Wikimedia-l December 2011

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

134 participants
104 discussions

[Foundation-l] Wikipecies charter
by John Vandenberg 04 Dec '11

04 Dec '11

https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies:Charter was created in September 2004‎ with: --- As quoted from Jimbo Wales: "As you know, the creation of this project was somewhat controversial in some quarters, and so I propose an early development of a strong non-forking policy guideline here, illustrating how wikispecies significantly differs from articles that would appear in a general encyclopedia. Here are some of the key points that the board put forward when we approved this project: We set up the WikiSpecies wiki for biologists to begin organizing the project. We propose that as the software is developed, it should work to strongly support integration with wikipedia, to help avoid duplication of effort, i.e. to avoid forking. We ask the participants on wikispecies to particularly think about how their work should differ from a generalist encyclopedia." --- Does anyone know where this Jimmy quote comes from? I presume it is after the WMF board meeting on 5 September 2004 as it quotes from it http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/September_5,_2004 (created 26 September 2004‎) I think the Wiki "charter" needs to be made a bit more .. err .. like a charter. It is linked to from the Wikispecies about page https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies:About -- John Vandenberg

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[Foundation-l] Reminder: IRC office hours in ~15 minutes
by Steven Walling 04 Dec '11

04 Dec '11

Just a reminder that we will be in #wikimedia-office to talk about using the Feedback Dashboard (Special:FeedbackDashboard) to respond to new editors on Wikipedia. The feature is currently enabled in Dutch and English.

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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Language committee report - November 2011
by Robin Pepermans 04 Dec '11

04 Dec '11

See the wiki version here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Reports/2011-11 This is the language committee report for November 2011. Previous month no e-mail was sent because there was nothing to report, other than the creation of the Northern Sotho Wikipedia. ===Committee=== * Several members (Amir, Robin, Gerard, Santhosh) went to the Hackathon in Mumbai, India. <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/India_Hackathon_2011> ===Approvals=== * The Veps Wikipedia and Western Punjabi Wiktionary are approved and waiting for creation (bugs 32510 and 32511 respectively). ===Requests=== * Discussion about the Mapudungun Wikipedia and its orthography issue. * Amir contacted the Ingush State University for an analysis of the Ingush content at Incubator. They told that the content is quite different from standard literary Ingush. ===Other=== * Discussion about Moldovan and its closed Wikipedia. * Discussion about the dialogue on < http://www.newtactics.org/en/thread/what-steps-need-be-taken-underrepresent…> and more specifically about the Songhay language(s) which is classified as "collective" which we didn't allow so far. < http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=son> _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

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[Foundation-l] "Singing Wikipedia"
by Tomasz Ganicz 04 Dec '11

04 Dec '11

Hi, Copernicus Sience Center from Warsaw: http://www.kopernik.org.pl/en/ Has just started a wbesite called "singing Wikipedia" http://www.famelab.org.pl/ The idea is that anyone can propose any article from Polish Wikipedia to be read by one of several Polish celebrities (actors, TV journalist, singers etc). They are usually doing this in a funny way. Most funny reads are recorder and made available to general public and placed in YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL938BB67F93980477 Wikimedia Polska had nothing in common with this except they asked us about legal issues (licence, use of logo etc.). After explanation they decided not to use logo of Wikipedia and use only the name in ctiation context. I personally believe that it is really good promotion for us :-) The website is 100% non-commercial. The main idea behind is just to attract people to science and generally knowledge. My favorite "singing" is "Seplenienie" ("Lisp") by Borys Szyc: http://www.famelab.org.pl/#seplenienie which in fact could be used as a good ilustration of this article :-) -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz

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[Foundation-l] From Lebanon
by joumanaboufakhreddine＠gmail.com 03 Dec '11

