FYI,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes…http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes…http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes…http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yonidebest#Adminship
Bryan
On 4/14/07, Casey Brown <cbrown1023(a)comcast.net> wrote:
> Please provide some links or otherwise identifying material so that we can
> figure out what you are talking about.
>
> Cbrown1023
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Yoni Weiden
> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2007 12:52 PM
> To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Adminship tools on Commons
>
> Hi,
>
> I feel my request to use the admin tools on Commons was unfairly rejected
> because of many many reasons. I would like to appeal this unfair decision of
> the voters and get my chance to present my case infront of a neutural set of
> people. I request this because I will not accept this kind of behavior in a
> Wikimedia site. This is, IMHO, against the ideas of Wikimedia and against
> the reasons for which Adminship exists. Can you please advise to whom I
> should speak to?
>
> Thanks,
> Yoni
> aka, Yonidebest(a)he.wiki
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
Hello to all,
In December 2006, I have asked members of language subcommittee to
elaborate their decision regarding refusal of Montenegrin request, but
by today I didn't receive any. I will not go in depth here what kind
arguments members used at that time, you can check archive, surely they
didn't gave any evidence which could their decision make justified.
My question is how subcommittee plan to deal with other cases on Balkan,
or they just serve daily politic? to not make angry people specially
ones that have Wikimedia chapter. Also from this derivate question how
they will deal with other similar cases around world where languages are
similar - specially slovens languages.
I think that approach members of LSC use is quite bad and misleading. I
will give example. Never less on every Montenegrin request we have
dozens of "Serbians" ( who just use wikimedia to promote their political
opinions which are negation on anything that has Montenegrin name on it.
quotes on "Serbians" mean that they are just politically and by job
Serbs. Not full time Serbs, to which I have high respect. ), we find
that on some languages has bean approved with no debate and with only
few people which state they will contribute to wikipedia on that
language. It really looks silly when we from Montenegro see that.
Negative effects of this approach from members of LSC in Montenegro is
quite destructive. Instead of getting support to develop network of
collaboration we get wall from largest community which ideology is:
"Wikimedia Foundation's goal is giving every single person free,
unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge"
Funny indeed. It was that funny that we have lost people which was
interest in this project, time and great deal of enthusiasm.
On time when Montenegro gets internationally recognized language by
political means (ISO, etc) I am sure that members of LSC will not have
this obvious hard problem with their professional opinions and arguments
which are partly based on TV set manuals and so on.
Thank you for your time and I hope that you will not have bad sleep as I
did trying to figure how such things are possible along people with such
great guidelines from whom I have drawn my ideas.
Thanks again,
Darko
[This is not an official statement, etc.]
Hello,
We considered the disadvantages (bias, conflict, duplication,
decreased communities) and the advantages of such a wiki (being
'fair'). As such, the proposal for another political fork was
rejected.
We did not allow the other four forked Wikipedias, which predates the
subcommittee, and will not allow the fifth (unless someone can provide
some startling new arguments in favour). For the same reasons, we will
most likely not approve new wikis in those languages. A past mistake
is not a good reason to make a present mistake.
Note that the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian_Wikipedia> is still
around, and still welcomes Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, and
Montenegrins.
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
On 2007-04-13 21:16, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree with your position that the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia should
> have stayed by itself, as a unitary Wikipedia welcoming to Serbians,
> Croatians, Bosnians, and Montenegrins.
>
> However, I disagree with your position regarding the Montenegrin
> Wikipedia. I feel that if we are going to allow 4 Wikipedias for one
> language, it is only fair to allow a 5th as well.
>
> Mark
Sorry if I can't make myself very clear, English is not my first language.
I'd like to get an answer to what I think is a simple question
regarding the Foundation's intent behind the Licensing policy
resolution available at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
The text says:
EDP: a project-specific policy, in accordance with United States law
and the law of countries where the project content is predominantly
accessed (if any), that recognizes the limitations of copyright law
(including case law) as applicable to the project, and permits the
upload of copyrighted materials that can be legally used in the
context of the project, regardless of their licensing status
End quote.
Let me phrase my issue as yes/no questions.
If the Hungarian Wikipedia accepted an EDP that allowed types of media
for which _Hungarian_ copyright law prohibits distribution without the
copyright holder's permission, but based on the _US_ concept of fair
use they could be used for illustration in certain cases, then
a) would it be against the intent of the Resolution?
b) would such an EDP be acceptable for the Foundation?
