CC'd this to Foundation-l.
There is a poll currently on the English Wikipedia to implement a version of
FlaggedRevisions. The poll was introduced left into the vacuum which
remained after the first poll failed to result in concrete action. At the
close of poll #1, Jimmy indicated that he thought it had passed and should
result in an FR implementation. When he received some protest, he announced
that he would shortly unveil a new compromise proposal.
While I'm sure he had the best of intentions, this proposal hasn't
materialized and the result has been limbo. Into the limbo rides another
proposal, this one masquerading as the hoped for compromise. Unfortunately,
it isn't - at least, not in the sense that it is a middle ground between
those who want FR implemented and those who oppose it. What it does do is
compromise, as in fundamentally weaken, the concept of FR and the effort to
improve our handling of BLPs.
The proposed implementation introduces all the bureaucracy and effort of
FlaggedRevisions, with few of the benefits. FlaggedProtection, similar to
semi-protection, can be placed on any article. In some instances,
FlaggedProtection is identical to normal full protection - only, it still
allows edit wars on unsighted versions (woohoo). Patrolled revisions are
passive - you can patrol them, but doing so won't impact what the general
reader will see. It gives us the huge and useless backlog which is exactly
what we should not want, and exactly what the opposition has predicted. The
only likely result is that inertia will prevent any further FR
implementation, and we'll be stuck with a substitute that grants no real
benefit.
What I would like to see, and what I have been hoping to see, is either
implementation of the prior proposal (taking a form similar to that used by
de.wp) or actual proposal of a true compromise version. The current poll
asks us to just give up.
Nathan
--- On Mon, 3/23/09, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Licensing transition: opposing points of view
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 2:47 PM
> Introducing the terms of service, or
> anything other than the license itself,
> confuses it for me too. The questions it brings to my mind
> are:
>
> 1) Which controls attribution, the license or the TOS?
> 2) For importation, which determines compatibility - the
> license or the TOS
> of the original site (if applicable)?
> 3) (A restatement of 1) If the license and the TOS
> conflict, which controls?
> 4) If the intended form of attribution is seen as being
> allowed via the TOS,
> does the TOS then constitute the actual license (as opposed
> to GFDL 1.2)?
>
> A lot of this is deeply technical. I'm not clear on who is
> right, but wrt to
> writing and debating skill alone the pro-transition folks
> are clearly at an
> advantage. What I'd like to see is calmly argued and
> defined opposition;
> without recourse to "You're an idiot, and I know phrase X
> means Y because I
> said so." When Erik, Mike Godwin and Michael Snow make
> concise and well
> written arguments, and get replies in the form of short
> inline comments
> along the lines of "No, you're wrong" it doesn't help
> anyone get a good
> picture of what the problems here are supposed to be.
1) The license controls attribution to a degree. Within what is allowed by the license a TOS contract in effect where the content is created could be more restrictive but not less.
2)For importation to a WMF. The licenses must be compatible, but there could legal ramifications for an editor who breached the TOS of an external website by copying the material to a Wikimedia site. I don't think there would be legal ramifications for WMF.
3)License controls the content wherever it shows up. A TOS is a contract which can only bind the people who agree to this contract. Using a website to varying degrees may or may not qualify as "agreeing to a contract" in different cases, but it certainly can qualify as such. So the license always controls the content, but a TOS may control what a particular person can to with the content. If the content is only available from one website with a strong TOS, it is possible for the TOS to control the content completely by binding every single person who has access to the content. This situation actually exists, most commonly with rare public domain content only available through subscription services sold to universities.
4) No the TOS is a contract only binding to people who agree to it and is attached to those people not the content. A license is a waiver of copyright in specified situations that is attached the content generally so long as it remains copyrightable.
But none of this was exactly the concern I raised. My concern was that the TOS proposed for WMF site would restrict authors to using to certain facet of the CC-by-SA license that is not commonly used. This would generally prevent anyone who was not an author from importing externally published CC-by-SA material which likely relies on a more common facet of the license (naming the author by name). This is because such non-authors would have no right to agree to the more restrictive WMF TOS on behalf of authors who simply released their work as CC-by-SA.
Regarding the rest
A partial solution to deal with unhelpful responses is to ignore emails from the people who have a habit of such responses. Of course other people invariably take the bait and you end up reading them anyways. But at least you only get one email instead of two.
