Hi,
I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not abusing personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting anonymity, free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora* Project[1] is not moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a microblogging service rather than a social network service.
Would it make sense for Wikimedia movement to build its own social network service?
In the "2017 Movement strategy” we state: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”. If we consider discussions and information shared on social network services to be “knowledge”, I think we should have a role in here too.
We have 33 million registered users and fulfil all the requirements of being a “fair service”. A minimum list of features to make Wikimedia Social would be:
(1) Status updates
(2) Comments
(3) Likes
(4)Groups
maybe:
(5) Events
I am pretty sure that by integrating this to other Wikimedia services (Commons etc.) we could achieve something awesome.
- Teemu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)
Dear all,
It’s been a while since I sent out the last movement strategy update. A lot
has happened in the meantime, and I wanted to give you a heads-up regarding
an upcoming call for participation!
But first things first:
1. The report from the Wikimedia Conference Movement Strategy Track
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2018/Documentation/Mov…>
has been published[1]. It captures all the conversations, insights and
outputs from three days of intense strategy work, so it’s a (quite) long
but very interesting read. It is meant to document the state of the process
and to allow for a deep dive into it. It should be especially valuable for
those of you who did not have a chance to participate in the conference or
attended another conference track.
2. Based on WMCON outputs (and various conversations we’ve been having in
our movement for years), the core strategy team has mapped eight key
thematic areas
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…>
[2] -- and some initial guiding questions -- that should to be answered to
enable us to advance towards our strategic direction. These areas include:
- Roles & Responsibilities
- Resource Allocation & Revenue Streams
- Diversity
- Partnerships
- Capacity Building
- Community Health
- Technology
- Advocacy
3. The core team will be supporting the creation of Working Groups to take
on these critical conversations. These working groups will be asked to
assess the current situation of the thematic area, and obstacles and
opportunities. They’ll have access to all the relevant information already
collected, and the chance to do further research if needed. They’ll be
asked to identify the changes needed in movement structures and develop
concrete recommendations for the movement on how to ratify and implement
them.[3] An open call for working group members will go out to the movement
this week -- please stay tuned for an update from Nicole!
I also had the chance to present more about these plans at last week’s
Metrics Meeting. Please do take a look, either look it all up on the
Meta[3] or watch the video![4]
Cheers,
Katherine
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2018/Documentation/Mov…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOaiU-v7PbE (from minute 24:25)
--
Katherine Maher
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635
+1 (415) 712 4873
kmaher(a)wikimedia.org
https://annual.wikimedia.org
Dear Wikimedians,
We are happy to announce that the 2017 Picture of the Year competition is now open.
Picture of the Year 2017 is the twelfth edition of the annual Wikimedia Commons image competition, which recognizes exceptional contributions by users on Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia users are invited to vote for their favorite images featured on Commons (FP) during the year 2017, to produce a single Picture of the Year.
Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community. From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, historically relevant images, images portraying the world's best architecture, Commons features pictures of all flavors.
For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories. Two rounds of voting will be held: In the first (and current) round, you can vote for as many images as you like. The first round category winners and the top ten overall will then make it to the final. In the final round, when a limited number of images are left, you must decide on the one image that you want to become the Picture of the Year.
To see the candidate images just go to the POTY 2017 page on Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2017
Round 1 will end 24 June 2018, 23:59:59 [UTC].
Thanks,
POTY 2017 committee
Note: Users must vote with an account meeting following requirements: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2017/Rules
Thank you for your answer, Sebastian.
Publishing the Gutachten would be fantastic! That would be very helpful and
deeply appreciated.
Regarding the relicensing, I agree with you. You can just go and do that,
and given that you ask for attribution to DBpedia, and not to Wikipedia, I
would claim that's what you're doing. And I think that's fine.
Regarding attribution, commonly it is assumed that you have to respect it
transitively. That is one of the reasons a license that requires BY sucks
so hard for data: unlike with text, the attribution requirements grow very
quickly. It is the same as with modified images and collages: it is not
sufficient to attribute the last author, but all contributors have to be
attributed.
