Dear all,
It is with great pleasure that we announce the third in a series of events
exploring academic research perspectives on Free Culture. After Sapporo and
Boston, the event moves this year to Berlin and expands to a 2-day
conference! Please see below for the details and click on the links for more
information. Of course it goes without saying that we’d love to receive some
contributions from you and would appreciate your help in spreading the word.
Please bookmark this page: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Home
*Call for Papers - Abstract Deadline: June 7, 2010 ***
The 3rd Free Culture Research Conference (FCRC)
Free Culture between Commons and Markets: Approaching the Hybrid Economy?
The Free Culture Research Conference presents a unique opportunity for
scholars whose work contributes to the promotion, study or criticism of a
Free Culture, to engage with a multidisciplinary group of academic peers and
practitioners, identify the most important research opportunities and
challenges, and attempt to chart the future of Free Culture. This event
builds upon the successful workshop held in 2009 at the Berkman Center for
Internet and Society at Harvard University, organized and attended by
renowned scholars and research institutions from the US, Europe and Asia.
The first event was held in Sapporo, Japan, in 2008, in conjunction with the
4th iCommons Summit. This year's event is larger in ambition and scope, to
provide more time for interaction in joint as well as break-out sessions. It
is hosted jointly by the Free University of Berlin and the Max Planck
Institute for the Study of Societies and will take place at *October 8-9,
2010* at the Free University Campus in Berlin, in collaboration with
COMMUNIA, the European Network on the digital public domain. Funding and
support is also provided by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
Given this year's theme and the generous support of the Free University's
School of Business and Economics, we encourage submissions at the interface
of Free Culture and business, although we welcome submissions from any
relevant discipline, will be inclusive and will maintain the
interdisciplinary nature of the event, as in previous years. Enabled by new
Internet technologies and innovative legal solutions, Free Culture prospers
in the form of new business models and via commons-based peer production,
thereby both challenging and complementing classic market institutions.
Alongside business perspectives, we expect that perspectives from law, IT,
the social sciences and humanities will help us develop a better
understanding of the challenges at hand, for individuals, business, law, the
economy, and society at large. Topics of interest include:
- Studies on the use and growth of open/free licensing models
- Critical analyses of the role of Creative Commons or similar models
- The role of Free Culture in markets, industry, government, or the
non-profit sector
- Technical, legal or business solutions towards a hybrid economy
- Incentives, innovation and community dynamics in open collaborative
peer production
- Economic models for the sustainability of commons-based production
- The economic value of the public domain
- Business models and the public domain
- Successes and failures of open licensing
- Analyses of policies, court rulings or industry moves that influence
the future of Free Culture
- Regional studies of Free Culture with global lessons
- Best practices from open/free licensing, and the application of
different business and organizational models by specific communities or
individuals
- Definitions of openness and freedom for different media types, users
and communities
- Broader economic, sociopolitical, legal or cultural implications of
Free Culture initiatives and peer production practices
- Methodological concerns in the study of Free Culture
This is the first time the event will be held in Europe, the home of many
past supporters and participants of the Free Culture workshops and also home
to millions of individual and institutional adopters of open licensing
models. We will therefore strive to promote and connect European scholars
working in relevant spheres, while also representing the global diversity of
the field.
For more information see:
- Submission Process:
http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Submission+process
- Venue: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Venue
- Organizing Committee:
http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Organizing+Committee
- Academic Program Committee:
http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Academic+Program+Committee
-- FCRC 2010 organizing committee
--
----------------------------------------------
Michelle Thorne
Eisenacher Strasse 2
10777 Berlin, Germany
+49 302 191 582 66
creativecommons.org/international
Geoffrey Plourde writes:
Wouldn't regulating content mean abdicating the role of webhost, which would
> call Section 230 into question?
>
Mere removal of content posted by others does not create a Section 230
problem or a problem under equivalent provisions elsewhere in the law. A
guideline or policy urged by the Wikimedia Foundation and
adopted/implemented by the volunteer-editor community would not create such
a problem either.
--Mike
I want to write personally -- not speaking on behalf of the Foundation but
instead as a longtime participant in online communities who has worked
extensively on free-speech issues -- to offer my perspective on a couple of
themes that I've seen made in threads here. The first is the claim that
Jimmy's actions represent a collapse in the face of a threat by Fox News
(and that this threat was somehow small or insignificant). The second is the
idea that the proper focus of the current discussion ought to be focused on
Jimmy (and anger against Jimmy's taking action, or against particular
aspects of the actions he took) to the effective exclusion of discussion of
whether Wikimedia Commons policy should be revisited, refined, or better
implemented.
