Walter van Kalken wrote:

I think that Gerard's paragraph that he added and you keep removing is highlighting the negative side of you idea. Why isn't he allowed to put that there?

The page is about implementation details. Philisophical discussion of whether or not it should be implemented are off-topic.

Andre Engels wrote:

Nicholas Knight wrote:

...

The page is about implementation details. Philisophical discussion of whether or not it should be implemented are off-topic.

I fundamentally disagree with that. If we are not going to do it, discussing how we are going to do it is useless. If we are going to do it, objections should be allowed to be raised. Also, stating the objections to a given idea might well aid in improving it by showing the places where it needs improvement.

There is absolutely nothing at all stopping you from raising objections. Just raise them in the appropriate place, not on the page where we are trying to describe _how_ it might be implemented.

Christiaan

Well I kinda understand his reaction. Have you ever lived in a country were they block 30.000 websites and growing? Where the government is actually implying a policy of what its inhabitants are "allowed" to see? Why should we make it any easier for these kind of governments?

Walter van Kalken

You didn't respond to any of my points. And the point you make above is yet another straw man. If governments want to block or filter Wikipedia there's nothing stopping them from doing that right now. What this proposal does is provide users with a choice about which images they are presented with when surfing Wikimedia projects.

And what if their providers/governments make the choice for them, Thers is no choice for them left. Also who decides on what is inappropriate? I much better like another solution. Put the shocking pictures on a subpage to the article instead of electronically tagging them.

There is nothing stopping anybody from blocking or filtering wikipedia right now no ..... I do not see one reason why we should give them the tools to give them an excuse to do so and make it easier for them. Now they might not filter becuase it is to much of a pain for them. But when we will tag the things for them we only make it easier for them to think hey yes we could do that! I see no reason to help them or give them that idea.

Walter van Kalken

Hoi, I am sorry to say that this person is wearing blinkers. He only sees what he wants to see and all othere considerations are not about "what is being discussed". Yes, govennments can block wikipedia but that is an all or nothing operation. With the censoring tags in place, they can say partially block our content, and that is what the censoring tags are there for.

The problem as I see it is that this has not been considered because it is detrimental to "the cause". By saying that it provides the user with a choise, the responsibiltiy for colletoral damage is being denied. This is what is not being discussed, this is what is not considered. And everything else is a strawman's argument.

Thank God, I still can say what I want to say. Thank God, that I can fight for what I think is important. Me not believing in a God is immaterial to the sentiment.. :)

Thanks, GerardM

Christiaan Briggs wrote:

Walter van Kalken wrote:

...

Well I kinda understand his reaction. Have you ever lived in a country were they block 30.000 websites and growing? Where the government is actually implying a policy of what its inhabitants are "allowed" to see? Why should we make it any easier for these kind of governments?

You didn't respond to any of my points. And the point you make above is yet another straw man. If governments want to block or filter Wikipedia there's nothing stopping them from doing that right now. What this proposal does is provide users with a choice about which images they are presented with when surfing Wikimedia projects.

Christiaan

---

foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Christiaan Briggs wrote:

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

...

I am sorry to say that this person is wearing blinkers. He only sees what he wants to see and all othere considerations are not about "what is being discussed". Yes, govennments can block wikipedia but that is an all or nothing operation. With the censoring tags in place, they can say partially block our content, and that is what the censoring tags are there for.

Actually we have a name for these tags on Wikimedia projects. They're called categories.

Christiaan

So basically you provide me with THE argument to get rid of categories.. Actually, you are wrong. pictures are not categorised and we do not have software to prevent pictures from being seen. The proposal is to have our mediawiki software react to specific tags. When you program for pictures, you can also program for text because in essence there is no difference.

I have never liked categories anyway, they only provide people the opportunity to, well categorise, nothing creative about it and much opportunity to get it wrong.

When you want your tagging, you do not take into account that it infringes on people's rights to represent their material in a certain way. Basically censorship is bad, it is very much POV and it prevents people from learning about subjects in the fullest sense of the word. When you do not want to see sex do not go to natasha.com (or whatever they are called) When you want to learn about sex, go to Wikipedia, it explains what a vagina is and what parts are where. Really instructive, I would not like to have people not know when they look it up.

Thanks, Gerard

Hoi, The article [[meta:End-user content suppression]] was recently renamed to [[meta:End-user image suppression]]. It is an article that descibes how we should tag our content eh images so that people can choose to have content presented to them or not. The proposers of this idea assume that mechanism for censorship will only be triggered by individuals and, that it is to prevent them from coming across content they may find disturbing. They fail to answer several questions: * Who is going to add these tags * What is the basis for tagging content. What to be done when someone comes along who wants even more tagging or the tagging of different categories. * How do you prevent organisations or countries from censoring our content using our own mechanism * How do you ensure that the integrity of our NPOV content is maintained if people will not see the whole of our content * What argument do you have against tagging content if you state that this is only about images

In the article that is now called [[meta:End-user image suppression]] I have added a tag to say that the subject is controversial and, the reasons why it is controversial. This is not appreciated and resulted in a slash and burn reaction. Apparantly you are not allowed to say that "when it walks like a duck an it talks like a duck, it must be a duck". I am afraid that censorship is alive and well.

The proposers of this policy say that it is only technical. I beg to differ. Censure is what I do not want for our content.

Thanks, GerardM

Christiaan Briggs wrote:

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this message but I was unable to find anywhere more suitable. How are disputes dealt with on Wikimedia meta? Unfortunately I've been involved in an edit war. I've been looking for another way to resolve it but wasn't able to find anything on Wikimedia meta.

