Dear movement fellows,
Wikimedia Argentina would like to express its support for the letter by
Wikimedia Israel regarding URAA-motivated massive content deletions in
Wikimedia Commons. Yet, we would like to express our view not only to the
Foundation BoT but also to all Wikimedia editors, and especially to those
working in Wikimedia Commons.
Volunteers from Argentina have been among the most affected by the policy
adopted by Wikimedia Commons administrators regarding images that could
fall under URAA copyright provisions. Argentine copyright law provides that
images enter the public domain "only" 25 years after their production and
20 after their first documented publication. This relatively generous
criterion has enabled unaffiliated volunteers and we as Wikimedia Argentina
to enrich Commons with hundreds of thousands of historical images that are
absolutely free under Argentine law: images of the political and every day
life of the country, of its culture, of its popular idols, of its joyful
and dark days, of its customs and architecture.
However, over the last months certain Wikimedia Commons administrators have
conducted massive deletions of these contents, in many cases involving
entire categories. The burden of proof has been inverted: instead of having
to justify the deletion of a certain file, things go that volunteers have
to devout their time trying to justify the validity of their efforts. This
has caused great damage, not only by way of our readers loosing access to
free educational contents, but also de-motivating many editors and
volunteers by making them feel that their efforts are ultimately vain and
that our goal of free knowledge for everyone is being replaced by a certain
legal fetishism whose reason gets lost in processes and misses the outcome.
We acknowledge that the Wikimedia Foundation BoT and its Legal team have
repeatedly stated, as has been reinforced in recent communications, that
images shouldn't be deleted unless we receive a takedown notice, and that
it has not received a single URAA-motivated notice to date. Certain
Wikimedia Commons administrators have dismissed the Foundation's statement
as a mere opinion vis-à-vis the SCOTUS ruling. Yet, it is an opinion by the
organization that is legally responsible for the contents being hosted in
Wikimedia Commons.
We respectfully call the Wikimedia Commons community to reflect on the
practical consequences of its current policy on URAA's implementation.
Those files generating potential conflict could be even identified as such
without the need for a pre-emptive deletion. And we would like the Commons
community to reflect not only on the preventive loss of free contents we
are generating, but also on the harmful disconnection between Wikimedia
Commons and all of the other Wikimedia projects it serves as media
repository, mostly Wikipedia.
Many years ago, the editors of the Spanish Wikipedia decided to close the
possibility to directly host images, choosing instead to use Wikimedia
Commons. If we miss the opportunity to find a workaround that saves
hundreds of thousands of images from an unrequested deletion that hurts our
very mission, Wikipedia editors could ultimately evaluate reversing that
decision, reopening "project-hosted" uploads just to avoid the restrictive
and exclusionary URAA interpretation that Wikimedia Commons has been
sustaining against the Foundation's political and legal advice. That would
be far from being an optimal outcome.
We are sure that we as the broader community of Wikimedia volunteers can
find a common ground that permits to adapt to all legal conditions and
challenges while putting in the first place the fulfillment of our goal
towards free knowledge.
Approved by the Board of Wikimedia Argentina on February 22, 2014
Hi,
I just got a message that the Finnish Police have asked the fi.wikipedia, by sending an email to the wikifi-admin(a)list.wikimedia.org, to give a written statement about their possible violation of the laws that regulate fundraising in Finland. There is a little news about this already online in English. Here:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2014/02/07/finnish_police_probe_w…
I chat about this with a lawyer friend and he was afraid that the police msy go after the volunteers that have participated in the fundraising, e.g. by translating the fundraising messages.
Is there any equivalent cases from other countries?
In Finland one needs a pre-given permission to do fundraising.
- Teemu
--------------------------------------------------
Teemu Leinonen
http://teemuleinonen.fi
+358 50 351 6796
Media Lab
http://mlab.uiah.fi
Aalto University
School of Arts, Design and Architecture
--------------------------------------------------
In case anyone on WikimediaAnnounce-l missed the news:
http://wikimediaukraine.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/in-memoriam-of-ihor-kosten…https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/02/24/wikipedia-ihor-kostenko-dies/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-02-26/Speci…
Memorials are being left on Ihor's talk page:
https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D0%B1%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%D0…
James Alexander posted this quote on Wikimedia-l:
"Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, they say. We have died; remember us."