First, my belief as a former journalist is that Fox News is not a
responsible news organization. This means that they get too many stories
wrong in the first place (as when they uncritically echo Larry Sanger's
uninformed and self-interested assertions), and it also means that when
their mistakes are brought to their attention, they may redouble their
aggressive attacks in the hope of somehow vindicating their original story.
This I believe is what Fox News (or at least its reporter and her editors)
were trying to do. If the media culture in the United States were such that
Fox News had no influence outside itself, we could probably just ignore it.
But the reality is that the virulent culture of Fox News does manage to
infect other media coverage in ways that are destructive to good people and
to good projects.
I disagree with the suggestion that it would have been better for Fox to
have gone with the original story they were trying to create rather than
with the story Jimmy in effect created for them. Jimmy's decision to
intervene changed the narrative they were attempting to create. So even if
you disagree with some or all of the particulars of Jimmy's actions, you may
still be able to see how Jimmy's actions, taken as a whole, created
breathing space for discussion of an issue on Commons that even many of
Jimmy's critics believe is a real issue.
The question then becomes whether we're doing to discuss the issues of
Commons policy or discuss whether Jimmy's actions themselves signify a
problem that needs to be fixed. You may say we can discuss both, and
technically you'd be right, but the reality of human discourse is that if
you spend your time venting at Jimmy, you won't be discussing Commons
policy, and you'll be diverting attention from Commons policy. My personal
opinion is that this would be the waste of an opportunity.
I think it's also worth remembering that when an individual like Jimmy is
given extraordinary cross-project powers to use in extraordinary
circumstances, this more or less guarantees that any use of those powers
will be controversial. (If they were uncontroversial, nobody would need
them, since consensus processes would fix all problems quickly and
effectively.) But rather than focus on whether your disagreement with the
particulars of what Jimmy did means that Jimmy's powers should be removed,
you should choose instead, I believe, to use this abrupt intervention as an
opportunity to discuss whether Commons policy and its implementation can be
improved in a way that brings it more into line with the Wikimedia projects'
mission. Once this discussion happens, it would not surprise me if the
result turned out to be that some of the material deleted by Jimmy will be
restored by the community -- probably with Jimmy's approval in many cases.
To the extent that Jimmy's intervention has triggered a healthy debate about
policy, I think the powers he used, and the decisions -- not individually
but taken as a whole -- that he made are justified. (Like many of you, I
would probably disagree with some of his particular decisions, but I
recognize that I'd be critical of anyone's particular decisions.) It is not
the case, after all, that Jimmy routinely intervenes in projects these days
-- it is mostly the case that he forbears from intervening, which is as it
should be, and which I think speaks well of his restraint. It should be
kept in mind, I think, that Jimmy's intervention was aimed at protecting our
projects from external threat and coercion, precisely to give breathing
space to the kind of dialog and consensus processes that we all value and
believe to be core principles of Wikimedia projects. I hope that rather than
venting and raging about what was done in the face of an imminent and
vicious threat gives way to some forward-looking discussion of how things
can be made better. This discussion is best focused on policy, and not on
Jimmy, in my view, since Jimmy's actions represent efforts to protect the
Wikimedia projects and movement. That's where our efforts should be focused
too.
--Mike
I want to write here a couple of reflections:
First: Not everything what can be known is worth being known....
Second: there have to be a few limits in the free knowledge. These limits are the Law and the common sense. Though the common sense is the least common of the senses
Third:Even we promote the free knowledge, there is not lde common sense (and I doubt that it is legal) that Commons offers images, for example, the best way of torturing to a person or the schemes to construct a bomb...
There are many countries in the world in which the pederasty is a crime, or his religious systems see them as something abominable.
We must respect these laws and these beliefs, we like them or not.
And it, gentlemen and ladies, is not a censorship. It is called a respect.
And now, if you want, take the Gólgota to me and then crucify me. As Groucho Marx said once: " These are my principles. If you don't like them ... I have others "
Well, I understand you, but I think you don´t understand me...First i
write "the law"...If the laws of your country prohibit certain images,
wikimedia cannot go in opposition to these laws ... they will be able to
be more just or fewer jousts, but does not correspond to us to decide
on it.
Nobody, certainly, speaks here about scientific images,
though well it is true that there are persons to whom the image of a
penis can look like an offensive, but it is not this problem.
I
do not believe that there exists doubt that certain contents are not acceptable.