After many requests to refrain from doing so, and to discuss on talk page instead, User:GerardM has continued to post discussion, personal opinions and Wikipedia NPOV tags to [[meta:End-user image suppression]]. He has also reverted efforts to clarify the purpose of the page. i.e. it is a page for exploring the ins and outs of how end-user image suppression might be implemented, _if_ it were ever called upon. From the language in his posts it appears he thinks he is on some type of crusade to save the world from [[meta:End-user image suppression]].

Christiaan

---

foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:36:19 +0100, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:

Hoi, The article [[meta:End-user content suppression]] was recently renamed to [[meta:End-user image suppression]]. It is an article that descibes how we should tag our content eh images so that people can choose to have content presented to them or not. The proposers of this idea assume that mechanism for censorship will only be triggered by individuals and, that it is to prevent them from coming across content they may find disturbing. They fail to answer several questions:

The purpose of the page is to discuss the implementation (though I would suggest yet another name change to make this clear)., It is unrealistic to expect at this stage that all questions would be answered.

However, I can give you my personal answers to these questions:

• Who is going to add these tags

The tags would be normal [[category:xxx]] tags. Such tags are already being added, and would continue to be added by those who are interested in adding them. Certainly not everyone would be required to participate, but I would expect that those who are opposed to censorship would not actively remove these tags -- since that would in fact be a form of censorship.

• What is the basis for tagging content. What to be done when someone

comes along who wants even more tagging or the tagging of different categories.

The basis for tagging would be whatever basis people want to tag them. As I see it, useful tags for images would include tags based on content: clowns, temples, butterflies, sexual positions, etc.

Nothing needs to be done when someone wants to add even more tagging of different categories. If a category in inherently POV (excellent bands, disgusting people, offensive image) those categories would fall under the same axe as any other POV.

• How do you prevent organisations or countries from censoring our

content using our own mechanism

How do we prevent this from happening now? We cannot directly control the actions of any government or organization. Mechanism for blocking specific sites/pages are common. I don't really see the issue here.

• How do you ensure that the integrity of our NPOV content is maintained

if people will not see the whole of our content

The intent of this system is not to make viewing of any content impossible. Only to require some additional intentional action to view it. People can currently engage in POV disputes without having read the content, but their input is not particularly relevant.

• What argument do you have against tagging content if you state that

this is only about images

I'm not certain I understand the question. Is the concern that this same mechanism could be used to filter certain articles? This would require software specifically written to allow that, but I don't particularly see any issue is allowing someone to so restrict his or her own choices. Google allows you to have "safe search" on or off. What's the issue?

In the article that is now called [[meta:End-user image suppression]] I have added a tag to say that the subject is controversial and, the reasons why it is controversial. This is not appreciated and resulted in a slash and burn reaction. Apparantly you are not allowed to say that "when it walks like a duck an it talks like a duck, it must be a duck". I am afraid that censorship is alive and well.

Indeed! Why don't you start another article on Meta discussing the merits of free speech / censorship? What is preventing you? Censorship? Freedom of speech does not allow someone to say whatever they want whenever they want.

The proposers of this policy say that it is only technical. I beg to differ. Censure is what I do not want for our content.

I'm not aware that this has reached the level of a proposed policy.

As I've attempted to describe above, no content would be censored. You either have a misunderstood the nature of what is being discussed, or you have a very different understanding of censorship than I have..

-Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton

I think your comments will help a lot Rowan, particularly about pointing to desirability discussion in the opening paragraph.

Thanks, Christiaan

On 23 Feb 2005, at 6:07 pm, Rowan Collins wrote:

Christiaan, Gerard, et al:

• I have not previously been involved in any of the discussions over

image suppression / self-censorship / content choice, and do not, at present intend to state any particular opinion about this issue.

• I don't know what, if any, formal conflict resolution procedures

there are on meta, but since you've asked here, I thought I would give some personal opinions about the conflict you are having. I would stress that I have no set opinion on this debate, so although these are my opinions, I hope they are relatively unbiased.

• Firstly, I do not consider Gerard's actions to be "trolling", but

nor do I consider Christiaan to be "blinkered". This is a conflict of understanding, pure and simple, regarding the purpose of a particular page. This seems to be something of a problem on meta, because it is so unstructured, and lacks a coherent community of its own, so people vary greatly in how they perceive it. (I've been involved in similarly heated debates over pages to do with single login proposals.)

• Secondly, I don't think the use of a "disputed tag" is appropriate

here: meta has no NPOV policy, or any equivalent, and simply linking to that of the English Wikipedia is irrelevant. Meta is a very different environment, and meta pages are more closely related to those of traditional wikis, in that they are a kind of on-going refactored discussion, rather than content aimed at presentation. Indeed, it's debatable whether many of them should have separate "Talk:" pages at all - a traditional Wiki simply refactors discussion ["ThreadMode"] into structured content ["DocumentMode"] as necessary. [Note that there is an exception in terms of "documentation" pages, but those are increasingly confined to the Help: namespace] In other words, disputed or disputable content is the norm, not the exception.

• Thirdly, I do think it is important for those creating a page with a

particular purpose in mind to not only state what is on-topic, but provide an outlet for what is off-topic. If "philosophical" discussion about the proposal is taking place elsewhere, it should be referenced clearly. In other words, the introduction should read something like "This page discusses technical implications of implementing such a scheme; for discussion of whether it would be desirable, see: ..." If there is no page appropriate to end that sentence, it should be created, if only by adding a heading to the existing page under which the discussion can take place. It seems to me that there *is* a lot of existint discussion about this, so it ought to be possible for a central point to be found or created. [References to appropriate parts of the mailing list archives could also be added.]

