The currently proposed mission & vision statement of WMF are at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mission/Unstable&oldid=48553... http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vision/Unstable&oldid=470952
I originally intended for us to have a community poll on these statements once the open editing phase is complete. However, editing and discussion activity on these statements have been minimal in spite of repeated announcements. Would there be objections to the Board simply ratifying these two statements as they are now?
"The Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity."
If instead, this said "The Foundation will ensure that useful information from its projects is available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.", it would give the projects more potential for independence.
Anthony
On 1/4/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The currently proposed mission & vision statement of WMF are at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mission/Unstable&oldid=48553... http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vision/Unstable&oldid=470952
I originally intended for us to have a community poll on these statements once the open editing phase is complete. However, editing and discussion activity on these statements have been minimal in spite of repeated announcements. Would there be objections to the Board simply ratifying these two statements as they are now? -- Peace & Love, Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information for free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever. The implication is that first and foremost the data is to be provided for FREE, the rest is thereby fluff, nice fluff but fluff. It is not what we explicitly do. Thanks, Gerard
Anthony schreef:
"The Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity."
If instead, this said "The Foundation will ensure that useful information from its projects is available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.", it would give the projects more potential for independence.
Anthony
On 1/4/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The currently proposed mission & vision statement of WMF are at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mission/Unstable&oldid=48553... http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vision/Unstable&oldid=470952
I originally intended for us to have a community poll on these statements once the open editing phase is complete. However, editing and discussion activity on these statements have been minimal in spite of repeated announcements. Would there be objections to the Board simply ratifying these two statements as they are now? -- Peace & Love, Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information for free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever. The implication is that first and foremost the data is to be provided for FREE, the rest is thereby fluff, nice fluff but fluff. It is not what we explicitly do.
Let me correct you on that: it most certainly does not say "for FREE". What it says is "free of charge". Perhaps my command of English is not good enough and I can't fully understand what that implies, but to me at least placing an ad does not "charge" the viewer in any way.
Also, if it does not say something should/is to be done, that does not have to mean it cannot be done. That's stretching it.
Please note that I am not trying to make a case for ads on Wikimedia projects here. I do not have a firm opinion on whether we should engage in that or not. I am simply pointing out something which, to me, is reading something that isn't there.
Hoi, I am sorry if I was not clear. You have it exactly correct. What I try to express is that getting our content out free of charge is what we aim to do. It trumps considerations that do hamper our efforts. This does not mean that we should keep our independence but getting our NPOV data out is what is important, that is what we do. Thanks, GerardM
Łukasz Garczewski schreef:
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information for free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever. The implication is that first and foremost the data is to be provided for FREE, the rest is thereby fluff, nice fluff but fluff. It is not what we explicitly do.
Let me correct you on that: it most certainly does not say "for FREE". What it says is "free of charge". Perhaps my command of English is not good enough and I can't fully understand what that implies, but to me at least placing an ad does not "charge" the viewer in any way.
Also, if it does not say something should/is to be done, that does not have to mean it cannot be done. That's stretching it.
Please note that I am not trying to make a case for ads on Wikimedia projects here. I do not have a firm opinion on whether we should engage in that or not. I am simply pointing out something which, to me, is reading something that isn't there.
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information for free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever.
Yep, it sure doesn't.
IOW, if you object to there ever being ads on Wikipedia, now is the time to speak up, before the mission statement is adopted.
Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
Anthony
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
teun
On 1/5/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information for free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever.
Yep, it sure doesn't.
IOW, if you object to there ever being ads on Wikipedia, now is the time to speak up, before the mission statement is adopted.
Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
Anthony _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
The problem with advertising on Wikipedia is that it presents a conflict with our real mission: to provide neutral information to the peoples. In contrast, the goal of advertising is to feed one-sided information to people in a very flashy way. Showing only half the picture is what leads to conflict: people think Americans are ignorant pigdogs when there are some very intelligent Americans. Keyword-based ads would be terrible in this sense: in an article about fertilizers, if there is a Miracle-Gro ad, it is giving them unfairly better representation.
Now, we could counter this by linking to the relevant Wikipedia article -next- to the advertisment. What if something non-notable were to be advertised? Then there would be no article...
On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
teun
On 1/5/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information
for
free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever.
Yep, it sure doesn't.
IOW, if you object to there ever being ads on Wikipedia, now is the time to speak up, before the mission statement is adopted.
Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
Anthony _______________________________________________ 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
Hoi, I do not know if you observe when people watch watch television, but people go to the toilet when there is an advertisement break. People tape a program and fastforward the ads. The notion that ads provide information is vastly overrated. Advertisements are typically ignored.
There is a website of a friend.. it has Google ads. When I feel good I hit an add knowing that it will benefit my friend. The notion that ads create a conflict of interest is an article of faith, it is not based in how people perceive things in real life. When you are patch is bald, and you want a solution AND you are lazy .. that is when an add helps you to get Miracle-Gro. When you are smart you buy it cheaply in bulk at a local shop and not over the Internet.
