Now that the info-en email address is on the "contact us" pages, the
amount of mail is increasing, and we need more help.
We are looking for a long-standing contributor with a good knowledge of
the English Wikipedia and its policies and procedures. You should also
have a working knowledge of other projects. You need to have infinite
patience to reply to the same newbie questions time after time, and a
friendly and helpful style of writing. Most important is the ability
not to laugh at people who write to tell us we have a massive security
hole - an edit link on each page!!!11!.
Being active on IRC is an advantage - it makes a real difference to be
able to talk over the tricky ones sometimes.
Pay is at the usual Wikipedia rate of lots of good feeling and all the
cookies you can eat.
Hopefully there will be a big rush of applicants for this wonderful job,
and I will ask those volunteering to answer a few mails to see if you
have the style we are looking for. Jimbo will have the final say though.
Please mail me directly rather than replying to the list if you are
interested.
Thanks,
sannse
p.s. I lied about the cookies
Well, I finally ran out of excuses to keep putting it off. So I've
created a page on meta (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_error_messages ) to start
off the process of redesigning the Wikimedia server error messages. I
find it unacceptable that all wikis - regardless of their setup
language - receive the same English language message. We also need to
do things like remove the link to OpenFacts, because that site gets
overloaded within a few seconds of any Wikipedia downtime.
I welcome any comments whatsoever on this project.
~Mark Ryan
Thanks for your comments, Lars.
I agree with most of what you said. The primary mission of a library of memoirs like
Wikimemory is to collect, maintain and disseminate memoirs. As Anthere rightly said the
other day, there are already ways of doing this. People do write memoirs, those memoirs
are sometimes printed, and the resulting books are sometimes deposited and cataloged in
libraries (or even made available in bookstores). Oral history projects (such as that funded
by Steven Spielberg for Holocaust Survivors) also exist. The problem with all
existing ‘memory’ projects, however, is that they just don’t end up recording very much.
I have been a historian of Russia for two decades, and am currently writing a book on
Stalin’s Purges (“The Great Terror”) of the 1930s. I would love to have a huge repository
of memoirs on the subject. True, a few exist, and some are very good. But there just arenÂ’t
enough to get a really good, on-the-ground picture of what happened. The same can be
said, I think, of almost every major historical event of the 20th century and before, with the
possible exceptions of the Holocaust and the American Civil Rights movement, both of
which were the focus of very well funded oral history projects.
The reason good memoirs are so few and poorly disseminated is simple: they are mostly in
books. Books are hard to write, hard to publish, hard to move, and hard to store. It is
true, as Lars says, there are ways to avoid book (and wikis) and record memoirs on the web
(blogs and such). But isolated blogs a mode for building a massive memoir library (MML)
have problems.
1. Very few people will write blog-memoirs, so the present would still be lost to the future.
If, on the other hand, the publicity engine that is Wikimedia got behind WikiMemory, then
it might become common to write your memoirs (because it was easy, fashionable, and
“everyone’s doing it.”
2. Isolated blog memoirs would be ephemeral. More than likely that your website (blog)
will die when you do, so the info will be practically lost). If, on the other hand, WikiMedia
dedicated itself to the long term preservation of the memoirs, they would be more likely to
survive.
3. Even if they did survive in the long term, isolated memoirs would be lost *without some
central repository or index.* If, on the other hand, all the memoirs were in one place
(WikiMemory) and indexed by users, then they would be pretty easy to find in 500 years.
Perhaps, as Lars suggests, a wiki might not be the right software for the project. As long as
the software allows the easy entry, preservation and dissemination of the memoirs in one
place, the goal will be achieved. And while we might be able to build a massive memoir
library (MML) without a universally editable wiki, it seems to me that it will be difficult
to build it without WikiMedia.
Respectfully, Marshall
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces(a)wikimedia.org on behalf of Lars Aronsson
Sent: Mon 9/19/2005 5:38 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: RE: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory
Robin Shannon asked:
> 4. Why a Wiki (or, To edit or not to edit)?
