This being Volunteer Appreciation week in the US, I thought it was a
great chance for me to post to this list and post a Wikimedia blog
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/04/20/volunteer-appreciation/. I want to
thank everyone for being so welcoming. I am very excited about this
organization and this job working to support such an amazing group of
volunteers!
I've been reading along on some important community issues discussed
here and am learning so much. I look forward also to hearing
perspectives on the list about issues around diversifying and further
globalizing Wikimedia's free educational products and material. I am
very volunteer-centric when it comes to my big thinking about direction,
activities and products. So, I will be relying on you to help frame the
Foundation's volunteer support in a way that will be most beneficial in
your efforts to achieve our community's goals.
I look forward to meeting you as individuals as I go.
Jennifer Riggs - CPO Wikimedia Foundation
Hello,
Just a few minutes ago I have sent the second edition of my "Infobrief
Wiki-Welt". It is meant for people who are interested in Wikipedia and
related subjects, but are no Wikipedians, for example journalists,
teachers, other professionals, or just Wikipedia fans. We often talk
to those people in seminars, courses, on Wikipedia Academies, but
mostly there is no follow-up, the contacts get lost. This newsletter
exists to tell them every one or two weeks about Wikipedia and
Wikimedia, to keep them in touch.
If you know such people who understand German, please inform them
about the "Infobrief Wiki-Welt". It is arranged at Google Groups, but
you can also mail me and I add addresses manually.
Kind regards
Ziko van Dijk
http://groups.google.de/group/infobrief-wiki-welt/about
--
Dr. Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde
--- On Mon, 4/20/09, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Principle and pragmatism with nudity and sexual content
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Monday, April 20, 2009, 3:39 AM
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 1:19 AM, private musings <thepmaccount(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Here's a few questions about the foundation's role in
> > ensuring the projects are responsible media hosts -
> Can the foundation play
> > a role in discussing and establishing things like what
> it means to be
> > 'collegial' and 'collaborative' on the various
> projects? Can the foundation
> > offer guidance, and dare I say it 'rules' for the
> boundaries of behaviour?
> > Is there space, beyond limiting project activities to
> legality, to offer
> > firm leadership and direction in project governance?
> >
> > I'm hoping the answer to all of the above is a careful
> 'yes'.
>
> I believe the answer to the above, as worded, may be a
> careful 'no'.
> These are important decisions, and should be made and
> improved over
> time, but I believe it is the community's role to make them
> - and the
> foundation's to help provide interface or infrastructure to
> support
> the community's resolutions. Feel free to elaborate
> if you disagree.
>
> A strong and sustainable group within the community can
> absolutely
> work towards and establish the definitions and guidance you
> suggest.
> Past discussions have generally been useful, and not
> spiteful, but
> never pushed through to a resolution at least on meta and
> en:wp.
>
I second this. Does anyone really believe it is even possible to set one standard of what it means to be 'collegial' and 'collaborative' for all cultures? These things are not absolute values and each community needs to work out what standards are most pragmatic for it's members. There is no shortcut or appeal to authority that can solve this for en.WP. en.WP has to do the work and find these answers from within.
Birgitte SB
Nathan writes:
Interesting - I wonder if this is in any way related to the decisions
> underlying the recent board statement on trademarks? Has the Foundation
> pursued Wikipedia Review in the same manner?
I can answer that question -- it's wholly unrelated to the recent Board
statement on trademarks. Our concern was not primarily about trademarks.
Some background: The Wikipedia Art site, which was registered last year,
was operated by performance artists who (apparently) hoped to use Wikipedia
as a staging ground for a performance art project that involved creating
articles on Wikipedia and creating links, both internal and external, that
"proved" or "verified" the notability of the Wikipedia Art project. (This is
documented on their website.)
When the would-be artists attempted to use Wikipedia in this fashion, our
community of editors shut them down very quickly. At the same time,
however, some editors also expressed concern that the
wikipediaart.orgdomain name would be seen as somehow affiliated with
our projects,
especially since the artists were trying to edit content directly on
Wikipedia. So, after listening to our editors' feedback, we sent a letter to
Wikipedia Art that was aimed, not to threaten legal action, but to outline
what our legal concerns were, and to try to begin a negotiation to resolve
the matter amicably -- ideally by switching the domain name over to us, but
not by requiring any content changes on their site at all.