Thanks, GerardM
TIVO is an American product .. a prove that adverts in the USA are considered to be overly intrusive. Customers HATE ads.
James Hare schreef:
The problem with advertising on Wikipedia is that it presents a conflict with our real mission: to provide neutral information to the peoples. In contrast, the goal of advertising is to feed one-sided information to people in a very flashy way. Showing only half the picture is what leads to conflict: people think Americans are ignorant pigdogs when there are some very intelligent Americans. Keyword-based ads would be terrible in this sense: in an article about fertilizers, if there is a Miracle-Gro ad, it is giving them unfairly better representation.
Now, we could counter this by linking to the relevant Wikipedia article -next- to the advertisment. What if something non-notable were to be advertised? Then there would be no article...
On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
teun
On 1/5/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information
for
free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever.
Yep, it sure doesn't.
IOW, if you object to there ever being ads on Wikipedia, now is the time to speak up, before the mission statement is adopted.
Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
Anthony
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I do not know if you observe when people watch watch television, but people go to the toilet when there is an advertisement break. People tape a program and fastforward the ads. The notion that ads provide information is vastly overrated. Advertisements are typically ignored.
Look. Ads obviously work. That's why so much money is spent on them.
Claiming that people just ignore ads is fatuous.
Ads influence people. Please don't pretend otherwise.
Hoi, It is nice to be insulted with a word that I do not know .. Thank you.
When you read what I wrote, you will find that they are TYPICALLY ignored. You would also read in the part that you did not bother to copy that often a better deal can be had by not being lazy and by thinking about what there is to buy.
Now that we have exchanged pleasantries, the point I make is not that it has no effect it has little effect. Another point that I l make is that the Wikimedia Foundation can be much more effective when it had a bigger budget. Given the growth rate of all our projects, our need for money will increase even when we only want to continue to provide the level of service that we do.
Given that many people in Europe do not know Wikipedia, given that we have not really made an impact in Africa, Asia and South America I do argue that we have not scratched the service of what we aim to do. The fact that only the English Wikipedia has more than a million articles proves to me that Wikipedia is still very much a rich man's game. We do not have the organisational infrastructure to do well in many languages. We do not have a clue in what language the next "Seigenthaler" affair will come to light. We do not have the ability to deal with such an affair.
The point is that we need much more money than we have. The aim of the foundation is to bring information to everyone. We do not do as good a job as we could. This is the argument that is not addressed when people are rabidly against advertisements. Even when like in the Virgin Unite case that organisation does not sell a thing. The problem I have with this blanket anti add attitude is that it has little to do with our aims and that it prevents to do good for languages other than the other languages of economically strong countries.
Thanks, GerardM
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fatuous
The Cunctator schreef:
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I do not know if you observe when people watch watch television, but people go to the toilet when there is an advertisement break. People tape a program and fastforward the ads. The notion that ads provide information is vastly overrated. Advertisements are typically ignored.
Look. Ads obviously work. That's why so much money is spent on them.
Claiming that people just ignore ads is fatuous.
Ads influence people. Please don't pretend otherwise.
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, It is nice to be insulted with a word that I do not know .. Thank you.
Not trying to insult you, though I guess fatuous is a bit strong. I did mean it in the "delusive", not "inanely foolish" sense. Wiktionary is missing that definition.
When you read what I wrote, you will find that they are TYPICALLY
ignored. You would also read in the part that you did not bother to copy that often a better deal can be had by not being lazy and by thinking about what there is to buy.
It's a mistake to believe that ads are typically ignored. Again, ads work because they influence people. Ads typically do not motivate people to direct action (at least percentagewise) but they do inevitably influence people.
Now that we have exchanged pleasantries, the point I make is not that it
has no effect it has little effect. Another point that I l make is that the Wikimedia Foundation can be much more effective when it had a bigger budget. Given the growth rate of all our projects, our need for money will increase even when we only want to continue to provide the level of service that we do.
One would hope that the need for money will not grow disproportionately to the growth in audience. In fact, there should be economies of scale.
Given that many people in Europe do not know Wikipedia, given that we
have not really made an impact in Africa, Asia and South America I do argue that we have not scratched the service of what we aim to do. The fact that only the English Wikipedia has more than a million articles proves to me that Wikipedia is still very much a rich man's game.
That's an interesting conclusion but hardly the only one that can be drawn.
We do
not have the organisational infrastructure to do well in many languages.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "well".
One thing to recognize is that Wikipedia is part of the Web -- if the reach of the Web in particular regions of the world is limited in certain ways, that will limit the effectiveness and growth of those language's Wikipedias.
The point is that we need much more money than we have.
That's your argument. It's not prima facie true. We'd certainly *like* much more money, but need?