And I agree that this is the important question.
Marshall Poe answered:
> To me, this is the most interesting question of all because it
> points up a conflict between two principles. On the one hand,
> we want to be open and allow everyone to edit all content. On
> the other hand, we want to gather and disseminate the sum of
> human knowledge to everyone, free.
In mathematical terminology, the sum (e.g. "7") is not the same
thing as its terms (e.g. "3 + 4"). The sum can be computed from
the terms, but once you have the sum you can no longer determine
which the terms were. I think that Wikipedia, using wikis, should
disseminate the *sum* of human knowledge, because one person could
enter 3 and another could add 4 to it, resulting in the sum. But
this new proposed memoir project instead aims to present the
individual components or terms, each on their own. Other tools
than wikis, such as blogs, are better suited for that task.
There are plenty of technical tools out there for people who want
to set up their own blog, to report their individual memoirs.
There are also tools that help coordinate blogging on a larger
scale, such as del.icio.us for tagging, flickr for adding photos,
geobloggers.com for adding geographic coordinates, and most
recently the Google Blogsearch.
Wikipedia is also such a tool, as it allows bloggers to link to
encyclopedic articles that provide background knowledge on places,
people, and events. The occurance of such links is indeed a kind
of tagging. You can do a Google blogsearch to find 8 known blog
entries that link to the article [[en:Great Chicago Fire]],
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fw…
which is 8 times more than you'll find through
http://del.icio.us/tag/ChicagoFire
Some future incarnation of Wiktionary could also become such a
useful resource, but it isn't really there yet.
> but the Wikisource *edition* of the “Magna Carta” will only
> become less valuable as it is edited further away from its
> original, canonical state (the words as they were written in
> 1215).
Quite correctly, this is a weakness of Wikisource as it is now
conceived, and hardly a valid argument for using wikis for
memoirs.
> Which is the superior principle? IÂ’d say itÂ’s the
> all-human-knowledge principle.
Nothing says one tool has to be useful for all situations.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
First, thanks to everyone for the input. As a newbie, I really appreciate it. Let me address some of the good points you made.
1. How does Wikimemory fit WikimediaÂ’s mission?
As I understand it, Wikimedia’s mission is to present the sum of human knowledge (and, more generally, “content”) to all of humanity, free, by means of wikis. The “data” that will be gathered on Wikimemory is part of human knowledge--it’s the part we use to understand the past. Empirically speaking, historical artifacts such as memoirs *are* the past, or at least the only evidence we have of it. You can’t see the past, or go visit; you can only look at what’s survived until the present. Moreover, if we don’t gather all these memories, they will be lost (they are recorded presently in peoples’ heads and nowhere else). For the first time in history we have the ability to easily record and store the memories of a huge section of humanity. If we do it, the future will be richer for it (e.g., bad actors won’t be able to deny their bad deeds—it’s be on the record for everyone to see).
2. How is Wikimemoir different from Wikimemorial
In terms of purpose, the two are different: Wikimemorial memorializes tragedies, while Wikimemoir records significant firsthand accounts of important events. In terms of data-type, WikimemoryÂ’s content is similar to *part* of the content on Wikimemorial (or 911wiki), namely, memoirs. There will be no memorials on Wikimemory, at least as I conceive it. The only metadata will be commentary on the primary sources (see below).
3. HowÂ’s it different from Wikipeople?
Apart from the commentaries on the memoirs, Wikimemory is all data and no metadata; Wikipeople is all metadata (biographies). Put another way, Wikimemory is a primary source; Wikipeople is a secondary source. Both are very valuable, and neither can really exist without the other.
4. Why a Wiki (or, To edit or not to edit)?
To me, this is the most interesting question of all because it points up a conflict between two principles. On the one hand, we want to be open and allow everyone to edit all content. On the other hand, we want to gather and disseminate the sum of human knowledge to everyone, free. In the case of Wikimemory (and several other wikis), these principles run up against one another. Let me try to explain.