Of course to describe this as pro-transition vs anti-transition is misleading. It really is more a matter of the transition forcing to light all sorts of issues we did not spend time thinking on before even though they existed. The arguments that are anti-transition are really arguments against the status quo as well. And the pro-transition camp contains a great variety of opinions as to exactly how we should transition.
Birgitte SB
Hoi.
I am talking to a few museums and archives and several of them are
interested in considering Commons for their collection. At the same time
they are also considering Flickr.
The issue they have with Commons is its restrictions. One of the museums
said it like this: "We have done our best to ascertain the copyright status
of much of our material. We have not been able to find the original
copyright holder or someone who inherited these rights. When we post our
material to Flickr, we just remove the material when a copyright holder
turns up and asks us to. Doing it in any other way requires much more
effort. Effort that we rather spend in more productive endeavours like
digitising and annotating."
My question is, will it be acceptable when a museum or archive provides us
with their material and when we learn about a request to take down material,
we do this when requested by the copyright holder. This is not considered
an issue with Flickr !!
Thanks,
GerardM
Unfortunately Schindler doesn't take into account the very long
discussion at de:WP:UF
http://tinyurl.com/fdld4
There is a very dangerous opinion that "work" according free licenses
means "work in any resolution" and thus low-resolution pictures
licensed under a free license could be replaced by high-resolution
pictures.
If there is no trust for cooperating institutions that the resolution
part of the contract is accepted I am in doubt that cooperations will
work in the future. A word from the WMF board or the lawyers
(WMF/CC/FSF) would be useful.
Klaus Graf
Many of the individuals who are interfacing with museums, libraries, and
other arvhives know this already. For any who may not, here's something you
can bring to the table along with an offer.
WMF has a growing pool of volunteer editors who will do high quality
restorations of historic photographs, lithographs, etc. as a courtesy for
the institutions who release bulk material to WMF instead of Flickr.
Certain technical and esthetic limitations apply; if any difficulties arise
I would gladly to the restoration personally, in order to facilitate
negotiations.
Bear in mind, for example, the prewar illustration of Dresden, Germany
before:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dresden_photochrom.jpg
after:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dresden_photochrom2.jpg
This restoration was done in thanks to the University of Dresden library for
their generous promise to donate a quarter million images directly to
Wikimedia Commons. Many images of similar quality are already available for
North America, Europe, and the Near East. I would *gladly* perform similar
restorations in support of negotiations to open new sources to WMF.
To editors who are communicting and/or negotiating with such archives,
please contact me at your earliest convenience. I will do all that is
possible to demonstrate the advantages of releasing media content to the WMF
environment. If this means courtesy restorations, they will be prioritized.
Warmest regards,
Durova
On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 9:50 PM,
<foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>wrote:
> Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
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> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of foundation-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. I'm a creative commoner!!! (Domas Mituzas)
> 2. NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City (KillerChihuahua)
> 3. Re: NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City (David Gerard)
> 4. Re: NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City (The Cunctator)
> 5. Re: NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City (David Gerard)
> 6. Considerations for museums and archives to gain their
> cooperation (Gerard Meijssen)
> 7. Re: Considerations for museums and archives to gain their
> cooperation (Milos Rancic)
> 8. Re: Considerations for museums and archives to gain their
> cooperation (Milos Rancic)
> 9. Re: I'm a creative commoner!!! (Brian)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:34:18 +0300
> From: Domas Mituzas <midom.lists(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] I'm a creative commoner!!!
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <79327CBB-B84D-4EDC-9B8F-29D5D80990FC(a)gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; format=flowed;
> delsp=yes
>
> Originally I wrote it somewhere on a blog (
> http://dammit.lt/2009/03/28/im-a-creative-commoner/
> ), so this is a bit long copy-paste into an email:
> Lately Creative Commons is becoming very dominant topic in my life.
> First of all, I see all the people in free culture world holding their
> breath and waiting for Wikipedia switch to CC license. I?m waiting for
> that too - and personally I really endorse it. Though usually people
> do not really notice licenses on web content, they really do once they
> see something they really want to reuse. Wikipedia ends up being
> isolated island, if it doesn?t go after sharing and exchanging
> information with other projects.
>
> It takes time to understand one is ?creative commoner?. I do have a t-
> shirt with such caption, but it is much more comfortable once you
> start feeling real power of use and reuse of information. Few anecdotes?