The aim of the
foundation is to bring information to everyone. We do not do as good a job as we could. This is the argument that is not addressed when people are rabidly against advertisements. Even when like in the Virgin Unite case that organisation does not sell a thing. The problem I have with this blanket anti add attitude is that it has little to do with our aims
In your opinion. If, for example, you accept that ads influence people, then it's not too far to conclude that they unavoidably violate NPOV.
The Cunctator schreef:
On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, It is nice to be insulted with a word that I do not know .. Thank you.
Not trying to insult you, though I guess fatuous is a bit strong. I did mean it in the "delusive", not "inanely foolish" sense. Wiktionary is missing that definition.
As we do not agree on the effect of adverts, we can agree that you are as delusive from my point of view.
When you read what I wrote, you will find that they are TYPICALLY
ignored. You would also read in the part that you did not bother to copy that often a better deal can be had by not being lazy and by thinking about what there is to buy.
It's a mistake to believe that ads are typically ignored. Again, ads work because they influence people. Ads typically do not motivate people to direct action (at least percentagewise) but they do inevitably influence people.
Ads do not work on their own, you have to do a lot more than just advertise when you want to get and keep a market share. But hey, that is marketing and sales.
Now that we have exchanged pleasantries, the point I make is not that it
has no effect it has little effect. Another point that I l make is that the Wikimedia Foundation can be much more effective when it had a bigger budget. Given the growth rate of all our projects, our need for money will increase even when we only want to continue to provide the level of service that we do.
One would hope that the need for money will not grow disproportionately to the growth in audience. In fact, there should be economies of scale.
The economies of scale happen within one language. We have 250 languages and on many of them we have not invested a dime. We expect that the content is good and that they will develop in the same way as the bigger projects did. The issue is that there is no understanding of what is actually happening and we do not know if projects have not been high jacked by POV pushers. For the Belarus language this is certainly the case from a linguistic point of view.
There are other far more serious issues and we do not have the resources to deal with.
Given that many people in Europe do not know Wikipedia, given that we
have not really made an impact in Africa, Asia and South America I do argue that we have not scratched the service of what we aim to do. The fact that only the English Wikipedia has more than a million articles proves to me that Wikipedia is still very much a rich man's game.
That's an interesting conclusion but hardly the only one that can be drawn.
Well, I am probably more involved with other languages than you are.
We do
not have the organisational infrastructure to do well in many languages.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "well".
One thing to recognize is that Wikipedia is part of the Web -- if the reach of the Web in particular regions of the world is limited in certain ways, that will limit the effectiveness and growth of those language's Wikipedias.
That ignores the fact that we DO have projects in 250 languages and that for all of them the Wikimedia Foundation has a responsibility. We do not know what the quality is of many of these projects and what risks we run. This is an issue, that will bite us sooner rather than later and it will cost us.
The point is that we need much more money than we have.
That's your argument. It's not prima facie true. We'd certainly *like* much more money, but need?
The aim of the
foundation is to bring information to everyone. We do not do as good a job as we could. This is the argument that is not addressed when people are rabidly against advertisements. Even when like in the Virgin Unite case that organisation does not sell a thing. The problem I have with this blanket anti add attitude is that it has little to do with our aims
In your opinion. If, for example, you accept that ads influence people, then it's not too far to conclude that they unavoidably violate NPOV.
I do not accept that ads influence people in the way you do. As long as we do not have advertisers influence our editorial process, there is little chance that is will violate our NPOV. By the way, the biggest problem in the way people consider things to be advertisements is that it prevents the WMF from partnering with organisations and be openly grateful. Partnering is not necessarily receiving money, partnering is collaborating and given the roles of the organisations in such a collaboration money may flow.
Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I do not know if you observe when people watch watch television, but people go to the toilet when there is an advertisement break. People tape a program and fastforward the ads. The notion that ads provide information is vastly overrated. Advertisements are typically ignored.
Very few ads are clever enough to keep your attention. Most are trivial, and repeated too often. As the TV market becomes more fragmented, the TV stations are not able to give the advertisers the reach that they previously expected. As the public shifts attention from TV to internet the advertisers aremore keen to get into that market, but the internet audience is a lot less complacent about advertising than the TV audience.
To an extent some big ISPs probably viewed the net as an opportunity to package a service with a product. There is a whole entertainment industry that would love to start creating profit points on the internet, but with a public that wants to upload as much (if not more) than it downloads the prospects for big profits look bleak unless the industry can have its way with net neutrality. One of the things that we and a few other sites like YouTube and MySpace have addressed is a desire for the public to participate in the content. The result is every bit as good as what the high-priced production companies could produce, and a lot cheaper. Those who haven't grasped this should get ready for the second wave of dot-com failures.
Our Board needs to be fully aware of where the economics of the Web are going in the next few years. It would be nice to base our planning on the real per capita costs of the internet stripped of content production costs.