The sexual relations adult - minor are not acceptable, and it is like
that in a
widespread majority of countries of the world and of peoples of the
world.
Probably it would be a good idea to make a kind of place reserved to deposit
there all these images, having good care of warning clearly to the whole
world of which to enter this place could be opposite to the laws of
certain countries, that the content can offend the spectator and that
Wikimedia is not played the role responsible for the contents not of
whom sees them.
And not, the common sense can never be confused
with the censorship. For the former Romans, the censorship was not any
more than to form a judgment of a work or other one sews. For us it is
something upside-down, it is to manipulate the truth in order that
others could not know her.
But not the whole censorship is wrong,
since not the whole knowledge is worth being known. In fact, so much in
wikipedia as in commons already it is censured ... it was
done before this problem and it will continue done .... so, perhaps is
not it a censorship to erase certain contents for considering them to be
irrelevant? Or certain images for which they do not expire with the
legislation on copy-right of the country in question?
I also believe strongly in the right to choose, but I believe even stronger that not the whole world has the same aptitudes to choose ... the entire content of wikimedia is accessible to the whole world ... I have two daughters minors ... I would not like that they were agreeing to see images that are not prepared to see. Before the right to choose debit to there have been an education that it teaches to choose.
--- El dom, 9/5/10, Excirial <wp.excirial(a)gmail.com>
escribió:
De: Excirial
<wp.excirial(a)gmail.com>
Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] On problems
in commons
Para: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Fecha: domingo, 9 de mayo,
2010 23:47
*Please, read good. Common
Sense. Do you think it´s of common sense delete
this?...*
Common
sense is not
Common<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sense#Use_common_sense>.
In
the Islamic world depictions of Muhammad are considered to be highly
offensive,
akin to western views on child pornography. I am not offended in
the
least by images of muhammed, but other people are. By your rationale we
would
have to remove every image or content that might be considered
offensive
due to it being a matter of respect. It would mean that every
pornographic
diagram, drawing or image would have to be removed. We would
have to
remove the Muhammad category. We would have to clean our medical
pages
which contain photo's of certain diseases that can be considered
gross.
We would have to remove logo's from pages on secret societies as
these
societies often consider those logo's "Secret". In fact, there is
little
to no content that is not considered offensive by at least part of
the
population.
Therefor we include
relevant images as long as they are not against the law.
Images with
a high level of "Offensiveness" to a large group of people
should be
handled with care, but not evaded. One persons "common sense
removal"
is another persons censorship. I strongly believe in the right to
choose
- we should not enforce people to look at content they do not wish to
see.
But equally we should not remove content merely on the basis that
someone
doesn't like it.
~Excirial
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>
>> We definitely do not want to be giving medical advice to people. If
>> you get that wrong, people die. Medical advice should be got by going
>> to the doctors. Can you give another example of what your idea could
Yes, medical troubleshooting is both extremely useful and extremely
sensitive, and that's why I said "Like Wikipedia, WikiTroubleshooting
should cite credible references." We could put a warning and a
disclaimer on every medical troubleshooting page telling the visitor
to check cited references and other sources before adopting any
advice.
>> be used for? Can you also explain how it would work - how would we put
Troubleshooting is enormously useful beyond the medical domain. For
example, troubleshooting problems when using a computer (hardware or
software), programming (intending to implement something but the
program doesn't behave as desired; in this case, a troubleshooter
helps the programmer incrementally specify his *intent* rather than
*problem*), using home appliances ("my air conditioner has ice"), or
any other problem at home or at work.
>> together this wizard?
To understand how a wiki can implement a "troubleshooting wizard", you
must first understand what is a "troubleshooting wizard". Googling [
troubleshooting wizard ], we can see some examples:
http://www1.linksys.com/support/troubleshoot/routers/index.htmlhttp://support.plato.com/ple/troubleshooting.asphttp://www.fixyourdlp.com/wizard/launch-window.htmlhttp://support.hubris.net/dialup/wizard/
All of the above examples help a visitor isolate his problem step by
step, asking one question at each step and finally giving possible
solutions.
Also learn about the concept "troubleshooting" at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubleshooting .
How can a wiki implement a troubleshooting wizard? A wizard is a set
of pages. Each page assumes you have specified certain symptoms (e.g.
symptom1, symptom3, symptom5) of your problem and asks you a question
to specify a new symptom (e.g. symptom10); then it redirects you to a
next page that assumes you have specified symptoms 1, 3, 5 and 10 and
asks you yet another question or shows you possible causes and
solutions for the symptoms you have specified so far (1, 3, 5, 10).
