Wikimedia-l November 2008

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

121 participants
93 discussions

Re: [Foundation-l] Suggestions for GFDL-CC harmonization FAQ
by Mike Godwin 07 Nov '08

07 Nov '08

David Gerard writes: > "So what's wrong with the GFDL?" > > That's gotta be the first question, and you should be able to manage > five paragraphs without pausing. I am so excited by David Gerard's implicit volunteering to draft a great answer to this great question! (Evil laughter.) --Mike

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[Foundation-l] Attachment to email thas has not been posted yet.
by Patrick Warren 07 Nov '08

07 Nov '08

I am aware that my work is guided mainly by FREE Domain software for all That I do (well somewhat all) and that is why i just lightly toched on that subj in my email. I proably should'nt have even said anything. I appologize for that oversight. Pat

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[Foundation-l] Please help debug new fundraising pages
by Erik Moeller 06 Nov '08

06 Nov '08

If all goes well, we will begin publicizing our annual campaign for 2008-2009 tomorrow, using sitenotices, a press release, etc. (Yes, we're aware of that little election happening at the same time - it's not entirely unwelcome.) We've just taken the new donation front-end live here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate (and related links.) You can also test our initial batch of site-notices here: http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (If you're logged in, you may have to reset your interface language. The notice should reflect the existing translations.) Click "random page" a few times to see the different notices. If you give, the thermometer should update within 10 minutes or so. Please report any issues on-list or off-list to <rmontoya at wikimedia dot org>. When reporting issues, please make sure you tell us your browser configuration and operating system. Known issues to be addressed over the coming days and weeks, not in this order: 1. Translation of non-Core pages to more languages. 2. Longer, searchable Live Comments features 3. Set minimum donation script for $1 (or equivalent) 4. Next set of 3 or 4 site notices 5. Enable wiki-specific site notices for other wiki projects. i.e. The site notice for Wikibooks would read "Wikibooks is a non-profit project: Donate today." 6. Re-launch the donations page with the Chapter related giving options (http://dev.donate.wikimedia.org/index.php/Donate/Now2/en). 7. Rupees as a currency. 8. Re-work the Stories page for translating. 9. Take live the new "Thank you" page shown after donations ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Thank_You ) Thanks to the fundraising & tech teams for all their work on this so far. :-) -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] Donation campaign story on Slashdot firehose
by David Gerard 06 Nov '08

06 Nov '08

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=1710461 Please click up! Also, if you don't like that writeup, feel free to submit one yourself. - d.

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[Foundation-l] GNU FDL FAQ
by Klaus Graf 06 Nov '08

06 Nov '08

My main question is: What exactly means attribution for Wikipedia re-users? Here are some options: (i) WMF decides that new content can be accepted only if the author agrees that attribution means mentioning the Wikipedia. (ii) WMF decides that new content can be accepted only if the author agrees to a main authors rule established and invented by the WMF (as I have shown it is a myth that the 5 main authors rule is the essential rule for the GNU FDL attribution) (iii) Attribution means that a list of all contributor names (of a document, i.e. Wikipedia article) is necessary. (i) Attribution means that a list of all contributor names and IP numbers is necessary. (Please note that an IP "represents" the author in WMF projects.) Please consider: Any change of the GNU FDL has to be similar in spirit. This means that the main principles in the preamble cannot be changed: "Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others." I cannot see that a CC-BY-SA re-use with simply Wikipedia as attribution would fullfil this criterium. Here are another questions: * Will there be an opt-out (i.e. deletion) possibility for authors which doesn't want their content dual-licensed? * Will WMF delete all content of users and ban them permanently for all WMF projects if they - don't share WMF's licensing interpretations - announce legal actions with the purpose to make a court test of the validity of the GNU FDL update and/or WMF's license interpretations? Klaus Graf

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Re: [Foundation-l] Stable versions live on de.wp
by THURNER rupert 05 Nov '08

