> (As > example: the only 2 girls who commented here - phoebe and me - are in
> opposite sides. ...)
-*B?ria Lima*
Technically, you, Sarah Stierch, Phoebe, and Sue have all commented --
at least 4 women, not just 2.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Volunteer Development Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Kat Walsh writes:
> I am happy to see the Italian community behind the opposition to the
> proposed law because I do think it's contrary to what Wikimedia does,
> and to see that there is consensus among the Italian community to do
> something drastic; there will be a far greater effect on the Italian
> wiki than a short blockage if bad laws are passed. (And part of
> me--the part that's been around for a billion years--is thrilled to
> see a community coming to such a decision on their own, via what seems
> like a reasonable process, without waiting for approval or support.)
Speaking only for myself, this precisely reflects my views. I applaud
the Italian Wikipedians' decision to challenge this law so directly.
> But I'm not sure about denying access completely for several days. I think the action that
> was done may be too much, that maybe something could have been done to
> generate as much attention without cutting off access as much.
I understand Kat's doubts here, but my intuitive reaction, having
dealt with government censorship of various sorts for more than 20
years, is that more dramatic action is most likely to be effective in
persuading a government to change course. Governments that want to
censor -- like the USA, the United Kingdom (through its public-private
partnership), and now the Italian government -- tend to build up a lot
of inertia behind their policy choices. It's very hard to get a
government to change its mind. You have to challenge government
officials in a big, dramatic (and usually longer-lasting) way to get
their attention and make them responsive.
Of course this is an experiment -- we don't yet know whether the
Italian Wikipedians' efforts will be successful. But I think it's
probably better to dare too much than too little. I think the Italian
Wikipedians are courageous on this issue, and they totally have my
personal support.
I'd also like to +1 the thought that the very existence of Wikipedia
is not itself NPOV -- it reflects a philosophical and political
position, and one that just about all of us here agree with.
There are some governments that won't respond positively to any
protest effort -- the People's Republic of China is one of these, and
not just because Chinese readers have an alternative in Baidu. Let's
hope the government of Italy takes a better position than the PRC
would.
--Mike
Milos writes:
> On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 22:32, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> (As an aside, kudos to Milos' rapid response and ability to organize his own
>> local community in support of the concerns of our Italian counterparts.)
>
> Thanks! It should be noted that this the decision has been supported
> by 100% of WM RS Board members who voted (via email or phone). After
> the fifth support, we didn't search for the rest two voting members,
> as the statement already had majority.
I agree entirely with Risker, and I want to applaud the WM RS Board
members for responding so quickly in support of the Italian
Wikimedians on this issue. Milos, I missed your board's public
statement -- can you send me a link so I can share it in my networks?
--Mike
Cross-posting to Foundation-L
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barry Newstead <bnewstead(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 1:47 PM
Subject: Chapter program plans
To: "Local Chapters, board and officers coordination (closed subscription)"
<internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi -
I want to make you all aware that several chapters (AT, AU, CH, DE, FR, HU,
SE, UK) have posted program plans for 2012. There are links to the plans on
Meta [1].
These plans present an important picture of what these chapters propose to
do in the year ahead. I'd like to thank the chapter boards and staff for
their efforts to get this done by 1 October to help us all in planning
targets for the fundraiser. The plans combined with WMF's annual plan [2]
also provide a picture of the kind of activities that are planned for key
areas of the movement. This is the first time we have implemented such an
approach, so I'm sure it required significant work and ingenuity to pull
them together.
I would encourage anyone interested in the plans to read them and to provide
your feedback either on the talk pages of the plans or if you have general
observations, then post them on the Meta page or on this list.
The next step in this process is to review the plans and then in the case of
chapters who are supporting fundraising, we'll need to agree on a
fundraising target (in situations where the requested target is >150% of the
chapter's 2010 fundraising share). For chapters who are working on a grant,
we'll need to agree on the plan to finalize the grant amount. We expect to
move forward on these in a timely fashion.
Best,
Barry
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters/Plans_2011-2012
[2]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/37/2011-12_Wikimedia_Fou…
--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Wikimedia Serbia supports Italian Wikipedians in denouncing the
proposed law in the Italian Senate known as the "Wiretapping Act" and
its paragraph 29, which undermines the free speech standards of our
civilization.
Wikimedia Serbia fully supports the protest of Italian Wikipedians and
hopes that the decision of the Senate will be withdrawn.
Wikimedia Serbia calls on other Wikimedia chapters, as well as the
Wikimedia Foundation, to make concrete steps towards pressuring the
Italian Senate and government to withdraw this law, in coordination
with Wikimedia Italy. These steps could include sending electronic and
regular mail to Italian government institutions by members of
Wikimedia chapters and other Wikimedians, as well as peaceful protests
in front of Italian embassies all over the world.