There is a website of a friend.. it has Google ads. When I feel good I hit an add knowing that it will benefit my friend. The notion that ads create a conflict of interest is an article of faith, it is not based in how people perceive things in real life. When you are patch is bald, and you want a solution AND you are lazy .. that is when an add helps you to get Miracle-Gro. When you are smart you buy it cheaply in bulk at a local shop and not over the Internet.
I don't know if I or you is misunderstanding something, but the suggestion that bald people could solve their problem by putting Miracle-Gro on their scalps is hilarious. :-D
Ec
I think "patch" mentioned to a garden patch.
"Miracle-Gro on head" reminds me of a website I used to go on...
On 1/6/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I do not know if you observe when people watch watch television, but people go to the toilet when there is an advertisement break. People tape a program and fastforward the ads. The notion that ads provide information is vastly overrated. Advertisements are typically ignored.
Very few ads are clever enough to keep your attention. Most are trivial, and repeated too often. As the TV market becomes more fragmented, the TV stations are not able to give the advertisers the reach that they previously expected. As the public shifts attention from TV to internet the advertisers aremore keen to get into that market, but the internet audience is a lot less complacent about advertising than the TV audience.
To an extent some big ISPs probably viewed the net as an opportunity to package a service with a product. There is a whole entertainment industry that would love to start creating profit points on the internet, but with a public that wants to upload as much (if not more) than it downloads the prospects for big profits look bleak unless the industry can have its way with net neutrality. One of the things that we and a few other sites like YouTube and MySpace have addressed is a desire for the public to participate in the content. The result is every bit as good as what the high-priced production companies could produce, and a lot cheaper. Those who haven't grasped this should get ready for the second wave of dot-com failures.
Our Board needs to be fully aware of where the economics of the Web are going in the next few years. It would be nice to base our planning on the real per capita costs of the internet stripped of content production costs.
There is a website of a friend.. it has Google ads. When I feel good I hit an add knowing that it will benefit my friend. The notion that ads create a conflict of interest is an article of faith, it is not based in how people perceive things in real life. When you are patch is bald, and you want a solution AND you are lazy .. that is when an add helps you to get Miracle-Gro. When you are smart you buy it cheaply in bulk at a local shop and not over the Internet.
I don't know if I or you is misunderstanding something, but the suggestion that bald people could solve their problem by putting Miracle-Gro on their scalps is hilarious. :-D
Ec
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
James Hare wrote:
I think "patch" mentioned to a garden patch.
"Miracle-Gro on head" reminds me of a website I used to go on...
I think you are thinking of Rogaine, which is a product well-targeted to some rogainers I've known :)
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Our Board needs to be fully aware of where the economics of the Web are going in the next few years. It would be nice to base our planning on the real per capita costs of the internet stripped of content production costs.
I'm curious about this issue in part due to a discussion I had on slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=214762&cid=17447596
Now the $5 million figure was simply something pulled out of the air, assuming that the current geometric growth of Wikimedia projects continue on its current course (not necessarily something good to assume here). In trying to defend the WMF in this situation, I have assumed that server/bandwidth costs of displaying a read-only Wikipedia page are pretty much identical (within a general margin of error) to simply using a more conventional HTML server with static content. Is there reason to assume this is pretty much the case?
I just don't see how in the case of this (fairly informed and current Wikimedia user) critic that a huge monitary savings could happen if production of Wikipedia articles was instead moved to something akin to the mailing lists, but a seperate mailing list for each Wikipedia article ((the mind boggles at the thought of the suggestion in the first place!)) Nupedia could have been able to get away with something like this, but that is also why Wikipedia blew Nupedia away in the dust oh so many years ago.
Certainly forecasting expenses for two or three years down the line is going to be a bit of an archane art at the moment, even though there are some hard statistics that at least can get you some rough idea of what is going to be needed in terms of operating the server farm and bandwidth.
Out of curiosity, are there any projections of what it may cost the WMF to maintian the current Wikimedia projects at current levels of response time in two years?
I know there are a bunch of unknown factors that would make such an estimate vary, such as disruptive technologies, local and international politics, gifts, legal requirements, MediaWiki optimizations, and changes to the makeup of Wikimedia editor/contributors. Still, it is something that I hope is being looked at.
On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
This thread is certainly a good place. If you think "without advertisements" should be added to the mission statement, suggest it. It would be interesting to see who, if anyone, objects.
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
There's a talk page for that mission statement draft. Not sure where else it's being discussed.
Anthony
Thx,
Indeed, I'd like to make clear that our vision should encompass both kinds of "free".
Advertisements are likely to tarnish the strictly neutral image of our projects. take the example of the Microsoft articles on wikipedia. Microsoft the company, and articles on their products. Using the google context ad-aware system, the most logical ads would be for exactly ... uh, these microsoft products. You cant fool me - even if the people could easily distinguish articles and ads, unconsciously they would be influenced.