It seems to me that there are two kinds of wikis, differentiated by the kind of data they gather. What might be called “scientific” wikis record the present state of *human knowledge*, that is, metadata or secondary sources. I have in mind Wikipedia, Wikispecies, etc. In contrast, what might be called “documentary” wikis gather, preserve and disseminate *artifacts*, that is, data or primary sources. I have in mind 911Wiki, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikicommons, and Wikimemory.
Now here’s the interesting part: the scientific wikis can be expected to become more valuable in an opensource environment as they are edited, but the documentary wikis can be expected to become less valuable as they are edited. For example, the Wikipedia *entry* on the “Magna Carta” will improve as we learn more about the document and its context, but the Wikisource *edition* of the “Magna Carta” will only become less valuable as it is edited further away from its original, canonical state (the words as they were written in 1215). Or to take a hypothetical example from Wikimemory, the Wikipedia *entry* on “Abu Graib Prison” will get better as historians uncover more about what happened there, but a Wikimemory *memoir* by one of the prisoners will only lose value if it is changed from its original disposition (that is, if it is vandalized).
And here’s where we run into a contradiction of principles or aims. If we stick to the open-source principle, then we won’t be able to present historical artifacts, because they may be inaccurate reflections of the originals (due to vandalism). This contradicts the all-human-knowledge principle. If, in contrast, we prioritize the all-human-knowledge principle, then we’ll probably be forced to make finished entries on “documentary” wikis read-only. This violates the open-source principle.
Which is the superior principle? I’d say it’s the all-human-knowledge principle. There’s a lot to be gained by relaxing our stand on open-source here. For this reason I propose that discuss making the finished content on Wikimemory read-only in some or most cases. Moreover, we can still be true to our open-source principles by allowing users edit metadata (explanatory information about the memoirs) to the site. To return to our example, a well-annotated Magna Carta is much easier to understand than a Magna Carta in isolation. And such annotations would be (in the sense meant before) “scientific,” they would improve as we learned more.
All the Best, Marshall
Jimbo I think it's a terrible idea to delete images w/o explicit
license information because the default assumed license is the GFDL.
The uploader may not know that the image needs to be tagged, and we're
going to lose many images this way. I've already found one that got
deleted, but fortunately the author was still around and reuploaded
it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:CMOS_NAND.png&action=history
If the auther is gone, the image is gone, and for no good reason.
Additionally, this could mean that images incorrectly tagged with the
category [[Category:Images with unknown source]] could be gone in 7
days. Are administrators going to make sure that all images in that
category are legitimate before firing away? Expect trolls to start to
take advantage of this loophole to cause data loss.
We don't require text to have an explicit license, why should we do
this for images? For no explicit license, the implicit GFDL should be
imposed unless we find otherwise. If it looks suspicious it can be put
to the vote, but I wouldn't make those speedy deletions. We'll use
many free images this way.
Dori
I am pleased to announce that Danny Wool has accepted my offer of a job
at the Wikimedia Foundation to be the Executive Assistant for the
foundation. This job will primarily entail removing work from me so
that I can better focus on the parts of my job that I am best at.
Danny has extensive experience in the nonprofit sector and has been our
(volunteer) grant co-ordinator for some time. I have worked with Danny
on many projects and we are an excellent working team with a fine
personal relationship.
It is envisioned that Danny's staff role as my assistant will be
temporary as he comes in and sets up professional systems for our work
and begins to look for a replacement Executive Assistant (sometime
within a year, depending on the flow of events) so that he can focus
more and more over time in writing grant proposals.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Assistant has a very very
cursory look at the position.
--Jimbo
More pitch. Just tell me if this is horribly annoying (or ignore it)... Best, Marshall.
