Wikimedia-l June 2011

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

147 participants
123 discussions

[Foundation-l] Projects in simple languages
by Milos Rancic 21 Jun '11

21 Jun '11

After a month of on-list talk -- sometimes very heated, sometimes very quiet -- Language committee has agreed about the next wording of the part of the new policy [1] related to the simple languages: * Can there be wikis in "simple" languages? *: Yes, in principle. But two special criteria would need to be met: the language should be a "world language" with many L2 users, and there must be a reliable, published specification of the controlled language to be used. Examples are [[w:en:Basic English|Basic English]] and [[w:fr:Français fondamental|Français fondamental]]. (In reality it does not appear that there ''are'' many controlled languages other then English and French.) In practice, it means that: * It is likely that just Wikipedia in simple French would be approved. If there are reliable and published specifications of other world languages (Russian, Spanish, Arabic etc.), group interested in creating project in simple language has to present it to the LangCom. * It is likely that border cases would be discussed in Language committee on case-by-case basis. For example, German is not a world language, but at least discussion would be opened if strong arguments would be given, including widely accepted definition of simple language. * It is not a matter of LangCom would any Wikipedia (or any other Wikimedia project) host project in corresponding simple language inside of a separate namespace -- with or without specification.

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: Re: Projects in simple languages
by Milos Rancic 21 Jun '11

21 Jun '11

This was intended to be reply to the list. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Projects in simple languages Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 21:12:16 +0100 From: Michael Everson <everson(a)evertype.com> To: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> On 06/20/2011 08:55 PM, David Gerard wrote: > I have been around the Wikimedia projects since 2004. This is the very first time I have ever heard any official subset of English mentioned in any connection with the Simple English Wikipedia. Did I just miss past documentation to this effect? Was this part of its founding? When was Basic English first linked with Simple? Evidently from the beginning. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia Simple English Wikipedia is a Wikipedia encyclopedia, written in basic English.[1] http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English Even in the earliest revision of the main page http://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=461 it refers to controlled vocabulary of 1000-2000 words. Ogden's Basic English was published in 1940. It's unlikely that those who asked for simple.wikipedia.org were unaware of it. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: Announcement: WMF engineering promotions and role changes
by Erik Moeller 21 Jun '11

