On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 22:43, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
> On 08/15/11 12:25 PM, Gustavo Carrancio wrote:
>> Fred: easy to fork vs hard to understand other cultures. Think a minute.
>> ¿Are we making an Encyclopedia? Must we struggle to split or to get
>> togeather?
>
> At some point we need to ask ourselves: Is our mission to make the sum
> of all human knowledge freely available, or is it to create a monopoly
> on knowledge.
While I agree with necessity of being able to make a fork easily,
there is important message which Gustavo wanted to say, but didn't
express well.
Under the present circumstance, any attempt to create English
Wikipedia fork could be successful just if WMF makes
very-ultra-serious shit and it is not likely that it would happen.
We also know how the case Encyclopedia Libre vs. Spanish Wikipedia
finished. That's, again, thanks to the fact that Spanish is
multinational language and if someone wants to get significant
official support, it would require significant time.
However, the opposite example is Hudong encyclopedia. It is obviously
that Hudong is much more relevant to Chinese people just because of
the fact that we still have more Taiwanese Wikipedians than Mainland
China ones.
A couple of months ago three admins of Aceh Wikipedia decided that it
is not acceptable that they participate in the project which holds
Muhammad depictions. By the project, they mean Wikimedia in general,
including Wikimedia Commons. It was just a matter of time when they
would create their own wiki. And they created that moth or two after
leaving Wikimedia. And what do you think which project has more
chances for success: the one without editors or the other with three
editors? So, while the reason for leaving couldn't be counted among
reasonable ones, the product is the same as if they had a valid
reason. And there are plenty of valid reasons, among them almost
universal problem of highly bureaucratic structures on Wikimedia
projects.
I can imagine even very successful fork of Wikipedia in any Balkan
language. We are also more or less on the edge of successful fork of
any language whose community has any kind of problem with the rest of
the movement. And at some point we could have serious problem.
Projects could even start without license compatibility with Wikimedia
content. Yes, as I don't think that anyone would bother -- which would
be the right decision because of a number of reasons -- with GFDL and
CC-BY-SA violations of the encyclopedia in a language with not so much
speakers.
That leads us to the serious dead end: We want forkability because of
our principles. We could potentially lose parts of our movement.
According to our principles, the only way to protect the movement is
to be attractive to editors more than potential forks could be. And
that's our structural problem: we are losing that battle since ~2007
and changes which we are making are too slow and too small.
And that opens the space for even worse scenario. The last hope for
societies in such decline is to impose martial law and try to fix
things by not so pleasant methods. The only problem is that we are not
society. Nobody would be killed because of Wikimedia fall and no
economy would be destructed. More importantly, when people see harsh
methods imposed (and one of them would be forbidding [easy]
forkability), they would start to leave the project, which would just
catalyze the fall.
Fortunate moment is that we are driving on organizational expansion
and that we bought some time. There are a couple of other methods for
buying time. But, if we don't use that time to fix things, at some
point we would deplete available options. We would eventually have the
same problems in India which we have in US; we would have the same
problems on a project which would be opened in 2012 as we have today
with many other projects.
Note that Wikipedia wasn't a hype because it is free and open online
encyclopedia. It was a hype because such thing didn't exist before. It
exists now all over the Internet. And without qualitative
breakthroughs, we have to do things regularly. And models exist: IBM
lives, Microsoft lives, Apple lives; Sinclair is dead, SGI is dead,
Sun is dead; Netscape lives as Mozilla, Amsword lives as Libre Office,
Ingres lives as PostgreSQL. Hi-tech organizations -- and we are
hi-tech organization -- which survived were able to catch the
technological development of their competitors. And our competitors
are not millions of MediaWiki installations; our competitor is Hudong
(note the features [1]), but also Google and Facebook. I am not saying
that they are against us, but that we have to catch their
technological development if we want to survive.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudong#Features
Hi all,
Just to check: I've been assuming of late that everyone that's interested in reading announcements (including things like chapter reports, committee reports and signpost issues) is subscribed to the wikimediaannounce-l mailing list - is that a valid assumption, or should reports continue to be sent to this list?
Thanks,
Mike Peel
(who sends out WMUK reports, amongst occasional others)
For your information
The Brazilian community is offering WMF a letter of agreement, which was
collaboratively written.
