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.
Anyone want to help improve them?
Ryan Kaldari
On 9/8/11 1:10 PM, Asaf Bartov wrote:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *Asaf Bartov* <abartov(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:abartov@wikimedia.org>>
> Date: Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 5:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Very sad news
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
>
>
> Oh no!
>
> He was a true visionary and remains a personal hero of mine. I
> admired his work so much, I created a Hebrew equivalent to Project
> Gutenberg back in 1999.
>
> I never got to meet him, and had been hoping to get a chance to, now
> that I live in the US. Alas.
>
> I had just been telling one of the WMF storytellers, in an interview,
> about a formative experience in my life, when a friend came over, back
> in 1992/1993, with a CD-ROM containing more than 500 classic works
> including translations (Shakespeare, Plato, Confucius, Voltaire, you
> name it), and got me forever hooked on the idea of free and open
> digital content.
>
> I'll never forget Michael Hart.
>
> Asaf
>
> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 4:52 PM, emijrp <emijrp(a)gmail.com
> <mailto:emijrp@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, has died
> http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Michael_S._Hart
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> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
> --
> Asaf Bartov
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
>
>
> --
> Asaf Bartov
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
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Hi there,
I think WMF should set up some "quality measures" to make sure there actually is some reasonable online output from every Wikimedia conference. There might be thousands of editors not being able to attend but wanting to watch what was going on. Now you have to dig and beg for any slides or video on Commons. I do not know the decision process for a location but so far almost every host failed miserably to deliver some reasonable online content like videos and slides from the presentations.
Kozuch
I just read the list of comments and i have quite some questions and
answers:
1. Is Wikipedia comparable to library?
It is right to say that we create the content on our own. But is this
really true in the first meaning? We don't invent/introduce facts, we
collect and display them. We don't judge about topics, we cite critics
that aren't our own. All under the primary rule of NPOV.
We also have to respect the fact that Wikipedia is both. From the point
of the authors we might not be a library. But from the point of the
readers we essentially are a library which hosts millions of articles,
instead of books, from various authors.
2. What is the difference between Commons and a library?
I don't see any difference in this case. A library buys books, we get
images for free. At the end Commons is a collection like a library and
we are labeling images for easy search by content, but not on the basis
if something is controversial or not. A simple and good example is the
category "violence" and it's subcategories . You will find pictures that
show violence. But much more pictures which are related to this topic,
but don't depict any violence. This are demonstrations against violence,
memorials, portraits of persons involved (mostly politicians which tried
to stop it), and so on.
3. Can the current category system be used for the intended purpose?
Well, as described at 2., it can't without making huge mistakes or going
trough all million images. The reason is simple. We categorize by topics
(directive labels) and not by the fact that something might be
controversial or not.
4. Who does decide, the reader or some contributers?
If content will be labeled by controversial topics than this is the
choice of the contributers. The reader decides if he wants to enable the
feature or not. That is his choice. But what is actually filtered isn't
his choice, his understanding what is controversial or not. So we have
two barriers. One thats respects the choice of the reader and one that
respects not the choice of the reader.
5. Will the contributers decide for themselves or for others?
They will do both. There personal preference/judgment over what a reader
might/should see will play a big role. An typical argumentation in
conversations is, that the contributer does not speak for himself,
instead he always tries to speak for a "majority" behind him, to justify
his point of view. A common theme found in nearly all influential
speeches around the world. The other side is the word of the press. To
quote Joseph H. Jackson: "Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had
better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging
to me'?"
6. How will consensus be found in a global approach?
As many in the list already stated, the preference (the understanding of
what is controversial) of the readership divides strongly. I guess we
don't need to proof this and assume it as a given fact. This opens other
issues: Where to draw the line? Will the readers be happy with the line?
Will the majority (english contributers) dictate what is objectionable,
ignoring the minorities that the filter should take care of?
7. What meaning has the "referendum"?
Looking at the questions it only serves do define what is important
about it. The first question ensures that it isn't actually a
referendum. There was no option to express "no, we don't want it", "no,
other things are more important", and so on. Additionally it was unclear
how to vote on the questions. Assuming someone really liked the idea and
found it important that the feature can be disabled any time, he would
give a 10 and a 10. But what about someone who disliked the idea to
begin with? He would vote the following questions under the assumption
that the filter would be introduced anyway or in protest. As such he
would give also a 10 or a 0. So you don't have any separations for
deeper insight.