>
> > Dear Mr. Mituzas,
>
> > Thank you for making your photographs available under a
> > Creative Commons license. I am writing to inform you that
> > the American Society of Civil Engineers has featured a
> > silhouette of ?Up we go? on the cover of its new book,
> > ?Constructability Concepts and Practice.?
> > https://www.asce.org/bookstore/book.cfm?book=7742
>
> > Per the terms of the license, the following credit appears
> > on page ii of the book: ?Front cover photograph by Domas
> > Mituzas used under a Creative Commons license.
> > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.?
>
> > I will be happy to send a copy of the book to you if you
> > will provide me your mailing address.
>
> I got this email back in summer, 2007. Did I just steal a job from
> professional photographer? Or would they just leave blank book cover?
> Will this lead to a better bridge in future? Did I join a civil cause?
> All I know now, is that I?m book cover photographer, albeit quite
> cheap one. Also, by using CC license I simply used lingua-franca of
> world I?m in - and now my content can evolve into shapes that I
> couldn?t expect, and that would be limited by non-portable licenses.
>
> Other anecdote is way more internal. I have cheap point-and-shoot
> camera (same one to shoot book cover pictures :) that I use during my
> travels. It fits well into my jeans pocket, it doesn?t provide me any
> self esteem in professional photography. Still, I get to places, I
> take pictures, I place them on my flickr photostream, and I license
> them under creative commons. And fascinating things happen - my
> pictures appear on top of Wikipedia articles (like
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings_in_the_world
> ), without any intervention of mine. People just use it, I can sit
> back, relax, and see how the contribution widens.
>
> Of course, there other different stories. My colleague (and manager)
> runs a wiki about his own town, Bielepedia, and he wants to exchange
> information with Wikipedia. Now he can?t, as well as quite a lot of
> other free content community projects. Though of course, some may
> believe license difference doesn?t mean much, in this case it means
> that we?re building borders we don?t need nor we have intent to
> maintain.
>
> I live and breathe Wikipedia technology, but I do not feel competent
> enough to go and push content itself around, and it just shows up
> there itself (oh, of course, there?s army of committed volunteers who
> help with that). So, I benefit the project just by being creative
> commoner, and I may benefit lots of other projects. We at Wikipedia
> technical team are very open in what we do, and try to spread our know-
> how in many directions. Documents I wrote about how we do things ended
> up downloaded hundred thousand times, and I really hope that some of
> that know-how will end up used and reused.
>
> I guess I?m taking this to extremes - I ended up talking to people in
> government of Lithuania, journalists and non-profit activists. Imagine
> a government, that would commit to open licensing for produced
> content. Well, no need to imagine - US federal institutions release
> information to public domain, but in Europe it is way more restricted.
> Still, what one has to realize - at government level it is not only a
> right to be given, it also has to be a right that has to be protected.
> Nowadays that means going to copyright powerhouses that serve large
> record labels and movie studios, and will charge for services, that
> government has to provide for free (and does in other areas, like
> looking for your stolen car).
>
> We have lots and lots of talks about knowledge-societies at government
> levels, but we never get to the point, that every individual is part
> of that, and first of all we have to teach those rights, and guard
> them. But of course, to prove, that our rights have to be guarded, we
> have to show how great our work is - and how powerful can our sharing
> be. To achieve that we have to build bridges between license islands,
> talk same languages, and of course, create.
>
> I?m a creative commoner. So should be you.
>
> P.S. So should be Wikimedia Foundation. I?m extremely excited about
> the work being done to make it reality (thanks Erik, Mike, Mako,
> everyone!), and you know my personal position on the matter by now :)
>
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:02:12 -0400
> From: KillerChihuahua <puppy(a)KillerChihuahua.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <49CFC5B4.7020108(a)KillerChihuahua.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
>
> This is a lovely article, by a reporter who actually doesn't seem to be
> on a smear campaign or completely misunderstand how Wikipedia works -
> altho its unclear how much of that is due to reading "The Wikipedia
> Revolution".
>
> Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html?ref=technology
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:04:22 +0000
> From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <fbad4e140903291204v7076d3baj178c850c1564146b(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> 2009/3/29 KillerChihuahua <puppy(a)killerchihuahua.com>:
>
> > This is a lovely article, by a reporter who actually doesn't seem to be
> > on a smear campaign or completely misunderstand how Wikipedia works -
> > altho its unclear how much of that is due to reading "The Wikipedia
> > Revolution".
> > Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html?ref=technology
>
>
> Noam Cohen is pretty au fait with Wikipedia and how it works.
