 (0)20 7451 2630
> fax +44 (0)20 7976 1837
> web http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk
>
> The Royal Society
> 6-9 Carlton House Terrace
> London SW1Y 5AG
>
> Registered Charity No 207043
> The Royal Society - excellence in science
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ******************************************************************************
> The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and may also be
> subject to legal privilege. It is intended only for the recipient(s) named
> above. If you are not named above as a recipient, you must not read, copy,
> disclose, forward or otherwise use the information contained in this e-mail.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
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>
>
>
Brad Patrick wrote:
> Dear Community:
>
> The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
> Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
> phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
> edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
> self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
> should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
> act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
> self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
> and we need your help.
>
> We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
> to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
> cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
> patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
> which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
> question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
> has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
> Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
> time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
> their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
> they incur.
>
> Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
> here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
> encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
> for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
> energy. We must put a stop to this now.
> Thank you for your help.
>
> -Brad Patrick
> User:BradPatrick
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.