• In summary: *in my opinion* it is perfectly OK for a page on meta to

exist that discusses the technical measures needed for something that may never happen; however, it is also OK for people to discuss the necessity and/or desirability of the feature. Therefore, if it seems appropriate to separate the two, they should be adequately cross-referenced, so that it is clear to anyone entering the discussion how they relate.

I hope this helps, and I hope it doesn't read too much like legalese - I've been reading documents from my local Borough Council all afternoon...

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I've come back for more advice. Although the outlining of and discussion about the desirability of [[End-user image suppression]] has been moved to [[Desirability of End-user image suppression]], and this is made clear in the opening paragraph of [[End-user image suppression]], User:GerardM is still insisting on posting desirability discussion to [[End-user image suppression]]. What to do?

Christiaan

David Gerard wrote:

Christiaan Briggs:

...

I've come back for more advice. Although the outlining of and discussion about the desirability of [[End-user image suppression]] has been moved to [[Desirability of End-user image suppression]], and this is made clear in the opening paragraph of [[End-user image suppression]], User:GerardM is still insisting on posting desirability discussion to [[End-user image suppression]]. What to do?

The desirability discussion presumably needs greater notice in the technical discussion.

You're not seriously suggesting that Gerard did not know about it are you?

Christiaan

You didn't answer my question. You're not seriously suggesting that Gerard did not know about it are you?

The rest of your email didn't make sense to me. How does one purge debate while at the same announcing where it is in the opening paragraph?

Purge, in case you were unaware, means to remove. The only thing that has happened, on the advice of, Rowan Collins, is that it has been _moved_ so as discussion about technical implications is not drowned by Gerard's shrill.

Christiaan

David Gerard wrote:

Christiaan Briggs:

...

David Gerard wrote:

...

...

The desirability discussion presumably needs greater notice in the technical discussion.

...

You're not seriously suggesting that Gerard did not know about it are you?

As I explained in the bit you snipped, dividing the technical discussion of how to implement a feature from the desirability of that feature in the first place may be seen as artificial and disingenuous. And it certainly appears that this is being seen that way.

Further (to say again the thing you snipped), continuing to discuss the implementation of a feature while purging note of the fact that its esirability is *strongly* contentious closely resembles an attempt to make it a fait accompli.

Also, you should note that - although I am certainly not saying this is your intention at all - trying to shift *all* criticism off to a separate page is a favourite tactic of POV warriors on en: and in other places. As such, your actions may be seen as highly reminiscent of that.

I suggest you not try so hard to purge this technical page of all mention of the highly contentious social debate it's concerned with implementing one side of. i.e. "It hurts when I do this!" "Don't do that, then."

• d.

David Gerard wrote:

...

How does one purge debate while at the same announcing where it is in the opening paragraph?

Evidently he feels it is profoundly lacking in prominence.

You didn't answer my question.

...

Purge, in case you were unaware, means to remove. The only thing that has happened, on the advice of, Rowan Collins, is that it has been _moved_ so as discussion about technical implications is not drowned by Gerard's shrill.

Are you assuming bad faith on Gerard's part?

You used the word purge. Please explain what has been purged. I would hate to think any of this discussion has been removed from Wikimedia.

Christiaan

David Gerard wrote:

Are you assuming bad faith on Gerard's part?

I've been assuming bad faith on Gerard's part for days. I've seen no evidence of good faith, and plenty of bad.

Walter van Kalken wrote:

Before even thinking about technical implication lets first debate if we want it or not.

Part of the problem of this debate is that there has never been a tangible scheme to discuss, only a idea. It is your opinion that it is ridiculous to outline a scheme before deciding on it. Equally I could argue that it is ridiculous to decide on a system that has not been outlined.

If you don't like what is being done then I suggest you nominate the page for deletion.

As I understand it the developers have been asked already to program this?

Not that I know of. I have asked developers to post their opinions on how easy or difficult it would be to code however.

Christiaan

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Christiaan, It is one thing to split articles into two, it is another to castrate the talk pages and move all things that are not to your liking elsewhere. Your right to ask for a method to have mechanisms into the mediawiki software is equal to my right to have an angst of this first step of introducing censorship into our projects.

THERE. IS. NO. CENSORSHIP.

*Your proposal will make it mandatory to allow for tags/categorisations so that censorship will work.

Our proposal will make it POSSIBLE for categories to be used by END-USERS to CHOOSE what they wish to see.

*Your original article title was End-user content suppression and decided that this was not "good" renamed it to image suppression

Because the focus was and has always been on images. Whether like measures need to be taken for text is a different discussion.

*There has already been one anonymous coward asking for using your censoring mechanism for content.

What?

*You have repeatedly removed all things you thing are detrimental to your proposal from the article and its talk page

The article was intended for a discussion of the technical side of it. Policy can be dealt with elsewhere.

*Basically you ask for censorship and find people who oppose it.

You really need to read the wikien-l archives. Christiaan was one of the most vocal opponents of linking images instead of inlining them.

As to your question, withdraw your proposal or allow for criticism.

Constructive criticism is always welcome. Blanket false statements are not.

David Gerard wrote:

Capitals or no, it appears at the very least this is a mechanism to enable and encourage it. I doubt you would claim there is no wish from anyone to censor Wikipedia per se, or to do something that could reasonably be tagged censorship.