>
> (In general, I'm really glad Wikipedia is utterly mainstream and gets
> coverage outside the ad-banner trolls of the tech press.)
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:07:55 -0400
> From: The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <dfd0b40903291207s473963d6h20524878615e6e74(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> A lovely article. The only pity is it doesn't note how much of this social
> theory of wikis owes to Sunir Shah's pioneering work on MeatballWiki.
>
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 3:02 PM, KillerChihuahua
> <puppy(a)killerchihuahua.com>wrote:
>
> > This is a lovely article, by a reporter who actually doesn't seem to be
> > on a smear campaign or completely misunderstand how Wikipedia works -
> > altho its unclear how much of that is due to reading "The Wikipedia
> > Revolution".
> >
> > Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html?ref=technology
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:14:30 +0000
> From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <fbad4e140903291214pb5c7216sbd1fd87c8a474a83(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> 2009/3/29 The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com>:
>
> > A lovely article. The only pity is it doesn't note how much of this
> social
> > theory of wikis owes to Sunir Shah's pioneering work on MeatballWiki.
>
>
> MeatballWiki is all but unknown to most Wikipedians, let alone the
> outside world. That's not good. I recommend it to all here.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeatballWiki
> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl
>
> Think of it as meta-meta-wiki.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:35:00 +0200
> From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Considerations for museums and archives to
> gain their cooperation
> To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
> Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >
> Message-ID:
> <41a006820903291535w481cd65ftcdf796c994602ead(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Hoi.
> I am talking to a few museums and archives and several of them are
> interested in considering Commons for their collection. At the same time
> they are also considering Flickr.
>
> The issue they have with Commons is its restrictions. One of the museums
> said it like this: "We have done our best to ascertain the copyright status
> of much of our material. We have not been able to find the original
> copyright holder or someone who inherited these rights. When we post our
> material to Flickr, we just remove the material when a copyright holder
> turns up and asks us to. Doing it in any other way requires much more
> effort. Effort that we rather spend in more productive endeavours like
> digitising and annotating."
>
> My question is, will it be acceptable when a museum or archive provides us
> with their material and when we learn about a request to take down
> material,
> we do this when requested by the copyright holder. This is not considered
> an issue with Flickr !!
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:50:49 +0200
> From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Considerations for museums and archives to
> gain their cooperation
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Cc: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <846221520903292050h70c4faf8s153556e987d98f66(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 12:35 AM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am talking to a few museums and archives and several of them are
> > interested in considering Commons for their collection. At the same time
> > they are also considering Flickr.
> >
> > The issue they have with Commons is its restrictions. One of the museums
> > said it like this: "We have done our best to ascertain the copyright
> status
> > of much of our material. We have not been ?able to find the original
> > copyright holder or someone who inherited these rights. When we post our
> > material to Flickr, we just remove the material when a copyright holder
> > turns up and asks us to. Doing it in any other way requires much more
> > effort. Effort that we rather spend in more productive endeavours like
> > digitising and annotating."
> >
> > My question is, will it be acceptable when a museum or archive provides
> us
> > with their material and when we learn about a request to take down
> material,
> > we do this when requested by the copyright holder. ?This is not
> considered
> > an issue with Flickr !!
>
> Once again, if we have non-free.wikimedia.org repository, with precise
> rules, we wouldn't be able to have all kinds of materials which policy
> of Commons prohibits:
> * Orphan works.
> * Somewhat more flexible conditions for the situations like you mentioned.
> * Logos and other trademarks at one place.
> * Strictly defined fair use images (like on en.wp) at one place.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:51:53 +0200
> From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Considerations for museums and archives to
> gain their cooperation
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Cc: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <846221520903292051ubdd299gdd1d014e11d94712(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 5:50 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Once again, if we have non-free.wikimedia.org repository, with precise
> > rules, we wouldn't be able to have all kinds of materials which policy
> > of Commons prohibits:
>
> ... we would be able to have some kinds...
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:50:02 -0600
> From: Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] I'm a creative commoner!!!
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <9839a05c0903292150q487b1ec6s2671c227bab7fb02(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> I was surprised last year to receive an e-mail from the journal Nature
> Genetics. They put one of my pictures that they found on Commons on the
> cover of the journal. I've received a couple of other similar but lower
> profile requests. Commons is definitely a great way to get your work seen.