21 Jun '11

FYI :-) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 5:58 PM Subject: Announcement: WMF engineering promotions and role changes To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Hi folks, I’m pleased to announce the following promotions and role changes in engineering, effective immediately. * Rob Lanphier is the Director of Platform Engineering. * Tomasz Finc is the Director of Mobile and Special Projects. * Alolita Sharma is the acting Director of Features Engineering. Alolita has gracefully agreed to take on this role, for which we’re kicking off a full search process. * Mark Bergsma is now the Lead Operations Architect, reporting to CT. * Tim Starling is now the Lead Platform Architect, reporting to Rob. I’ll explain a bit more what these roles mean below, but first, please join me in congratulating Rob, Tomasz, Alolita, Mark and Tim! :-) Let me also take this opportunity to thank Danese Cooper for helping to build and professionalize the Wikimedia Foundation engineering organization as Wikimedia’s CTO. She also set these changes in motion, and our overall strategy is one that we’ve begun developing and socializing together in the last few months. Here’s how these roles fit together. The engineering department is principally structured into four sub-departments, each headed by a director who is the functional manager of all people within that sub-department: * Technical Operations - CT Woo: Keep Wikimedia Foundation sites and services running, increase uptime and performance, support code deployments, and ensure recoverability of data and services. * Platform Engineering - Rob Lanphier: Maintain and support the MediaWiki platform; ensure reliability, maintainability, and performance of our software; lead the release management process; grow and nurture the developer community and ecosystem. * Features Engineering - Alolita Sharma (Acting): Advance Wikimedia’s strategic priorities by focusing resources on specific feature projects such as the visual editor, or interventions designed to increase editor retention. * Mobile and Special Projects - Tomasz Finc: Advance Wikimedia’s mobile platform and ensure that mobile devices are fully considered across the engineering development process; execute projects with strong overlapping requirements (e.g. offline delivery of Wikimedia content). We’re also recognizing the importance of architectural engineering leadership in the development of a mature engineering organization (which also represents an additional career path for our distinguished engineers beyond “become a manager”). The three architects - Tim, Mark and Brion - will work together as follows: * Brion Vibber, as Lead Software Architect, has key architectural responsibility for getting MediaWiki ready to be the world’s leading tool for mass collaboration, by enabling the development of new technologies like the visual editor (his current priority), real-time collaboration, improved discussion systems, etc. This also includes architectural leadership to support bottom-up feature development. Brion reports directly to me. * Mark Bergsma, as Lead Operations Architect, is responsible for creating and communicating the vision and roadmap for the infrastructure needed to run all Wikimedia projects, for ensuring the design/implementation of our operating environment is reliable, scalable, supportable, secure and cost-effective, and for driving cross-functional alignment, especially with other engineering functions. * Tim Starling, as Lead Platform Architect, is responsible for the performance, stability, security and architectural cleanliness of the MediaWiki platform. Tim is leading potentially transformative engineering projects like the HipHop support in MediaWiki. He’s also a key mentor to all MediaWiki developers and is keeping us honest while we’re pursuing our feature dreams. In addition, we’re considering the shape of product and project management outside the Director-level leadership in the department. Currently, Howie Fung (Senior Product Manager) and Dario Taraborelli (Senior Research Analyst) are continuing to support our feature development projects to ensure that 1) development is aligned with strategic priorities, 2) we’re focusing the development on the needs of the user, 3) we’re making data-driven decisions and working effectively with the global wiki research community, 4) we’re engaging with the Wikimedia editor and reader community on complex feature development projects. I’m taking on the role of VP of Engineering and Product Development, on an interim basis for now. We’re not going to immediately hire either for that role or a CTO role. Thanks to Mark, Tim and Brion, we have very strong architectural leadership in the department. Moreover, we’ve got more than enough disruptive change as an engineering organization to absorb for now, so we’ve decided that it doesn’t make sense to immediately bring in a new person to lead the department. We may decide that it’ll make sense for me to continue in this role, or that it’ll make sense to bring in a new person 6-12 months from now, possibly in conjunction with further structural change. What this means, simply put, is that I’ll be organizing and supporting the work of the engineering department as a whole, with the directors, the product managers, Brion and Dario reporting to me, and that’ll be how we’ll be set up for the near future. My interest is to grow a strong, visible leadership team that’ll be on the lists and wikis and highly responsive to the community. I’ll be suspending most of my non-engineering-related work for the time being. I’ll be posting more about process improvements, further discussions about intra-departmental structure, and so forth, in coming weeks. I’ll also be sharing an updated org chart soon for those who care about those kinds of things. ;-) All the best, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] IRC office hours with Sue Gardner this week
by Steven Walling 20 Jun '11

20 Jun '11

Hi Wikimedians, Just a quick note that this Thursday, June 23rd there will be an IRC office hours with Sue Gardner at 17:00 UTC. We haven't set a topic yet, so please feel free to come with your burning questions. As usual, documentation is on Meta.[1] We look forward to chatting. :) -- Steven Walling Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: DPLA Beta Sprint: Calling all Submitters!
by Samuel Klein 20 Jun '11