----
;For background, see
* http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Vituzzu/comunicato/en
* emails, starting from:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/56247
This statement on Wikimedia Serbia site:
http://rs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stav_2/2011
Hello,
Here are the facts: the Italian parliament will discuss within few days –
and most likely approve – a law which, among the other things, will
introduce the duty, for every web site (included, and not limited to,
Wikipedia) to publish amendments to previously published information.
According to the proposal (
http://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/00484629.pdf), the required
amendment cannot be modified, nor commented, and must be placed in article’s
body, in the same format and with the same visibility of the allegedly
defaming text.
Moreover: the amendment must be published upon every request, without taking
into account whether the information is true or not and whether references
are available for it or not.
Also, please, be aware of the fact that (as for the recent Google and
Microsoft cases) the principle that the proposed law is going to introduce
will be applicable to “all” sites, not only Italian’s: if somebody from
Italy will post any information on, say, en.wikip, the rule will make it
mandatory for en.wikip to post an amendment, if required. Which, at least,
will mean incoming legal issues or inquiries to be managed by WMF, with
related expenses. In short words: this rule, if approved, will be a complete
mess for Wikipedia.
Because of such a risk (it’s easily understandable that this rule will make
encyclopedia articles as pure “frames” for unchangeable text imposed by
others), the Italian community has decided, by a vast majority (see
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Comma_29_e_Wikipedia)
to lock both read and write access to encyclopedia articles and to publish
the following text as full screen sitenotice:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Vituzzu/comunicato (an English
translation is available here:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Vituzzu/comunicato/en). This decision
will be implemented as soon as possible, during the next 12 hours.
Giovanni AKA Pap3rinik (sysop at it.wikip)
> Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 18:16:41 +0530
> From: Theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Hi
>
> There seems to be a situation developing at Italian Wikipedia related to a
> local law that would infringe neutrality on Wikipedia. The discussions even
> mention a possible blackout/lockdown in reaction.
>
> Is anyone aware of this situation? Is it likely to have any effect on other
> projects and outside communities? Is WMF aware since it is mentioned in the
> discussion as well.
>
> The announcement that was linked to on IRC:
> https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Vituzzu/comunicato/en
>
> A discussion which might be relevant:
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Comma_29_e_Wikipedia
>
>
> Theo
>
On 10/4/2011 9:04 AM, foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
>>> issue of originality.
>> >
>> > The Qimron case is completely irrelevant with regard to the copyright
>> > of the images. ?It is a case about the*text*.
> If WMF wants to copy*the text* of the scrolls, I don't think anyone
> is going to have a problem with that. The copyright notice claims
> copyright "in the digital images of the manuscripts", not in the text.
Wait a minute! **the text** is exactly the area where a copyright might
apply.
Think about it: the images are written in ?Aramaic? with missing
segments in unpredictable places.
Are you planning on printing the original Aramaic as is (that would be a
Unicode representation of Aramaic characters) or the text of a
translation into another language by someone who is trying to fill in
the holes as they translate? If the latter, then I'd guess that the
copyright is valid in the sense of being a translation that required
substantial intellectual effort and produced a unique result.
As nearly as I recall (40 years after reading "The Dead Sea Scrolls" ) ,
there were a lot of unknowns as some fragments of scrolls were missing
large areas. So the attempts to read them were to some extent based on
modern copies of copies that may have differed considerably from the
source material. At that time many of the scrolls were NOT opened, as
the science of preservation had not yet advanced to the point where
anyone felt comfortable doing so without seriously damaging them.
(Presumably those shortcomings have since been addressed.)
Hi Nathan,
my name is Giovanni (Donaldo stands for Donald [Duck], and is related to my
nickname ;))
You are right in understanding that this lock is a way to raise a discussion
about a proposed law, which has been developed without any consideration
about the consequences on Wikipedia (or disregarding it: we already tryed,
in the past, to stess such consequences). In no way our reaction wants to be
"political" nor "lobbying" as our only concern is about encyclopedia
content: there is no way to make it compliant an unchangeable text (the
required amendment) and a wiki, an amendment that can be required also if a
statement is true and referenced, with Wikipedia citations policies.
Regards
Giovanni AKA Pap3rinik
> Hi Giovanni (or Donaldo?),
>
> Has anyone at it.wp been in touch with Foundation staff? Locking a
> major wiki seems like a pretty big step, perhaps they could provide
> some advice or resources? Am I correct in understanding this lock as a
> protest of the proposed law, since it hasn't been discussed or voted
> upon in parliament yet? Such a political protest seems like an
> unprecedented step for a Wikimedia project.
>
> Nathan