No one has yet explained how the proposed mechanism could be used for censorship. All we have is Gerard on some sort of holy crusade shouting "censorship!".

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Have tags, can select and filter. Censorship abc

So you oppose libraries creating separate sections of separate categories of books and letting users browse the sections they want to and not browse the sections they don't?

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

In a library all the books are there. I am opposed to libraries not stocking on books that are encyclopedic in their outlook.

Precisely. And what is currently happening on Wikipedia is that many editors are pushing for certain images be suppressed or even removed based on their ability to cause offence (i.e. self-censorship).

This scheme would mean that such images do not need to be removed from the server, instead letting the end-user choose to hide them.

Christiaan

Christiaan Briggs (christiaan@last-straw.net) [050225 00:15]:

David Gerard wrote:

...

I doubt you would claim there is no wish from anyone to censor Wikipedia per se, or to do something that could reasonably be tagged censorship.

Except that self-censorship (i.e. suppression of images) already takes place on Wikipedia due to some people taking offence at being presented with certain images of the clitoris, torture and autofellatio.

This appears to be saying just what I said, but is phrased as a disagreement. Please clarify.

- d.

Nicholas Knight wrote:

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

...

Christiaan, It is one thing to split articles into two, it is another to castrate the talk pages and move all things that are not to your liking elsewhere. Your right to ask for a method to have mechanisms into the mediawiki software is equal to my right to have an angst of this first step of introducing censorship into our projects.

THERE. IS. NO. CENSORSHIP.

No need to shout and yes we disagree on that one. The way you lot have been trampling on my views on this has the hallmarks of censorship. Yes, in my opinion this proposal is about censorship.

...

*Your proposal will make it mandatory to allow for tags/categorisations so that censorship will work.

Our proposal will make it POSSIBLE for categories to be used by END-USERS to CHOOSE what they wish to see.

We disagree on this one. For it is not only end users that will choose. Read your own proposal point 4.

...

*Your original article title was End-user content suppression and decided that this was not "good" renamed it to image suppression

Because the focus was and has always been on images. Whether like measures need to be taken for text is a different discussion.

Technically it is not different so why should it be a different discussion ?

...

*There has already been one anonymous coward asking for using your censoring mechanism for content.

What?

Right, it is a straw mans argument that one thing leads to the next. Read the history if you can still find what was said. It is there.

...

*You have repeatedly removed all things you thing are detrimental to your proposal from the article and its talk page

The article was intended for a discussion of the technical side of it. Policy can be dealt with elsewhere.

It may have been intended by you for this. On Meta no case has been made why we should want such an abomination.

...

*Basically you ask for censorship and find people who oppose it.

You really need to read the wikien-l archives. Christiaan was one of the most vocal opponents of linking images instead of inlining them.

I do not need to read the wikien-l archives. They have no bearing upon META. If you want to propose something on META put your case forward on META. I would not ask you to read the wikpedia-nl mailing list either. Either put your case forward or you do not have a case.

...

As to your question, withdraw your proposal or allow for criticism.

Constructive criticism is always welcome. Blanket false statements are not.

Your idea of what is true and false is coloured by where you stand, where you are from. Your truth is just that. Making me out for a liar and being not constructive is well, not friendly to say the least.

Thanks, No thanks ! GerardM

Nicholas Knight (nknight@runawaynet.com) [050225 00:26]:

I don't feel very friendly toward someone that can't articulate themselves but insists they're right.

PERHAPS HE COULD WRITE ALL IN CAPS. SHOUTING USUALLY WORKS, DOESN'T IT?

- d.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:08:41 +0000, Christiaan Briggs christiaan@last-straw.net wrote:

This is getting out of hand, now GerardM is resorting to vandalism:

I don't think he did vandalism around on this issue. He had just a different thought and idea of yours: what should be discussed, what are related topics and so on. And it is not good in my humble opinion to call someone who acted not in a way you would like to a "vandal". I look here only the deferences of opinions and sad misunderstandings. NO vandalism, I dare say. Though Gerald and I have different opinions sometimes, in my views he has been on a good faith since I''ve known him

Christian, you requested for comments on this issue on EN WP. I thank you for your request, "Two are better than one", but it were better you would have done so before you stated Gerald made vandalism. BTW I can't understand why you made your request on EN WP which only ENWP issues would be resolve. If your concern is only related to EN WP, why have you discussion on meta and foundation-l? (For your information meta has also RfC to resolve comunity-wide disputes) It's not an accusation but a pure question. Anyway I hope you will have sufficient comments to resolve this issues, and all of you, to Christiaan, Nicholas Knight and Gerald will be satisfied with the result at last.

Christiaan Briggs (christiaan@last-straw.net) [050225 01:08]:

This is getting out of hand, now GerardM is resorting to vandalism: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=End- user_image_suppression&curid=15602&diff=0&oldid=0

That's not even close to vandalism by any reasonable definition. Wht it has done is concisely outline the actual situation that you appear not to wish to acknowledge in any way at all.

What Gerard actually did with the above edit was take this paragraph:

This page originated from a discussion on the WikiEN-I mailing list where some level of consensus was reached between the free-speech and content suppression parties that a technical solution is possible that will go a long way towards satisfying most mainstream positions in the debate.

- and add the following text:

However, it should be stressed that this page is ''not'' intended to imply that this is a <i>fait accompli</i>, but merely an initial exploration of the specification and feasibility of a possible solution. The features described below are ''not'' currently under development, and will certainly not be made live until their desirability has been firmly established.

Are you saying that this is false, and making out that saying this is "vandalism"?

- d.