20 Jun '11

(forwarding to f-l) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- To:Wikibooks <textbook-l(a)wikimedia.org>, wikisource <wikisource-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Dear Wikimedians -- A project to build a national public digital library in the US, the "Digital Public Library of America", is asking for statements of interest from people or groups who have ideas for what this might look like -- and mean to create a prototype or detailed proposal over the course of this summer. Actual proposals, of whatever form, are due in September, but a statement of interest is due by June 15. If you are interested in the subject, or currently working on a project you could see being part of such a public resource, you can submit a statement online: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/dpla/forms/statement-of-interest/ See below for background on the DPLA. While this group is focused on a national project for a single country (formed by a consortium of US libraries, foundations, and academics) , they are conscious of the need to do something similar worldwide, and committed to making this process and resulting tools as open and reusable as possible. SJ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Palfrey <jpalfrey(a)law.harvard.edu> Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 at 10:20 AM Subject: [berkmanfriends] DPLA Beta Sprint: Calling all Submitters! To: "berkmanfriends(a)eon.law.harvard.edu" <berkmanfriends(a)eon.law.harvard.edu> At the Digital Public Library of America, we've just announced a "Beta Sprint" to gather creative ideas, models, and other innovations that could play a role in the building of a DPLA. We'd love to see submissions from members of this list, as we know many of you have excellent thoughts on how this effort might take shape. Please find the full announcement below, and let me, Rebekah Heacock, and/or Maura Marx know if you have any questions or want to team up with one of the groups that appear already to be forming to make a submission. Best, John -- The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Steering Committee is delighted to announce today a Beta Sprint that aims to surface innovations that could play a part in the building of a digital public library. The Beta Sprint seeks, ideas, models, prototypes, technical tools, user interfaces, etc. – put forth as a written statement, a visual display, code, or a combination of forms – that demonstrate how the DPLA might index and provide access to a wide range of broadly distributed content. The Beta Sprint also encourages development of submissions that suggest alternative designs or that focus on particular parts of the system, rather than on the DPLA as a whole. The DPLA Steering Committee is leading the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all. The DPLA planning initiative grew out of an October 2010 meeting at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which brought together over 40 representatives from foundations, research institutions, cultural organizations, government, and libraries to discuss best approaches to building a national digital library. Subsequent workshops in March and May have addressed the content, scope, and technical aspects of a DPLA. “As the DPLA planning initiative moves forward, we are optimistic that the DPLA community and public can help us think about what a DPLA might look like, in practical – and perhaps unexpected – ways, as platform, architecture, interface, and beyond,” said John Palfrey, chair of the DPLA Steering Committee. “We hope geeks and librarians, especially, will join forces to develop beta submissions in support of this initiative.” “The Beta Sprint is where the dream of a seamless and comprehensive digital library for every person begins to grapple, technically and creatively, with what has already been accomplished and what still need to be developed,” said Doron Weber, Vice President of Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and a Steering Committee member. “The DPLA represents the broadest coalition of stakeholders ever assembled who are dedicated to free and universal access to knowledge for all, and the Beta Sprint will help us kick off an 18-month program to construct, brick by digital brick, this beautiful new edifice.” For inspiration, Beta Sprint participants might consider the general approach taken by initiatives whose leaders are on the DPLA Steering Committee, such as the Internet Archive, Public.Resource.Org, the Hathi Trust, American Memory, and others, as well as the Europeana project and the national digital libraries in the Netherlands, Norway, and South Korea. Submission instructions and more information are available at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/dpla, where you can also watch a short video about the Beta Sprint. Statements of interest must be received by June 15, 2011. Final submissions will be due by September 1, 2011. A review panel appointed by the Steering Committee and composed of experts in the fields of library science, information management, and computer science will review Beta Sprint submissions in early September. Creators of the most promising betas will be invited to present their ideas to interested stakeholders and community members during a public meeting in Washington, DC. # # # About the Digital Public Library of America The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) planning initiative is an impact-oriented research effort that unites leaders from all types of libraries, museums, and archives with educators, industry, and government to define the vision for a digital library in service of the American public. The DPLA Secretariat is located at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; the Steering Committee comprises library and foundation leaders across the nation. More information can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/dpla. About the Berkman Center for Internet & Society The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology, and society. More information can be found athttp://cyber.law.harvard.edu/. Digital Public Library of America Steering Committee Paul Courant, Harold T. Shapiro Professor of Public Policy and Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library Carla Hayden, Chief Executive Officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore, Maryland) Charles Henry, President of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Luis Herrera, City Librarian for the City and County of San Francisco Susan Hildreth, Director of the Institute for Museum and Library Services Brewster Kahle, Founder of the Internet Archive Michael A. Keller, Ida M. Green University Librarian, Director of Academic Information Resources at Stanford University Carl Malamud, President, Public.Resource.Org Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress Maura Marx, Berkman Center Fellow and Executive Director, Open Knowledge Commons Jerome McGann, John Stewart Bryan University Professor at the University of Virginia John Palfrey, Faculty Co-Director at the Berkman Center; Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean of Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School (chair) Peggy Rudd, Executive Director/State Librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission Amy E. Ryan, President of the Boston Public Library Donald Waters, Program Officer for Scholarly Communications and Information Technology at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Contact: Rebekah Heacock Project Coordinator Berkman Center for Internet & Society rheacock(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu ---------- You are subscribed to the Berkman Fellows and Friends discussion list. Mailing list options: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/lists/info/berkmanfriends Mailing list members: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/lists/review/berkmanfriends Please mind that emails sent through this list are considered public unless otherwise noted. -- Maura Marx Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society Executive Director, Open Knowledge Commons ********************************************************** direct: 617-384-9131 mobile: 617-835-3510 email: maura(a)knowledgecommons.org -- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 -- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