>
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists(a)gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >
> > I got this email back in summer, 2007. Did I just steal a job from
> > professional photographer? Or would they just leave blank book cover?
> > Will this lead to a better bridge in future? Did I join a civil cause?
> > All I know now, is that I?m book cover photographer, albeit quite
> > cheap one. Also, by using CC license I simply used lingua-franca of
> > world I?m in - and now my content can evolve into shapes that I
> > couldn?t expect, and that would be limited by non-portable licenses.
> >
> > Other anecdote is way more internal. I have cheap point-and-shoot
> > camera (same one to shoot book cover pictures :) that I use during my
> > travels. It fits well into my jeans pocket, it doesn?t provide me any
> > self esteem in professional photography. Still, I get to places, I
> > take pictures, I place them on my flickr photostream, and I license
> > them under creative commons. And fascinating things happen - my
> > pictures appear on top of Wikipedia articles (like
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings_in_the_world
> > ), without any intervention of mine. People just use it, I can sit
> > back, relax, and see how the contribution widens.
> >
> > Of course, there other different stories. My colleague (and manager)
> > runs a wiki about his own town, Bielepedia, and he wants to exchange
> > information with Wikipedia. Now he can?t, as well as quite a lot of
> > other free content community projects. Though of course, some may
> > believe license difference doesn?t mean much, in this case it means
> > that we?re building borders we don?t need nor we have intent to
> > maintain.
> >
> > I live and breathe Wikipedia technology, but I do not feel competent
> > enough to go and push content itself around, and it just shows up
> > there itself (oh, of course, there?s army of committed volunteers who
> > help with that). So, I benefit the project just by being creative
> > commoner, and I may benefit lots of other projects. We at Wikipedia
> > technical team are very open in what we do, and try to spread our know-
> > how in many directions. Documents I wrote about how we do things ended
> > up downloaded hundred thousand times, and I really hope that some of
> > that know-how will end up used and reused.
> >
> > I guess I?m taking this to extremes - I ended up talking to people in
> > government of Lithuania, journalists and non-profit activists. Imagine
> > a government, that would commit to open licensing for produced
> > content. Well, no need to imagine - US federal institutions release
> > information to public domain, but in Europe it is way more restricted.
> > Still, what one has to realize - at government level it is not only a
> > right to be given, it also has to be a right that has to be protected.
> > Nowadays that means going to copyright powerhouses that serve large
> > record labels and movie studios, and will charge for services, that
> > government has to provide for free (and does in other areas, like
> > looking for your stolen car).
> >
> > We have lots and lots of talks about knowledge-societies at government
> > levels, but we never get to the point, that every individual is part
> > of that, and first of all we have to teach those rights, and guard
> > them. But of course, to prove, that our rights have to be guarded, we
> > have to show how great our work is - and how powerful can our sharing
> > be. To achieve that we have to build bridges between license islands,
> > talk same languages, and of course, create.
> >
> > I?m a creative commoner. So should be you.
> >
> > P.S. So should be Wikimedia Foundation. I?m extremely excited about
> > the work being done to make it reality (thanks Erik, Mike, Mako,
> > everyone!), and you know my personal position on the matter by now :)
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > --
> > Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
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>
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>
> End of foundation-l Digest, Vol 60, Issue 95
> ********************************************
>
--
http://durova.blogspot.com/
The abuse filter has some serious problems with logging of personal
information, what to log and why. There are also the problems associated
with the use of such a log, and who has access to it. In some
jurisdictions it may be legal to log and use such information for
arbitrary actions against the users but that is not generally the case.
In Norway it is legal to log such actions for the administration of the
system, but as soon as it is used for actions against the users it would
need a license (konsesjon) to handle such information. Note that WMF may
choose to neglect the Norwegian laws in this respect as it do not have
to apply to Norwegian laws.
I believe it is fairly easy to avoid all of those those problems, but I
can't find any information that says that such adaptions of the code are
done, or that any other measure is taken to avoid said problems. Can
anyone clarify on the matter as it seems that nearly everyone just
hurrays the implementation and there is no effort to solve those issues.
John
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >
> > When I read what is proposed, the impression is given that a process will
> > start with a compulsory outcome. I understand the rationale for one shared
> > logo and favicon. The problem is that it is people outside of Wiktionary
> > that want to improve the Wiktionary "brand" and the last time it was very
> > much these outsiders that made the selection.