By the way what he actually did was delete the whole page and replace it with: "Obviously you will revert this. This is just an demonstration what will happen if content is tagged to indicate material that is not to a censors liking."

Christiaan

On 24 Feb 2005, at 6:17 pm, Christiaan Briggs wrote:

David Gerard wrote:

...

That's not even close to vandalism by any reasonable definition. Wht it has done is concisely outline the actual situation that you appear not to wish to acknowledge in any way at all.

At best it was "disruption to make a point".

...

What Gerard actually did with the above edit was take this paragraph:

This page originated from a discussion on the WikiEN-I mailing list where some level of consensus was reached between the free-speech and content suppression parties that a technical solution is possible that will go a long way towards satisfying most mainstream positions in the debate.

• and add the following text:

  However, it should be stressed that this page is ''not'' intended

to imply that this is a <i>fait accompli</i>, but merely an initial exploration of the specification and feasibility of a possible solution. The features described below are ''not'' currently under development, and will certainly not be made live until their desirability has been firmly established.

Are you saying that this is false, and making out that saying this is "vandalism"?

Yes that is false, he did not add the second bit.

Christiaan

Oh, thanks, I thought I was going nuts for a second there!

Christiaan

On 24 Feb 2005, at 6:49 pm, Rowan Collins wrote:

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 05:07:57 +1100, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:

...

What Gerard actually did with the above edit was take this paragraph:

<snip>

This is just a non-permanent diff links problem :) The edit in question was unquestionably vandalism. The edit you're looking at it is me trying to be helpful; the one Christiaan posted (or meant to) was a revert of blanking the whole page.

For future reference, when pointing out vandalism always post: a) the diff were the vandalism took place; or b) the version with the vandalism in because links to "diff between current and last version" change as soon as there is a different "current" version.

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On Day 6 (Wednesday 23 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in UTC) we made $5,197.09 (USD equivalent) through a combination of PayPal (completed payments only) and mail donations (no updates available for other sources at this time).

This is a decrease of 22.48% from Day 5 and represents 11.16% of total funds collected so far ($46,474.53 ; only counting full days) and 6.93% of our goal ($75,000). At the end of Day 6 we had reached 62.07% of our goal.

We were continuing to have server issues on Day 6. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/February_2005_server_crash for details (if you can access that page)

Day 6 Day 5 comparison Breakdown: PayPal USD equiv USD equiv %change AUD 60.71 $47.99 $33.37 43.79% CAD 173.29 $140.42 $232.80 -39.68% EUR 1143.72 $1,495.07 $2,553.09 -41.44% GBP 447.17 $848.64 $595.47 42.52% JPY 19582 $185.62 $130.73 41.98% USD 2404.35 $2,404.35 $3,158.91 -23.89% PayPal total: $5,122.09 $6,704.38 -23.60% MoneyBookers no data no data -na- Mail/Post $75.00 no data 100.00% TOTAL $5,197.09 $6,704.38 -22.48%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days) PayPal USD equiv %GrandTotal AUD 1257.71 $994.22 2.14% CAD 2145.86 $1,738.79 3.74% EUR 12487.24 $16,323.32 35.07% GBP 2398.41 $4,551.70 9.78% JPY 123678 $1,172.34 2.52% USD 21267.46 $21,267.46 45.69% PayPal total: $46,047.84 Moneybookers: $426.69 0.92% Mail/Post $75.00 0.16% GRAND TOTAL $46,549.53 100.00% % toward goal 62.07%

For the most recent grand total and other details visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 6: See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_6

"power to the pedia!" by Anonymous

"Super Site!" by Urs Schwerzmann

"A most delightful time waster!" by Shreesh Taskar

"Que viva la educacion gratuita" by Dennis Salcedo

"My first stop when I want to get started on a new topic." by Joel Gilmore

"I use wiki's nearly every day, thank you for your service hopefully my small contribution will increase when i get out of college! :)" by Anonymous

"Symbolic gesture of appreciation. Wikipedia is important." by Thomas Herzog

"Thanks for all the hard work everyone has put into this project." by Steven Schulz

"After learning so much from your site, I owe you at least this. (Woooo! Cheaper than college!)" by Anonymous

"What a great idea. Probably the most useful site on the Internet for a poor college student like me." by David Klorig

"For the fundraiser; Get better response times, please!" by David Barbour

Some of my favorites:

"Wisdom of the Crowds rules the Long Tail" by Anonymous

"Once in a lifetime someone comes up with a great idea that improves the democracy of ideas (PI)" by Anonymous

"A better world is possible -- and this is an example of that better world" by grupoHuracan Corporation

"If you believe, like me, that this sort of thing is the future, then you are obligated to contribute. I am happy to do so." by Anonymous

"wikipedia has saved my ass more times than id like to admit" by Louise Noble

"Where would the world be without Wikimedia?" by Emily Baker

"The Bear wishes you well" by Anonymous

"thanks for wikipedia. the revolution will be wikified." by Jeremy Friedman

"Bravo" by Anonymous

Oh, and:

"Can I make it to mav's favorites? ;-)" by Anonymous (well, almost :)

Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO

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On Day 7 (Thursday 24 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in UTC) we made $$5,421.02 (USD equivalent) through a combination of PayPal (completed payments only) and mail donations (no updates available for other sources at this time).

This is a decrease of 5.84% from Day 6 and represents 10.43% of total funds collected so far ($51,970.55 ; only counting full days) and 7.23% of our goal ($75,000). At the end of Day 6 we had reached 69.29% of our goal.