17 Reasons Why I Think WikiMemory is a Good Idea
1. When you die, all your memories vanish. That's a boatload of lost information.
2. It's good to know about the past, and this would help (not us, maybe, but the future).
3. People see and do really interesting stuff; I'd like to read about it (and so would a lot of others).
4. Some people have seen what I've seen; I'd like to get their POV.
5. Some people lie (especially politicians), and this might be a way to stop them, a little.
6. People are basically honest; they aren't going to lie, especially when there is no reason to.
7. Readers aren't stupid--they'll know to take any memoir about a very controversial issue with a grain of salt.
8. If you carefully compare accounts of the same event, you often can determine which one is more accurate.
9. If you check the proported facts in an account against some other source, you can often determine if the writer
knows what the hell he is talking about.
10. And you can always ask someone who was there. Just email them.
11. Besides, even if they lie, the way they lie will tell future historians something about them. That's valuable info.
12. Journalists know that they should check their sources (at least the good ones do).
13. There is some great undiscovered memoir writer out there, and I'd like to find him or her.
14. In a hundred years, historians everywhere will use this site, and praise us (alas, we'll be dead...)
15. Nothing like this exists.
16. Nothing like this has ever existed.
17. For the first time in human history, we could pass our very memories on to future generations. Wow.
Marshall Poe
Hi Folks:
I'm reposting this because I messed up the formatting when I first posted it (making it very hard to read--sorry).
Best, MP
First, thanks to everyone for the input. As a newbie, I really appreciate it.
Let me address some of the good points you made.
1. How does Wikimemory fit WikimediaÂ’s mission?
As I understand it, WikimediaÂ’s mission is to present the sum of
human knowledge (and, more generally, “content”) to all of humanity,
free, by means of wikis. The “data” that will be gathered on Wikimemory
is part of human knowledge--itÂ’s the part we use to understand the past.
Empirically speaking, historical artifacts such as memoirs *are* the past, or
at least the only evidence we have of it. You canÂ’t see the past, or go visit;
you can only look at whatÂ’s survived until the present. Moreover, if we donÂ’t
gather all these memories, they will be lost (they are recorded presently in
peoplesÂ’ heads and nowhere else). For the first time in history we
have the ability to easily record and store the memories of a huge section
of humanity. If we do it, the future will be richer for it (e.g., bad actors wonÂ’t
be able to deny their bad deeds—it’s be on the record for everyone to see).
2. How is Wikimemoir different from Wikimemorial
In terms of purpose, the two are different: Wikimemorial memorializes tragedies,
while Wikimemoir records significant firsthand accounts of important events.
In terms of data-type, WikimemoryÂ’s content is similar to *part* of the content
on Wikimemorial (or 911wiki), namely, memoirs. There will be no memorials
on Wikimemory, at least as I conceive it. The only metadata will be commentary
on the primary sources (see below).
3. HowÂ’s it different from Wikipeople?
Apart from the commentaries on the memoirs,
Wikimemory is all data and no metadata; Wikipeople
is all metadata (biographies). Put another way, Wikimemory
is a primary source; Wikipeople is a secondary source.
Both are very valuable, and neither can really exist without the other.
4. Why a Wiki (or, To edit or not to edit)?
To me, this is the most interesting question of all because it points up a conflict
between two principles. On the one hand, we want to be open and allow everyone
to edit all content. On the other hand, we want to gather and disseminate the sum
of human knowledge to everyone, free. In the case of Wikimemory (and several other
] wikis), these principles run up against one another. Let me try to explain.
It seems to me that there are two kinds of wikis, differentiated by the kind of data
they gather. What might be called “scientific” wikis record the present state of *human knowledge*,
that is, metadata or secondary sources. I have in mind Wikipedia, Wikispecies, etc.
In contrast, what might be called “documentary” wikis gather, preserve and disseminate
*artifacts*, that is, data or primary sources. I have in mind 911Wiki, Wikisource, Wikiquote,
Wikicommons, and Wikimemory.
Now hereÂ’s the interesting part: the scientific wikis can be expected to become more valuable
in an opensource environment as they are edited, but the documentary wikis can be expected
to become less valuable as they are edited. For example, the Wikipedia *entry* on the “Magna Carta”
will improve as we learn more about the document and its context, but the Wikisource *edition* of
the “Magna Carta” will only become less valuable as it is edited further away from its original, canonical
state (the words as they were written in 1215). Or to take a hypothetical example from Wikimemory,
the Wikipedia *entry* on “Abu Graib Prison” will get better as historians uncover more about what happened
there, but a Wikimemory *memoir* by one of the prisoners will only lose value if it is changed from its
original disposition (that is, if it is vandalized).