Waerth en GerardM argued that people ignore ads. If they were right, companies would no longer spend a dime on ads. But they are spending billions on them.
teun
On 1/6/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
This thread is certainly a good place. If you think "without advertisements" should be added to the mission statement, suggest it. It would be interesting to see who, if anyone, objects.
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
There's a talk page for that mission statement draft. Not sure where else it's being discussed.
Anthony
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, You make the issue too simple. When I am to be asked if I want advertisements, than the answer is no. When /you /are to be asked do you want response times that are on average 50 seconds, than the answer is likely to be no as well.
When you say that billions are spend on adverts, then you hit the jackpot. This is indeed one place where we can find the money to continue the upward trend that we have both in content, in bandwidth, in people using our content/people contributing to our content, in languages and in projects. My problem with your stance is that you provide no credible alternative in the face of a demonstrated need for money. The current budget ignores all the things we could do if we had indeed more money than needed for our immediate requirements.
To demonstrate that you can think differently; in a contract for adds, you could specify that organisations can not advertise on their own page and on the page of their competitor. This would wipe away your Micro$oft inspired comment.
PS When will you start taking the real issue seriously? The issue is we need MORE money and we will need EVEN MORE money given our growth rate.
Thanks, GerardM
teun spaans schreef:
Thx,
Indeed, I'd like to make clear that our vision should encompass both kinds of "free".
Advertisements are likely to tarnish the strictly neutral image of our projects. take the example of the Microsoft articles on wikipedia. Microsoft the company, and articles on their products. Using the google context ad-aware system, the most logical ads would be for exactly ... uh, these microsoft products. You cant fool me - even if the people could easily distinguish articles and ads, unconsciously they would be influenced.
Waerth en GerardM argued that people ignore ads. If they were right, companies would no longer spend a dime on ads. But they are spending billions on them.
teun
On 1/6/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
This thread is certainly a good place. If you think "without advertisements" should be added to the mission statement, suggest it. It would be interesting to see who, if anyone, objects.
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
There's a talk page for that mission statement draft. Not sure where else it's being discussed.
Anthony
I regret your style of discussing: both on Anthony (with whom i disagree) and on me your result in personal attacks. Could you please refrain from them?
Or is this attitude customary on wikimedia mailing lists?
thx teun
On 1/8/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You make the issue too simple. When I am to be asked if I want advertisements, than the answer is no. When /you /are to be asked do you want response times that are on average 50 seconds, than the answer is likely to be no as well.
When you say that billions are spend on adverts, then you hit the jackpot. This is indeed one place where we can find the money to continue the upward trend that we have both in content, in bandwidth, in people using our content/people contributing to our content, in languages and in projects. My problem with your stance is that you provide no credible alternative in the face of a demonstrated need for money. The current budget ignores all the things we could do if we had indeed more money than needed for our immediate requirements.
To demonstrate that you can think differently; in a contract for adds, you could specify that organisations can not advertise on their own page and on the page of their competitor. This would wipe away your Micro$oft inspired comment.
PS When will you start taking the real issue seriously? The issue is we need MORE money and we will need EVEN MORE money given our growth rate.
Thanks, GerardM
teun spaans schreef:
Thx,
Indeed, I'd like to make clear that our vision should encompass both kinds of "free".
Advertisements are likely to tarnish the strictly neutral image of our projects. take the example of the Microsoft articles on wikipedia. Microsoft the company, and articles on their products. Using the google context ad-aware system, the most logical ads would be for exactly ... uh, these microsoft products. You cant fool me - even if the people could easily distinguish articles and ads, unconsciously they would be influenced.
Waerth en GerardM argued that people ignore ads. If they were right, companies would no longer spend a dime on ads. But they are spending billions on them.
teun
On 1/6/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
This thread is certainly a good place. If you think "without advertisements" should be added to the mission statement, suggest it. It would be interesting to see who, if anyone, objects.
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
There's a talk page for that mission statement draft. Not sure where else it's being discussed.
Anthony
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi Teun, In my honest opinion I have not attacked you personally. What I have done off list, and someone who can read Dutch may verify that for me, is explain why I come to my conclusion. If you sees this as a personal attack, I apologise as I do not have an issue with you Thanks, GerardM.
teun spaans schreef:
I regret your style of discussing: both on Anthony (with whom i disagree) and on me your result in personal attacks. Could you please refrain from them?
Or is this attitude customary on wikimedia mailing lists?
thx teun
On 1/8/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You make the issue too simple. When I am to be asked if I want advertisements, than the answer is no. When /you /are to be asked do you want response times that are on average 50 seconds, than the answer is likely to be no as well.
When you say that billions are spend on adverts, then you hit the jackpot. This is indeed one place where we can find the money to continue the upward trend that we have both in content, in bandwidth, in people using our content/people contributing to our content, in languages and in projects. My problem with your stance is that you provide no credible alternative in the face of a demonstrated need for money. The current budget ignores all the things we could do if we had indeed more money than needed for our immediate requirements.
