[sent to foundation-l and wikitech-l]
wap.fluffypeople.com/wiki , a third-party WAP translator for
Wikipedia, is gone and not coming back.
How did I find this out? A "problem manager" for Hutchison 3G just
called me! 'Cos the volunteer press contact is obviously the person to
call about this sort of thing.
Apparently, Hutchison promote Wikipedia as one of the things you can
get through their service. And apparently they were just hooking into
this third-party volunteer service. If you go to
http://wap.fluffypeople.com/wiki/ and read the WML file, the text it
gives is:
"Sorry folks, the interface to wikipedia is down for the forseeable
future. There's a bug that crashes the webserver, and I don't have
free wap access any more, so I've got no incentive to fix it. I hope
you have enjoyed using the service."
Apparently a Hutchison director saw that message and didn't understand
that it wasn't us. And this guy read that message and didn't twig that
it wasn't us. Ahem.
As it happened I knew the right answer - "that'll be a third party
translator, we don't supply a WAP version of Wikipedia, just the web
version. If you want to run a WAP service, then you should contact
fluffypeople and pay them to run the service for you, or you should
get your own sysadmins to run the service for you."
ANYWAY - it occurred to me that if we want to make Wikimedia projects
available to people - should we run our own WAP server? Or supply a
suitable feed or software as a paid feed for phone companies who want
to sell this to their customers? Or get them to give us the access to
supply knowledge to the world this way?
(Given our fundraiser shortfall, options that involve money coming to
WMF are probably the nicest.)
Does any of this sound at all feasible? Not that I'm volunteering for
the project ... just floating the idea.
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net>
Date: 20-Jan-2007 09:25
Subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:OFFICE actions
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
I raised this a while back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Western_University was office
protected. Editors had gathered some well-cited material, Jimbo said
go ahead and rewrite, so we did. It got hacked back again. I don't
have a problem with this, as Brad has now old us what the concern was,
and we can work with that. I do have a problem with a couple of
elements of process:
* The problem was not communicated until after the event, resulting in
another pissed-off phone call to Brad which could have been avoided.
* I was told the new version was not "cleared with foundation" but no
mechanism exists for doing that, else I would have done so.
* Brad (or Danny or Jimbo) does not scale. People get impatient when
months go by with no explanation of why we cannot say something which
is, or appears to be, verifiably true. This was a particular problem
with the article on Gregory Lauder-Frost.
So what should be the process for getting foundation approval for a
rewrite where an article subject has made a complaint causing
protection, and how can we ensure that the substance of the complaint
is communicated (to the extent possible without compromising the
various parties)?
Is it possible to facilitate communication direct with the parties
where errors of fact are the problem, to let them know in advance when
changes are to be made?
And where an external source (in this case Bear's Guide) says that two
institutions are run by the same people out of the same address, and
no known sources say otherwise, but the subject insists they are
different, how do we go about validating that? It's all very well for
them to say they are different, but surely that gets {{fact}}?
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
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geni wrote:
<snip>
>
>
>
> > Courts like
> > to reject cases that are based on hypothetical facts.
>
> I think people sueing us our our uploaders will not be talking about
> hypothetical cases.
> </snip>
>
Whether it is hypothetical or not is not an issue right now. We are talking
about policies here. Policies are always about both hypothetical *and*
practical situations. Imho Wikimedia *should* think about what to when a
picture would be uploaded. I think we should draw a border somewhere.
I however repeat my request to not discuss what we want on this list. If we
want to discuss what we want, please do that on meta. I give you the
arguments for that in an earlier email.
I also repeat my request to the Board of the WMF to give a position on this
very issue, and at least tell us on short term (a week would be great)
whether they will give out policy on this *at all*. (that does not mean that
they would have to make policy at that very moment, I understand that that
will take time). I would like to know from at least the elected boardmembers
whether it is their intention to bring this into discussion, especially now
it is so clear that this issue lives within the communities, and whether
they will come up with a motion in the board. I hope that erik, florence,
kat or oscar could give us an insight in the pathway we will be going, and
what we can expect from the board on this.
I would really like to know whether we can expect from the board:
*no reaction, none of their business
*An advice to the communities, to tell them what they think is free
*A policy for every wikimedia project except en.wikipedia / en.wikinews
*A policy for all wikimedia projects stating which licenses are allowed for
media used within the projects.
*or just something in between :)
I look forward to your reply.
Lodewijk
> Mark wrote
> But if it's a choice between providing no picture at all, and providing
> a picture that some large subset of users (but not all) can use while
> the rest can automatically remove it, I don't see why it *hurts* free
> knowledge to provide the optional image rather than none.
>
> -Mark
Same applies to NC images.
Roberto (Snowdog)
------------------------------------------------------
Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom
http://click.libero.it/infostrada19gen07
Hello,
As mentionned quickly in previous emails, the board is having a meeting
in Rotterdam friday, saturday and sunday.
There will be as well formal or informal meeetings from today till
sunday, with professionals, potential partners, or wikipedians; Some of
us will visit our facility of Amsterdam, or Kennisnet, or our bank in
Belgium. Consequently, most board members and some foundation employees
will be hard to talk with on mailing lists or irc this week. We'll be
back all fresh and full of news next week.
Agenda for this first meeting of the year is very roughly going along
those lines.
* Budget and finances (friday morning). Essentially reporting on the
last fundraising. Planification of next fundraising. Brainstorming over
our "business model" (endowment etc). In short, generally planning the
financial strategy for the coming year.