For information on our recent server issues see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/February_2005_server_crash

Day 7 Day 6 comparison Breakdown: PayPal USD equiv USD equiv %change AUD 76.00 $60.08 $47.99 25.19% CAD 320.73 $259.89 $140.42 85.08% EUR 1045.41 $1,366.56 $1,495.07 -8.60% GBP 353.22 $670.34 $848.64 -21.01% JPY 10455 $99.10 $185.62 -46.61% USD 2670.05 $2,670.05 $2,404.35 11.05% PayPal total: $5,126.02 $5,122.09 0.08% MoneyBookers no data $0.00 0.00% Mail/Post $295.00 $75.00 293.33% TOTAL $5,421.02 $5,122.09 5.84%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days) PayPal USD equiv %GrandTotal AUD 1333.71 $1,054.30 2.03% CAD 2466.59 $1,998.68 3.85% EUR 13532.65 $17,689.88 34.04% GBP 2751.63 $5,222.04 10.05% JPY 134133 $1,271.45 2.45% USD 23937.51 $23,937.51 46.06% PayPal total: $51,173.86 Moneybookers: $426.69 0.82% Mail/Post $370.00 0.71% GRAND TOTAL $51,970.55 100.00% % toward goal 69.29%

For the most recent grand total and other details visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 7: See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_7

"To prevent commercialization of knowledge" by Anonymous

"Great site: my favourite and most visited since using the internet!" by Andrew O'Callaghan

"this site embodies the progressive possibilities of the internet" by Anonymous

"The best purpose for donation I can think of." by Anonymous

"Keep up the good work! It will forces the other encyclopedies to evolve: and the user will get a double benefit: a good wikipedia, and better Encarta and others encyclopedies..." by Anonymous

"This is the first time I have donated on line. You should be very proud of what you have created." by Anonymous

"Wikimedia, a terrific open source project of knowledge" by Alexander Orlov

"here's to FDLing all the knowledge in da universe! keep up the good work :-)" by Anonymous

"detailed relevant answsers to my off the cuff technical questions. thank you." by David McMillan

"Pour une encyclopedie si utile." by Gabriel D. Matthews

"Long Live Freedom" by Anonymous

"Astonishingly useful!" by Navarro Parker

Some of my favorites:

"I love philanthropy" by Anonymous

"Because I owe Dysprosia 5$" by Jonathan Cary

"This is Harry donating to Wikimedia. I come here everyday and I think that it is important to support this foundation." by Robert Gilbert

"Testing paypal script, more donations to come, I promise!" x 3 by Michael Becker

"Wikipedia helps me drop clue bombs on people." by Michael Styne

"I love the sound of the click as I point my wallet at worthy causes." by Jeremy Smith

"Onwards and upwards!" by Yuri Astrakhan

Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO

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On Day 7 (Thursday 24 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in UTC) we made $$5,421.02 (USD equivalent) through a combination of PayPal (completed payments only) and mail donations (no updates available for other sources at this time).

This is a decrease of 5.84% from Day 6 and represents 10.43% of total funds collected so far ($51,970.55 ; only counting full days) and 7.23% of our goal ($75,000). At the end of Day 6 we had reached 69.29% of our goal.

For information on our recent server issues see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/February_2005_server_crash

Day 7 Day 6 comparison Breakdown: PayPal USD equiv USD equiv %change AUD 76.00 $60.08 $47.99 25.19% CAD 320.73 $259.89 $140.42 85.08% EUR 1045.41 $1,366.56 $1,495.07 -8.60% GBP 353.22 $670.34 $848.64 -21.01% JPY 10455 $99.10 $185.62 -46.61% USD 2670.05 $2,670.05 $2,404.35 11.05% PayPal total: $5,126.02 $5,122.09 0.08% MoneyBookers no data $0.00 0.00% Mail/Post $295.00 $75.00 293.33% TOTAL $5,421.02 $5,122.09 5.84%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days) PayPal USD equiv %GrandTotal AUD 1333.71 $1,054.30 2.03% CAD 2466.59 $1,998.68 3.85% EUR 13532.65 $17,689.88 34.04% GBP 2751.63 $5,222.04 10.05% JPY 134133 $1,271.45 2.45% USD 23937.51 $23,937.51 46.06% PayPal total: $51,173.86 Moneybookers: $426.69 0.82% Mail/Post $370.00 0.71% GRAND TOTAL $51,970.55 100.00% % toward goal 69.29%

For the most recent grand total and other details visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 7: See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_7

"To prevent commercialization of knowledge" by Anonymous

"Great site: my favourite and most visited since using the internet!" by Andrew O'Callaghan

"this site embodies the progressive possibilities of the internet" by Anonymous

"The best purpose for donation I can think of." by Anonymous

"Keep up the good work! It will forces the other encyclopedies to evolve: and the user will get a double benefit: a good wikipedia, and better Encarta and others encyclopedies..." by Anonymous

"This is the first time I have donated on line. You should be very proud of what you have created." by Anonymous

"Wikimedia, a terrific open source project of knowledge" by Alexander Orlov

"here's to FDLing all the knowledge in da universe! keep up the good work :-)" by Anonymous

"detailed relevant answsers to my off the cuff technical questions. thank you." by David McMillan

"Pour une encyclopedie si utile." by Gabriel D. Matthews

"Long Live Freedom" by Anonymous

"Astonishingly useful!" by Navarro Parker

Some of my favorites:

"I love philanthropy" by Anonymous

"Because I owe Dysprosia 5$" by Jonathan Cary

"This is Harry donating to Wikimedia. I come here everyday and I think that it is important to support this foundation." by Robert Gilbert

"Testing paypal script, more donations to come, I promise!" x 3 by Michael Becker

"Wikipedia helps me drop clue bombs on people." by Michael Styne

"I love the sound of the click as I point my wallet at worthy causes." by Jeremy Smith

"Onwards and upwards!" by Yuri Astrakhan

Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO

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On Day 9 (Saturday 26 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in UTC) we made $5,869.19 (USD equivalent) through PayPal (completed payments only; no updates available for other sources at this time).