And hereÂ’s where we run into a contradiction of principles or aims. If we stick to the open-source
principle, then we wonÂ’t be able to present historical artifacts, because they may be inaccurate
reflections of the originals (due to vandalism). This contradicts the all-human-knowledge principle.
If, in contrast, we prioritize the all-human-knowledge principle, then weÂ’ll probably be forced to
make finished entries on “documentary” wikis read-only. This violates the open-source principle.
Which is the superior principle? IÂ’d say itÂ’s the all-human-knowledge principle. ThereÂ’s a lot to be
gained by relaxing our stand on open-source here. For this reason I propose that discuss making
the finished content on Wikimemory read-only in some or most cases. Moreover, we can still be true
to our open-source principles by allowing users edit metadata (explanatory information about the
memoirs) to the site. To return to our example, a well-annotated Magna Carta is much easier to
understand than a Magna Carta in isolation. And such annotations would be (in the sense meant
before) “scientific,” they would improve as we learned more.
All the Best, Marshall
Dan Grey wrote:
>--- Samuel Klein <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>>>That seems rather uncalled for.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Protecting copyright is uncalled for?
>>>
>>>
>>Considering the origins of that site, and the people
>>using it, your
>>reaction is a bit on the touchy side.
>>
>>
>>
>>>I'm not sure how that justifies a private site
>>>
>>>
>>using a
>>
>>
>>>copyrighted Wikimedia logo without permission.
>>>
>>>
>>Private in the loosest possible sense. And what
>>does it mean for a
>>project people are still working on to be 'dead in
>>the water'? In any
>>case, I would feel better about this thread if it
>>had been started by
>>someone with no private bone to pick with said site
>>operator; but you
>>don't like him at all. Perhaps you can find someone
>>else to help you
>>advocate your points.
>>
>>SJ
>>
>>
>
>This mail has finally arrived through Yahoo :-)
>
>Just for the record: the operator of that site and I
>get along very well - we chat most days in IRC. After
>reading Angela's response to this issue, he closed the
>site and apologised profusely.
>
>You may wish to hesistate before leaping to
>conclusions about people's motivations.
>
>
>Dan
>
>
>
OK, I thought I would update you guys on this as I am part of that
project, freematrix networks. Nick Gerda [User:NGerda] wanted to work
with us on doing a daily news update from information on
en.wikinews.org. kyelewis and I, the two most active freematrix staffers
at the time helped him out in getting lined up to do the updates on air,
and worked with him on creating a site on a subdomain of ours to get
ready to promote it.
There was no harm meant in using the logo here. The hope was to make
wikinews into more of an actual news network type thing, even with video
broadcasts of news updates on the hour, once a day, or however you
wanted to do it.
As for us causing harm, I don't see why we would? after all freematrix
is the one that broadcasted wikimania to the masses.
Side note: we still need editors for those files so we can post them to
commons! they are stored as one long file, so they need to be chopped
up, metadata edited, and permissions and copywrites found for what they
will be released under (such as the speech given by the chineese member
is not able to be published). I should also post this as another thread
here soon, just forgot about it and didn't know which mailing lists to
post it to.
Kyle
It's just occured to me that now I've an account there, I could help
keep it up to date :o). But I it would certainly help me and maybe
others if we had some guidelines for what should and should not be
listed there. I think the emphasis should be on what effects/could
effect users.
As a starting point:
1. new equipment news (purchases, bits going on-line etc)
2. board meeting reports going out
3. Officer appointments/changes
4. Budget announcements
5. Specific technical incidents that affected site
These are pretty much what's going on there now. What else could be
suitable? What sort of things shouldn't go on there? Perhaps any
issue/event that doesn't effect *all* projects?
Dan