After the Brazilian participants shared their experience on what
happened in Haifa, the whole community had one week to discuss and edit
the content, which is now available on Meta.[1]
Castelo
[[:m:User:Castelobranco]]
Wikimedia Brasil
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_letter_of_agreement_between_Wikimed…
Proposed letter of agreement between Wikimedia Foundation and
Brazilian volunteers
On August 5, 2011, during Wikimania 2011
<http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brasil_no_Wikimania/2011>, on Haifa,
Israel, a meeting between Wikimedia Brasil and Wikimedia Foundation was
held. The meeting, which was also attended by representatives of
Wikimedia Portugal and Wikimedia Argentina, provided a discussion about
the ongoing Wikimedia Projects in Brazil and the interaction between the
future WMF office in the country and the local chapter.
The understanding of Brazilian members along the meeting was that:
1. Brazil is a strategic priority for Wikimedia Foundation.
2. Wikimedia Foundation will set up an office in Brazil in order to
stimulate the development of projects to increase the penetration of
Wikipedia in Brazil. This process was already launched with the
search for locations, hiring lawyers and the search for a
professional to manage it.
3. Wikimedia Foundation understands that the Brazilian community and,
thus, the chapter under formation still doesn't have the capacity to
be completely self-managed.
4. Wikimedia Foundation aims to develop the existing programs in
Brazil, like "Campus Ambassadors", though it still doesn't have a
specific development program for Brazil.
5. Wikimedia Foundation wants to conduct researches about the lusophone
community.
6. Wikimedia Foundation already has liaisons with Brazilian
organizations, like /"Positivo"/.
7. The members of the Brazilian community want to colaborate with
Wikimedia Foundation.
8. The members of the legal chapter under formation are afraid of
losing the legitimacy of the local community among society after the
establishment of the WMF office. Wikimedia Brasil has apprehension
of not having control over what was raised locally, and of the loss
of sources of revenue due to internal competition.
Based on this understanding, participant members of the Brazilian
community decided to:
1. Support the creation of Wikimedia Foundation office in Brazil which,
as explained at the meeting, will have the goal of fostering the
realization of partnerships and events with the community and the
external audiences, provisionally and until the local chapter have
enough structure to develop such activities directly.
2. Suggest that the office maintains goals to work for the development
of the local community and not only fundraising or the realization
of business agreements.
3. Recommend to Wikimedia Foundation that its activites in Brazil are
achieved with maximum transparency and envolvement of Wikimedia
Brasil, allowing the local volunteers to participate at the various
stages of ongoing projects and also in those that will be launched
at the country.
4. Recommend to Wikimedia Foundation that its goals and existing plans
to Brazil are shared with Wikimedia Brasil.
5. Recommend to Wikimedia Foundation to orientate its projects,
partnerships and possible proposals of interested sponsors to the
local chapter, giving some opportunity to Wikimedia Brasil.
6. Propose the creation of a tatical planning for Brazil, based on
Wikimedia's strategic planning, with the participation of WMF office
and Wikimedia Brasil for the construction of a development program
to Brazil.
7. Propose to Wikimedia Foundation to make room available in its WMF
office directorship, provided by statue, for a chosen Wikimedia
Brasil representative, consequently, chosen by the local community.
Or, that the Wikimedia Foundation enjoy the legal chapter structure
of Wikimedia Brasil to seek its goals; We want to offer the position
of one director on our legal chapter, provided by statue, to
Wikimedia Foundation.
8. Assist the establishment of the office with the volunteer
participation of Wikimedia Brasil in activities of organization and
achievement of knowledge inherent to local peculiarities, such as:
contracting services, choice of location and understanding of the
legislation.
9. Assist in the construction of a portfolio of activities and in the
resources search to achieve the same.
10. Suggest to Wikimedia Foundation to stimulate the existing activites
of Wikimedia Brasil and possibly the model of /"Mutirões"/.
Wikimedia Brasil
[sorry for cross-posting]
I wanted to remind you all that the deadline of the European
consultation on Open Access and Open Data is September 9th.
Here's the link:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/scientific_information/consultat…
and here's the survey on Meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RCom/OA/EU
Daniel is working on that, but feedback could be useful.
Here my few cents about some proposals we could make in the comment
sections ofthe survey:
1. We need strategies/policies for OA. We need institutions/university
to *require* OAfrom doctoral students and researchers.
2. We need digital preservation to be done by libraries and archives,
not publishers. They have right now the functions and services
(access, dissemination, preservation) that should be accomplished by
libraries. Preservation is an issue.