8. Can the filter, the labeling, be misused?
Yes it can. In multiple ways.
As we already read from Sarah Stierch, filters are already in place. She
has no choice to avoid the filter, which is a simple proxy server. The
same server can be used to filter content based upon our labeling as
well. Considering regions with small infrastructures, this could quickly
lead to censorship trough third-parties, which provide Internet access.
Additionally small groups of users can hunt down content they don't like
(feeding input to the previous possibility). Considering we have
millions of files and compared to that a very small group of editors
that is widely spread out, it is easy for minorities to reach local
majorities.
Vandalism is also likely and must be resolved by admins which get a new
important job and have less time for waiting authors. In the end it
makes us less productive.
9. Will the filter help to get Wikipedia unblocked?
I doubt that anyone that filters Wikipedia as a whole would allow access
after the filter is introduced. Since we don't want to censor, the
filter can be disabled at any time. Who really thinks that it will
satisfy censors?
That are just some of my thoughts about this topic. I personally think
that the approach goes in very wrong direction and would cause much more
damage then benefits.
Greetings from Tobias Oelgarte
Greetings,
I am Nitika working for the Wikipedia India Education Program. As some of
you may know, as a part of the program we are working with teachers and
students to encourage Wikipedia in the classroom. The basic idea is that
teachers ask their students to edit Wikipedia articles instead of submitting
traditional reports, assignments, etc. Students and teachers are trained
and supported and motivated by Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors - who are
volunteers. We currently have 1,000 students in the pilot we are running in
Pune; the response has been amazing!
There are huge challenges also. Most of the students have already been
taught the basics of Wikipedia by their Campus Ambassadors. However, they
need more help. The workload on Campus Ambassadors is already massive (as
there are hardly 20 Campus Ambassadors for 1,000 students). It is going to
keep increasing as more and more of the students start editing as we are now
in the 2nd half of their semesters - and therefore closer to the last dates
for their articles. We are already increasing Campus Ambassadors numbers by
15 in the next few days - but that still won't be enough.
We're separately building a team of passionate and helpful folks - with good
mentoring and teaching skills - to be Wikipedia Online Ambassadors. Online
Ambassadors will help these students by providing online support and
hand-holding so that the students can make high-quality contributions.
Online Ambassadors can be based anywhere in India (or indeed the world)
since their interaction with students will be over the internet.
I am reaching out to you to see whether you would be interested in helping
students and teachers and becoming a Wikipedia Online Ambassador.
We have two different Online Ambassador roles: Level 1 and Level 2.
. Level 1 is open to everyone - including people who have never edited
Wikipedia before - and will support students on really basic Wikipedia
questions. (They will be given specific training on this.)
. Level 2 is open to experienced Wikipedians and will support students on
more advanced Wikipedia questions.
Both Level 1 and Level 2 roles will be provided orientation sessions.
Currently, all the students are working on English wikipedia.
Passion for helping others and the ability to help newbies are the most
essential qualities for both levels. For more information about these roles
and what is expected of them, please see this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Online_Ambass
adors/Description. The time commitment is 3-5 hours per week on average
throughout the semester (or academic term.)
I warmly invite and highly encourage you to apply to become a Wikipedia
Online Ambassador! To apply, please go to:
https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEdtdG5
ObU9mMm5oZno3MExDc3lEZHc6MA - by Monday, September 12th (earlier is better),
and we will be in touch very soon about next steps. If you have any
questions, please do reach out to me either on this mailing list or offlist.
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Thank you so very much! I look forward to your application.
Sincerely,
Nitika Tandon
I am an American Wikipedia administrator living in Japan. Recently, as
you may have seen on the news (but not Wikinews), Japan got a new
prime minister. I watched his press conference and decided to grace
Wikinews with this breaking story within minutes after it happened.
The review process might delay it a few hours, but as it was 4AM EST,
I figured Wikinews would probably still scoop Reuters and the AP.