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[Foundation-l] en.wp HACKED?
by Chris Lee 20 Jun '11

20 Jun '11

Umm, what just happened to wikipedia?

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimediaindia-l] Announcement: Selected Books from Malayalam Wikisource on CD released
by Samuel Klein 19 Jun '11

19 Jun '11

Forwarding the update to foundation-l. Amazing news -- congratulations to the Malayalam Wikisourcerors for this work and its success. As far as I know, this is the first offline Wikisource compilation to be released as a CD. It would be interesting to see something similar with translations of essential classics into many languages. Sam. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com> Date: Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 1:55 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Foundation-l] Announcement: Selected Books from Malayalam Wikisource on CD released To: Wikimedia India Community list <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Dear All, We completed one week of Malayalam Wikisource offline release. Here is some statistics that we have: (Thanks to Jyothis for compiling this) Hits to the ISO image : 46,922 (this is just number of hits. This does not mean that all 46,922 hits lead to complete/successful downloads. We assume at least 70-80% of those hits would be complete downloads. 3,15,274 hits for mlwiki.in- the site hosting iso image and online version of Offline(Yes! :) ) on June 12. 4,30,959 on June 13th 2,30,985 on June 14th 1,04,280 on June 15th Yesterday we have started a torrent link also for the ISO image (http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6477957). So downloads are happening in that way also now. Here are the links by which you can access Malayalam wikisource offline release. iso Image Torrent link Online browsing Remember, last year the download count of Malayalam wikipedia offline version 1.0 one week after the release was around 5000. We found that the interest in Malayalam Wikisource offline is more than that of Malayalam Wikipedia offline. Shiju Alex On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Arjuna Rao Chavala <arjunaraoc(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 10:31 PM, Jyothis E <jyothis.e(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Dear fellow Wikimedians, >> >> With great pleasure, Malayalam Wikimedia Community announced its 2011 CD >> project "Selected Books from Malayalam Wikisource on CD - 1.0" at the 4th >> annual Wiki Meetup in Kannur, Kerala. >> --cut-- > > Congratulations! I am happy at the level of engagement in Malayalam community, which contributes to these kind of firsts in off-line access year after year. > > Best wishes > Arjun > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list > Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l > _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

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[Foundation-l] Board Elections: post mortem
by Jon Harald Søby 19 Jun '11

19 Jun '11

Hello all, I hope you have all heard the news of the election results. (If not, they can be found here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/Results/en ) Since the election is over I have started a post mortem page on Meta to evaluate the election: what was good, what was bad (and how can it be approved), etc. As always, all input is appreciated, just add it to the page. :-) -- mvh Jon Harald Søby <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by>

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[Foundation-l] Election results?
by Austin Hair 17 Jun '11

17 Jun '11

It's now the afternoon of the 17th (UTC), and this list—of which I have the dubious distinction of being custodian—hasn't seen a single thread about the WMF board election results. I'm honestly not sure if I should be proud of or disappointed with you guys. In any case, I beg your forgiveness when I myself ask: What are the results, and why haven't they been released yet? Austin

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Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 87, Issue 48
by Ferdinando Scala 17 Jun '11