As I tried to describe before, there are classes of images that we
cannot use if we hold ourselves to Hungarian copyright law (e.g. movie
posters fall into this category I believe). Currently HuWiki uses them
based on the fact that the server is located in the US and the US
"fair use" doctrine does not prohibit the distribution of such images
when used properly.
If this is not the right forum to ask this question, could you please
point me to the person or site where I should go to?
Thanks,
nyenyec
On 4/4/07, Nyenyec N <nyenyec(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you for the answers, so far. Let me rephrase my problem.
>
> Hungarian copyright law does have something similar to "fair use"
> called "szabad felhasználás". This is, however, just like in Germany
> much more limited than its US counterpart.
>
> The interpretation of the law is not always easy, but after some very
> informal discussions with some Hungarian lawyers and copyright
> experts, we do know that there are classes of images that you can't
> distribute without the copyright holder's permission in Hungary.
> This seems to be the case for album covers, movie posters etc.
>
> So far, we permitted these in HuWiki based on the fact, that the
> servers are located in the US, therefore we can rely the more liberal
> US "fair use" concept. We marked them with warning messages that these
> are not free images, and might be deleted in the future.
>
> However, it is my understanding that with the Resolution, the
> Foundation's intent was to close this loophole and make the projects
> accept rules that don't make it illegal to distribute the content in
> their home countries without breaking the law.
>
> Disclosure: I'm a free content person and would prefer a solution
> similar to EsWiki, DeWiki and others where they only allow images from
> Commons. But there are several other editors who would rather have
> more images and don't really worry about copyright, free content and
> ease of reuse as long as their articles are well illustrated.
>
> We started to draft our EDP, but it would be nice to have this
> clarification from the Foundation: do they want the projects to
> collect content that is free to redistribute in their home countries
> or is it OK, that it doesn't break US copyright laws?
>
> Thanks again,
> nyenyec
>
> On 4/5/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
> > Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> >
> > >On 4/3/07, Nyenyec N <nyenyec(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > >[snip]
> > >
> > >
> > >>Let's take album covers as an example. Hungary, just like Germany
> > >>doesn't have a broad equivalent of "fair use". According to Hungarian
> > >>law, album covers cannot be distributed without permission.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >I think we need a FAQ point that says:
> > >
> > >Q: "But my country doesn't have anything like fair use / fair dealing"
> > >A: "You're probably incorrect."
> > >
> > >See the current Hungarian copyright act, (Act LXXVI of 1999, I have no
> > >clue how to cite Hungarian law).
> > >
> > >I'm fairly confidence that you have some degree of fair use, ...
> > >although it may not be as permissive as US law, the Wikimedia policy
> > >is focused on the part of fair use which should be most widely
> > >available (the part required to prevent copyright from being used to
> > >effectively stop free speech).
> > >
> > One also needs to consider the extent to which the fair practice
> > provisions of the Berne Convention apply to Hungary as a signatory.
> >
> > Ec
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
Bonjour,
je suis le gérant de Linterweb la société éditrice de la version 0.5.
Concernant le prix :
Tout d'abord j'avais fixé ce prix à environ 10 euros car :
19.6 % de TVA soit donc environ : 2 euros
cout de fabrication et de distribution : 2 euros
cout de frais de banque : 1 euros ( paiement en ligne
+ paiement en devise étrangère )
cout de la diffusion (publicité) : 1 euro ( affiliation +
rapporteur d'affaire : vivastreet.co.uk)
A celà vient s'ajouter
cout d'avocat : 200 euros
cout de développement 3 mois un ingénieur et 1 mois de designer.
cout du serveur pour héberger wikipediaondvd.com : 69 euros HT / mois
cout du serveur pour héberger regipub.com : 69 euros HT / mois
cout du serveur de développement afin de générer les dumps 1500 euros.
cout de la gestion administrative ( facture, contact avec les partenaires
,...)
cout de l'administration des serveurs.
cout des traduction anglaises.
Plus évidement les coûts de droits d'utilisation reverser à la fondation.
C'est vrai que je reconnais que le prix de revient pour un CD est élevé
mais ce prix restera inchangé dès lors que nous resterons sur un seul CD ou
DVD.
D'un autre côté, il nous a fallu mobiliser des forces afin de gagner ce
projet que nous avons monté en trois mois, et que les dépenses que nous
avons réalisé ont été intégralement avancé par ma société.
Nous souhaitons une relation de longue durée avec la fondation puisque nous
n'avons pas été au plus offrant concernant les partenaires, nous avons
choisi la solidité cinram pour la production de CD // DVD, Jonquas pour la
distribution, ...