> >
>
Exactly. Despite the fact that fr.wikt and a few others eventually
adopted the logo, the logo debacle was not en.wikt's making. It wasn't a
refusal to accept the the outcome of the proposal, it was a reluctance
to be dictated to by people who weren't a part of the community. I'm
afraid this will be interpreted the same way, if we're proposing to just
slap a sitenotice on all the Wiktionaries telling them to discuss a new
logo. There needs to be community impetus for the change, so that the
meta discussion evolves out of actual community desire for a new logo.
We should start at places like en.wikt's [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour]],
fr.wikt's [[Wiktionnaire:Wikidémie]], and es.wikt's
[[Wikcionario:Café]], not foundation-l.
Dominic
_______________________________________________
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
Hi all,
The two largest Wiktionary projects (English and French) have two
completely different logos. [1], [2]
The reason for this, from what I understand, is that a vote was taken
place about the logo fr.wiktionary currently has, on meta [3]; which
the English Wiktionary community chose not to be bound by, because
they, as a community, disagreed with the outcome.
I understand that there are complaints that new logo has elements too
closely resembling Scrabble pieces, or are otherwise too cartooned to
some. The "new" logo does maintain some visual identity as a project
logo, while the "classic" logo isn't really a logo at all, and
diverges wildly from project to project. Of the top ten Wiktionary
projects, four of them use the new version, while 6 of them use some
variation of the classic version:
fr: new
en: classic
tr: new
vi: new
ru: classic (a variation which little resembles the original)
io: classic (English version)
el: new
zh: classic (divergent variation)
pl: classic (divergent variation)
fi: classic (English version)
As a whole, I seem to remember that Wiktionary is the second most
visited site of the Foundation's websites, and I really do think it
should be appropriate that the site should reflect a common visual
identity, one that the classic logo does a poor job of creating. The
new logo, however, met with rather heavy resistance in, at the very
least, the English Wiktionary community.
I do, rather strongly, believe that the Wiktionary identity needs to
be squared away, having some poll in general inclusive of, yet binding
of all Wiktionary projects, and then if that fails, starting the
process again, and succeeding to foment an individual logo like the
recent successful Wikibooks logo revamp.
Cary
[1] <http://en.wiktionary.org>
[2] <http://fr.wiktionary.org>
[3] <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/logo>
One of the important components of the usability initiative is to
conduct multiple rounds of usability tests. The plan is to conduct at
least three rounds of tests for qualitative usability evaluation over
the span of twelve months, i) the initial evaluation, ii) the progress
evaluation, and iii) the final evaluation. The initial usability test
is scheduled on March 24, 25th and 26th. In-person lab tests are
conducted in San Francisco at the first two days, and remote tests will
be conducted on the third day.
As a preparation for the initial usability test, we incorporated the
recruiting tool into English Wikipedia's site notice. You might have
encountered site notice inviting for the participation. The target
audience of testers are Wikipedia readers who have little or no
experience in editing the Wikipedia articles. The banner is displayed
within the range of 1:400 to 1:100 page views, and it will continue till
early next week.
We look forward to learning from the usability tests and sharing the
result with you.
Thanks.
Naoko ... on behalf of the usability team.
--
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
--
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
After a few weeks of bug fixes, we've caught up with MediaWiki
development code review and I'm pushing out an update to the live sites.
This fixes a lot of little bugs, and hopefully doesn't cause introduce
too many new ones. :)
* Change logs: http://ur1.ca/2rah (r47458 to r48811)
As usual in addition to lots of offline and individual testing among our
staff and volunteer developers, we've done a shakedown on
http://test.wikipedia.org/ -- and as usual we can fully expect a few
more issues to have cropped up that weren't already found.
Don't be alarmed if you do find a problem; just let us know at
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ or on the tech IRC channels
(#wikimedia-tech on Freenode).
We should be resuming our weekly update schedule soon -- I won't be
doing a mega-crosspost like this every week! -- and will continue to
improve our pre-update staging and shakedown testing to keep disruption
to a minimum and awesome improvements to a maximum.
I'd also like to announce that we've started a blog for Wikimedia tech
activity & MediaWiki development, in part because I want to make sure
community members can easily follow what we're working on and give
feedback before we push things out:
* http://techblog.wikimedia.org/
I'd very much like to make sure that we've got regular contacts among
the various project communities who can help coordinate with us on
features, bugs, and general thoughts which might affect some projects
distinctly from others.
-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
CTO, Wikimedia Foundation
San Francisco
