Wikimedia-l September 2011

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

170 participants
142 discussions

[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Draft Terms of Use for Review
by Geoff Brigham 11 Sep '11

11 Sep '11

Hi, In the legal department at the Wikimedia Foundation, we have been examining for some time whether, as the 5th largest website in the world, we need a new terms of use agreement. Given our size and the need to ensure good communication with our users, I think we do, so we’ve put ourselves to drafting a new version with the hopes that we could get your review, comments, and ideas. - You can find the current version of our terms of use here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_use . - You can view the new draft here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use As I see it, right now our present terms of use is not much more than a licensing agreement. It does not address a number of other subjects that are normally found in terms of use of other community-driven websites and that are often relevant for both legal and community reasons. See, as examples, the Mozilla Terms of Use ( http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Terms%20of%20Service) and Creative Commons Terms of Use (https://creativecommons.org/terms) . What we would like to do is to invite you to read the draft, reflect on it, and leave your comments and feedback on the discussion page. We plan to leave this version up for at least 30 days; indeed, a 30-day comment period for changes is built into the new draft. Our plan is to review the comments and feedback, make appropriate changes and edits, return with a revised version, and, if appropriate, propose that draft to the Board of Trustees for adoption and translation. Generally, we sought to craft a document that is more even-handed, shorter, and easier-to-read than most user agreements. Although we encourage you to read the entire draft, here are some key provisions to give you some flavor: - Security: The proposed agreement prohibits a number of actions - like malware - that could compromise our systems. We thought we should be clear as to what is unacceptable in this area, though most of these restrictions will not be surprising. - Roles and responsibilities: We feel we need to be honest with the community on a number of issues, including user liability. We have heard a number of community members asking for guidance on this topic. The proposed agreement also seeks to provide guidelines to help users avoid trouble. - Community feedback: With this version, and with each major revision afterwards, we want the community to be involved … obviously. So the proposed agreement gives users a 30-day comment period before a major revision goes into effect (with Board approval). There is a 3-day exception for urgent legal and administrative changes. - Free Licensing: We felt our present agreement is somewhat confusing on the free licensing requirements. The proposed agreement attempts to explain more clearly those requirements for editors. - Harassment, threats, stalking, vandalism, and other long-term issues: The proposed agreement would make clear that such acts are prohibited. Novel for us, the agreement also raises the possibility of a global ban for extreme cross-wiki violations, a need that we have heard expressed from a number of community members. We will share that policy with the community in draft form shortly. Dealing with such matters is a process that we hope volunteers will continue to lead on a day-to-day basis. - Other Legal Provisions: We do have other legal provisions...we are lawyers after all. Most notably, the proposed agreement incorporates legal sections that are commonly used to help safeguard a site like ours, such as disclaimers and limitations on liability. Thank you in advance for your review and comments. Your input will be invaluable. Geoff -- Geoff Brigham General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA 94105 +1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6750 gbrigham(a)wikimedia.org *California Registered In-House Counsel* Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. www.wikimediafoundation.org _______________________________________________ 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] Dispute resolution wiki
by Etienne 10 Sep '11

10 Sep '11

I have proposed an wiki for managing disputes (cross-wiki and local). It¹s at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dispute. This wiki would have many venues, mediation, arbitration and other ways. There would also have an private wikis for arbitrator, and mediator discussions. This wiki would overlap other wikis, but would be good to have all in a central place and wikis that have no dispute resolution place. Ebe123

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[Foundation-l] Informing chapters about closing/opening wikis (+ useful list)
by Robin Pepermans 10 Sep '11

10 Sep '11

An idea that I raised during a discussion between the language committee and Wikimedia South Africa was to inform chapters when a request for closing a wiki is made for a language that is spoken in a country which has a Wikimedia chapter. For this I made a list on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_per_Wikimedia_language -- it took me some time but I think it is well worth it. So when proposing a wiki for closure, you should inform the main chapter listed there so they have a chance to find interested people who can contribute to the respective project. The list can also be useful when opening projects. If wanted, I or formally the language committee could also directly inform chapters when a wiki is opened in a language spoken in one or more countries covered by chapters. Regards, SPQRobin

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[Foundation-l] Invitation to attend WikiConference India, 2011 in Mumbai
by wheredevelsdare＠hotmail.com 10 Sep '11