This is why I think that whoever wants to be part of a large federation of
data on the web, should publish under CC0.
That is very different from licensing texts or images. But for data
anything else is just weird and will bite is in the long run more than we
might ever benefit.
So, just to say it again: if the Gutachten you mentioned could be made
available, that would be very very awesome!
Thank you, Denny
On Thu, May 17, 2018, 23:06 Sebastian Hellmann <
hellmann(a)informatik.uni-leipzig.de> wrote:
> Hi Denny,
>
> On 18.05.2018 02:54, Denny Vrandečić wrote:
>
> Rob Speer wrote:
> > The result of this, by the way, is that commercial entities sell modified
> > versions of Wikidata with impunity. It undermines the terms of other
> > resources such as DBPedia, which also contains facts extracted from
> > Wikipedia and respects its Share-Alike terms. Why would anyone use
> DBPedia
> > and have to agree to share alike, when they can get similar data from
> > Wikidata which promises them it's CC-0?
>
> The comparison to DBpedia is interesting: the terms for DBpedia state
> "Attribution in this case means keep DBpedia URIs visible and active
> through at least one (preferably all) of @href, <link />, or "Link:". If
> live links are impossible (e.g., when printed on paper), a textual
> blurb-based attribution is acceptable."
> http://wiki.dbpedia.org/terms-imprint
>
> So according to these terms, when someone displays data from DBpedia, it
> is entirely sufficient to attribute DBpedia.
>
> What that means is that DBpedia follows exactly the same theory as
> Wikidata: it is OK to extract data from Wikipedia and republish it as your
> own dataset under your own copyright without requiring attribution to the
> original source of the extraction.
>
> (A bit more problematic might be the fact that DBpedia also republishes
> whole paragraphs of Text under these terms, but that's another story)
>
>
> My understanding is that all that Wikidata has extracted from Wikipedia is
> non-copyrightable in the first place and thus republishing it under a
> different license (or, as in the case of DBpedia for simple triples, with a
> different attribution) is legally sound.
>
>
> In the SmartDataWeb project https://www.smartdataweb.de/ we hired lawyers
> to write a legal review about the extraction situation. Facts can be
> extracted and republished under CC-0 without problem as is the case of
> infoboxes.. Copying a whole database is a different because database rights
> hold. If you only extract ~ two sentences it falls under citation, which is
> also easy. If it is more than two sentence, then copyright applies.
>
> I can check whether it is ready and shareable. The legal review
> (Gutachten) is quite a big thing as it has some legal relevancy and can be
> cited in court.
>
> Hence we can switch to ODC-BY with facts as CC-0 and the text as
> share-alike. However the attribution mentioned in the imprint is still
> fine, since it is under database and not the content/facts.
> I am still uncertain about the attribution. If you remix and publish you
> need to cite the direct sources. But if somebody takes from you, does he
> only attribute to you or to everybody you used in a transitive way.
>
> Anyhow, we are sharpening the whole model towards technology, not
> data/content. So the databus will be a transparent layer and it is much
> easier to find the source like Wikipedia and Wikidata and do contributions
> there, which is actually one of the intentions of share-alike (getting work
> pushed back/upstream).
>
> All the best,
> Sebastian
>
>
> If there is disagreement with that, I would be interested which content
> exactly is considered to be under copyright and where license has not been
> followed on Wikidata.
>
> For completion: the discussion is going on in parallel on the Wikidata
> project chat and in Phabricator:
>
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193728#4212728
>
> https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Project_chat#Wikipedia_and_other_Wik…
>
>
> I would appreciate if we could keep the discussion in a single place.
>
> Gnom1 on Phabricator has offered to actually answer legal questions, but
> we need to come up with the questions that we want to ask. If it should be,
> for example, as Rob Speer states on the bug, "has the copyright of
> interwiki links been breached by having them be moved to Wikidata?", I'd be
> quite happy with that question - if that's the disagreement, let us ask
> Legal help and see if my understanding or yours is correct.