05 Nov '08

it seems that people enter articles into quality assurance more often than before having the flags - which at the end leads to higher quality for these articles. but i am unsure if this feeling can be better prooved somehow. one thing seems to be a bug: with ff3 on linux i always get the flagged revision and not the most current one, even if i unchecked "show flagged revision" in the preferences. rupert. On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 2:02 PM, THURNER rupert <thurner.rupert(a)redleo.org> wrote: > it seems that people enter articles into quality assurance more often > than before having the flags - which at the end leads to higher > quality for these articles. but i am unsure if this feeling can be > better prooved somehow. > > one thing seems to be a bug: with ff3 on linux i always get the > flagged revision and not the most current one, even if i unchecked > "show flagged revision" in the preferences. > > rupert. > > On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> 2008/5/7 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>: >>> Erik Moeller wrote: >>> >>>> In a nutshell, FlaggedRevs makes it possible to assign >>>> quality tags to individual article revisions, and to alter default >>>> views based on the available tags. >>> >>>> Aka hacked up a nice script that shows how many pages have been >>>> "sighted" (basic vandalism check) on the German Wikipedia: >>>> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~aka/cgi-bin/reviewcnt.cgi?lang=english >>>> >>>> Given that FlaggedRevs has just been live for a day or so, a review >>>> rate of 4.41% is quite impressive! >>> >>> Wait now. When FlaggedRevs was first mentioned, the press started >>> to announce that censorship was being planned for Wikipedia. >>> This was countered with the explanation that flagging was a more >>> open regime than page locking. We no longer have to lock pages on >>> controversial topics, because we can allow free editing as long as >>> the non-logged-in majority gets to see the flagged/approved >>> version. >>> >>> Is it really "impressive" to have this new "soft locking" >>> mechanism applied to a large number of pages? Wouldn't it be >>> better to show how few pages were in need of this protection? >>> And at the same time, to mention how many previously locked pages >>> have now been unlocked in the name of increased openness? >> >> No, I don't think so. Having a flag on a page is just a way of saying >> "this version is ok". Would it not be much better to have a version >> that is 'ok' for ALL pages rather than just the controversial ones? >> Would it really be a good thing to say "Only these few pages have >> versions that are okay, we have no idea about the others, but we see >> no reason to think they're not okay?" >> >> >> -- >> Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com >> ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels >> >> _______________________________________________ >> foundation-l mailing list >> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >> >

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[Foundation-l] "Expertise" board seats: the NomCom invites your feedback
by Sue Gardner 05 Nov '08

05 Nov '08

Hey folks, As you know, the board recently created a Nominating Committee to help it identify, research and recommend candidates for the appointed Board of Trustee positions involving "specific expertise." The members of the committee are me, Michael Snow, BirgitteSB, Milos Rancic, Melissa Hagemann and Ting Chen. We've brainstormed a list of selection criteria here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nominating_Committee/Selection_criteria - and now need to cut it back from about two dozen to eight. If you're interested, we'd like your help. Please comment on the talk page re which criteria you think are most important, and also let us know if you feel anything is missing. Thanks, Sue Our rough timeline, in case you're interested: 1.Michael Snow, on behalf of the Board, will brief the Nominating Committee regarding its role, the restructuring, and the board's assessment of its own strengths and skills gaps. By August 30 DONE 2.Based on that briefing, the Nominating Committee will generate a set of criteria for potential “specific expertise” board members. By September 15 3.The staff of the Foundation will deliver to the Nominating Committee the list of potential candidates that has been developed by the staff, current Board members and supporters and friends of Wikimedia. By September 15 DONE (by Michael) 4.The Nominating Committee will brainstorm and solicit additional names, and add them to the total list. By September 30 IN PROGRESS 5.The Nominating Committee will research the names which have been put forward, and assess their fit against the selection criteria developed earlier. This will result in a midlist of candidates. By October 30 6.The Nominating Committee will initiate discussions with midlist candidates to gauge their interest, provide them with information, and respond to questions or concerns. By November 14 7.The Nominating Committee will cull the midlist and deliver to the board a final list of interested candidates who fit the criteria for the "specific expertise" roles. The goal will be to give the board a full briefing on the top eight candidates for the four "expertise" seats, along with a recommendation for the four who the Nominating Committee thinks would be the best fit. By November 14 8.The community board members (Michael, Kat, Frieda, Domas, Ting, and Jimmy) will vote to determine who will fill the four seats. By December 15 9.Nominating Committee orients new board members. January and February 10. Nominating Committee supports the board with other board development tasks as requested. March, April, May, June -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment: help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Foundation-l] Stable versions live on de.wp
by Mike.lifeguard 05 Nov '08