To demonstrate that you can think differently; in a contract for adds, you could specify that organisations can not advertise on their own page and on the page of their competitor. This would wipe away your Micro$oft inspired comment.
PS When will you start taking the real issue seriously? The issue is we need MORE money and we will need EVEN MORE money given our growth rate.
Thanks, GerardM
teun spaans schreef:
Thx,
Indeed, I'd like to make clear that our vision should encompass both kinds of "free".
Advertisements are likely to tarnish the strictly neutral image of our projects. take the example of the Microsoft articles on wikipedia. Microsoft the company, and articles on their products. Using the google context ad-aware system, the most logical ads would be for exactly ... uh, these microsoft products. You cant fool me - even if the people could easily distinguish articles and ads, unconsciously they would be influenced.
Waerth en GerardM argued that people ignore ads. If they were right, companies would no longer spend a dime on ads. But they are spending billions on them.
teun
On 1/6/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony,
what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
This thread is certainly a good place. If you think "without advertisements" should be added to the mission statement, suggest it. It would be interesting to see who, if anyone, objects.
I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere else?
On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 12:20:54PM +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information for free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about advertisements, sponsorships or whatever. The implication is that first and foremost the data is to be provided for FREE, the rest is thereby fluff, nice fluff but fluff. It is not what we explicitly do. Thanks, Gerard
I don't care about free as in beer, as long as it's free as in speech.
-- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72
"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."
I note that this sentence does not have any notion of the word "collaborate" in it. IMO this notion *is* present in the vision statement (to "freely share in" implies cooperation, and not just people working independently), but the mission statement doesn't seem to capture it. Sure, people collect, develop, and disseminate free content, but is that what distinguishes Wikimedia from other organizations? Or is it the real-time collaboration that does that?
Erik, in another thread you are discussing whether or not Wikimedia should get involved with hosting videos, and one concern you have with it is that "the strength of wiki is to collaborate". But hosting of free videos does disseminate free content, it does encourage people to collect it, and to a lesser extent it even encourages people to develop it. Under the current mission statement collaboration isn't even mentioned.
Anthony
On 1/4/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The currently proposed mission & vision statement of WMF are at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mission/Unstable&oldid=48553... http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vision/Unstable&oldid=470952
I originally intended for us to have a community poll on these statements once the open editing phase is complete. However, editing and discussion activity on these statements have been minimal in spite of repeated announcements. Would there be objections to the Board simply ratifying these two statements as they are now? -- Peace & Love, Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 1/4/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The currently proposed mission & vision statement of WMF are at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mission/Unstable&oldid=48553...
I think the retreat draft was much better.
In particular, I wonder why the "on the Internet free of charge" bit was added to the mission statement.
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In particular, I wonder why the "on the Internet free of charge" bit was added to the mission statement.
To emphasize the free licensing / free availability distinction, and to make it explicit that we are committed to both (which we very much are).
On 1/6/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In particular, I wonder why the "on the Internet free of charge" bit was added to the mission statement.
To emphasize the free licensing / free availability distinction, and to make it explicit that we are committed to both (which we very much are).
Understood. And I think it helpful for translators & coordinators; there is always misunderstanding around the notion of "free".
One problem I found on working with translators is that some of them tend to prefer to translate "free knowledge" into "knowledge free of charge" and miss it means also (or rather) free licenced. I have been trying to persuade them "knowledge free of charge" was not a good translation, but whenever new translator(s) joined, I should repeat "what free knowledge means here" preaches. More terrible thing is that I am not sure if some translated versions are spreading this kind of misunderstanding.... hopefully not .... but I am not sure. One of possible reasons of this kind of misunderstanding may have been anyway it is true we are working for knowledge free of charge too.
If Wikimedia itself pursue both form of free knowledge - knowledge as free as both beer and speech, I think it makes a sense its mission statement mentions *both* notions. Then no one shall misunderstand what the word "free" means here.
On 1/5/07, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
One problem I found on working with translators is that some of them tend to prefer to translate "free knowledge" into "knowledge free of charge"
Perhaps we should write an authoritative version in a language which has reduced potential for this confusion and translate from that one? There are quite a few languages where this confusion is reduced. Or more simply, perhaps someone needs to start a guide for translators which helps people understand frequent issues like this one.
[snip]
If Wikimedia itself pursue both form of free knowledge - knowledge as free as both beer and speech, I think it makes a sense its mission statement mentions *both* notions. Then no one shall misunderstand what the word "free" means here.
If it's really our mission that everything we distribute be at no charge, we are already failing it. :)
I don't know that the no-charge part is really important. "Free as in speech" pretty much promises that someone will make it available at no charge. "Disseminate it effectively and globally" means that the someone will usually be the foundation. I don't think it's a conflict with our mission to use value added propagation as a fundraising technique (like the realtime data feeds), but a mission statement which over-emphasizes free-as-in-beer would create a conflict there.
