Hi,
As I said, we are not talking about a set of bureaucratic rules nor
about a "constitution". I also agree that guidelines should be different
for different set of projects, i.e. the Wikipedia guidelines won't be
the same as the Wikinews guidelines. We also have several global rules
that are already mandatory, most notably the GFDL rule, which is also
the easiest to enforce.
I have an experience in writing in several Wikimedia projects in
different languages. People often confuse the Wikimedia principles with
the English Wikipedia principles (I saw this confusion here too), and
due to a (strange) resentment towards the English Wikipedia, they reject
any recommendation published on the Meta claiming it is just another
idea of an American from the English Wikipedia.
We should stress that there are certain principles that must be shared
by all Wikipedias (or by all Wikinews projects etc.), first beacuase
these principles makes Wikipedia an open and reliable source, and second
because we wish to encourage cross-contributions, i.e. that contributors
will be able to easily write in several projects, and that articles
could be easily translated and adopted in other projects.
Here are some allegedly global rules, which are unclear:
1. Original research - what exactly does it include? Can a certain
Wikipedia redefine the notion of "state" and state: X is a state
according to its own criteria?
2. NPOV - Can the Dutch Wikipedia (for example) decide it defines a
state according to the EU recognition, and state X is a state only
according to EU diplomatic recognition, or is it a violation of NPOV?
3. Polling - can a Wikipedian community vote about excluding a certain
person from writing? Can it vote about whether to except a certain
source? Can the Spanish Wikipedia decide a source from Japan will never
be regarded reliable?
These are only a few questions that are not properly addressed, and the
system doesn't work well anymore. This kind of problems rise more often
as more people write in Wikipedia and as the communities grow, and we
fail to supply answers and solutions.
Dror
Dear all,
as some of you might have noticed, there was a discussion scheduled
during Wikimania about the volunteer council. The discussion was well
visited, with 40-50 attendees (all seats were taken and some people
standing in the back) I lead this discussion, and would like to give a
little follow up on it.
First of all, I would like to shortly summarize what I think were the
most important conclusions from this discussion. Please note that when
I say agreed, I did not mean this was a formal decision, but a common
agreement between the attending people in that particular part of the
discussion. This has no binding status, but should be seen as a clear
indication of what might be consensus on a wider scale as well.
Everybody agreed that there was actually a need for a volunteer
council. Now that the Board takes more distance, the staff is
professionalizing, there is a gap that is becoming wider and wider,
about community regulation. Ideally, this would be filled by the
community. Besides that, it was noted that the communication between
the staff and board on one side and the community at large on the
other side could be improved a lot.
Besides that, it was also agreed that it would not be workable to let
a small committee (council) do everything we would like it to do. It
is unlikely that a small group of people can maintain contact with a
large number of communities, and solve all the issues which might
require more specialized and dedicated working groups. It was
suggested to come up with several councils for all these tasks, but
after a while it was more or less widely agreed upon that it would
probably be most workable to have one council, which would appoint
working groups or committees (temporary or continuous) to take care of
specific issues.
It was also agreed that since the Board rejected the resolution, the
only option left over now is a grass roots council, that would have to
proof itself and has to grow into it's role.
It was suggested to have a mechanism to have people from all
communities, and have a trapped system leading to the final council.
This could for instance be with a Wikipedia council, or a Spanish
language council etc, which would together choose a Wikimedia
Volunteer Council. This was a heavily discussed subject.
For so far the summary.
My personal view here is that I am glad we agreed all that there is an
actual need. Even taking into consideration that there was a bias in
the audience, I believe that this could be sufficient ground to assume
consensus on this without having all kinds of votings. My other view
here is "keep it simple". Especially in the beginning, we should have
a very very simple model for the council. Otherwise it is impossible
to gain sufficient support for it. I also see now that grass root is
the only option left over. These grass root members should work out
some of the details as they go, and should start within a few months
if possible. (to keep momentum)
Right now, I see little added value for a voting process. I would
appreciate some input on that though.
I believe that for the initial members, we don't need popular
wikipedians, we don't need icons, we need stable and available people,
who are willing to cooperate and compromise, who are willing to
coordinate and communicate, who are willing to share and listen to the
community. What we need is a wide variety of volunteers. Not per se in
gender and nationality, or even language, but more in opinions and
ways of thinking. We need some people who are active in the chapters,
but also who are not so active there, we need a technical volunteer,
we need someone involved with wiki approval policies perhaps, we need
someone who is active in the stewards corner, some people who are
speaking a non-english language and many other criteria. We will most
likely not be able to create a full variety, but my personal belief is
that we should try to work this out as much as possible.
The next step would be, in my humble opinion, analog to the creation
of the enwiki arbcom, which was also initially appointed. Elections
every XX months for a part of the council. This would be up to the
council actually to decide upon probably, but I see unfortunately not
many other ways to keep the community directly involved in this
process. The exact details would have to be worked out later on of
course.
For all this, we would need someone to guide these processes. We need
someone more or less neutral (not a candidate or staff member for
instance) to set up such a group, and help to work to a set of
definitions and goals. After that, it is up to the council to work
things out.
Another option is to appoint the group of people I selected earlier on
for the Provisional Council resolution, and keep things moving of
course :)
I would appreciate some input of course. However, please be aware that
this is a raw draft of what I think here, but that it has been built
upon the many many discussions that have been there.
With kind regards,
Lodewijk
Hello all,
I'm pleased to announce that the group contacts now have control of
all Wikimedia channels again and can set *all* Wikimedia project
cloaks.
Finally!
I'll be updating meta and the cloaks request system now to reflect this. Woo!
Sean Whitton
for the IRC Group Contacts
Massimiliano writes:
>> How could you add SA, for example, without being the original
>> licensor, for importing to Wikipedia? How could you subtract it
>> without being the original licensor(s), for importing to Knol?
>
> As long as you put the author's credits, respecting in this way the
> request of attribution, you can change the license for your derivative
> works and this includes also adding a SA clause. At least this is what
> I have ever believed.
Sure, a sufficiently transformative derivative work might give you the
ability to create a new license with strong copyleft. But that's not
what we've been seeing on Knol or what we've been discussing here, it
seems to me. Instead, we've been talking about importing and exporting
whole articles.
--Mike
Hello,
It is difficult to get a overview about the single language editions
of Wikipedia, so I would like to urge the Wikipedians to report about
their edition e.g. in the English Wikipedia articles about single
Wikipedias. Alas, often those articles are often only list ups of
"mile stones" (when article number 10.000 had been created...).
Greetings
Ziko
--
Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> effe iets anders wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> as some of you might have noticed, there was a discussion scheduled
>> during Wikimania about the volunteer council. The discussion was well
>> visited, with 40-50 attendees (all seats were taken and some people
>> standing in the back) I lead this discussion, and would like to give a
>> little follow up on it.
>>
>> First of all, I would like to shortly summarize what I think were the
>> most important conclusions from this discussion. Please note that when
>> I say agreed, I did not mean this was a formal decision, but a common
>> agreement between the attending people in that particular part of the
>> discussion. This has no binding status, but should be seen as a clear
>> indication of what might be consensus on a wider scale as well.
>>
Since you say below that you would like feed-back, I will give
as I am able.
Though you indicate that there is a plausible (how clear,
reasonable people may likely allowably disagree) possibility that
the discussion reflects even a wider community feeling, I do
hope that you will not limit your approach to the community
to this E-Mail to the foundation list (particularly if the effort
is to be one of grass-roots, it is good to make the approach
where the grass-roots are - and they are not on this mailing
list).
Even if voting will not be necessary for seeding a movement
that intends to grow and build; and justify itself through its
fruits and concrete effects... Even then, I hope you will not
be tardy in involving any people who view the direction of
the movement worthy of exploring.
>> Besides that, it was also agreed that it would not be workable to let
>> a small committee (council) do everything we would like it to do. It
>> is unlikely that a small group of people can maintain contact with a
>> large number of communities, and solve all the issues which might
>> require more specialized and dedicated working groups. It was
>> suggested to come up with several councils for all these tasks, but
>> after a while it was more or less widely agreed upon that it would
>> probably be most workable to have one council, which would appoint
>> working groups or committees (temporary or continuous) to take care of
>> specific issues.
>>
Personally I think that is the sane way to work, though with
the caveat that the experience of the Board of Trustees needs
to be learned from. Before deciding how the relationships
between working groups and committees are structured with
relation to the Council as a Whole, it should be well worthwhile
to study which approaches worked between the Board of Trustees
and its various appendant Committees, and which were not the
best successes there, and which their structures were, and the
relation between the chosen way to structure and act in concord,
and the success thereof.
>> Right now, I see little added value for a voting process. I would
>> appreciate some input on that though.
>> I believe that for the initial members, we don't need popular
>> wikipedians, we don't need icons, we need stable and available people,
>> who are willing to cooperate and compromise, who are willing to
>> coordinate and communicate, who are willing to share and listen to the
>> community. What we need is a wide variety of volunteers. Not per se in
>> gender and nationality, or even language, but more in opinions and
>> ways of thinking. We need some people who are active in the chapters,
>> but also who are not so active there, we need a technical volunteer,
>> we need someone involved with wiki approval policies perhaps, we need
>> someone who is active in the stewards corner, some people who are
>> speaking a non-english language and many other criteria. We will most
>> likely not be able to create a full variety, but my personal belief is
>> that we should try to work this out as much as possible.
>>
>> The next step would be, in my humble opinion, analog to the creation
>> of the enwiki arbcom, which was also initially appointed. Elections
>> every XX months for a part of the council. This would be up to the
>> council actually to decide upon probably, but I see unfortunately not
>> many other ways to keep the community directly involved in this
>> process. The exact details would have to be worked out later on of
>> course.
>>
>> For all this, we would need someone to guide these processes. We need
>> someone more or less neutral (not a candidate or staff member for
>> instance) to set up such a group, and help to work to a set of
>> definitions and goals. After that, it is up to the council to work
>> things out.
>>
>> Another option is to appoint the group of people I selected earlier on
>> for the Provisional Council resolution, and keep things moving of
>> course :)
>>
Here of course is the biggest hurdle you have to face. How
do you justify the status as a grass-roots movement and not
as a "cabal". This is something you will have to think long
and hard about. You won't have any easy answers. The
easy answers will be totally wrong, I guarantee you.
>> I would appreciate some input of course. However, please be aware that
>> this is a raw draft of what I think here, but that it has been built
>> upon the many many discussions that have been there.
>>
>> With kind regards,
>>
>> Lodewijk
>>
I hope you won't see anything in my views as a criticism, for
none is intended. Every word was just given in terms of
aiding you in your reflections.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Sorry for cross-posting this, but as Cbrown pointed out: not everybody reads
the logo page on Meta.
Anyway:
Wikimedia Sverige <http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huvudsida>, the Swedish
chapter, are going to make a 3D version of the Wikipedia logo, a meter in
diameter. But this means that we need to know what is on the puzzle pieces
on the back of the globe. Which symbols are on the back?
It seems that we should probably have some official answer to this - or we
will have to improvise ourselves. This question needs to be answered by
September, at the very latest, when we are going to show the globe in front
of a 100 000 visitors of the Gothenburg Book Fair.
I know of at least one attempt to make puzzle globes for real, namely in
Taiwan, see picture
here<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimania_2007_dungodung_116.jpg>,
but it is not nearly good enough we feel. (Sorry, you who created it.)
Best wishes,
--
Lennart Guldbrandsson, chair of Wikimedia Sverige and press contact for
Swedish Wikipedia // ordförande för Wikimedia Sverige och presskontakt för
svenskspråkiga Wikipedia
Hello all,
it seems that the Chinese Wikipedia is unblocked in China now. We have reports from provinces and cities from very different corners of the country, that the users have direct access.
Greetings
Ting
--
Psssst! Schon das coole Video vom GMX MultiMessenger gesehen?
Der Eine für Alle: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/messenger03
Hi, guys,
Our Wikipedian friends from China Mainland just confirmed that users from
most provinces of China could visit zh.wp directly.
Originally they could only visit by "climbing the wall".
Most of us guess the lift of the ban is brought by the Olympic Game which is
going to be held next week.
Though the lift might end after the Game finishes, I still want to share
this news with you.
Yeah, they block and then they unblock, back and forth, many times. This is
life.
Best wishes,
Titan
--
Support the Wikimedia Foundation: http://donate.wikimedia.org
As you know, we recently announced a restructuring of the Board of
Trustees, which added two new avenues for selecting board members. One
of these is the two seats to be selected by the chapters; the other is
the use of a Nominating Committee to assist the community
representatives in identifying needed expertise to fill out the board.
This note is about the formation of the Nominating Committee. (The
chapters are actively discussing their selection process, and we'll have
more information about that once it is finalized.)
The job of the Nominating Committee is to identify, research and
pre-screen potential candidates for the appointed board positions
involving "specific expertise". There are four of those seats in total;
two are currently vacant, and the others are filled by Jan-Bart de
Vreede and Stuart West. The Nominating Committee will not itself
determine who takes those seats. Its job is to make recommendations to
the community members on the board, who will make the final decision.
(The appointed board members will not vote in these decisions, since it
affects them personally.)
The Nominating Committee will include the following:
* Two members of the current Board of Trustees
* Two members of the volunteer community
* One member of our Advisory Board
* Sue Gardner, our Executive Director
Here's how we expect the nomination process will work:
* First, the board will brief the Nominating Committee regarding its
role, the restructuring, and the board's assessment of its own strengths
and skills gaps. That briefing will result in a set of criteria for
potential board candidates.
* Then, the Nominating Committee will generate a list of possible board
members. All community members should feel free to contribute to this
list by sending names to any member of the Nominating Committee at any
time. Names will also be generated by the Nominating Committee's own
research, as well as recommendations solicited from other friends and
supporters of Wikimedia.
* Once the Nominating Committee has generated a full and rich list of
possibilities, it will begin a research and screening phase. At that
point, it will research the names which have been put forward, and
assess their fit against the selection criteria developed earlier. This
will result in a shortlist of candidates.
* Once the shortlist has been developed, the Nominating Committee will
begin contacting candidates to assess their level of interest in us.
* At that point, the Nominating Committee will 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.
* Then the community board members (currently myself, Kat, Frieda,
Domas, Ting, and Jimmy) will vote to determine who will fill the four seats.
The goal is to have the four seats filled by January. The appointed
board members' terms end in December, and this process would be repeated
each year.
Of course the Nominating Committee, once established, is free to adjust
and refine this process if it wants to. For example, if a current
appointed board member should be retained for continuity, that may be
handled more simply, although we also anticipate that these seats will
bring in fresh voices from time to time. But at any rate, we imagine the
nominating process will work more-or-less as described here.
So the purpose of this message is both to describe the process for
filling those seats, and to ask for volunteers to fill the two
"volunteer community" spots on the Nominating Committee. If you are
interested in helping us by serving on the Nominating Committee, please
send a note to me, or Sue, or any board member. We would like to hear
from anyone who has the time and the interest to participate, and
especially if you have any experience in non-profit management or
governance, or in hiring. If you're interested, please let us know
within the next week.
--Michael Snow
