Ok, so there are several issues in this thread that need to be considered:
1) The Wikimedia Foundation needs cash. We all know that. So, we, as a
community, should think of ways to get more donations coming in. "Matching
funds" are tools frequently used in the United States because they have
proven that they are effective.
2) There was a need to say that Virgin Unite was matching donations over the
day. The potential donor stumbling onto one of our pages from a Google
search needs to know that if he donated today, the effects of his dollar
would "go farther" in a way. Besides, the name also influences the portion
of the population that wants to "stick it" to a business to donate, at least
to cause some perceived monetary damage to Virgin.
3) It can be considered common courtesy to indicate that Virgin was donating
funds. That said, having a logo prominently displayed is a question that has
its merits, and it should be discussed for future fundraisers.
4) This shows a need for greater community consultation by the Board;
however, the Board cannot be all places at all times, so it would be nice to
think of ways of getting more "rank and file" users to participate in
foundation-level decisions. How can Wikimedia accomplish that?
Titoxd.
This may be an interesting read for Brad and others at the Foundation.
The Cherokee Nation was eviscerated in Federal Court
today over the Cherokee Freedmen issue and found to have violated the
13th Ammendment of the Constitution and the ruling
aborragated our sovereignty over the issue of Freedmen membership. It's
hitting the front page of a lot of publications.
The Cherokee related articles on the English Wikipedia may get a lot of
hits over this topic, and potentially a lot of vandalism.
The Freedmen are African slaves who are for the most part Cherokee by
blood. They have their own dialect of the
Cherokee Language which has been spoken for several hundred years that
combines some Kaswahili with our language
(only about 10 fluent speakers of this dialect are still living, most of
them over 80 years old). This language variant is very
beautiful and musical to hear with very interesting glottal stops and
interspersed African inflections.
Most of these Freedmen speakers speak only Cherokee and did not speak
English in ancient times.
The ruling is at:
http://indianz.com/docs/court/freedmen/order121906.pdf
I have been in contact with this group in Oklahoma and we are working to
document this dialect. Marilyn Vann, the person
who is behind this lawsuit is one of the speakers of this Cherokee
dialect, but she is not as totally fluent in it. I personally feel
that those freedmen who married into our culture should be allowed
membership in the Nation, since anyone who speaks
Cherokee as a first language is certainly a Cherokee Indian. I am
neutral on the blood issue. It's a tough one. At any rate,
some interesting reading on the legal sissues dealing with tribal
sovereignty. This ruling potentially has redefined its boundaries
and will have far reaching impacts on all tribes.
Jeff
In a message dated 12/28/2006 7:46:15 AM Eastern Standard Time,
gattonero(a)gmail.com writes:
But I'll be happy to understand better which have been the reasons why
a company has been choosen, and another not.
Simple--Are they doing it to get their name up in Wikipedia? Just given the
amount of spam we face, there are plenty of companies out there who see that
as their sole objective.
Hello,
On December 28 we will be changing the fundraising sitenotice for 24 hours.
The new site notice will be identical to the anonymous donor site notice,
except that it will say.
"Today your donation will be matched by Virgin United."
Virgin United will be a link to the Virgin United website. There will also
be a small Virgin logo in the sitenotice. A sample will be ready for you
tomorrow morning (Brion time).
Please convey this to the appropriate people.
Danny
The site notice for Virgin United is ready. Thank you Brion.
Please translate accordingly. It is basically the same as our anon donor site notice.
Have fun.
Danny
________________________________________________________________________
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On en.wikibooks we are having some problems instituting an ownership policy
(a local equivalent of [[WP:OWN]]). Some of the common arguments we are
receiving are:
1. There is a qualitative distinction between "authors" and "contributors".
Not all contributors can be listed as authors of a particular book
(especially if the book is printed and distributed).
2. The history pages represent a "log", and do not constitute legal
attribution
3. "Contributors" do not have the legal rights that "authors" do.
None of us at en.wikibooks are lawyers, and frankly we don't know how to
address these objections, or where to find the correct answers. Also,
because books are distributed projects (spread across multiple pages), it is
not uncommon on wikibooks for a book to have a list of authors somewhere.