17 Jun '11

It is indeed a bit late for having results, I just hope it doesn't depend from the fact they are recounting the votes in Florida... :-D Ferdinando Scala ----- Messaggio originale ----- Da: "foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org" <foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> A: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Inviato: Ven 17 giugno 2011, 14:00:05 Oggetto: foundation-l Digest, Vol 87, Issue 48 Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at foundation-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of foundation-l digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: IRC office hours to discuss article feedback tool (Steven Walling) 2. content ownership in different projects (Amir E. Aharoni) 3. Re: content ownership in different projects (Strainu) 4. Re: content ownership in different projects (Amir E. Aharoni) 5. Re: content ownership in different projects (Strainu) 6. Re: content ownership in different projects (Strainu) 7. Re: content ownership in different projects (Lodewijk) 8. Election results? (Austin Hair) 9. Re: content ownership in different projects (David Gerard) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:05:45 -0700 From: Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] IRC office hours to discuss article feedback tool To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: <BANLkTinkUymcGGDUNrCO-_a9ROsR_NLQBQ(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org>wrote: > Hi all, > > I just wanted to announce that this Thursday the 16th at 18:00 UTC, there > will be an IRC office hours concerning the article feedback tool which is > currently in experimental partial deployment on English Wikipedia.[1] > > I'll be moderating mainly for Erik M?ller, but hopefully we'll be joined by > most of the Foundation staff who've contributed to this feature. > > Just to clarify, we want to stick to two general topics: > > 1. The strategic goals the feature aims to address. In other words, its > purpose. > 2. Plans for developing and deploying it further. > > If you have bugs to report or specific design feedback, as always Bugzilla > and MediaWiki.org are respectively the best places to discuss those two > things. For the office hours we'd like to stick to a broader explanation of > the feature and its future. > > As always documentation for IRC office hours is on Meta.[3] > > Thanks, > > -- > Steven Walling > Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation > wikimediafoundation.org > > 1. Feature documentation: >http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback<http://www.mediaiwiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback> > > 2. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours > Just a reminder that this is happening in about an hour. -- Steven Walling Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:50:38 +0300 From: "Amir E. Aharoni" <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> Subject: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: foundation-l <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTikCC1k1QWE9rmPAq58Qnoxq74A5NQ(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 The problem of content ownership hits any wiki at some point. In the English Wikipedia it is governed by a policy called "WP:OWN" [1]. There's a similar policy in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Is this policy any different in other projects? I am asking, because i agree with the English Wikipedia's policy in principle, but the reality is that sometimes instead of helping people write together, this policy drives people away from the project - people who could be very positive contributors, but who don't like their contributions edited by others without being asked. So i am wondering: maybe en.wp and he.wp can learn something from other languages here? Thank you, [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles -- Amir Elisha Aharoni ? ?????? ????????? ?????????? http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, ?I want to live in peace." - T. Moore ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:08:41 +0300 From: Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTi=PQDF_tpQo+r-aJ+46ah-o=QDWQQ(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control offered by copyright laws. And this is not only from a legal POV, this is also true from a common sense perspective: more people approaching a problem often lead to better result than a single individual trying to solve that problem. >From what I see, presenting the rule, but not the reasons behind it, is the main problem of the English version of WP:OWN. Strainu 2011/6/17 Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il>: > The problem of content ownership hits any wiki at some point. > > In the English Wikipedia it is governed by a policy called "WP:OWN" > [1]. There's a similar policy in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Is this policy > any different in other projects? > > I am asking, because i agree with the English Wikipedia's policy in > principle, but the reality is that sometimes instead of helping people > write together, this policy drives people away from the project - > people who could be very positive contributors, but who don't like > their contributions edited by others without being asked. So i am > wondering: maybe en.wp and he.wp can learn something from other > languages here? > > Thank you, > > [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles > > -- > Amir Elisha Aharoni ? ?????? ????????? ?????????? > http://aharoni.wordpress.com > "We're living in pieces, > ?I want to live in peace." - T. Moore > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:29:22 +0300 From: "Amir E. Aharoni" <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTimVSRp21yK7mGeJAgN5aEk3RKpb9Q(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2011/6/17 Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com>: > I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in > other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the > wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot > consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA > license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control > offered by copyright laws. It's not so much about CC-BY-SA as it is about the fact that it's a wiki, where