05 Nov '08

Also worth noting that there are many communities which have decided to follow suit, but are waiting on implementation. Otherwise, I'd have some feedback for you. There is a test wiki at en.labs.wikimedia.org if you haven't yet tried it out. -Mike ---- Mike.lifeguard mikelifeguard(a)fastmail.fm

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[Foundation-l] Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline
by Milos Rancic 04 Nov '08

04 Nov '08

At the page [1] you may see complete data for a number of lists (of bigger projects). Below this email is my analysis of data. In brief, you may read inside of the analysis: * Almost all lists are in decrease. * Decrease varies between rare significant, but not high decreases and rare dead lists. In other words, the most of the lists are in significant decrease: Some of them since 2005, more of since 2007-2008. Positive and "positive" trends: * Technical lists show the smallest amount of decrease. * Two [of analyzed] lists -- textbook-l and wikija-l -- show *increase* of traffic! It would be good to analyze why it is so. Maybe they have the answer to our problem: increasing of list traffic usually means that community is increasing. (Or they are just in the earlier phase, which means that they will show decrease of traffic during the next year or two.) "Trivia": * Russian Wikipedians don't use WMF based lists for their communication. (Or they don't use mailing lists at all, which seems to me less possible.) * Portuguese list doesn't have extension "-l" in the name. So, some numbers are analyzed. Unlike simple claims like "foundation-l traffic decreased", we have now significant enough data: decrease is systematic, not only at one list and in amount of emails, but on almost all of [analyzed, bigger] lists and in amount of new and active participants. This shows very well that our community and our communities are not so alive like they had been in the past. And to be more clear. If we take a look at traffic at this list for Octobers 2006-2008, we may see that the approximation of decline is 20% for the first year and 50% for the second. If this trend continues, we will have ~175 emails during the next October, ~50 during October 2010, ~10 during October 2011. According to the statistics of other lists -- 10 emails during October means no emails between June and September. This means that foundation-l will be in 2012 at the position where wikiquote-l is no (de facto dead list). And some good news: * We have enough time to change things. * If content projects would become history, MediaWiki would be alive for some more time. The question is: Do we have ideas how to make things better? [1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Problems/List/Low_activity_on_mailing_lists * * * == Analysis: Data interpretation == === General lists === * Communication on all general lists are decreasing. Technical lists (wikitech-l and mediawiki-l) are significantly better than general non-technical list foundation-l. Out of other particular cases, technical lists stays the best. === Project lists === * commons-l has very high decrease in traffic, while decreases in number of new and active participants are significant, while not so high. * textbook-l (Wikibooks list) is one of the rare examples which is not in decreasing! * wikimediameta-l increases, while it is a very young list, which should take community part of discussion from foundation-l list. However, increase on this list is not significant enough to cover (at least, partially) decrease at foundation-l. * wikinews-l: Similarly to foundation-l -- significant decrease. * wikipedia-l: It shows very high decrease in all aspects. During the first years it was used as the main list, including for Wikipedia in English. Decrease 2002-2003 shows moving Wikipedia in English issues to the language specific list -- wikien-l. Decrease 2005-2006 probably shows moving general issues to foundation-l. However, 2006-2008 doesn't have any obvious reason and it follows the similar decrease on the foundation-l list. * wikiquote-l: While it was not a very active list ever, this list is de facto dead from June 2008. * wikisource-l: While it was not a very active list ever, it shows ''not'' significant decrease during 2008. * wikispecies-l: This list was not significantly active ever and conclusions about time line of its activity can't be made. * wiktionary-l: The list was in decrease during 2006 and again between mid-2007 and present (October 2008). === Per language Wikipedias === * wikide-l: In constant decrease since the first half of 2005. * wikien-l: In decrease since the beginning of 2008. * wikies-l: In increase from the second part of 2006 and during 2007, but in decrease during 2008; the second part 2008 has less traffic than the second part of 2006. * wikifr-l: In constant decrease since the end of 2005. * wikiit-l: In constant decrease since the beginning of 2007. * wikija-l: The only analyzed Wikipedia list which shows increase of traffic -- since the beginning of 2006. * wikipl-l: In constant decrease since the second half of 2005. * wikipt: While it was never a very active list, it is almost dead (3 emails for October 2008, no emails between June and September). * wikiru-l: Data shows that the community around Wikipedia in Russian doesn't use wikiru-l as their mailing list. * wikizh-l: In constant decrease since the second half of 2006.