* Audit (friday end of afternoon). Planning audit of this financial year
and implementation of some of the suggestions made by the auditors.
We'll also meet with Dedalus.
* Legal issues (saturday morning). Planning of the most urgent things to
deal with, in particular but not restricted to, trademarks, licence
inforcing, domain names, privacy policy...
* Personnel issues (saturday afternoon). Discussion about all the
possible job openings for 2007, prioritize and identify/discuss possible
candidates. Office organization. Staff relationships and roles.
Volunteers jobs etc...
* Technical summit (sunday).
* Brainstorming on quality (sunday)
These are the biggest bits. There are also other issues, which we may or
may not discuss according to time availability. Most issues on current
agenda are in relation to points number 1 and 2 of our general guideline
for year 2007 (sustainability and quality). I hope sunday in particular
will be an opportunity to discuss and draft directions for points 3 and
4 (outreach and recognition by non profit world), to expand further in
the coming year.
As already mentionned, there is a wikimeet on friday evening as well :-)
and hopefully many stroopwafels during the time in Rotterdam.
See you next week on this very list for more.
Florence Devouard
Chair Wikimedia Foundation
> David Strauss wrote:
> You're arguing from the ridiculous premise that Wikipedia must be legal
> in every country. Even the topics of some articles aren't legal in some
> countries.
No, I'm not. I'm aware that this is impossible. But when you say that anyone should be able to reuse a whole Wikipedia article as is, you are making a ridiculous premise, because the very fact that Wikipedia can't be legal in every countru makes this impossible. Unless you intended "a US commercial organization can at least take whole Wikipedia pages and re-use them"
Now please, consider the following two as being the same image (they are not, but for the sake of exemplification they are).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Microsoft_Office_Word_2007.pnghttp://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immagine:MS_Office_Word.JPG
The image on en.wiki qualifies as fair use
The image on it.wiki is tagged as copyrighted and used with permission (based on what's written here http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/permissions/default.mspx#ELC)
The image on it.wiki should be removed right?
Roberto (Snowdog)
------------------------------------------------------
Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom
http://click.libero.it/infostrada14gen07
As you've probably noticed, the fundraising drive is over. It was
officially completed on January 15. The current "thank you" notice
will stay up until January 22 (and hopefully be translated into a few
more languages over the next couple of days).
Jeremy Tobacman has been so kind to compile a graphical report on the
fundraiser:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_report
You can also continue to retrieve results from our reporting engine:
http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/
The Virgin Unite donation is not accounted for yet (should happen in
the next few days). Overall, the fundraiser has been a success, and
some exciting new possibilities are being discussed on the
Board-level.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
Hello all,
While Wikimedia Canada has been around in one stage of planning or
another for a while, we've just created a mailing list for discussion.
Why now? I was listening to the archives of Wikipedia Weekly, and
heard Delphine mention us, even though we've been so inactive in
further planning. That, and a regional TV channel is planning a story
on the chapter, even though we don't actually exist yet.
* Where's the list hosted? :
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-ca
* How can I post? : Once you join, email wikimedia-ca(a)lists.wikimedia.org
* Is it bilingual? : To be discussed. The Swiss mailing list is
quatrolingual. but let's concentrate on discussing stuff in English
first, as only two members of over 100 are unilingual Francophones.
* What use would I be? : Trust me, anyway you're willing to help with
the chapter, we're willing to listen.
So please, even if you're not too sure what purpose chapters serve,
join the mailing list. There's many benefits that could be reaped if
we get this party started.
Nick Moreau/Zanimum
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:11:56 +0000
Von: "Andrew Gray" <shimgray(a)gmail.com>
>
> The Foundation has better things to spend ten thousand dollars on. We
> *have* a freely available search engine, which indexes Wikipedia, and
> is working well enough for now. Why should we spend money on something
> else just because you shout about it?
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
which search engine uses wikipedia? and where to download the url-database-index?, and yes, it was a demanding style / claim, but for a good open source project, and the hype about wikia--whatever-search shows that we can think about it.
Regards.
--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal für Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer
Yes, I was talking about the Swiss list.
Wikimedia Canada will try to promote the usage of Wikipedias and other
Wikimedia Foundation projects that exist in indigenous languages, as
well as any of the most prominent mother tongues in Canada (the
Chinese languages, Italian, German, Punjabi, and Spanish).
However, we will likely never have the need to operate the mailing
list in any Native language... most Aboriginal Canadians that have
access to the Internet know how to speak English or French as well.
I also must note that that list of languages is highly outdated.
While you list "Beaver", the language is known as
"Babine-Witsuwit'en". The "Ojibwe" languages are actually that of the
"Anishinaabe", and go under names like "Anihšināpēmowin" and
"Anishinaabemowin", not "Eastern" and "Western".
Nick
Message: 7
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:45:39 +0100
From: "Alfio Puglisi" <alfio.puglisi(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Canada mailing list now exists
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<4902d9990701161245k3d39b22ak2d61183e3187784d(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 1/16/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Western Abnaki <http://www.omegawiki.org/Portal:abe> - Algonquin
> <http://www.omegawiki.org/Portal:alq> - American Sign Language
>[...]
>
> These are the languages still spoken in Canada according to Ethnologue..
> There is more then English French Italian and Rhaeto Romanic to this
> wonderful country.
I think he was talking about the Swiss list...
Alfio