We of course entirely support the site owners' prerogative to comment on and
criticize Wikipedia. Our concern was that the Wikipedia Art project
presented itself as a way for individuals to contribute to Wikipedia
directly -- possibly by providing inaccurate reference information -- and,
in doing so, might seem to express an affiliation with us. We note also
that Wikipedia itself is hosts quite a bit of art, and reference materials
about art, and there was some concern about how this would play out in
search-engine results. We are pleased that the project, after we contacted
them about this matter, has chosen to publish a disclaimer disassociating
itself more clear from our projects, and that they have ceased in their
attempts to use Wikipedia as a staging ground for their performance art
projects.
Unsurprisingly, the artists, who enjoyed making a fuss with their initial
perfomance-art project, are hoping to make a fuss about our having contacted
them at all. We anticipated precisely this reaction, of course, which is
why our initial letter to Wikipedia Art, now posted on their website, talks
about resolving the matter amicably and asks the artists to respect and
understand our concerns. In other words, it's about the gentlest "demand
letter" one can possibly write. We're pleased it led to positive results
(the disclaimer). We always figured they might post our communications with
them.
With regard to Wikipedia Review: when I spoke with my friends at EFF about
this matter some weeks ago, they asked the same question. I pointed out
that we at Wikimedia Foundation actually rather love Wikipedia Review -- I
for one read it for its entertainment value -- and that in any case no one
reading Wikipedia Review would ever be under the impression that they're
affiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.
In a nutshell: Wikipedia editors brought the issue of the domain name to
our attention, we corresponded with the Wikipedia Arts folks, raising domain
name and trademark issues, and the result was a prominent disclaimer. No
litigation was threatened or commenced.
Last time I spoke with my EFF counterparts about this, the conversation was
entirely friendly and collegial. We disagreed on some matters, but I pointed
out that if someone decided to use the EFF website as a staging ground for a
performance art piece, I'd entirely support their efforts to prevent
anyone's confusing the artists' work with their own.
Please feel free to ask me any further questions about this.
--Mike Godwin
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
David Gerard writes:
They're performance artists. This is more performance. They fooled the
> EFF into playing along.
This is precisely my own take on the situation.
--Mike
> On Thu, 2009-04-23 at 07:51:27 GMT, David Gerard wrote:
> http://newteevee.com/2009/04/20/achtung-youtube-germany-proposes-federal-id…
>
> German readers - how much of a danger is this? Is Commons enough of a
"video site"?
>
> - d.
Not much. It is just a campaign of the Junge Union NRW to get in the media. Like every German political youth organisation, they have to make wired statements, to get any media coverage.
syrcro
--
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Hi All,
I am spreading the news around (I just posted to the internal list)
about a new announcement going out in a couple hours. For the past few
months I have been working on a deal with Orange (France Telecom) on a
new kind of multi-platform (web, mobile, IPTV) partnership for the
Wikimedia Foundation. This partnership will extend co-branding
opportunities and have Wikipedia's knowledge brought to some new
audiences. It will also allow for us to experiment with new technologies
to improve the functionality and delivery of our content. Furthermore,
this is an additional revenue stream to build on our most important
revenue stream - our successful fundraising campaigns.
This partnership will start in four European territories: France, UK,
Poland and Spain. I already notified the chapter reps in Poland, UK, and
France (3 of the 4 territories where we have chapters). They've had a
couple days to process the info and prepare for any media questions they
may come their way.
Here is the announcement that will go out soon:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Orange_and_Wikimedia_ann…
Also, here is the Q&A that should address some of the basic questions
about this partnership.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Orange_and_Wikimedia_ann…
Feel free to contact me or the list if you have any questions.
--Kul
Head of Business Development
"Can a noncommercial critical website use the trademark of the entity
it critiques in its domain name? Surprisingly, it appears that the
usually open-minded folks at Wikipedia think not."
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/wikipedia-threatens-
While I would regard the title of the article as misleading this is
going to be something of a PR problem.
Legally I've not looked at it closely and trademark isn't my thing
although there may be potential to annoy everyone by arguing that the
well documented existence of the "wikipedia loves art" err brand means
there are potential passing off issues.
--
geni