content is constantly changed by different people. This breaks the usual idea of authorship and makes quite a lot of people terribly uncomfortable and sometimes even violent. It's unpleasant, but i understand how their feel and i want to find a way to work with them. But since you mention licensing, one possible solution to this problem that i though of is to suggest such people write their content on some other website where others can't change their text, but to release it as CC-BY-SA, so Wikipedia would be able to use. That could be a good use case for a project like Knol, which was advertised as "Wikipedia killer" once, but didn't grow much. Used wisely, these Wikipedia and Knol could actually help each other grow. This would cause forking, of course, but forking isn't really bad - a forked freely-licensed article is better than no freely-licensed article. This solution is far from perfect, of course, because many people want Their articles on The Wikipedia, not on some other non-notable website... ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:41:29 +0300 From: Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTinU7jGzefd_jsoik2PzPnp7Q68kmw(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2011/6/17 Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il>: > 2011/6/17 Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com>: >> I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in >> other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the >> wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot >> consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA >> license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control >> offered by copyright laws. > > It's not so much about CC-BY-SA as it is about the fact that it's a > wiki, where content is constantly changed by different people. This > breaks the usual idea of authorship and makes quite a lot of people > terribly uncomfortable and sometimes even violent. It's unpleasant, > but i understand how their feel and i want to find a way to work with > them. > Well, a wiki promotes a certain way of collaborating, but that is not always sufficient. Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been written. Also, there are many ? wikis, used only as CMSs, not to collaborate. That's why I believe that WP:OWN would be much harder to justify if we wouldn't be using CC-BY-SA. Anyhow, my previous email presents a problem seen in many policies on multiple languages. Experienced wikimedians refer to policies with ease, by using shortcuts and assuming that the discussion partner knows what the policy is about. More often than not, this is not the case. This problem has been raised many times before and will probably be raised again in the future. It is in no way specific to WP:OWN. Strainu ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:44:13 +0300 From: Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTimaKSK8XX=UzqaSJRBmFAqBsT+L+w(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2011/6/17 Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com>: > Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one > could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been > written. Actually, I'm not even sure you could add content to articles on a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Would have to check with a lawyer... Strainu ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:50:03 +0200 From: Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTikoGT-ww+cmeFNKoqdL27f82_ZR7w(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 I guess that Amir was rather referring to the cultural aspect than the legal aspect. Even if you are legally allowed to change something, that doesnt mean the original author likes it. I assume that all Wiki projects have this culture in them, that nobody "owns" an article - this doesn't mean however that there are no exceptions (people who think they are exceptions or policies allowing temporary exceptions to be able to make a nice draft - for example in ones own usernamespace). Amir, is there a specific background that you are thinking of which is why you are asking this? Maybe that helps people answering your question. Best, Lodewijk 2011/6/17 Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> > 2011/6/17 Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com>: > > Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one > > could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been > > written. > > Actually, I'm not even sure you could add content to articles on a > CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Would have to check with a lawyer... > > Strainu > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:53:34 +0200 From: Austin Hair <adhair(a)gmail.com> Subject: [Foundation-l] Election results? To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTikkUaEqwnqF-T_=AwNGm9WPDO+kmQ(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 It's now the afternoon of the 17th (UTC), and this list?of which I have the dubious distinction of being custodian?hasn't seen a single thread about the WMF board election results. I'm honestly not sure if I should be proud of or disappointed with you guys. In any case, I beg your forgiveness when I myself ask: What are the results, and why haven't they been released yet? Austin ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:56:44 +0100 From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTi=ZNc+mU57ZwPjbCjZYxzSJyVXtrg(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 17 June 2011 12:29, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote: > That could be a good > use case for a project like Knol, which was advertised as "Wikipedia > killer" once, but didn't grow much. Minor note: as far as I know, *no-one* from Knol/Google ever claimed it had anything to do with WIkipedia. The entire notion appeared to me to have arisen in the technical press in the week after Knol's announcement, apparently on the basis that both were written by unfiltered contributors, which was still a radical notion to the press at the time. The comparison stuck, but I know of no evidence that that was the intention. - d. ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l End of foundation-l Digest, Vol 87, Issue 48 ********************************************

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