3. We need clear, easily understandable licenses.
CC-BY for articles and CC-0 for research data should do their job.
No more ad hoc, human-not-understandable licenses, but clear Creative
Commons. (CC-BY= we can use that on Wikipedia, we can upload it on
Commons, we can publish it on Wikisource, we have material for
Wikibooks/Wikiversity, etc.)
I hope this can be useful.
Aubrey
2011/7/28 Andrea Zanni <zanni.andrea84(a)gmail.com>:
> Thank you Daniel, great work.
> Lodewijk was suggesting that we reply as an organization,
> because they don't really count single citizens proposals.
> If we manage to write something, we could then forward it many times,
> one per chapter, in several languages :-)
>
> But first things first, we need to work on the draft.
>
> Aubrey
>
> 2011/7/28 Daniel Mietchen <daniel.mietchen(a)googlemail.com>:
>> Problem solved; full text now on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RCom/OA/EU .
>> Daniel
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 2:26 PM, Daniel Mietchen
>> <daniel.mietchen(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi Aubrey,
>>>
>>> thanks for the invitation. I had indeed planned to set up a document
>>> to facilitate collaborative drafting of a response. So far, I have
>>> seen the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Euroscience Working Group on
>>> Open Access as well as Eurodoc signaling an interest in drafting a
>>> response, and doing it all together - perhaps with an individual
>>> comment per organization - could be worth a try.
>>>
>>> The questionnaire comes in three variants - for citizens,
>>> organisations and public bodies - and the session to fill it in is
>>> time-limited, so we will have to set up an editable copy somewhere.
>>> The Commission provided a PDF (
>>> http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/scientific_information/questionn…
>>> ) whose text cannot be copied, and I inquired with them on July 16 to
>>> provide another version of the file. My submission was "forwarded to
>>> the technical unit" two days later but no reaction since - I just
>>> dropped them a line again.
>>>
>>> To get things started, I just set up
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RCom/OA/EU . Please chime in there.
>>>
>>> Thanks and cheers,
>>>
>>> Daniel
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 11:49 AM, Andrea Zanni <zanni.andrea84(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi all.
>>>> Lodewijk today forwarded me this interesting EU consultation about
>>>> open access, open data and digital preservation for scientific
>>>> information.
>>>>
>>>> Press release:
>>>> http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/890
>>>>
>>>> Consultation:
>>>> http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/scientific_information/consultat…
>>>>
>>>> It could be very, very interesting if we (as Wikimedia Movement, or
>>>> Wikimedia chapters)
>>>> could write a statement to contribute.
>>>> Maybe our brand-new Open Access WMF fellow could be interested in
>>>> coordinating :-D
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, it seems a good opportunity to put in (digital) paper what we
>>>> think about these issues.
>>>>
>>>> Any thoughts?
>>>> We have until September 9th.
>>>>
>>>> Aubrey
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Libraries mailing list
>>>> Libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/libraries
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Libraries mailing list
>> Libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/libraries
>>
>
Theo writes:
> Second, it might be some form of elitist outlook if you think accountability
> standards for US Non-profits are more transparent and fiscally responsible
> than say somewhere in EU like Germany, France or the Switzerland. I assure
> you, they are existent, not-minimal and more restrictive than the US.
I'm not contradicting (or necessarily agreeing) with other things you
say in this message, but I want to point out that transnational
transference of charitable funds is complicated no matter which
direction the money is flowing in. The real argument (in my personal
view, and not as a current or former representative of WMF) is not
that the rules for U.S. nonprofits are "more transparent and fiscally
responsible" than elsewhere. It's that the WMF is a U.S. nonprofit and
must (at minimum) operate under the U.S. rules. When you're looking at
multiple nonprofits (chapters) in many nations, which operate under a
range of differing regulatory rules about international transfers of
charitable funds, it is a non-trivial challenge to come up with a
single joint fundraising model that meets every nation's requirements.
So, when we discuss this issue, it's important that we recognize that
it's not a question of whose rules are "better," whose motives are
better, who is more trustworthy, etc. I believe it's appropriate for
everybody to continue Assuming Good Faith and to recognize that the
accountability/legality issue is a complicated one that requires a lot
of work to solve (and the solution may not be identical for every
cooperating chapter). Wikimedia Deutschland has invested a lot of
effort, for example, in developing a solution that works for the
German chapter, but the solution for another EU chapter (or for
chapters in the Global South or elsewhere) may look significantly
different.