2007/1/6, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
On 1/5/07, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
One problem I found on working with translators is that some of them tend to prefer to translate "free knowledge" into "knowledge free of charge"
Perhaps we should write an authoritative version in a language which has reduced potential for this confusion and translate from that one? There are quite a few languages where this confusion is reduced.
OTOH there are many many fields where things can become wrongly translated. IMHO it would be a better approach to think about writing official things remembering that they will be translated, and therefore weild out ambiguities and concentrate on clarity in the text rather than on pretty English.
/habj
On 1/5/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In particular, I wonder why the "on the Internet free of charge" bit was added to the mission statement.
To emphasize the free licensing / free availability distinction, and to make it explicit that we are committed to both (which we very much are).
What happens when webpages are replaced by GopherNG? ;) I don't think the technological binding makes sense in our mission. It's too deep in the weeds.
In terms of "free licensing / free availability distinction" we're also failing on that mark with the words "under a free license or in the public domain" because "free license" is used to refer to both Free Content licenses as well as "non-free content licenses which are available for public use at no charge". I suspect the price or ability to alter the license itself is immaterial to our goals ;). If we are going to expand the mission beyond a single sentence I'd much rather see a highly condensed version of the free content definition in it.
"content which free of legal restrictions for all applications and adaptations without cost, in all mediums, to all people, for all perpetuity." or something like that.
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
What happens when webpages are replaced by GopherNG? ;)
Well, we're not saying anything about the web, we're saying "Internet". In that respect, "multilingual wiki projects" is much more tech-centric. But either seems fine with me; if these solutions become outdated, we will simply update our mission statement, as we've done before. It's the vision statement which should be timeless.
In terms of "free licensing / free availability distinction" we're also failing on that mark with the words "under a free license or in the public domain" because "free license" is used to refer to both Free Content licenses as well as "non-free content licenses which are available for public use at no charge". I suspect the price or ability to alter the license itself is immaterial to our goals ;).
Hair splitting, but we can change it to "free content license".
On Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 12:21:06AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
Hair splitting, but we can change it to "free content license".
"Free/Libre". And Erik, are you anywhere near the offices of the FSFE? (Free Software Foundation Europe), they might be able to help clarify free licencing language :-)
On 1/5/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
What happens when webpages are replaced by GopherNG? ;)
Well, we're not saying anything about the web, we're saying "Internet". In that respect, "multilingual wiki projects" is much more tech-centric. But either seems fine with me; if these solutions become outdated, we will simply update our mission statement, as we've done before. It's the vision statement which should be timeless.
Same argument applies. I don't see how the internet is important to our mission. It's the best tool for the job today, sure, but it's not our mission. Sure we can revise it.. but why bother mentioning it. Our mission is providing effective support for the creation and propagation of this free content. That we use the Internet is true today, but it's not at all fundimental ... it simply adds length without adding clarity.
In terms of "free licensing / free availability distinction" we're also failing on that mark with the words "under a free license or in the public domain" because "free license" is used to refer to both Free Content licenses as well as "non-free content licenses which are available for public use at no charge". I suspect the price or ability to alter the license itself is immaterial to our goals ;).
Hair splitting, but we can change it to "free content license".
I assume you are saying that the potential for misunderstanding "free license" isn't large rather than saying that the distinction between "licenses which are free" and "Free Content licenses" is insignificant. If my assumption is wrong, please correct me.. because if you believe the latter, we have much more to discuss. :)
I don't agree that the potential for misunderstanding "free licenses" is small. For example, we often see the Creative Commons folks use "free license" in this sense:
"We provide free licenses that mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share the work, or remix the work, or both share and remix the work, as the author chooses." (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6106)
The overwhelming majority of CC licenses uses are licenses which do not meet the free content definition, nor would meet the typical Wikimedian's definition of a free content license (-NC-NDs, Sampling, etc). As such we need to be careful to maintain clear separation between our efforts to propagate information which is (largely) unencumbered and the CreativeCommon's mission of making it easier folks to use copyright to both grant and withhold rights.
I think that using "free content" is an improvement over "free licenses", but I don't think that it is especially good. As Tim Starling likes to point out: Content can't have freedom, people can... The words "Free Content" are effectively a domain specific jargon, and I think our mission statement should be free of such jargon. I think the best way to avoid the jargon is to just say what we mean.
We can offset the additional length by removing the free-beer aspects of the current draft. I believe the free-beerness of Wikimedia itself is a natural side effect of our mission of wide propagation but not in and of itself a fundamental goal.
On 1/7/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Same argument applies. I don't see how the internet is important to our mission. It's the best tool for the job today, sure, but it's not our mission. Sure we can revise it.. but why bother mentioning it. Our mission is providing effective support for the creation and propagation of this free content. That we use the Internet is true today, but it's not at all fundimental ... it simply adds length without adding clarity.