Et que d'autre part notre moteur de recherche est prêt pour accueillir les
différentes version puisqu'est en ligne sur www.wikipediasearch.net/.
Compte tenu des dépenses et de l'implication que nous avons fourni, le prix
me semble finalement bien bas :)
Cordialement
Martin Pascal
01 49 20 99 07
Hello everybody,
If I recall correctly, the term of three board members (Erik, Oscar
and Kat) will end in june this year. That will mean elections. I would
like to start a civil discussion on what (if anything) should be
changed compared to last year in the procedure, so the elections will
be as nice as possible.
There are a few points I would like to bring in myself:
1) The number of candidates
Lat year, there were 15 candidates for 1 seat. A complaint heard a lot
of tmes was that it was very hard to read all the statements. There
was just too much to read. This year, there will be three seats to
decide over, and the community has in the mean while more then
doubled. It is thus very likely that the number of people willing to
be candidate will increase even more. How to keep it possible for
human beings (i.e. the people who are not able to keep track of this
list ;-) ) to read enough of all candidates to make a proper choise,
not just based on "he's american, i dont like him for that reason. I
know her, lets vote on her. He's French, and we dont want too many
french people, so oppose" and other not very rational reasons. Because
you force people to irrationalism when you make it too hard to decide
rationally.
So somehow we should be able to decrease the amount of information,
without breaking down the quality of it. That is possible by somehow
making a selection in the candidates. Somehow we should be able which
candidates should make a good chance in the elections. But without
letting an "authority" decide how imho! (elections shouldnt be
influenced by an authority that much)
I see roughly two ways to go there:
1.1) Pre-elections
We could have, like in many presidential elections, have two
elections. The first would be to decrease the number of candidates.
The candidates we want in the final elections would be selected by an
election. For instance, we have three seats available. We could have
then select the six best in the pre-election, and let them go on the
the "Finals". Disadvantage is that you still have to read everything
(but maybe not that thorougly) in the first round.
1.2) Pre-*s*election
We could state extra conditions to become candidate. For instance, you
need 25 or 50 supports of your candidature by different Wikimedians
with >1000 edits and 9 months experience on one project. Just for
instance, the numbers can easily be changed. It's about the idea.
Every serious candidate should be able to get these endorsements, and
the candidates who won't state any chance, wont get these
endorsements. Disadvantage is that you won't be able to foresee how
many candidates there will be. Another disadvantage is that you will
have bureaucratic problems with the checking of the endorsements.
2) the time
Last year, the elections took three whole weeks. I think it should be
possible to shorten this period. In real life elections usually take
one day. I can understand that it should take some longer in an online
community, as people can be at work, temporarily very busy etc. But on
the other hand, these elections demand quite a work from the
candidates, and I think it will also mean usually that the board will
not decide a lot of things. (As it is not very good to decide while
being voted on you) Thus, a three week period seems a bit long to me.
I think it should be possible to have the final elections in 3-10 days
on the condition that it is outside the summer vacation.
I hope for all your ideas on this, and I hope that the discussion will
be fruitfull. I don't know exactly who will be arranging the
elections, and who is final responsible for the rules etc of it, the
foundation or the community.
Yours sincerely,
Lodewijk Gelauff
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 4/11/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think some people may miss where the essential difference between
>> taking a stand against oppresive laws and obeying culturally distinct
>> legal practises arises, and you might perhaps clarify it slightly.
>
> In essence, deliberately violating the laws and standards of a
> particular jurisdiction is a very consequential decision and needs to
> be considered carefully on all levels of organization and community.
> The default is: OBEY
I would phrase it even more carefully. We do not deliberately violate
the laws of any jurisdiction, or encourage anyone to violate laws to
which they are subject. However, the Wikimedia Foundation cannot
simultaneously be subject to the laws of all jurisdictions, particularly
as some of these conflict with each other. Accordingly, it is sometimes
necessary to operate without regard to some laws for some jurisdictions,
but even then we do not deliberately seek to violate the law.
--Michael Snow
Hello,
I am interested in finding out what models or processes different
projects use to decide adminship. And especially how those processes
adapt as the wiki community grows.
Note: this is not an invitation to bitch about the administrators at
your (least)favourite project.
There are some common views about adminship:
* Adminship is an expression of trust of an individual by the community.
* Adminship is decided by community consensus.
* Adminship represents a person taking on a janitorial role, doing
maintenance or "meta community" work rather than [in addition to?]
content-building work.
* Admins are wiki community leaders?
* Adminship is no big deal?