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[Foundation-l] Social networking (was: Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline)
by Milos Rancic 04 Nov '08

04 Nov '08

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote: > There are many who seem to feel that using Wikipedia for socializing > and fun is contrary to our mission, especially if it attracts people > who aren't contributors to the encyclopedia. Personally, I think > that's nonsense, and the community benefits from increased cohesion > when there is fun and socializing to be had, but I realize that many > people don't see it that way. There are three issues here: * If the point is that a part of the community doesn't want to have social networking because of the principles -- besides your (positive) point -- I have one more (negative): We are not able to choose anymore what do we like, we are in the critical position and we desperately need some fresh blood. Even it may be not so obvious at the field, leaving this discussion for the next year this time -- may be too late. * For those who really don't want to have social networking options, there should be an option "turn it off". * I think that I am not the only one who is using social networking sites just to be in touch with friends. And a lot of my friends are Wikimedians; and I am more interested in their Wikimedian activities than what did they do at Elven Blood :) However, I think that games at some future social networking for Wikimedia projects would be much better: there are a lot of possible educational games which may be very nice. On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 5:47 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexandria(a)gmail.com> wrote: > We should keep in mind that there is a much broader community out > there beyond Wikimedians, who are interested in cooperative efforts in > promoting priojects. > > Personally, we've had great success working with the 2 Students For > Free Culture chapters in New York City, who have supported Wikimedia > projects as ardently as any Wikimedians. > > On a level of real-life organization, there should be no sharp line > between people with Wikimedia user accounts and those without. The > basic skills in organizing real-life events and projects are > orthogonal to particular technical skills or specializations. > > What we really need is a social networking site for the whole Free > Culture/Open Source community, so that we can build a thousand > coalitions in a thousand different cities. > > In researching this idea, I happened upon this proposal last year from > the Free Software Foundation for a "Planet Libre": > > http://www.libervis.com/article/july_2007_letter_to_free_software_foundatio… > > That particular initiative appears to have foundered over recent > months. I suggest we should revive it, and in cooperation with Free > Software Foundation, develop a "Planet Libre" social networking site > based on Elgg. I would like to see such social networking site. But, I am skeptical about making one another social networking site. I've got calls for some academic and free society social networking sites, but I don't see them as active. Maybe it may function in some areas, like Orkut functions well in Brazil (I saw one more in Russia and one more in India). But, none of them is near to even MySpace, not to talk about Facebook. At the other side, Wikipedia has the potential to gather significant community. We don't even need a notice at the site. We just need to make it and to tell that to the world. And we will be in this position for some time; at least until Wikipedia is at the top ten sites. Also, I am sure that free software community would treat Wikimedia social networking platform as their own.

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Wikimedia-l November 2008