I do believe it's fundamental, as it reflects a very important minimum commitment: Whether we will be able to freely give away information in other contexts, we will always give it away through the Internet (or whatever its successor technology may be). I had "global communication networks" in an earlier version, but I think "Internet" should be safe for the next few years.
The words "Free Content" are effectively a domain specific jargon, and I think our mission statement should be free of such jargon. I think the best way to avoid the jargon is to just say what we mean.
Perhaps -- if you feel a short mini definition of the core freedoms would be better, feel free to give it a whack.
We can offset the additional length by removing the free-beer aspects of the current draft. I believe the free-beerness of Wikimedia itself is a natural side effect of our mission of wide propagation but not in and of itself a fundamental goal.
Well, my take is different -- it _is_ a fundamental goal to not just disseminate widely, but to _guarantee_ that the work done by volunteers through the project will always be freely available through at least the channel through which it was created.
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 1/7/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
We can offset the additional length by removing the free-beer aspects of the current draft. I believe the free-beerness of Wikimedia itself is a natural side effect of our mission of wide propagation but not in and of itself a fundamental goal.
Well, my take is different -- it _is_ a fundamental goal to not just disseminate widely, but to _guarantee_ that the work done by volunteers through the project will always be freely available through at least the channel through which it was created.
I agree with Erik on this. I do not consider that our goal is limited to build a resource, but also to make it available to the largest number of people on Earth. For this, we can lower three main barriers. The financial barrier (we lower the cost of access to the maximum), the language barrier (we give people the opportunity to access language in their mother language), and the re-use barrier (we allow others to reuse the content).
To my opinion, the multilingualism, the free licence and the free of charge access are part of the Foundation mission.
Anthere
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/5/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
What happens when webpages are replaced by GopherNG? ;)
Well, we're not saying anything about the web, we're saying "Internet". In that respect, "multilingual wiki projects" is much more tech-centric. But either seems fine with me; if these solutions become outdated, we will simply update our mission statement, as we've done before. It's the vision statement which should be timeless.
Same argument applies. I don't see how the internet is important to our mission. It's the best tool for the job today, sure, but it's not our mission. Sure we can revise it.. but why bother mentioning it. Our mission is providing effective support for the creation and propagation of this free content. That we use the Internet is true today, but it's not at all fundimental ... it simply adds length without adding clarity.
I would respectfully disagree -- some degree of specificity in mission is a Good Thing. The *vision* statement is deservedly as broad as possible. I think focusing on the Internet in the mission is good.
We can offset the additional length by removing the free-beer aspects
of the current draft. I believe the free-beerness of Wikimedia itself is a natural side effect of our mission of wide propagation but not in and of itself a fundamental goal.
Considering how many people in the world are poor, and that our intended audience is the whole world, maybe it should be a fundamental goal.
On 1/9/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/5/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
What happens when webpages are replaced by GopherNG? ;)
Well, we're not saying anything about the web, we're saying "Internet". In that respect, "multilingual wiki projects" is much more tech-centric. But either seems fine with me; if these solutions become outdated, we will simply update our mission statement, as we've done before. It's the vision statement which should be timeless.
Same argument applies. I don't see how the internet is important to our mission. It's the best tool for the job today, sure, but it's not our mission. Sure we can revise it.. but why bother mentioning it. Our mission is providing effective support for the creation and propagation of this free content. That we use the Internet is true today, but it's not at all fundimental ... it simply adds length without adding clarity.
I would respectfully disagree -- some degree of specificity in mission is a Good Thing. The *vision* statement is deservedly as broad as possible. I think focusing on the Internet in the mission is good.
We can offset the additional length by removing the free-beer aspects
of the current draft. I believe the free-beerness of Wikimedia itself is a natural side effect of our mission of wide propagation but not in and of itself a fundamental goal.
Considering how many people in the world are poor, and that our intended audience is the whole world, maybe it should be a fundamental goal.
What percentage of those poor even have Internet access? It seems to me that Wikimedia content will *always* be available for no cost over the Internet, and in fact the Foundation couldn't even stop this from happening if they wanted to. Granted, this content might not necessarily be available *ad-free* over the Internet without Foundation support, but this isn't even part of the mission as currently stated.
Anthony
On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, The Cunctator wrote:
On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I would respectfully disagree -- some degree of specificity in mission is a Good Thing. The *vision* statement is deservedly as broad as possible. I think focusing on the Internet in the mission is good.
Without specificity, it is difficult to be effective, and difficult to evaluate success.
We can offset the additional length by removing the free-beer aspects
of the current draft. I believe the free-beerness of Wikimedia itself is a natural side effect of our mission of wide propagation but not in and of itself a fundamental goal.
Considering how many people in the world are poor, and that our intended audience is the whole world, maybe it should be a fundamental goal.
The free-beer aspects are certainly fundamental to my understanding of the project goals. It would be disappointing to see that change.
SJ
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