This is an increase of 57.14% from Day 8 and represents 10.54% of total funds collected so far ($61,574.83 ; only counting full days) and 7.83% of our goal ($75,000). At the end of Day 9 we had reached 82.10% of our goal.

Day 9 Day 8 comparison Breakdown: PayPal USD equiv USD equiv %change AUD 191.00 $150.99 $74.38 103.00% CAD 268.97 $217.95 $179.43 21.46% EUR 1149.90 $1,503.15 $953.63 57.62% GBP 475.11 $901.66 $234.04 285.27% JPY 16245 $153.99 $35.83 329.76% USD 2941.46 $2,941.46 $2,257.79 30.28% PayPal total: $5,869.19 $3,735.10 57.14% MoneyBookers no data $0.00 0.00% Mail/Post no data $0.00 0.00% TOTAL $5,869.19 $3,735.10 57.14%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days) PayPal USD equiv %GrandTotal AUD 1618.80 $1,279.66 2.08% CAD 2957.00 $2,396.06 3.89% EUR 15412.07 $20,146.66 32.72% GBP 3350.06 $6,357.74 10.33% JPY 154158.00 $1,461.26 2.37% USD 29136.76 $29,136.76 47.32% PayPal total: $60,778.14 Moneybookers: $426.69 0.69% Mail/Post $370.00 0.60% GRAND TOTAL $61,574.83 100.00% % toward goal 82.10%

For the most recent grand total and other details visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 9: See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_9

"Very handy resource, keep up the great work." by Anonymous

"Gladly support the Great Wikipedia Project" by Grant Slater

"I teach history and geography and use Wikipedia weekly. Excellent, easy to access source of information." by Tom Gleason

"Viva la information revolution!" by Anonymous

"Great public project. Everyone should contribute financially and with their editing efforts" by Bernard Farrell

"Das ist echte Wissens-Allmende!" by Adolf J Winterer

"Wikipedia is an invaluable research tool." by Anonymous

"Nothing compares to Wikipedia. It's the greatest informer." by Niels Buus

"A shining example of what the net is really all about." by William Finley

"MY COLLEGE STUDENTS DEPEND ON WIKIPEDIA; I so appreciate its well researched articles on musical genres, especially" by Anonymous

"Keep it free & non-biased high quality!" by Anonymous

"I sent $1200 during your last fundraising drive. Here's $50 more for good measure. Enjoy, and keep up the good work! Thanks, -David" by Anonymous

"By the people for the people" by Andrew Black

Some of my favorites:

"because freedom isn't free" by Anonymous

"De omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis." by Berteun Damman

"Love the site, hope you reach your goal easily and then some" by Mark Bullard Jr

"Keep it Going. the records of the passage of time and events are no less important than food and drink." by Zia imaging

"Oh all the services out there on the internet, I think this is one of the most deserving of support. Thanks, very much!" by Michael Bierschenk

"...Wikipedia has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom..." (with apologies to Douglas Adams)" by Christopher Allen

"Ciao" by Anonymous

Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO

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Note: the fund drive is already over

On Day 11 (Monday 28 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in UTC) $19,926.59 (USD equivalent) was added to our running total. This brings us well past our fund drive goal of $75,000 and thus Day 11 is the last day of the fund drive.

$7,017.15 were added through PayPal (completed payments only) and $12,909.44 were reported from Wikimedia Deutschland (this includes donations from the 18th to the 25th to Wikimedia Deutschland; actual amount reported was 9777.66 Euros). No updates were available for other sources at this time.

This is an increase of 390.55% from Day 10 and represents 23.29% of total funds collected so far ($85,563.52 ; only counting full days). At the end of Day 10 we had reached 114.08% of our goal. Additional updates are needed before a final grand total can be reported.

Day 11 Day 10 comparison Breakdown: PayPal USD equiv USD equiv %change AUD 258.55 $204.38 $44.81 356.08% CAD 222.37 $180.19 $155.38 15.96% EUR 1170.84 $1,530.52 $909.18 68.34% GBP 123.58 $234.53 $545.39 -57.00% JPY 50904 $482.52 $17.54 2651.57% USD 4385.01 $4,385.01 $2,389.79 83.49% PayPal total: $7,017.15 $4,062.10 72.75% MoneyBookers no data $0.00 0.00% Mail/Post no data $0.00 0.00% Wikimedia Deut. $12,909.44 TOTAL $19,926.59 $4,062.10 390.55%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days) PayPal USD equiv %GrandTotal AUD 1934.04 $1,528.86 1.79% CAD 3371.13 $2,731.63 3.19% EUR 17278.43 $22,586.36 26.40% GBP 3761.02 $7,137.66 8.34% JPY 206912.00 $1,961.32 2.29% USD 35911.56 $35,911.56 41.97% PayPal total: $71,857.39 Moneybookers: $426.69 0.50% Mail/Post $370.00 0.43% Wikimedia Deut. $12,909.44 100.00% GRAND TOTAL $85,563.52 % toward goal 114.08% For the most recent grand total and other details visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 11: See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_11