This is all further complicated by WMF's obligation to obey U.S. rules.
I'm reminded of the quotation commonly (if not entirely accurately)
attributed to Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as
possible, but no simpler.” (See
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein .)
--Mike
Hello,
I currently have the domain www.wikilovesmonuments.com in my possession.
I'm am willing to transfer this domain to the foundation, but I don't really
know who to contact, and IRC didn't help me. Can somebody point me to the
right person or can the right person contact me on: huib(a)wickedway.nl
--
Kind regards,
Huib Laurens
WickedWay.nl
Webhosting the wicked way.
Or a redirect, just get rid of the advertisement ASAP.
Maarten
Op 31-8-2011 18:14, Lodewijk schreef:
> I suggest to pick the KISSest solution: CNAME now and email Siebrand
> about the transfer.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> 2011/8/31 noorse w <noorse.wikipedia(a)gmail.com
> <mailto:noorse.wikipedia@gmail.com>>
>
> Maarten,
> Huib has been accused of many things that I frankly have a big
> problem in understanding. If he makes this CNAME - is there then a
> chance that he'll then give his accusers additional ammunition
> against him? If so, I'd alas advise him against doing this. Is it
> possible for him to pass ownership to i.e. WMF instead?
>
> noorse
>
>
> On 31 August 2011 17:22, Maarten Dammers <maarten(a)mdammers.nl
> <mailto:maarten@mdammers.nl>> wrote:
>
> Hi Huib,
>
> Op 31-8-2011 17:07, Huib Laurens schreef:
> > Cnames are messy and stupid.
> >
> > I would prefer to recieve a IP nummer and make it a A
> recorod or AAA
> Please make it a CNAME to wikilovesmonuments.eu
> <http://wikilovesmonuments.eu> for now. We're going to
> move servers and that way it doesn't have to be changed twice.
>
> Maarten
> >
> >
> >
> > 2011/8/31, Nuno Tavares<nuno.tavares(a)wikimedia.pt
> <mailto:nuno.tavares@wikimedia.pt>>:
> >> Huib, why don't you just create a CNAME, instead of
> creating an IFRAME
> >> with publicity?
> >>
> >> --
> >> Nuno Tavares
> >> Wikimedia Portugal
> >> http://www.wikimedia.pt
> >>
> >> Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a
> possibilidade de ter
> >> livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É
> isso o que
> >> estamos a fazer.
> >>
> >> Participe também: http://www.wikimedia.pt
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Huib Laurens escreveu:
> >>> Hello,
> >>>
> >>> I just editted the www.wikilovesmonuments.com
> <http://www.wikilovesmonuments.com>
> >>> <http://www.wikilovesmonuments.com> site.
> >>>
> >>> My client didn't pay for it and I guess it was just
> another trick to
> >>> make my company lose money, this is the last time new
> clients can choose
> >>> the option to pay after the domain is registered.
> >>>
> >>> I would like to know who in the foundation I can contact
> to give the
> >>> domain to.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Kind regards,
> >>>
> >>> Huib Laurens
> >>> WickedWay.nl
> >>>
> >>> Webhosting the wicked way.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> >>> WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org>
> >>>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
> >>> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> >> WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org>
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
> >> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
> >>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
> wrote:
>
> If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the
> WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it
> requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within
> particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws
> of their respective jurisdictions. These are more important than the
> FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals. There is no doubt
> that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash
> will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better
> to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than
> to play the role of a distrustful parent.
>
We could also have the case where a chapter does better than the foundation
for some parts of its accomptabilty. Even if they are "a small band of
individuals unaccustomed" they have no choice than to respect the local laws
in some countries much more demanding for the charities that the U.S.
laws.And they are motivated volonteers to do so.
Let's give two examples with the WMFr accomptability.
If as WMFr treasurer I'd like to release for French members and donators the
same kind of certified report than the KPMG stamped WMF financial
report, it would
just be impossible under the French laws. Because under this laws, this
report is not enough precise, not enough understandable (for example, try
to know, if you have no US accountings knowlegde or even if you have, how
much the foundation spends for servers, programmers wages and all of the IT
stuff in the KPMG report...).
