Wikimedia-l December 2008

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132 participants
80 discussions

[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation applauds IWF decision to reverse Wikipedia censorship in the United Kingdom
by Jay Walsh 11 Dec '08

11 Dec '08

We're quite pleased to share this information with you. This press release was distributed a few hours ago - we now have the news posted on the WMF wiki and we've updated the blog. Thanks are owed to many volunteers who spoke to the media and spread the word about this situation, as well as those who have been working on these and similar issues for quite some time. Thank you for helping to make this possible! Best, -- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609 > > 'Wikimedia Foundation applauds IWF decision to reverse Wikipedia > censorship in the United Kingdom' > Removal from Internet blacklist will also allow UK Wikipedians to > resume editing > > San Francisco CA, December 9 - Earlier today the Internet Watch > Foundation (IWF), a non-profit agency tasked with preventing access > to potentially illegal internet content, reversed its ruling earlier > this week that prevented over 95% of UK internet users from > accessing an article about an album by a German rock band, The > Scorpions. As a result, UK Wikipedia users were unable to access all > of the editing functions on Wikipedia. With this decision, the IWF > has removed Wikipedia from its internet 'blacklist.' > > "We are grateful to the IWF for making this swift decision, and to > thousands of internet users from around the world for their > outpouring of support," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the > Wikimedia Foundation. "Millions of Britons now have access to all of > Wikipedia, and volunteers can resume their important editing work. > The Wikimedia Foundation greatly admires the work of our volunteers > - they care deeply about Wikipedia and are the first responders in > dealing with potentially illegal content on Wikipedia." Gardner > added that both the Foundation and its community of users "work hard > to be responsive and responsible when it comes to legitimate legal > concerns." > > Mike Godwin, General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation stated: > "We recognize the good intentions of Internet watch groups, > including their focus on blocking and discouraging illegal content. > Nevertheless, this incident underscores the need for transparency > and accountability in the processes of the Internet Watch Foundation > and similar bodies around the world." > > Added Godwin, "In the long run, monitoring groups need to develop a > public set of 'best practices.' These best practices should, at a > minimum, decrease the impact on content found to be lawful, > acknowledge the context in which the content at issue occurs, and be > maximally transparent both to service providers and to individual > users. There should be no false or misleading error messages when > online censorship does occur." > > The Wikimedia Foundation had criticized the the lack of transparency > in the IWF's decision making and appeal process, as well as the > suspension of editing functions that resulted following the > censorship. UK Wikipedia editors account for over 25% of all editing > activity on the English Wikipedia. > > The Wikimedia Foundation is open to dialog on these issues with the > IWF and other Internet watch groups. > > Wikipedia, the fourth most-visited website in the world, is funded > in large part by donations from its users. The Wikimedia Foundation > is in the midst of its fifth global giving campaign. For more > information, visit http://donate.wikimedia.org > > > 'About the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia' > wikimediafoundation.org > wikipedia.org > > The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which > operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore, > Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia > Foundation receive more than 270 million unique visitors per month, > making them the 4th most popular web property world-wide. Available > in more than 265 languages, Wikipedia provides more than 11 million > articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than > 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia > Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily > through donations and grants. > > --- > > For more information, contact: > > Jay Walsh > Head of Communications > Wikimedia Foundation > jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org > +1 415-839-6885, ext 609 > http://blog.wikimedia.org/ > > (To be unsubscribed from this distribution list, please reply with > the subject: Unsubscribe) > >

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[Foundation-l] Usability: Is our vocabulary SNAFU?
by Ziko van Dijk 11 Dec '08

11 Dec '08

About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in help pages: * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person in a discussion) * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude Jargon (sometimes specialist's language) cannot be totally avoided, and it is good for community cohesion. But it would be a good step towards usability thinking before using jargon: is it really necessary here, is it comprehensive to everybody, even if "help:glossary" mentions it? Ziko -- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde

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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Nederland wins preliminary injunction Sijthoff
by Ziko van Dijk 10 Dec '08

10 Dec '08

Forwarded with congratulations to the Dutch board: http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Nederland_wint_kort_geding_Sijthoff/… Ziko -- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde

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[Foundation-l] Sexual images of questionable provenance
by Nathan 10 Dec '08