03 Dec '11

Hello, I am an independent Lebanese journalist. I am very interested to be your company representative in Lebanon, with whom I may communicate concerning this matter? Also I have a project proposal doing internet interaction site for intellectuals, with whom should I communicate? Thank you. Joumana mobile +961-76765019 Sent via BlackBerry® from mtc touch

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[Foundation-l] Image filter brainstorming: Personal filter lists
by WereSpielChequers 03 Dec '11

03 Dec '11

Message: 6 > Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 14:55:29 +0200 > From: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Image filter brainstorming: Personal > filter lists > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List > <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: > <CAJ9-EKLOfhu5jycOt6i4fMm-CRM=0wrtT=e4=Orhmg--_RTROQ(a)mail.gmail.com > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 1:00 PM, WereSpielChequers > <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > I'm pretty sure that the community is against a filter system based on > our > > commons categories. > > . > > Thankfully the Foundation seems to have taken that message on board and > > though we can expect to continue to have pro-filter people joining the > > debate and trying to revive that type of proposal, I'm pretty sure it is > > dead in the water. > > Not according to their meeting minutes. It does seem there are people still > flailing around with a horse-whip, thinking that if they just whip the dead > horse hard enough, it will rise up and be a useful steed. > The bit I was referring to was: "that the Board send a letter to the community acknowledging opposition to the filter idea; that the idea of a category-based system be dropped, as it is problematic and highly controversial, but that staff continue discussions with the community about how to build a system that would meet the Board's objectives; and that the staff also continue to focus on their work to recruit a more diverse editor body, including women and people from the global south. Sue noted that we do not currently have technical work scheduled on the filter, so there is time to develop ideas that acknowledge community objections. This course of action was agreed to. " http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2011-10-07 My reading of that is that the board has agreed to drop the idea of a filter based on our category system, but unfortunately they haven't yet agreed to drop the idea that someone controlling an IP could censor what other viewers using that IP can see. > > > > I'm not sure that we have a consensus for or against the principle of > > censorship, or whether the community as a whole regards a private > personal > > filter as censorship. > > This is one of those canards that just keep popping up, despite having been > comprehensively debunked time and again. We have always had a consensus > against censorship, and Jimbo even used to enforce it through bans and > blocks. > We already have a no censorship policy that makes various exceptions. For Example Paedophilia advocates get blocked on site on EN wikipedia. There may in the past have been a consensus against any change to that policy, but there hasn't been a recent site wide reconsideration of that consensus. DE Wikipedia had an overwhelming vote, but they may not reflect views on the rest of the site, and not being a German speaker I'm not sure to what extent their vote was a decisive rejection of the proposal that was then on the table or a rejection of filtering in principle. > > On the one hand at least one Wikimedian is asserting that the > > community is opposed to censorship in principle, and that even a private > > personal filter would be censorship. On the other hand the board still > > wants the image filter to be usable for IPs and not just logged in users > - > > despite the fact that we have no way to implement an IP level system > > without allowing some people to censor other people's Wikimedia viewing. > > If you mean me, I am not asserting, I am reminding that this issue has been > visited and revisited more times than anybody can be bothered to count. And > the consensus has always been the same. The definition of insanity is > trying > the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. > > > Change on wiki is sometimes slow as consensus makes for a very conservative(cautious) policy making process. But that doesn't entitle the opponents of change to oppose simply because an idea is similar to ones that have been rejected before. If the proponents of change are making an effort to meet the objections raised to similar proposals, then to operate in a spirit of consensus the defenders of the status quo should at the very least explain how the latest proposal doesn't meet or all or some of their objections. Otherwise the supporters of change may reasonably assume that they've won the argument and only have inertia to overcome. That said there is an argument for having a minimum interval between reviews of a policy - and if this current debate were to conclude with the consensus against those of us who are trying to formulate a filter proposal that would be acceptable to the community then I would hope we could agree not to reopen the debate for at least a year - or two if the majority is significant. WSC > -- > -- > Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] > > > >

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Audit and Audit FAQ's for the period ending June 30, 2011
by Jay Walsh 02 Dec '11