--Archibald MacLeish
User:Wnt has proposed that we
create an annual award in Ihor's name. "...If the editor
desired, he could accept the award at a WMF event in a public way, but
the news of the selection could always be released first on February 20,
so that reporters covering these stories would always take a moment to
explain who Ihor Kostenko was and what the day means. And just maybe,
by educating more people before a conflict comes to a head, some day
one of these award winners will have stayed some future sniper's hand
and saved some other Ihor, even if we will never know it." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_158#Death_of_a_…
I hope that we can honor Ihor in a way that takes no sides with regard to geopolitics while memorializing Ihor's life and promoting values which are important to the Wikimedia movement.
RIP Ihor.
Pine
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The Wikimedia chapters and thematic organizations are seeking to appoint
two candidates to sit on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees for
two years, starting in summer 2014.
The two new members of the board will help to decide the future direction
of the world's leading non-profit website. Wikimedia projects are
constructed by hundreds of thousands of volunteers worldwide, supported by
a growing number of staff and an international network of affiliate
organizations. Board membership is unpaid.
The chapters and thematic organizations wish to appoint two excellent board
members and believe this can best be achieved by selecting from a large
number of varied and skilled candidates. Therefore, the chapters and
thematic organizations call for nominations by everyone who believes they
or someone they know would be suitable. This call for candidates should be
distributed as widely as possible through such forums as mailing lists,
village pumps, and blogs.
The successful candidates will be committed to the Wikimedia mission and
willing and able to engage constructively with the stakeholders of the
movement, including the volunteers and the affiliate organizations that
provide it with essential support. The successful candidates will have:
* the ability to provide expertise to the board in its goal of implementing
a coherent vision on how the projects' communities, the foundation, the
chapters, the thematic organizations, the user groups, and other affiliated
groups work together;
* sensitivity to complex issues surrounding the multiplicity of languages,
cultures, and jurisdictions served by the foundation's projects;
* knowledge and understanding of the governance of international non-profit
organizations, balancing autonomy and subsidiarity;
* the ability to think strategically and to work both as part of a team and
independently;
* a good standard of written and oral English (fluency in additional
languages would be well regarded);
* sufficient time to devote to the role of board member, and the ability
and willingness to travel.
Increasing the geographical diversity of current board membership would be
an advantage.
The selection process is set out at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats
Nominations must be submitted no later than 31 March (24:00 UTC) using the
form on the following Meta page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2014/Nominat…
The facilitators of the ASBS election,
James Hare
Chris Keating
Lorenzo Losa
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Hello, I want to invite anyone who wants to join the discussion on the
Terms of use amendment about paid editing, you may read what it is about at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment ,
you are invited to do so in any language you want.
--
Dennis Pierri
Wait, aren't the chapters composed from people from the wikimedia community?
Also, didn't you guys stop by a second to think the chapter thoroughly discussed the contents of the letter with its members, which may vote in favor or against publishing it?
And if it is on Meta, is open to discussion, no?
Finally, in Venezuela we say "el que se pica es porque ají come". No need to take it personally if you are not among those "certain" Commons admins, right?
Sent from Samsung Mobile
-------- Original message --------
From: Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com>
Date: 26/02/2014 18:46 (GMT+02:00)
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter on open letters (Was: Open letter
from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA)
On 26 February 2014 13:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe it's a cultural issue, does e.g.
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_letter> have a geopolitically limited
> point of view? Open letters are a common tool of *discussion* with the
> public (= community in our case) in the corners of the world that I know
> best.
As a major unpaid Commons contributor, I find these emotive and
political emails to lists and open letters elsewhere confusing and
rather wasteful of the good faith volunteer effort behind them.
If anyone wants to create meaningful and lasting change to Commons,
then please create a Request for Comment on Commons[1] rather than
making a fuss and criticising Commons (volunteer) administrators in
non-Commons discussion channels, which most Commons volunteers are
unlikely to either notice or care much about.
For Chapters, I suggest you check who among your active volunteers are
most active on Commons[2] and ask them to help engage or create
discussion about policy and guideline changes. If you cannot find
anyone close to your chapter that is active and engaged on Commons,
perhaps you should change that situation before firing off official
letters.
Links:
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:RFC
2. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Userlist
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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