Wikimedia-l October 2007

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

139 participants
122 discussions

[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Sweden
by Lars Aronsson 22 Oct '07

22 Oct '07

This Saturday we gathered in Stockholm to form a membership association, to become a Swedish chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. We were 51 people at the meeting, including chapters coordinator Delphine Ménard. The proposed bylaws, which have received no protests from the chapters committee, were adopted by the meeting with only minor changes in language. The membership fee was set to 100 kronor (roughly 11 euro) for the period until the end of 2008. The association already has 36 members -- with more expected. A board was elected with Lennart Guldbrandsson as the chairman. He has already served as "press contact" for the Swedish Wikipedia. I'm one of the board members. More information is found on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Sverige It was a beautiful sunny day and the meeting went very smooth. Delphine stayed until the next day, and joined some 10 Swedish wikipedians for dinner on Saturday night. We had a great time. We're now only waiting for the formal approvement of the Wikimedia Foundation before we can officially adopt our name. Swedish tax law doesn't allow any tax deduction for donations, so we don't have to bother with that. (You can start to donate right away!) So far, we have a Swedish "Bankgiro" account 5822-9915, which is the common way for Swedish households to pay their bills. (What would be the best way for people outside of Sweden to donate money and pay fees? Should we get a Paypal account? Let me know!) If you consider that Sweden has 1/9 the population of Germany (9 million vs. 82 million), we already have 1/9 of the membership of the German chapter (342 / 9 = 38). We're not in a competition, of course, but as a new starting association we're looking for any benchmarks, role models and guidelines that we can follow. Is there any financial information from the Foundation on what amount of its costs and incomes can be connected to Sweden? I would personally find it interesting to know where we are today, so we can see if we're improving or not. There is a risk of course that people donate to the Swedish chapter, where we dillute the money on irrelevant or failed campaigns, instead of supporting the Foundation as we should. I certainly hope that we'll do more good than harm, but are there any numbers to help us show this? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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[Foundation-l] Fundraising fall 2007 to begin this monday, october 22
by Florence Devouard 21 Oct '07

21 Oct '07

Dear Community, The Wikimedia fundraiser begins this Monday, October 22, and will run until December 22. As in previous years, there will be a banner on the top of each page, across all projects, which will link to our donations page. We look forward to a successful fundraiser. There are a number of ways you can help: by making a donation yourself, or by putting supportive buttons and banners <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/web_buttons> on your own site. Or by using some variant of the following text as the signature on the bottom of your e-mails: /Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org/ Also, you can show your support by submitting a photo to the "Why Do You Love Wikipedia" Flickr group <http://flickr.com/groups/wikilove/pool/>. There is an FAQ for the fundraiser here <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_FAQ>. Thanks for all your support, and please wish us luck. Florence Devouard Chair of the Board of Trustees ---------- /Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org/

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[Foundation-l] keep watching the Italian government
by Gianluigi Gamba 20 Oct '07

20 Oct '07

Hi everybody, the Italian government has advanced a proposal for a law that - if approved by the Parliament - will oblige all the "publishing productions", regardless of the media they use for their diffusion, therefore web-based ones included, to be registered into the "registro degli operatori della comunicazione" (ROC) - "register of the operator of the communications" (such a register nowadays seem to exist in very few contries in the world). Registration is virtually free of charge, but it requires someone (not yet clear whether a citizen, a professional or an organization - not yet clear whether Italian citizen of not) to take legal responsability for the contents. The current text of law proposal includes among the "publishing productions" (together with on-line newpapers and other media) also the personal blogs(!) and non-profit experiences like the Italian editions of the Wikimedia projects. "Per attività editoriale si intende ogni attività diretta alla realizzazione e distribuzione di prodotti editoriali, nonché alla relativa raccolta pubblicitaria. L'esercizio dell'attività editoriale può essere svolto anche in forma non imprenditoriale per finalità non lucrative". "With publishing activity is meant every activity aimed to produce and diffuse publishing productions and to the relevant advertising activities. A publishing activity can be done also under non-enterpreneurial forms with no lucrative aim". Wikimedia projects are in a borderline situation: they are WMF's own and therefore the law of the US applies, nevertheless their Italian edition are meant for an Italian audience (yes, not only on the soil of the Italian Republic). If this law proposal becomes a law and Italian authorities ask for the registration, we might risk the Italian versions of the Wikimedia projects to be made unavailable for the Italian citizens. It's clearly impossible for the Italian version of the Wikimedia projects to find a person who can bear the legal responsibility for all the contents. No one would guarantee personally about Wikimedia projects contents, and if someone would be so crazy to do that, such person would have the last word on every Wiki* article. That's absolutely incompatible with the nature of the Wikimedia projects. For those of you who can read Italian, you can find some details here http://punto-informatico.it/p.aspx?i=2092327 and an on-line petition for dumping this law proposal here http://www.petitiononline.com/noDDL/petition.html I wonder whether WMF and the Wiki* communities can somehow make pressure and help spreading this news around the globe. Hoping for the law proposal to be dumped or changed, or for the law not applied to Wikimedia projects (although such a law would very seriously impact on the freedom of speech in Italy), I thank you all for your attention. G. (aka Paginazero)