10 Dec '08

There have been a number of discussion on the English Wikipedia lately (sparked, of course, by the Virgin Killer image controversy) on the propriety of various images and the need for retaining them on Wikipedia. This is a problem that has a long history on Wikipedia, and a number of controls are in place - limited ability to post explicit images on new articles, some filtering of newly uploaded images to delete those that are obviously duplicative, exhibitionist, etc. Many comments we've had in the last few days concerned the legality of various images, particularly where consent is not demonstrated or verifiable. I've commented [1] that the legality issue shouldn't be a major concern for English Wikipedia editors, because the Foundation itself ought to have limited liability and the individual uploaders have primary culpability for any illegal images. But I still think that there is a community issue here, and I wonder if someone can fill in the details on how we currently deal with it. How well is the Commons guideline COM:PEOPLE enforced with respect to sexual images? Do the many projects with separate image databases generally have similar guidelines? Does anyone know how well they are enforced? In a discussion this past weekend someone else and I were discussing examples of problem images, where the person in an explicit photograph is of questionable age. I realized after a quick survey on Commons of image origins that many of the explicit images are sourced to a single Flickr account. The license of the images was verified closer to the time of upload, but since then the Flickr account has been deactivated. We have no knowledge of the consent of the photographed models, nor any mechanism for verifying their age, and many if not most of the images are unused on Wikipedia projects (which is true, I suspect, for many sexually explicit photographs in general). The whole category of images [3] was previously put up for deletion [2] but the discussion was closed in favor of individual image reviews, which I understand mostly closed as keep. I don't think the Foundation itself can or should do anything about this issue in most cases, but I think the topic deserves some wider discussion and reconsideration - not necessarily as a response to the IWF debacle, but taking that as an opportunity to get a wider audience. Of note is Jimmy's recommendation to the en.wp community (I assume, since it was posted there) for this sort of reconsideration. [4] Nathan [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&curid=98706… [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Peter_Klashorst… [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Peter_Klashorst [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&curid=98706… -- Your donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] Annual Fundraiser 2008 update
by Rand Montoya 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

Hey All-- A couple of updates on the Annual Fundraiser: 1) A quick update of the community giving stats (gifts less than $10,000) for the first 35 days of the fundraiser: 2007: 31,956 donors giving a total of $895,405.01. Average gift is $28.02. 2008: 53,519 donors giving a total of $1,542,543.41. Average gift is $28.82. We're holding steady about $27K to $30K per day. More and full stats here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics. 2) You can find the latest post about our site notices here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/12/06/site-notices-people-actually-read-them/ Long blog post short: People do read the site notices. Sounds crazy, but they do. Our messaging matters. People love the "Wikipedia is there when you need it - now it needs you"...whereas "Wikipedia: Making Life Easier" has not done as well. 3) Next few site notices were delayed, but will be going live this week. The first two are here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&tem… (left messaging to be tested/changed) http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&tem… We should have two more live by mid-week. 4) In addition to getting more site notices up, we will be working on increasing our conversion rate (the rate for which donors give after they click on a banner). Right now our conversion rate is dropped steadily since the beginning of the fundraiser. It started at 12% or so and now stands closer to 3.5%. I'll be working with a few tweaks to try to push this up a bit...try to close the sale and get those who are thinking about donating to donate. I appreciate all that have contributed ideas and thoughts. You'll be seeing some of those ideas soon. Rand Montoya Head of Community Giving -- Rand Montoya Head of Community Giving Wikimedia Foundation www.wikimedia.org Email: rand(a)wikimedia.org Phone: 415.839.6885 x615 Fax: 415.882.0495 Cell: 510.685.7030 “At some future time, I hope to have something witty, intelligent, or funny in this space.”

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[Foundation-l] fund
by eu777＠mail.bg 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

Dear sirs! My name is IGOR KULAGIN I live in Bulgaria I very much wish to receive any money, but me have warned that it is all a deceit and Swindle. If you think that it not so-then pay for delivery of money in my address or Into my bank account. I the fair person also will send you half of received sum. I wait for your actions and you receive exactly 50 % from the sum received by me. You take from them of 50 % for service, and others of 50 % send on mine The bank account Yours faithfully IGOR KULAGIN BULGARIA, 9101, BYALA, Varnenska obl. ul. Kamchia, 3. POSTBANK, BG 18 BPBI 7945 41 60207201 USD BIC: BPBIBGSF Ph.00359897374324 ------------------------------------- Хостинг от 2.60 лв/м|Домейни от 17.46 лв/с ДДС|Сървъри, VPS от 42.00 лв/м с ДДС 12 GB място, Неограничен трафик, Безплатен домейн – 5.70 лв./м с ДДС! 17 GB място, 700 GB трафик, Безплатен домейн – 11.46 лв./м с ДДС! http://icn.bg/

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening
by Patricia Rodrigues 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