02 Dec '11

HI folks - on-passing this important note from Garfield! On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Garfield Byrd <gbyrd(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > The audit of the Wikimedia Foundation and frequently asked questions about > the audit for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011 are available at > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports. > > Please contact me via e-mail with any questions. > > -- > Garfield Byrd > Chief of Finance and Administration > Wikimedia Foundation > > > _______________________________________________ > Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately > directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia > Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ > WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list > WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l > > -- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw

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[Foundation-l] Article Feedback Tool office hours - 15 minutes
by Oliver Keyes 02 Dec '11

02 Dec '11

Hey guys; the AFT office hours session will be starting at 11:00 (or whenever Geoff finishes) :). Hope to see you all there! -- Oliver Keyes Community Liason, Product Development Wikimedia Foundation

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[Foundation-l] Image filter brainstorming: Personal filter lists
by WereSpielChequers 02 Dec '11

02 Dec '11

I'm pretty sure that the community is against a filter system based on our commons categories. Those who oppose that type of scheme range from the idealists who are opposed to censorship in principle to the pragmatists who are aware of our categorisation backlog and don't want to set us up to fail (or to implement something that would undermine our GLAM programs). Thankfully the Foundation seems to have taken that message on board and though we can expect to continue to have pro-filter people joining the debate and trying to revive that type of proposal, I'm pretty sure it is dead in the water. I'm not sure that we have a consensus for or against the principle of censorship, or whether the community as a whole regards a private personal filter as censorship. The "referendum" could have established if we have such consensus, but it didn't include the right questions. I suspect that I'm not unusual in opposing more censorship than we already have in our somewhat misnamed "not censored" policy, but also in regarding censorship as one person stopping another from seeing or hearing something. To my mind censorship starts when someone tells me I can't have certain images or information, if I choose not to see certain things that's my choice and not something I consider censorship, but I don't know what proportion of the community shares my view on that. This question raises two contentious areas; On the one hand at least one Wikimedian is asserting that the community is opposed to censorship in principle, and that even a private personal filter would be censorship. On the other hand the board still wants the image filter to be usable for IPs and not just logged in users - despite the fact that we have no way to implement an IP level system without allowing some people to censor other people's Wikimedia viewing. Another contentious area exists re NPOV and globalisation. Some other websites have a clear POV and a focus on a particular culture, and for them a filter is relatively easy. "Not Safe for Work" is probably quite similar in Peoria, Portsmouth and Perth and such a filter prudish but not totally alien to many Europeans. But in some parts of the world cultural concerns are very different, so different that the idea of a simple single filter or even a complex filter with a sliding scale from burka to bare naked via swim wear isn't enough. To comply with NPOV and offer a filter that could potentially work for everybody we need a multiplex system that allows for the possibility that two different people could share a distaste for one image but have completely opposite perceptions of another image. The initial WMF proposal only supported a limited number of filters and therefore inevitably would have lead to POV disputes as to which religions or filter concerns were important enough to be on the list and which the community would ignore and deem insufficiently important to merit a filter option. Both of the filter options in play - the personal filter option and the personal private filter option are based on the idea that you can have as many different filter options as you want - the distinguishing issue is whether there are people who want a particular filter not whether the movement decides whether a particular filter request is valid or not. However one of the leading proposals is that we promote the practice of collapsing contentious images that already operates on two languages and encourage it elsewhere on Wikipedia. The problem is that you can't have a policy of allowing "controversial" images to be collapsed without setting a threshold as to how controversial an image needs to be to merit such action. If you simply allow anyone to collapse any image they find offensive then our Political coverage will quickly look odd. If you decide to only collapse and hide images that have been reported to be controversial by reliable sources then brace yourself for various demonstrations at every future Wikimania. The third contentious area is over the