Five hours later (hmm, 9AM EST...), a reviewer finally looked at my
article and failed me on one count: THE FACT THAT THE EVENT TOOK PLACE
IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY. No joke. He informed me that because the people
at the press conference were not speaking English, and the reporting
on the article was not in English, it was likely the article would not
pass anyone's review. I asked for clarification on this astounding
statement, requested another review for the article, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
No changes were suggested to the article.
Nobody questioned the article's writing quality or accuracy.
It was simply ignored by every single reviewer on Wikinews.
Four days later, the article was junked, because it was "no longer
news". That's right: when I asked Wikinews to explain their policy of
denying all articles that had not been reported on in English, they
shut me out of their review system, with utter silence on the
discussion page, until my article was safely past an arbitrary
expiration date.
Naturally, I was pissed, because I put a good hour of work into the
article. I bothered the reviewers with new intensity, and finally they
told me that if I were to remove all the Japanese sources from the
article, it WOULD have been able to pass four days ago, but of course
their silent treatment had its intended effect of preventing this from
happening at all, so as far as Wikinews is concerned Japan has no new
prime minister and never will.
What did we learn from this? Wikinews does not permit articles about
non-Western events. If you attempt to submit such an article, even if
the event is obviously newsworthy, you will be ignored until your
submission is old enough that it is no longer news. This is how they
deal with "problem" articles.
In other words: DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING FOR WIKINEWS. YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.
Of course, their front page doesn't say anything so blatant-- you have
to dig into the policies to find this statement. But what a Goddamn
waste of bandwidth! I certainly won't be donating to Wikimedia as long
as they are hosting such wastes of time like this.
The whole, Kafkaesque discussion can be found here:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Talk:Yoshihiko_Noda_appointed_Prime_Minister_of…
Shii
To answer John Vandenberg's question about the image filter survey "Was this
survey approved by the Research Committee?"
RCOM collectively was not consulted, though individual RCOM members may have
been.
WereSpielChequers
------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 00:23:14 +1000
> From: John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAO9U_Z5=GbrO6j=0vmMuhPw2P5PE_Z_GPtQYySH6LzN2reD1Tg(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 11:50 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > ...
> > At Research committee list [1] there is ongoing discussion related to
> > John Vanderberg's question "Was this survey approved by the Research
> > Committee?" [2]. Research committee wasn't asked, of course (and
> > WereSpielChequers is working on statement). Because, simply,
> > politically motivated junk science requires implementation, not
> > questions about validity of premises.
> >
> > [1]
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/rcom-l/2011-September/000327.html
> > [2]
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/067889.html
>
> Thank you for pointing this out Milos. I wasnt aware that RCom's
> email list is public. That is good.
>
> This survey may not be feeding into scientific research publications,
> however the principles of human research ethics should still apply to
> any survey of the public, especially when conducted by organisations
> funded by the public. The survey instruments used should be valid,
> and the survey results should be discard if the survey population was
> not satisfactory.
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>
>
>
>
I wasn't going to update this situation, but it's funny enough that I
decided I have to.
Wikinews does seem quite dead recently. As far as I can tell, there
are only two users online in the past four days! The other one is
someone named User:Bddpaux, who informed me:
"You have to slowwwwwwly gain respect here. It will be given, but it
must be earned. I'm not yet a reviewer and I'm merely HOPING to become
a credentialled reporter here sometime this year"
"As someone who's really had to GRIND IT OUT for each rung I've earned
here.....IMHO Xe could stand to show a modicum of humility at this
point."
Apparently he is not yet allowed to set the "checked" flag on
articles, but has worked very hard for a number of months to achieve
whatever ranks and titles he lays claim to.
Isn't a wiki administrator just an editor with a mop? That's how I
treat my privileges on Wikipedia. I have never threatened other
editors with blocking over policy disputes, or demanded that they show
"humility" towards me. The hierarchy on Wikinews seems to be
authoritarian and pervasive.
In any case, User:Pi zero, the guy who failed my article, has now
blocked me for "vandalism". I am not a typing student and don't have
any gay friends (c.f.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_gays_should_not_be_allowed_to_edi…
) so it's not at all clear to me what the word "vandalism" means in
this context.
Okay, I'm done with Wikinews now, so that's all-- for real this time.
Shii