I'd love to know how many English native speakers know what is this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Rami%C4%99_urabiaj%C4%85ce_kombajnu… Uncategorized, used in an article on pl.wikipedia without interwikis, and described only in Polish. I'm guessing some sort of drill, but for all I know it could be a work of art. Sorry, but the language difficulties go both ways. You are asking for Commons to be absolutely multilingual now, that people are instantly and magically warned of deletion requests across projects, when in the end it's managed by a software that is not handling multilingualism in a straightforward way, taken care of by a couple of hundred people that have to put up with all the crap (to not use a stronger word) from hundreds of other wikis, that are beginning to put deletion requests for things that should be deleted straight off so that the uploader actually has time to read through it, that have their actions being questioned on two mailing lists because we don't work hard enough (?) to be fluent in ten different languages and sapient in 200 different copyright laws... sorry but Lars was criticizing things that I think he has right to criticize and at the same time he was giving out ideas to improve things. People who are just bashing for the sake of it better come and try to work ten days in a row on Commons and see the crap we have to go through. If I have to delete one more image of an African minor prostitute taken by so-called artists, I'm going to scream. You come and see what we have to deal with everyday, then start complaining how bad the whole thing works. There are a few people working hard in making Commons a bit more appealing to pt users: there's a specific Commons tutoring program for pt users on pt..wikipedia (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutoria/Commons), there's a local page for local admins to list images with potential problems (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Páginas_para_eliminar/Registros), and following Lars first e-mail I asked the local community for some feedback on what could be improved in usability (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Esplanada/geral#Wikimedia_Commons_e_…). I got *excellent* feedback about things that could be made clearer and will start working on specific documentation to help pt users. And I'll continue to nag devs to solve bug 5925 https://bugzilla..wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5925 which is nothing of importance to most people but has actually makes some difference for non-English users. Yes, I am angry now. I suggest you start woking more on multilingualism on Commons and complaining less. I apologize for being human. Patrícia

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[Foundation-l] frustration vs volunteerism
by Domas Mituzas 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

Somehow following phrase caught my eye today, "Because myself and others have been frustrated by the lack of good stats on the number of active editors on the English Wikipedia, I have compiled some stats on the editing frequency on enwiki:" Are we working on the project because we're frustrated, or because we want to? -- Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]

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[Foundation-l] WP edit/access blocking in the UK - statement from the WMF
by Jay A. Walsh 08 Dec '08

08 Dec '08

Many of you have probably noticed the considerable media coverage over the weekend about blocking of WP content in the UK, and much more alarming, the blocking of WP editing for most UK internet users. The Wikimedia Foundation is concerned about this situation. We are in communication with the responsible self-regulatory authority in the UK, the IWF. To explain our position to the media and among our community of volunteers we will be distributing the following press statement later tonight. Thanks, --- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Censorship_of_WP_in_the_… --- Censorship in the United Kingdom disenfranchises tens of thousands of Wikipedia editors Wikimedia Foundation opposes action by internet watchdog group to blacklist encyclopedia article San Francisco CA, December 7, 2008: As of December 6, 2008, most Internet users in the United Kingdom no longer have full access to Wikipedia. Due to censorship by the UK self-regulatory agency the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), most UK residents can no longer edit the volunteer-written encyclopedia, nor can they access an article in it describing a 32-year-old album by German rock group the Scorpions. Wikipedia visitors in the UK have also reported performance issues accessing the site. The IWF has confirmed to the Wikimedia Foundation that it has added Wikipedia to its blacklist, which also had the unintended consequence of rendering UK-based internet users unable to edit the encyclopedia, and possibly harming the site's performance inside the UK. The IWF says its blacklist is used, on a voluntary basis, by 95% of UK-based residential Internet Service Providers. A statement on the IWF website says it added the Wikipedia article to the blacklist after the article was reported by a user, and an IWF assessment found it to be “potentially illegal.” “We have no reason to believe the article, or the image contained in the article, has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world,” said the Wikimedia Foundation's General Counsel, Mike Godwin. “We believe it's worth noting that the image is currently visible on Amazon, where the album can be freely purchased by UK residents. It is available on thousands of websites that are accessible to the UK public.” “The IWF didn't just block the image; it blocked access to the article itself, which discusses the image in a neutral, encyclopedic fashion,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “The IWF says its goal is to protect UK citizens, but I can't see how this action helps to achieve that – and meanwhile, it deprives UK internet users of the ability to access information which should be freely available to everyone. I urge the IWF to remove Wikipedia from its blacklist.” The Wikimedia Foundation is proud of the work done by its volunteer editors, who have created an encyclopedia which external studies repeatedly validate as equal or better in quality compared with conventional encyclopedias. Wikipedia's editors take care to ensure the quality of the content of the encyclopedia, and to safeguard the core community values of freedom, independence, and neutrality. The Wikimedia Foundation will continue its discussions with IWF to resolve this matter. Q/A can be found here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Censorship_of_WP_in_the_UK_Dec_2008QA

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[Foundation-l] Regional Conference of Wikimedia Serbia 2008
by Nikola Smolenski 07 Dec '08

07 Dec '08

Hello, Wikimedia Serbia is proud to announce the Regional Conference of Wikimedia Serbia 2008. The Regional Conference of Wikimedia Serbia will be held at 19th, 20th and 21st December in Belgrade, in the Belgrade Youth Home. Depending on the number and locations of participants, we are likely to be able to finance you travel (only from countries near Serbia) and/or accomodation expenses. If you are interested in visiting the conference, please answer to this message with exact information on when can you come and how long can you stay; as well as is there possibility to provide your own accomodations in Belgrade. If you would want to held a lecture, a workshop or similar during the conference, also report that to us so that we could include you in the program. Please forward this message to anyone you believe could come. Bye, Wikimedia Serbia

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Wikimedia-l December 2008