As treasorer of a French general interest association which collecting
donations from public, I have to provide a financial report far more
accurate than the WMF one but also supplemented by a document understandable
by people with no accounting abilities (call "Compte Emploi Ressources",
could be roughly translated by "Use and Ressources account"). This document
must shows in a simply but very precise way how much have been collected,
how much have been used and for what. And this document, as the financial
report, must be certified by our public auditor ( "Commissaire aux comptes"
aka accounting commissioner). Our public auditor presents his reports to our
general assembly, answers audiences questions (his responses to this
questions have the same official commitment than its writtens comments of
our accounts and governance and must be recorded) and then our general
assembly vote to approve, or not, this two documents.
This public auditor not only certifies our accountings, he also checks and
certified for stakeholders (donators, members, states autorities, etc.) that
we respect the laws, the differents contracts and agreements WMFr has signed
and our goals as defined in our statutes. For 2010, he particulary focused
to check if we had got tax lawyer advice before our funds transfer to the
foundation and that both WMFr and the WMF follow this advice, if all our
donators have received their tax exemption receipt, if we have paid all the
social insurance, retirement funds for our employee, ask me to explain how
WMFr checks all the credit card donations go to our bank account or how I
had calculate the number of volonteers hours written in our documents, and
few others things I do not have in mind now. He has a mandatory access to
all documents the WMFr board releases to all its stakeholders (members
included so, he has an access to our internal wiki)
If we keep too much money collected by a appeal for donations on our bank
account, he will made a written comments that will ask us not to fundraise
until we have spent the money for the use we ask donations. And not respect
this kind of written comments could lead us to lose our charities status and
the tax deductability.
And no way for the WMFr board to fire its Commissaire aux comptes because he
is too demanding or too picky. The appointment of this public auditor is
validated by a vote of all the members during a general assembly and he is
appointed for 6 years, not revocable during this time, to avoid any pressure
from the board.
As you can see, lots of legal constraints. And I believe some of this legal
constraints, are quite the same in several European chapters as the rules
for charities using donations from the public have been hardened this last
few years in the European Union. And as far as I know, this rules are harder
than those applied to US charities 501 (c).
That's means, if a small group of volonteers could reach a such level of
certified information for donators, WMF, much more staffed than any chapter,
could also reach it or even do better, even i'ma aware that the WMF
accountings is more complex than a chapter one. In my opinion, in a wikimedian
good practices assesment, WMF should implement a such certified "Use and
Ressources account" easely understandable by everyone, with no accounting
knowledge. Release this certified understandable report in the 5 or 6 most
used languages in the world will also show that WMF is not only an american
or anglo-saxon foundation. Not obvious to everyone.
I could also take the example of employeees salary and benefits transparancy
.
Lodjewick (believe it's him, sorry if wrong) in an another thread
mentioned that
he has had to answer in his chapter on the issue about Foundation high
executives
wages. We had a similar and quite hash debate on WMFr mail lists in the
past, partly based on spooky ideas about foundation salaries. But this i
nformation is not easy to find for a simple donator. As Wikimedia France has
now 4 employees and hopes to be able to recruit new ones in the future, the
WMFr board are thinking how to give a high level of transparancy so that our
donators could see the fairness of our wages policy. France is culturally not
comfortable to make public such salaries. And WMFr has no legal obligation
as a charity to do so. Our commissaire aux comptes just checks that salaries
granted to employees by the WMFr board are not a misuse of the organization
assets. And we haven't reached the limits, especially as we have not yet
states or local governements subsidies, forcing us to declare our main wages
. It's just that if we can, we want to improve our transparancy for our
donators. The WMfr board is curently discussing this issue. We are looking
what other French associations best practices are, for example some give the
3 high salaries and group statistics for the other ones, all easely
accessible directly from their web site. Personally, I would support a full
transparency and that a donor could know the salary of all positions within
the association.
I guess the other chapters also have ideas for better governance and
transparency (and I'm interesting in), because of the background of some of
their members, history of the chapter, practices in their own countrie or
others reasons. They will implement some, and the fundraising is a good
school for that. They could share with the movement and that will allow the
chapters and the foundation to improve their accomptability practices.
Sorry for this long mail but we are speaking of accomptability, Not a lighly
subject.
Speaking for my own
--
Thierry Coudray
Administrateur - Trésorier
Wikimédia France <http://www.wikimedia.fr/>
Mob. 06.82.85.84.40
http://blog.wikimedia.fr/