In technical terms, the admin has several extra functions at their disposal:
* un/protect pages from editing or moving, edit protected pages
* un/delete pages, view deleted pages
* un/block users
* rollback edits (basically redundant since the introduction of 'undo'
functionality)
Admin status is easier to get than it is to revoke. Admin status
doesn't have an expiry date [...yet???] and de-adminship requires
contacting a steward and demonstrating community consensus for the
de-adminship decision.
The word 'status' implies something that is often felt, that adminship
is recognitition of one's work/worth in a wiki, like a reward; that
admins are "above" "regular" users or their opinions hold more sway.
Admins generally can perform actions like declaring a discussion
closed, even though any user, even unregistered, could make the same
edit. I have a suspicion that an admin performing the action is seen
as making it "official", though.
Admins are often looked to for help, by new users. Sometimes an
"administrator's noticeboard" exists, although all users can generally
edit it.
Does it matter if admins are inactive? Does it matter if admins edit
actively but don't use their admin tools? Do they have to keep using
them to "deserve" them?
If admins are looked to for help and as community leaders, is not
having inactive admins somewhat deceptive?
Meta has an adminship policy I am quite fond of:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Administrator_on_Meta
"Sysop-hood is not a lifetime status. Get it if you need it. Keep it
if people trust you. Quit it if you do not need it. Lose it if people
feel they cannot trust you. Sysop status on meta will be granted for
one year. After that time, people will be able to vote to oppose a
sysop. If there is no opposition for the sysop to stay sysop, then
they stay sysop. If opposition is voiced, then the sysop may lose
sysopship if support falls below 75%. No quorum is required. It is not
a vote to gain support status, but a poll to express disagreement with
the current situation. The point is not to bug everyone to vote to
support the sysop again (if there is no opposition, there is no point
in voting your support again), the point is to not allow sysop-hood
status to stay a lifetime status. If a sysop is not really strongly
infringing rules, but is creating work for the community because of a
lack of trust, then it is best that people have the possibility to
express their opposition."
But I wonder if it is not kind of a lot of work.
Who are the RfA voters?
Once a community reaches a certain size, it's not possible to know
everyone and notice their work just by glancing over Recentchanges
every few days. It becomes more necessary to rely on trusted
testimonials. I trust User A's judgement, and User A endorses
Candidate B, so I will endorse Candidate B too. It encourages
something of the dreaded "cabal", a tight-knit group which it is not
possible to break into simply by doing good work - you need to "know"
the right people to succeed. I guess we all want to avoid that, but
when the wiki is so big, how is it possible?
Many people here will be familiar with English Wikipedia RfA, where
people's support or opposition for a candidate can rely on seemingly
trivial and ever-more-specific requirements. It is doubtful whether
all the current admins would pass such requirements, but they manage
to keep their adminship by virtue of not doing anything worrying or
damaging enough to have it removed.
I guess I am not the only person who is active on a non-enwp project,
and who wonders how RfA evolving like enwp can be avoided. I want to
know what other possible evolutionary paths are there? How can I help
influence my project to a more healthy, sustainable model?
So I want to know some ideas that other wikis use. Meta's "1 year
confirmation" is one. What else is there? What else could there be?
While writing this mail it occurred to me that perhaps part of the
problem is multiple goals being conflated in adminship, ie "janitor
role" "community leadership". There are few ways to be considered a
community leader, I would posit, apart from adminship. Sure, if you're
lucky, someone might throw you a barnstar, but it's not like
*official* *community endorsement*.
Perhaps we need to create a post for designated community leaders.
(Community Leaders -please brainstorm a better term...)
Declaring someone a Community Leader would be an expression of trust
and endorsement. It would be an explicit recognition of a user's
worth, their contribution, to that wiki. It would be decided by
community consensus. It would not represent a janitorial role or
maintenance work, quite the opposite - it would represent someone who
excels at a particular (or multiple) aspect of collaborative content
building.
There would be a page with a list - official endorsement. Community
Leaders would represent very good "go to" people for new users needing
help in some area.
There would probably be very high overlap between admins and Community
Leaders, especially at the start. As the process became stronger, it
would be much clearer for new users who want to contribute, which
process (RfCL/RfA) is appropriate for what they want to achieve. For
status in the community, one should aim to be a Community Leader.
And then maybe adminship would really become "no big deal". Instead of
dealing with so many disputes, admins would be more about enacting the
decisions made by Community Leaders - a better reflection of the
division between the community role and the technical/maintenance role
that are currently both conflated within "adminship".
I welcome any ideas about all of this.
regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise