Hoi.
The French chapter did a wonderful job organising some of the brightest
lights that deal with Commons in one place. Many subjects were discussed and
some things were achieved.
The two (technical) things that stand out on the achieving part..
- there is now global usage for images from within MediaWiki itself.. so
no need for using the toolserver... The process of gathering all the
necessary data may now have ended..
- a first stab has been made at subtitles for video
- In the discussion there were many things I found absolutely wonderful:
- the workflow of uploads will be reconsidered; this means that a
"working area" will exists where pictures can have a temporary home. This
will allow to upload a batch of images and tag them all with shared
attributes.. It will also allow for the checking of known issues BEFORE they
go live
- This working or staging area would also exist for GLAMs or competitions
- A demo was given for what a competion workflow might look like
- Pictures are now deleted when certain attributes are wrong or missing..
When they are pushed back into the staging area, we are less nasty and allow
for cooperation
- Social networking tools help us support newbies, resolve issues in a
quiet way.. This helps us realise our objectives; write an encyclopaedia,
build a kick arse freely licensed resource of multi media
- there is a mailing list for people involved in GLAM and the outreach to
GLAM, many people subscribed and hopefully this will lead to better
coordination and in shared lessons learned
It was a great meeting.. There were a few critical issues as far as I am
concerned:
- several relevant people refuse to post / answer on the foundation-l.
The list proves to be irrelevant because this list does not get that message
- currently there is no alternative... LiquidThreads may help as it is a
pull not a push mechanism ...
- some people I missed at the meeting, Durova being the most notable
- our focus was about improving Commons for the people that use it
particuarly as contributors.. The success of our project is however the
result of use and reuse. \
- subtitles was one of the more important novelties, we need to make the
reuse in WordPress, Drupal .... as easy as the reuse of Commons in MediaWiki
!! The API is getting to the stage where that is doable
Thanks,
GerardM
I'm taking the liberty of putting foundation-l on temporary moderation.
Seriously, guys -- take the "who's a bigger jerk" threads offlist.
The regular list mods may reconfigure any way they like once they wake up.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Dear Foundation-l,
There seems that there is a lot of discussion about foundation-l on
foundation-l that should be made available to a more meta community of
people associated with foundation-l. Can I propose that, given there is a
strategic planning process underway with various taskforces, that we create
a taskforce dedicated to foundation-l. I propose that have it's own mailing
list to start with (perhaps foundation(a)l.foundatio.nl) and then get a
dedicated section on the strategy wiki, probably
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_l Furthermore, I suggest that
those who have the most engagement with this mailing list (as determined by
http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/_PowerPosters.html ) be on this
taskforce to discuss amongst themselves how to best begin discussion about
discussing the foundation-l foundation-l taskforce.
Sincerely,
me.
In a message dated 11/7/2009 10:56:27 AM Pacific Standard Time,
andreengels(a)gmail.com writes:
> We tried that on nl: (although with 1 week rather than 24 hours
> minimum). The effect of this is that _each and every block_ will get
> the whole wiki in flames for a week.>>
I would submit that this tells you something very significant.
The community likes freedom, and they don't like the suppression of
freedom.
The police do not like freedom, and they do like to suppress it.
When a group of police decide to gang up on a contributor, that contributor
has no "friend" on their side. You cannot appeal to the police to stop the
police.
That's my main point. However it has to be worked out. We need a
contrasting force, that is dedicated to the freedom of the contributor.
Will
In a message dated 11/8/2009 2:06:47 AM Pacific Standard Time,
gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com writes:
> Your notion that you "deserve" at least as much room to experiment as the
> worst of us is a fallacy. You have been made aware that there is an issue
> and that relevant people refuse to post on the foundation list. You have
> been made that this is because of the inconsiderate posting that you claim
> a
> right to.>>
The reason I asked for no personal attacks is because the above, by you,
sounds very much like : "You are the problem. You are a problem."
To me that is a personal attack. I'm working on an article to show that,
for example, you yourself, have been the most prolific poster at times in the
past, if not this month. And others have been at other times. There is no
difference between a new contributor creating 50 messages a month, and an
old one doing the exact same thing. That a person has been contributing for
a year, doesn't give them an unchallengable right to do something that a new
person cannot do as well.
So if there is a problem, that *a* person generates a lot of messages in a
month, that problem has been here on this list for a very long time. And
people who stay away because of volume, would have stayed away far earlier
than now.
This month, the number of postings so far, is far below the most we've ever
had. This list in the past has generated 1200 messages in a single month.
We're far short of anything like that so far. So any belief that a large
number of postings rapidly is new, is not an accurate understanding of this
lists historical activity.
Will
In a message dated 11/8/2009 12:12:51 AM Pacific Standard Time,
phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com writes:
> Many of these emails have a bit
> of a hostile tone (my original post included, mea culpa), and include
> sentences like "Anyone that says otherwise is wrong", "That statement
> is false" and "Get over it.">>
"That statement is false" is not hostile. It's a direct factual statement
imho. That you read it as hostile is the issue. Read each email as if
spoken by a robot with no emotions whatsoever. Then you won't feel defensive.
Will
In a message dated 11/8/2009 2:06:47 AM Pacific Standard Time,
gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com writes:
> When you learn from your research that we have a problem, you only
> confirm
> what is already known. The only question I have is, will this make a
> difference to you?>>
No personal attacks Gerard.
The number of postings to this list by me, as shown by the statistics is
insignificant. You and everyone else can see that clearly for themselves.
Will
I will in the next few days, create a list which shows who, each month, has
posted the most messages to the list. Or perhaps the top few. I was
surprised, seeing the statistics page, at how few active participants there are.
Really just a handful, and it's been that way, for quite a long time, not a
recent event. Which puts into perspective the implication that anything
has changed in this regard recently.
I did notice already some very surprising people who are the most
talkative. Once we have the hard facts, then perhaps there could be a scientific
discussion of how to address it. I don't personally like discussions based on
personal belief or experience alone. They tend, in my opinion, to be
skewed.
By the way, when new potential-power-users appear, they should at the
minimum be given the same leeway, in number of posts, as any other user. That is
apparently, by the examples we see in the statitics, something like 120
messages per month! That's a lot!
Will
In a message dated 11/7/2009 11:28:13 PM Pacific Standard Time,
gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com writes:
> Please read it as an appeal to reply to foundation-l in moderation.
> Please
> read it as an appeal to post liberally to this list as we do not have an
> alternative.>>
> -------------------
>
>
Speaking of self-moderation., a google search on
Foundation-l "gerard meijssen" shows
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&
rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=7zN&num=50&q=foundation-l+%22gerard+Meijssen%22&lr=&
aq=f&oq=&aqi=
33,000 pages
Is there a way to create a chart showing how many messages each poster has
posted to the list? Also Gerard I think if you're going to use an argument
about the value of those people who *aren't* posting, we need to know who
they are. Perhaps we don't want them to post either.
Until we get some hard facts on the issue, how is any decision supposed to
be able to be reached?
W.J.