>
> Does this sound like a reasonable question? Or which other question would
> you like to ask instead?
>
>
> On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 4:15 PM Rob Speer <rob(a)luminoso.com> wrote:
>
>> > As always, copyright is predatory. As we can prove that copyright is the
>> enemy of science and knowledge
>>
>> Well, this kind of gets to the heart of the issue, doesn't it.
>>
>> I support the Creative Commons license, including the share-alike term,
>> which requires copyright in order to work, and I've contributed to
>> multiple
>> Wikimedia projects with the understanding that my work would be protected
>> by CC-By-SA.
>>
>> Wikidata is engaged in a project-wide act of disobedience against
>> CC-By-SA.
>> I would say that GerardM has provided an excellent summary of the attitude
>> toward Creative Commons that I've encountered on Wikidata: "it's holding
>> us
>> back", "it's the enemy", "you can't copyright knowledge", "you can't make
>> us follow it", etc.
>>
>> The result of this, by the way, is that commercial entities sell modified
>> versions of Wikidata with impunity. It undermines the terms of other
>> resources such as DBPedia, which also contains facts extracted from
>> Wikipedia and respects its Share-Alike terms. Why would anyone use DBPedia
>> and have to agree to share alike, when they can get similar data from
>> Wikidata which promises them it's CC-0?
>>
>> On Wed, 16 May 2018 at 21:43 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Hoi,
>> > Thank you for the overly broad misrepresentation. As always, copyright
>> is
>> > predatory. As we can prove that copyright is the enemy of science and
>> > knowledge we should not be upset that *copyright *is abused we should
>> > welcome it as it proves the point. Also when we use texts from
>> everywhere
>> > and rephrase it in Wikipedia articles "we" are not lily white either.
>> >
>> > In "them old days" generally we felt that when people would use
>> Wikipedia,
>> > it would only serve our purpose; share the sum of all knowledge. I still
>> > feel really good about that. And, it has been shown that what we do;
>> > maintain / curate / update that data that it is not easily given to do
>> as
>> > well as "we" do it.
>> >
>> > When we are to be more precise with our copyright, there are a few
>> things
>> > we could do to make copyright more transparent. When data is to be
>> uploaded
>> > (Commons / Wikipedia or Wikidata) we should use a user that is OWNED and
>> > operated by the copyright holder. The operation may be by proxy and as a
>> > consequence there is no longer a question about copyright as the
>> copyright
>> > holder can do as we wants. This makes any future noises just that,
>> > annoying.
>> >
>> > As to copyright on Wikidata, when you consider copyright using data from
>> > Wikipedia. The question is: "What Wikipedia" I have copied a lot of data
>> > from several Wikipedias and believe me, from a quality point of view
>> there
>> > is much to be gained by using Wikidata as an instrument for good
>> because it
>> > is really strong in identifying friends and false friends. It is
>> superior
>> > as a tool for disambiguation.
>> >
>> > About the copyright on data, the overriding question with data is: do
>> you
>> > copy data wholesale in Wikidata. That is what a database copyright is
>> > about. As I wrote on my blog [1], the best data to include is data that
>> is
>> > corroborated by the fact that it is present in multiple sources. This
>> > negates the notion of a single source, it also underscores that much of
>> the
>> > data everywhere is replicated a lot. It also underscores, again, the
>> notion
>> > that data that is only present in single sources is what needs
>> attention.
>> > It needs tender loving care, it needs other sources to establish
>> > credentials. That is in its own right what makes any claim of copyright
>> > moot. It is in this process that it becomes a "creative" process
>> negating
>> > the copyright held on databases.
>> >
>> > I welcome the attention that is given to copyright in Wikidata. However
>> our
>> > attention to copyright is predatory in two ways. It is how can we get
>> > around existing copyright and how can we protect our own. As argued,
>> > Wikidata shines when it is used for what it is intended to be; the place
>> > that brings data, of Wikipedias first and elsewhere second, together to
>> be
>> > used as a repository of quality, open and linked data.
