Wikimedia-l January 2008

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

162 participants
205 discussions

Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Legal obligation to report Wikipedia
by Durova 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

It also appears that OrangeMarlin was quoting an outdated version of the Army regulation. An excerpt from the linked 2005 revision follows: http://docs.usapa.belvoir.army.mil/jw2/xmldemo/r25_1/head.asp *e. Authorized uses of communication systems. Authorized use includes brief communications made by DOD employees while they are traveling on Government business to notify family members of transportation or schedule changes. They also include personal communications from the DOD employee's usual workplace that are most reasonably made while at the work place (such as checking in with spouse or minor children; scheduling doctor and auto or home repair appointments; brief Internet searches; e-mailing directions to visiting relatives). Such communications may be permitted, provided they — * *(1) Do not adversely affect the performance of official duties by the employee or the employee's organization. * *(2) Are of reasonable duration and frequency, and, whenever possible, are made during the employee's personal time, such as during lunch, break, and other off-duty periods). * -Durova

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[Foundation-l] Promotion of lesser known projects
by Klaus Graf 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

> From: Florence Devouard <anthere(a)anthere.org> > Subject: [Foundation-l] My 10 wishes list for 2008 > 2. Promotion of lesser known projects > Whilst Wikipedia has probably reached the top of its fame in the press > of many nations, and enjoys the largest communities, other wikimedia > projects are being increasingly successful. Commons has now over > 2.000.000 free objects and is a unique case of multilingual > community-based project. The largest Wiktionary is not english speaking, > but french-speaking, a unique situation in wikimedia project and > probably a showcase for the francophony. Wikibooks now hosts several > high quality books, and also receive as donations, books originally > under regular copyright protection and released under a free license, > again, showcases of the interest of the educational world for the free > movement. > I would like these projects to be shown more attention by the > Foundation, including more promotion efforts in conferences, press > release and promotional leaflets, more interest to their specific > technical needs, and more representativity of their communities. One can add de.Wikisource which is a project making historical Public Domain texts in German available with high quality standards. These standards are NOT (yet) shared by the other Wikisource projects, see also http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#The_huge_leap Only de.Wikisource demands scanned texts (or digital photos) for contributions, most other Wikisource branches have a lot of texts which are unsourced. De.Wikisource has notes commenting the texts for lots of texts. Klaus Graf

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[Foundation-l] Trademark problem
by Mohamed Magdy 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

Hello Shouldn't http://www.wikipedia-watch.org be renamed to any other name without 'wikipedia' in it? --user:alnokta

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[Foundation-l] NLT and UCMJ
by Mike Godwin 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

I'm probably missing something, but it doesn't seem to me to be a legal threat if one editor notifies another editor that the latter's participation may raise UCMJ or regulations problems. This is not the same thing as threatening to sue. Nor does it strike me as a legal threat to note that some members of the armed forces may be compelled by UCMJ or related regulation to report on-wiki activity that looks like a serviceman (or servicewoman) violating regulation or policy. To me, a legal threat would look something like this: "If you don't do X (or cease doing Y), then I'm going to report you to the authorities and get you in trouble with your CO." It would *not* look like this: "I'm just letting you know that your participation in this way may create problems for you under the UCMJ or regulations, especially because some of us are obligated by that legal framework to report apparent violations." --Mike

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[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Legal obligation to report Wikipedia editor under UCMJ (Mike G weigh in?)
by Nathan 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_e… This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse. Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue? Nathan

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Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Legal obligation to report
by Durova 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

It is not irrelevant if the most up to date AF regulation permits some personal use of the government resource. ****** Agreed: it's quite relevant to see what the current AF regulation is. It would also make sense to determine whether that branch of service provides recreational computer labs. If it does then it's probably safe to assume the editor was using one unless specific evidence indicates otherwise. Edit time stamps aren't necessarily indicative because military working hours can be variable. The editor who made these allegations cited an outdated version of an Army regulation, misidentified it as UCMJ, and supposed that a member of the Air Force was in violation. I really think the obligation rested with that editor to research the matter better before making statements that worried the rest of us. -Durova

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[Foundation-l] Mailing list subjects tag lines
by NavouWiki 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

Let us try to cut out the [Wiken-l] from our subject if we are posting on foundation-l and vice versa. I am not sure of anyone else, but for me, it confuses my filters and I get duplicates at every mail destination. That is to say, I get a copy of the mail in my wikien, foundation, otrs0l, and so on, folders. Thank you all for the consideration. Best regards, Mercury.

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[Foundation-l] Legal obligation to report
by Durova 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

I don't know if its important to this discussion, but the UCMJ is a class apart from standard criminal and civil law. I imagine they have some class of civil remedies (fines, surrender of wages, etc.) in addition to criminal penalties (as opposed to having a type of legal action that is categorically not criminal), but not being an expert in the UCMJ at all 'crime' or 'violation' are probably the most accurate terms. Nathan ****** Did anybody read my last post? This passage isn't in the UCMJ. It's an Army regulation. Videmus Omnia is in a different branch of service. -Durova

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[Foundation-l] UCMJ and Wikimedia
by Mike Godwin 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

Nathan asks: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_e… > > This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including > in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work > for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to > report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because > that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is > true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse. > > Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue? My professional opinion is that we are under no obligation to either (a) enforce the UCMJ as to editors who happen to be in the military, or (b) categorically bar those who are subject to the UCMJ, which probably includes but is not exclusive to those with .mil addresses, because the they have professional obligations to report (purported) violations of the UCMJ. We know to a reasonable certainty that there are editors with ties to law enforcement, military, and anti-espionage agencies. I don't see how we can reasonably police their engagement with our services in a categorical way. Obviously, we may choose to bar particular users based on their behavior, which may include violation of Wikimedia's privacy policies. But I could not endorse any measure that categorically barred anyone with a .mil address from editing. --Mike

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Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Legal obligation to report
by Durova 02 Jan '08

02 Jan '08

Has anyone mentioned what portion of the UCMJ this is under? At least reading it might give us a better idea instead of shooting in the dark. Chad ******* I didn't recall seeing that in the UCMJ so I did a little basic research. OrangeMarlin appears to be mistaken about the source. He states: *UCMJ makes no distinction between using the internet on or off duty. It specifically states that ''D-2. Users will employ Internet access for official, unclassified U.S. Government business only.**''* http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Orangemarlin&diff=18147… I located that statement along with the D-2 article designation not in the UCMJ but in the official Army Internet Policy. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:iB5a-rJWcL8J:www.fas.org/irp/doddir/ar… Here's the UCMJ for comparison: no mention of the Internet. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm So since Videmus Omnia says he's a member of the U.S. Air Force, the Army regulation wouldn't apply to him. It's entirely possible that the Air Force might have a corresponding policy; I really couldn't say. When I was in the Navy it certainly wasn't a safe assumption to suppose that personal use of Navy computers was improper. It was commonplace for bases to operate computer labs for that very purpose - they were often in recreational centers or base-run coffee houses. A ship of any size at all generally had a crew library with several computers. We signed an agreement that forebade us from downloading pornography and some other obviously problematic activities, but otherwise we were free to do what we wanted online during off-duty hours. -Durova

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Wikimedia-l January 2008