Are such lists appropriate?
Any help in these questions would be much appreciated. --Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________
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Hello,
today a user on Japanese Wikipedia whose account is in Kana (a
Japanese script) came to our Admins' noticeboard to request for
chaning his username. He said he would have liked to do so because he
had changed his username on English Wikipedia.
I repeat again the English Wikipedia community should reconsider how
shameful and discriptive policy they has about users' identity and
respect of cultural diversity, and how badly it affects other
communities. I am very sorry to see such a request fullfiled to our
request page.
Cheers,
--
KIZU Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* Nessuna poesia prima di noi *
On Wikipedia-l or something similar there has been discussion involving
English Wikipedia's policy of blocking users with usernames that do not use
the Latin alphabet. Reasons for opposition to this practice include
ethnocentricism and messing up SUL. However, a point was raised in that
people unfamiliar with the script will just see it as a bunch of
squiggly-lines. A suggested remedy was having people transliterate their
names depending on the wiki.
I'm interested in combining this with a script similar to the Automatic
Conversion script employed on the Chinese Wikipedia, that would, combined
with SUL, automatically transliterate usernames contingent on the wiki they
are on. For example, on French Wikipedia, your username would be in Latin
script, whereas on the Hebrew Wikipedia your username would be in Hebrew
script and on Arabic Wikipedia your username would be in Arabic script.
I know there are scripts out there that can transliterate -- in addition to
the aforementioned conversion script on the Chinese Wikipedia, there are
quite a few scripts out there that will allow you to input something and
have it output in a different script.
http://vereb.free.fr/transliteration/transliterator.html has a pretty cool
one that allows you to type with Latin alphabet settings and it will output
in a different script. For example,
- MessedRocker becomes МесседРоцкер with the Cyrillic setting
- MessedRocker becomes ΜεσσεδΡοcκερ with the Greek setting
- MessedRocker becomes مِصِدرُطكِر with the Arabic setting.
If something could be created for SUL that would take a username and
transliterate it depending on the language of the wiki, that would be great.
I understand there are technical issues involved, but I would like to
discuss it on a community level.
--James
Actually, as Kirill pointed out, we have an agreement with Virgin. However,
I would question whether we have more credibility if we link to an article.
People would question whether the article maintained NPOV, considering the
amount of money they are giving us.
In a message dated 12/26/2006 10:51:29 PM Eastern Standard Time,
david(a)fourkitchens.com writes:
It's not Virgin's choice. If they get to dictate the nature of their
representation, it starts to border on advertising. I think we'll have
better credibility with the community if we link to an article.
I love you guys, seriously. All of you.
And that's not just the eggnog talking... Wikipedia and all our
Wikimedia projects are, when you think about it, *pretty darn awesome*
and they exist because some *pretty darn awesome people* are working
together.
Those pretty awesome people include YOU!
YOU are pretty darn awesome!
But we do have a bit of a collective anger management problem.
There's lots of flamefests on the lists, on talk pages, on village
pumps, in edit wars, in irc, in private mail...
I'm no saint either; I believe I used words such as "idiot" in a certain
thread a few days ago which I really oughtn't to have.
Well, there's no point blaming anyone or saying anything specific here.
I just want to pass on a big sloppy group hug love letter to all y'all
Wikimedians out there.
Remember, folks, a community like this functions because its members are
willing and able to communicate to reach some end goal.
If you're about to type off another e-mail or talk page note in anger,
please... get off the computer for a second. Get a beverage of your
choice, take a walk, eat a cookie, make a sandwich, tell a joke, stretch
your legs, anything -- just cool off a second.
When you get back to the computer, pretend for a second that the other
person might have a point. Even if they are wrong, consider whether what
you're typing will lead to a useful conversation or if you know it'll
just make them mad and provoke a further negative response.
The worst thing you or I can do is to assume the other person is a jerk
who refuses to listen to reason and, therefore, we can and should ignore
anything they say.
I know I'm often guilty of assuming bad faith and taking on an automatic
defensive position.
What say we all give the opposite a try when we notice ourselves slipping?
HHHHUUUUUGGGGSSSSSSSSS
love,
brion