>> > Thanks,
>> > GerardM
>> >
>> > [1]
>> >
>> >
>> https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2018/05/wikidata-copyright-and-linked-d…
>> >
>> > On 11 May 2018 at 23:10, Rob Speer <rob(a)luminoso.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Wow, thanks for the heads up. When I was getting upset about projects
>> > that
>> > > change the license on Wikimedia content and commercialize it, I had no
>> > idea
>> > > that Wikidata was providing them the cover to do so. The Creative
>> Commons
>> > > violation is coming from inside the house!
>> > >
>> > > On Tue, 8 May 2018 at 03:48 mathieu stumpf guntz <
>> > > psychoslave(a)culture-libre.org> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > Hello everybody,
>> > > >
>> > > > There is a phabricator ticket on Solve legal uncertainty of Wikidata
>> > > > <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193728> that you might be
>> > interested
>> > > > to look at and participate in.
>> > > >
>> > > > As Denny suggested in the ticket to give it more visibility through
>> the
>> > > > discussion on the Wikidata chat
>> > > > <
>> > > > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Project_chat#
>> > > Importing_datasets_under_incompatible_licenses>,
>> > > >
>> > > > I thought it was interesting to highlight it a bit more.
>> > > >
>> > > > Cheers
>> > > >
>> > > > _______________________________________________
>> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> > > > Unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> > > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
>> ?subject=unsubscribe>
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
>> > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
>> > > wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>> ,
>> > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikidata mailing listWikidata@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
>
>
> --
> All the best,
> Sebastian Hellmann
>
> Director of Knowledge Integration and Linked Data Technologies (KILT)
> Competence Center
> at the Institute for Applied Informatics (InfAI) at Leipzig University
> Executive Director of the DBpedia Association
> Projects: http://dbpedia.org, http://nlp2rdf.org,
> http://linguistics.okfn.org, https://www.w3.org/community/ld4lt
> <http://www.w3.org/community/ld4lt>
> Homepage: http://aksw.org/SebastianHellmann
> Research Group: http://aksw.org
>
Hi everyone!
I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
[1] Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda [2] as a Wikimedia User Group.
The group aims to promote the Wikimedia projects, and free content in
general, in Uganda, and to encourage the use of Wikimedia resources in
education there.
Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
Regards,
Kirill Lokshin
Chair, Affiliations Committee
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognit…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning_Wikimedia_User_Group_Uganda
Dear Wikimedians,
Following up on Katherine’s email from last week[1], we are today
opening the call for Working Group members for 9 Thematic Areas (yes,
we added one more!).
== Working Group members ==
The Working Groups will map the present situation of their Thematic
Area, the obstacles and opportunities, as well as needed changes to
advance our movement in our strategic direction. They will identify
possible strategies for making these changes and develop concrete
recommendations for the movement on how to ratify and implement
them.[2]
Working Group members will need to be able to invest a minimum of 5
hours per week, but that time might vary depending on the workflow
that each group agrees upon. Members of the Working Groups are
expected to act in the interest of the movement, not in the interest
of their own organization or community.
== Selection of members ==
We are looking for a maximum of 15 members for each of the 9 groups.
For best results we will need a diverse set of members from across the
movement. We have developed a set of criteria, to ensure the necessary
expertise, diversity, and representation.[3] We will assemble a
Steering Committee to decide upon membership of the Working Groups in
close coordination with the Core Strategy Team.[4]
== Apply to become a working group member ==
We encourage everyone with an interest in the strategic conversations
to apply for becoming a Working Group member in their topic of
expertise. We recommend that movement organizations and groups create
internal processes for the selection of their candidates to avoid
multiple, competing applications.
The call will be open until June 25, 2018. ***Please apply via this
application form.[5]*** To prepare your application, you can consult
the overview of the questions asked in the form on Meta.[6]
== Next steps ==
We expect to be able to announce the Working Group members in the
second week of July, so that the working groups can be assembled,
onboarded and ready to start working before Wikimania. The first step
for the groups will be to agree upon their set-up and scope of work.