"Wikipedia is second only to Google for seeking information on the web" by The MUD Companion

"Please accept this small donation as an appreciation of the excellent service you provide. I sincerely hope you are able to raise the funds you need." by Martin Giddings

"La connaissance c'est le pouvoir, la rendre publique et gratuite c'est donner le pouvoir au peuple. " by Em Hunter

"this site has saved my butt on any number of academic occasions...the least i can do is give back a little" by Anonymous

"Wikipedia ist eine geniale Sache!" by Rene Chelvier

"Wonderful site! I recommend it to all of my students." by Michael Richardson

Some of my favorites:

"Surpasses all expectations!" by Anonymous

"Not only is wikipedia an invaluable resource, but it has also spawned arguably the best wiki software available." by Paul Fenwick

"Probably the best evolving source of general knowledge" by Marc van der Erve

"Wissen muss kostenlos sein!" by Anonymous

"It is an honor to do my part to see that Wikipedia has the resources it needs to remain online." by Anonymous

"Simply because open content leads to better knowledge" by Anonymous

"stop buying servers that break down" by Anonymous

"Five bucks well spent." by Andreas Neukoetter

"I love you, Wikipedia!" by Anonymous

Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO

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Daniel Mayer wrote:

All the final updates are in and all told we brought-in the equivelant of $94,648.70 in this fund drive (26% more than we asked for). 21% of the total (15,254.66 Euros | US$20,046.15) was from Wikimedia Deutschland.

If I have time I'll conduct an analysis of the fund drive this weekend. I'm particularly interested in what can be done to improve future fund drives.

That needed _improving_? Seriously, I can think of only one real improvement needed, which is the ability to give directly using credit cards, which I think would have further increased the rate and scope of donations -- but I believe you already have that task in hand.

Congratulations on a job well done.

-- Neil

I would particularly like to see some better directions for people no in the "main world". Even though I do my earnings in a rather devaluated currency I would have liked to make a donation this time. I admit I didn't put enough effort to figure it out on my own, but it is also a bit trickier for me here, esp. since I don't own a credit card.

Congratulations to all on the huge success!

Pedro

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 06:31:41 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:

--- Neil Harris usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:

...

That needed _improving_?

Off the top of my head; faster updates at least for PayPal data using some kind of script (in development), launching more national chapters that have tax exempt status (this seems to have greatly increased donations from Germany), overall a more automated process (running this drive took me 6 to 8 hours per day - which is not sustainable in our volunteer framework), development of translatable interwiki templates that could be used to update [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] on all wikis at once (doing this wiki by wiki is *insane*), some improvements in the PayPal donation forms (such as a drop down currency selection option instead of separate pages for each money type), and a better way to keep the foundation wiki updated (having separate meta and foundation wiki copies of the same pages is hard to deal with).

I'm sure there are other areas of improvement as well but so far I mostly see a need for efficiency improvements and faster/better feedback to donors and the community.

...

Seriously, I can think of only one real improvement needed, which is the ability to give directly using credit cards, which I think would have further increased the rate and scope of donations -- but I believe you already have that task in hand.

Such a system is in development and almost certainly will be up for the next fund drive.

...

Congratulations on a job well done.

Thank you. :) Everybody who helped in this fund drive should proud.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

---

Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I tried to donate by PayPal too, but failed because Estonia as very-very many (maybe most) other countries is missing in the PayPal list where one must choose his country before donating. :(

Sulev

3.03.2005 16:50:35, Pedro Fayolle pfayolle@gmail.com kirot':

I would particularly like to see some better directions for people no in the "main world". Even though I do my earnings in a rather devaluated currency I would have liked to make a donation this time. I admit I didn't put enough effort to figure it out on my own, but it is also a bit trickier for me here, esp. since I don't own a credit card.

Congratulations to all on the huge success!

Pedro

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 06:31:41 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:

...

--- Neil Harris usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:

...

That needed _improving_?

Off the top of my head; faster updates at least for PayPal data using some kind of script (in development), launching more national chapters that have tax exempt status (this seems to have greatly increased donations from Germany), overall a more automated process (running this drive took me 6 to 8 hours per day - which is not sustainable in our volunteer framework), development of translatable interwiki templates that could be used to update [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] on all wikis at once (doing this wiki by wiki is *insane*), some improvements in the PayPal donation forms (such as a drop down currency selection option instead of separate pages for each money type), and a better way to keep the foundation wiki updated (having separate meta and foundation wiki copies of the same pages is hard to deal with).

I'm sure there are other areas of improvement as well but so far I mostly see a need for efficiency improvements and faster/better feedback to donors and the community.

...

Seriously, I can think of only one real improvement needed, which is the ability to give directly using credit cards, which I think would have further increased the rate and scope of donations -- but I believe you already have that task in hand.

Such a system is in development and almost certainly will be up for the next fund drive.

...

Congratulations on a job well done.

Thank you. :) Everybody who helped in this fund drive should proud.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

---

Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

---

foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

--- Pedro Fayolle pfayolle@gmail.com wrote:

I would particularly like to see some better directions for people no in the "main world". Even though I do my earnings in a rather devaluated currency I would have liked to make a donation this time. I admit I didn't put enough effort to figure it out on my own, but it is also a bit trickier for me here, esp. since I don't own a credit card.

Yes - making this easier is very important. MoneyBookers lets users transfer funds in 30+ currencies but setting up a MoneyBookers account is harder than PayPal. Jimbo is going to give me the MoneyBookers login info so I'll be better able to figure out how to make donating using that service easy (or at least easier).

-- mav

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