10 Sep '11

Dear Chapter Representative(s) and Wikipedians, Please treat this invitation as a personal invite from the Indian WikiCommunity to yourselves and your community to attend the first annual national WikiConference India scheduled to take place between 18 and 20 November at the University of Mumbai’s Fort Campus. The event is being co-hosted by the community and the chapter and this would be a wonderful opportunity for Indian Wikipedians to interact with all of you. Further, we would appreciate any help that could be extended by yourselves to make this conference a success. Do let us know of any requirements you may have. Kindly confirm the above at the earliest to allow us to schedule everything in. Meta Page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011 Kind Regards,

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[Foundation-l] Hypothetical project rebranding Wikimedia
by Pharos 10 Sep '11

10 Sep '11

I thought folks might be interested in this, which was created by Moving Brands as a hypothetical project for rebnranding Wikimedia, and published in Viewpoint Magazine in the UK: http://www.movingbrands.com/?category_name=wikipedia-work Note the very elaborate work on this, and the particular role in representing all the sister Wikimedia projects, not just Wikipedia. Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)

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[Foundation-l] Personal image filter: leave it to third parties
by MZMcBride 09 Sep '11

09 Sep '11

If someone wants to make Conservative Wikipedia or Kid-Friendly Wikipedia or Tiananmen Square-Free Wikipedia, they're free to. They can even sell it. Contributors made that deal long ago with the open license of the sites. Wikimedia's goal is to provide free educational content to the world. The world is then free to make its own filters ("personal bubbles") or even impose them on others (in the workplace, at school, at public libraries), but not with Wikimedia's help or harm. Wikimedia should remain neutral in the matter. The content is available and it is possible to fork and/or filter with technology today. (And, in fact, some places undoubtedly already filter particular Wikipedia titles, ineffective as some of these approaches surely are.) Leave the issue to third parties / a free market. If there's really demand for School-Friendly Wikipedia, someone will make it. But it's not Wikimedia's place to say who should and shouldn't have access to the sum of all human knowledge and what particular pieces of it constitute (graphic violence, pornography, etc.). MZMcBride

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[Foundation-l] EU Consultation on Open Access (deadline coming soon)
by Andrea Zanni 09 Sep '11

09 Sep '11

[sorry for cross-posting] Dear all, the deadline to submit our response to EU consultation on Open Access and Open Science is September 9th. It's an important opportunity to express our voice on these fundamental topics (i.e. access to scientific information and knowledge). Daniel Mietchen, our Open Access Wikimedian in Residence, is doing a great job writing a draft with all the answers here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RCom/OA/EU You can directly copy and paste, if you will, it takes 5-10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Please refer yourself as "Wikimedia chapters", in order to have deeper impact (it is in fact possible to complete the survey as a citizen, an organization or an institution). Here's the direct link: http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/scientific_information/consultat… Thank you for you time. Aubrey WMI

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[Foundation-l] Dedicate something to the public domain in the honor of Michael S. Hart!
by Klaus Graf 09 Sep '11

09 Sep '11

> His en.wiki article is pretty lackluster: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Hart > and the other language versions don't look any better. Roy Tennant wrote: "The best way to honor Hart’s life, I think, is to dedicate one or more works to the public domain." http://blog.libraryjournal.com/tennantdigitallibraries/2011/09/08/to-honor-… He has done so and I have choosen 40+ photos from Eutin Castle e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eutin_2011_04.jpg Klaus Graf

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[Foundation-l] Draft Terms of Use for Review
by Geoff Brigham 08 Sep '11

08 Sep '11

Nathan, Theo, You guys raise good questions (as always). Short answer is that hosting liability is not compromised, and I think Steven responded to the harassment policy inquiry. That said, may I suggest that you put your points on the discussion page as you see them, and we will answer more comprehensively once we understand where the primary issues are. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use Going forward, I will probably limit my comments to the discussion page. Many thanks. Greatly appreciate the inquiries and feedback. Geoff -

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Re: [Foundation-l] Hypothetical project rebranding Wikimedia
by Aaron Adrignola 08 Sep '11

08 Sep '11

It's also not difficult to add links to sister projects in the sidebar, as seen at en.wikibooks since February 2011 [1]. And I know some other projects do similar things as well, some with JavaScript. The only difficulty encountered at en.wikibooks is not knowing how to push the print/export box above the sister project links. [1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sidebar -- Adrignola

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Wikimedia-l September 2011