At Wikimania, we plan to convene the attending Working Group members
in the Strategy Space to discuss and refine their road to the
recommendations and ensure exchange between the groups.[7]
We invite you all to familiarize yourselves with the existing
documentation of the Working Group(s) of your interest,[8] add
comments, additional input or share your concerns via talk pages Your
comments will be then be taken into consideration by the respective
Working Groups.
We are looking forward to working and having these long-awaited
conversations with many of you!
In the name of the Strategy Core Team,
Nicole
[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-June/090417.html
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
[5] https://goo.gl/forms/zVElm0hLT9eZvqwF3
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
[8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
--
Nicole Ebber
Adviser International Relations
Wikimedia Movement Strategy Process Lead
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
http://wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Hi everyone,
I'm delighted to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan for
FY18-19 is now on Meta[1].
This year, we have organized our efforts around three goals that focus on
making critical improvements to our systems and structures to ensure that
we’re better positioned for our coming work against the strategic
direction[2]. The Foundation’s goals for this year should not only move us
closer to knowledge equity and service, but will prepare us to execute
against the 3- to 5-year strategic plan which we intend to develop this
year in order to guide the Foundation’s work into the future.
As you’ll see, we’ve made some changes to the structure of this year’s
annual plan. This year’s plan is organized around three goals for the
Foundation’s work in the year to come. By restructuring the Annual Plan, we
have written a plan for the whole Foundation, rather than an aggregation
of plans from all of our departments and teams. In this sense, we’re
seeking to become a better-integrated institution, rather than a collection
of teams and departments with disparate goals.
We’ve also reduced the overall length of the published Annual Plan. We
wanted to make sure that the focus and goals of our work don’t get lost in
the details. Of course, we know that many community members enjoy reading
the particulars of our planned work, so you can still access the details of
departmental programs through links to their descriptions on Meta or
MediaWiki.org. These links will provide interested readers with detailed
departmental programs, which describe the specific and detailed program
goals, impact and outcomes. This change does not sacrifice the depth and
rigor of our planning process, but rather, it is meant to keep the Annual
Plan lean and focused while allowing interested readers to dive deep into
the details.
Finally, we’ve expanded the planning framework we instituted last year for
cross-departmental programs to all of our programs across the Foundation.
This allows us to clearly link a program’s resources to outcomes and
measures. As such, we’ve presented the Annual Plan budget in terms of our
investments in the three defined goals rather than in terms of our internal
organizational structure.
Thank you all for your support over the past year. I'm really looking
forward to your feedback on this year's proposed plan during the open
comment period -- a reminder it runs through May 15th.
Thanks!
Katherine
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
Annual_Plan/2018-2019/Draft
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
--
Katherine Maher
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635 <(415)%20839-6885>
+1 (415) 712 4873 <(415)%20712-4873>
kmaher(a)wikimedia.org
https://annual.wikimedia.org
On 13th June, the High Court of Australia allowed a defamation case against
Google to proceed. Presently, Australia has no "safe harbour" provision
for internet intermediaries, though there is some protection for telcos.
[1]
The previous week, on 7th June, the New South Wales state government
released a review of its 2005 defamation act, and the review recommends
that the states re-convene their defamation working party and ask it, inter
alia, if a specific safe harbour provision would be beneficial. [2][3]
WMF legal might want to consider making a submission to the working party
(once it has re-convened) to put our case, and might want to watch the law
reform process as it unfolds to ensure any safe harbour language that may
be adopted is broad enough to include Wikimedia projects.
1. The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/protecting-google-from-defamation-is-worth-seri…
2. Sydney Morning Herald.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-pushes-for-historic-overhaul-of-def…
3. The review. See recommendation 15c
http://www.justice.nsw.gov.au/justicepolicy/Documents/defamation-act-statut…