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[Foundation-l] For your enjoyment
by GerardM 20 Oct '07

20 Oct '07

Hoi, http://www.wired.com/promo/acura/leadersadvancingtechnology Thanks, GerardM

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[Foundation-l] Conference of the Americas - Atlanta
by Craig Spurrier 20 Oct '07

20 Oct '07

Hello, Inspired by the success of past Wikimedia conferences held in Europe and Asia and the hard work of the Wikimania Atlanta Bid team, we have decided to host the first annual Conference of the Americas. The theme of the conference is "unity through good works." "The Conference of the Americas will be dedicated to Wikimedia as well as the free culture movement, and how it relates to regular people and their everyday lives wherever they may live or what language they may speak." Conference of the Americas Atlanta is a community initiative, primarily organized and run by Wikimedians in the Southeastern United States. There are about 30 volunteers from metro Atlanta, and 20 others willing to travel to assist with the event. This conference is not an attempt to compete with Wikimania nor is it to make a statement against Wikimania. The Conference of the Americas will provide an opportunity for Wikimedians who are unable to attend Wikimania an opportunity otherwise unavailable. Past National Wikimedia conferences have had no noticeable effect on Wikimania attendance, we expect the same from the Conference of the Americas. The Wikimedia Conference of the Americas will be held May 15-18, 2008 at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. For more information please visit our website http://www.cota-atlanta.org/ and our official wiki http://www.cota-atlanta.org/wiki If you are interested in volunteering to either help organize or help run the event, please add your name in the appropriate section on our list of team members:http://www.cota-atlanta.org/wiki/Team Facebook users: please join our our Facebook event: http://git.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5828937313 -Craig Spurrier Conference of the Americas team [[n:Craig Spurrier]]

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[Foundation-l] Encroachments on crack
by David Gerard 20 Oct '07

20 Oct '07

Is there anything we can do about this sort of thing? http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/10/19/misunderstandings-of-the-words-%e2… Give all Wikimedia volunteer photographers a clue-shooting dart gun? - d.

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[Foundation-l] FYI:Setting up of Movements for Internet Active Users (MIAU)
by Shun Fukuzawa 19 Oct '07

19 Oct '07

I inform setting up of a new organization for copyright and related laws in Japan. http://miau.jp/ (English pages are under construction) This is Movements for Internet Active Users (MIAU). Members at MIAU will suggest a new usage of copyright to Japanese goverment and raleted organisations. One of co-founders is Masayuki Hatta, the translator in Japanese of GFDL. In Japan, we always use his translation. Now Japanese copyright law doesn't allow to use fair use as in US. And Japanese goverment is mulling to make downloding copyrighted files without permission illigal (Uploding files without permisson is illigal now). They will suggest to use fair use and deprecate making downloding files illigal. Especially, if we could use fair use in Japan, it would be easier to make contents on Wikimedia projects. Of course, they will act about other Internet usage and enlighten effective usage of Internet and Computer like Electric Frontier Foundation in US. Please send me messages to them! I will send the messages to make them up.

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[Foundation-l] [FR07] Help needed - busy work!
by Cary Bass 19 Oct '07

19 Oct '07

Hi all I'm looking for a bit of help in pruning out donations messages on the Meta Wiki. These messages will be featured in an upcoming fundraiser. The specific languages I need help with are below, with their respective pages: German <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/comments/de> English <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/comments/en> * Note: some of the sections here have already been completed Spanish <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/comments/es> Japanese <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/comments/ja> Norwegian <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/comments/no> Romanian <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/comments/ro> What I'd like is for people to pick out the very best quotes, that people feel are most applicable to our project goals. In order to do that, please highlight the quotes you feel that qualify in bold. I encourage you to use a higher proportion of quotes (1:5 to 1:10) in non-English language sections, as there is a huge abundance of English language quotes. If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Cary

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[Foundation-l] Google Analytics on Wikimania site
by Brian McNeil 18 Oct '07

18 Oct '07

I am told Google Analytics is running on the Wikimania wiki. I'm not sure where that would be put, and I'm also not sure that it is appropriate. Who put it in? And was there discussion before it was done? Brian.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Google Analytics on Wikimania site
by Craig Spurrier 18 Oct '07

18 Oct '07

I commented out the Google Analytics code. I have no opinion on if it should be enabled or not, but until the community/WMF has decided on if we want to allow Google Analytics on the sites it should remain disabled. -Craig Spurrier [[n:Craig Spurrier]]

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Wikimedia-l October 2007