Therefore they're just static HTML pages where each page can link to
one or more "next pages". This is exactly what a wiki can do.
Best Regards,
Yao Ziyuan
http://sites.google.com/site/yaoziyuan/
Hello,
Wikimedia Serbia is proud to announce the Fourth Regional Conference of
Wikimedia Serbia.
The conference will be held on 5th and 6th June in Belgrade, in the
Belgrade Youth Center. We are hoping to have as many Wikimedia guests as
possible. Conference is not regional in the strict sense, meaning that
people who are not from the region are welcome as well.
If you are interested in visiting the conference, please reply to this
email with the exact information on when you can come and how long you
can stay, as well as whether there is a chance to provide your own
accommodation in Belgrade. Wikimedia Serbia received a (limited) grant
from the city of Belgrade to organize this conference, so there is an
opportunity of covering accommodation and/or travel expenses for a
certain number of participants.
If you would like to hold a lecture, workshop or similar during the
conference, also report that to us so that we could include you in the
program.
Please forward this email to anyone you believe would like to attend the
conference.
Contact people:
Goran Obradovic: obradovicgoran(a)gmail.com
Filip Maljkovic: dungodung(a)gmail.com
Nikola Smolenski: smolensk(a)eunet.rs
Cheers,
Wikimedia Serbia
In the interest of encouraging this discussion to be about real
philosophical/content issues, rather than be about me and how quickly I
acted, I've just now removed virtually all permissions to actually do
things from the "Founder" flag. I even removed my ability to edit
semi-protected pages! (I've kept permissions related to 'viewing' things.)
I do not want to be a tyrant or dictator. I do not want us to fight
about that kind of thing, as it's really a distraction from our work.
What I'm interested in is this video:
http://www.vimeo.com/8709616
Please watch it - it's 8 minutes long, and well worth it. This video
moved me deeply - it shows what our real impact on the world is, and I
think if you watch it, you'll feel the way that I did.
As for now, I'm going to log off until tomorrow. I'll be at the
Wikimeet in London later today.
--
Jimmy Wales
Please follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/jimmy_wales
The founder’s flag give to a single man a huge power. I can’t trust on
almost anybody to hold that power. But In less than two days Jimbo has
resigned of this power. By doing this he has proven that he is one of the
sparse people we can trust.
Wikimedia movement is a complex system. Capacity to take decisions is
distributed among a lot of stakeholders. Up to now it has worked pretty
well.
Along all this discussions I think several weaknesses of Wikimedia movement
arisen: This power on single man hands, the foundation need for money, the
power concentration in the hands of the board, the feeling that the members
of the project can’t do anything, the possibility of forking and creating a
project ruled by the chapters… And I could add more, by example: the flags
system is organized in a pyramidal way.
I think that removing a single piece of this system instead of solving any
problem can unbalance the whole. More if this piece has proved extraordinary
good results in the past and extraordinary positive attitude in the present.
Please give Jimbo those flags back. And start altogether a process of
rethinking the whole Wikimedia governance. Improve the system as a whole;
find the mechanisms allowing that it is not needed that anybody holds this
power.
I have opened this page on meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Give_funders_flag_back
> On 5/9/10 4:18 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > I notice you have kept "protect" and "undelete". Is that intentional?
> > If so, can you explain your thinking behind that decision?
>
> I just removed undelete, manage global groups, and edit membership to
> global groups. I did that before I saw your note, so I missed
> "protect". It's not important one way or the other.
>
> My purpose here is for us to stop chattering about this aspect of things
> - which I don't care about. People seem to want to fight me on it,
> perhaps expecting me to dig in my heels. Everyone loves a good fight,
> even me, but this is not a fight that we need to have.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
>
>
Greg Maxwell writes:
At the same time, and I think we'll hear a similar message from the
> EFF and the ALA, I am opposed to these organized "content labelling
> systems". These systems are primary censorship systems and are
> overwhelmingly used to subject third parties, often adults, to
> restrictions against their will. I'm sure these groups will gladly
> confirm this for us, regardless of the sales patter used to sell these
> systems to content providers and politicians.
>
I just want to chime in, in support of Greg's assessment here. I worked for
EFF for nine years, and I have done extensive work with ALA as well, and I
am absolutely certain that these organizations (and others, including
civil-liberties groups) will be extremely critical if any project adopts
ICRA labeling schemes. Moreover, Greg's characterization of the existing
systems as "primary censorship systems ... overwhelmingly used to subject
third parties, often adults, to restrictions against their will" is entirely
accurate.
--Mike