publishing of lists that could assist censors. Tom Morris has argued that we shouldn't concern ourselves with that, in effect citing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Other_stuff_exists and explaining that the horse has bolted. Not everyone accepts that argument, and I see this as a major difference between the personal filter option and the private personal filter option http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Brainstorming/personal…. Though I'm wondering whether a compromise between the two with seeding lists would be acceptable providing they were not comprehensive lists. A fourth area of contention is money and specifically whether this is a legitimate use of the money donated to the movement. We've already had one UK board member ask awkward question re this. My view is that one could argue that a private personal filter is a user preference and within scope; That a filter which made the projects acceptable to large numbers of people who currently avoid us would be in scope; and that a filter which cost a tiny proportion of our total budget could be de minimis. But others disagree and at present we have no idea as to what these filters would cost or how many non-users are just waiting for such a filter. Part of that could be answered by an estimate from the developers, part by doing research amongst the internet users who don't use Wikimedia in languages where we have low readership share. But radically the board could resolve this by setting up a stand alone organisation to fund the global image filter. If that couldn't fundraise then we'd have an idea of the value of the concept, and it might be salutary for the board itself to organise such a fork and then have to collaborate with it. WSC > It isn' one incidence, it isn't a class of incidences. Take it on board > that the > community is against the *principle* of censorship. Please. > > > -- > -- > Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 8 > Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 19:06:50 +0000 > From: Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Image filter brainstorming: Personal > filter lists > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List > <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: > <CAAQB2S88_o=poBAE-mx28jYr=F0uiH9zxRe1kd9HmCisHc3FEw(a)mail.gmail.com > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 09:11, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen > <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > This is not a theoretical risk. This has happened. Most famously in > > the case of Virgin using pictures of persons that were licenced under > > a free licence, in their advertising campaign. I hesitate to call this > > argument fatuous, but it's relevance is certainly highly > > questionable. Nobody has raised this is as a serious argument except > > you assume it > > has been. This is the bit that truly is a straw horse. The "downstream > > use" objection > > was *never* about downstream use of _content_ but downstream use of > _labels_ and > > the structuring of the semantic data. That is a real horse of a > > different colour, and not > > of straw. > > > > I was drawing an analogy: the point I was making is very simple - the > general principle of "we shouldn't do X because someone else might > reuse it for bad thing Y" is a pretty lousy argument, given that we do > quite a lot of things in the free culture/open source software world > that have the same problem. Should the developers of Hadoop worry that > (your repressive regime of choice) might use their tools to more > efficiently sort through surveillance data of their citizens? > > I'm not at all sure how you concluded that I was suggesting filtering > groups would be reusing the content? Net Nanny doesn't generally need > to include copies of Autofellatio6.jpg in their software. The reuse of > the filtering category tree, or even the unstructured user data, is > something anti-filter folk have been concerned about. But for the most > part, if a category tree were built for filtering, it wouldn't require > much more than identifying clusters of categories within Commons. That > is the point of my post. If you want to find adult content to filter, > it's pretty damn easy to do: you can co-opt the existing extremely > detailed category system on Commons ("Nude images including Muppets", > anybody?). > > Worrying that filtering companies will co-opt a new system when the > existing system gets them 99% of the way anyway seems just a little > overblown. > > > It isn' one incidence, it isn't a class of incidences. Take it on board > that > > the community is against the *principle* of censorship. Please. > > As I said in the post, there may still be good arguments against > filtering. The issue of principle may be very strong - and Kim Bruning > made the point about the ALA definition, for instance, which is a > principled rather than consequentialist objection. > > Generally, though, I don't particularly care *what* people think, I > care *why* they think it. This is why the debate over this has been so > unenlightening, because the arguments haven't actually flowed, just > lots of emotion and anger. > > -- > Tom Morris > <http://tommorris.org/> > > >

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[Foundation-l] c6e7b72d1e1d565603d3d7b0a77e00ba17a7d306
by Karrie Byrd 02 Dec '11

02 Dec '11

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Wikimedia-l December 2011