... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
Delphine
Il giorno 26/apr/07, alle ore 10:53, Delphine Ménard ha scritto:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
Sometimes, it happens. Which is the subject, 'cause I've lost it? I could report it to the italian community...
Gatto Nero
----- Claudio Mastroianni TBAKAGN, The Blogger Actually Known As Gatto Nero Personal Blog: http://www.fermentigattici.net Collaborazioni: http://www.06blog.it http://www.queerblog.it
moaning is easier than thinking I guess
On 26/04/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
Delphine
-- ~notafish NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Sometimes though the community is not fully informed. We have found this with a recent issue on Wikinews. Cheers, Nathan
On 4/26/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
Delphine
-- ~notafish NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2007/4/26, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
IMHO the problem is that in many cases the current process of decision making is not transparent. Therefore the general community knows about the decision after it is made and start to directly affect them. Moreover, in many cases the reasons of decisions are not well explained or even not explained at all.
There should be clear system of discussion of Board with community. For example: 1. The Board or a given Wikimedia committee officially announce "Let's start discussion about a given topic, this discussion is important, because The Board or Committee is about to make crucial decision - discussion will end at: give a date". 2. The discussion is on 3. The Board summarizes the main conclusions of discussion putting it on meta page. 4. The Board announce officially the decision with detailed explanation of reasons on Foundation wiki and also broadcast it to all whom this decision affects. 5. If the "wild" discussion is still going on - it is simply ignored.
On 26/04/07, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2007/4/26, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
IMHO the problem is that in many cases the current process of decision making is not transparent. Therefore the general community knows about the decision after it is made and start to directly affect them. Moreover, in many cases the reasons of decisions are not well explained or even not explained at all.
There should be clear system of discussion of Board with community. For example:
- The Board or a given Wikimedia committee officially announce "Let's
start discussion about a given topic, this discussion is important, because The Board or Committee is about to make crucial decision - discussion will end at: give a date". 2. The discussion is on 3. The Board summarizes the main conclusions of discussion putting it on meta page. 4. The Board announce officially the decision with detailed explanation of reasons on Foundation wiki and also broadcast it to all whom this decision affects. 5. If the "wild" discussion is still going on - it is simply ignored.
-- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.poli.toya.net.pl http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
As far as I know it's almost like that, except for the ending date. Usually a board member announce the start of a discussion, then discussion is held, a decision is taken, and then the final decision is announced.
Actually, few go to discuss it and a lot (note it's always the same persons who are moaning :) ) moans ...
So the question is what's missing? Communication? What do you need more than the mails ? Implication ? How could the volounteers be more involved than actually?
Personnaly I don't thing anything missing in the communication/implication about the decisions of the board (lack of communications on other grounds but this is not the place to discuss it :) ). so nothing is missing perhaps there's too much of "something" :)
2007/4/26, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com:
As far as I know it's almost like that, except for the ending date. Usually a board member announce the start of a discussion, then discussion is held, a decision is taken, and then the final decision is announced.
Well... not really. First of all - on this list the unofficial discussions are constantly mixed with official ones. The only way to know which is which is to take a look who started it. But Board members and officers sometimes starts official discussion and sometimes not official, and you have to be smart to know which is which. There is plenty of "bla, bla" on this list which you can totally ignore, so many people ignore many topics and do not read them. I guess they quite often make mistakes what to read and what not - including me of course.
Maybe the good idea would be to start open to read by anyone, but strictly moderated E-mail list devoted to the official discussions only? Or the Board members and other Foundation's "VIP's" should clearly mark this kind of discussions, by using for example a prefix in a topic like [Official] or [Important]. Such kind of starting E-mails should be written in more formal, official way the others. For example:
Official Announcement:
Wikimedia Foundation Board, would like to start discussion about: XXX This is important because: XXX The end of discussion is: XXX
The info about starting such discussion should also be put od announcement pages of projects, which are pottentially interested in this, and also sent to their E-mail lists.
The lack of copyright advice forcing us to rely on ourselves (namely amateurs) being a problem is old news. But this is situation where I believe amateur copyright enforcer has gone too far.
Contributors never like to hear that they misjudged copyright and must remove their work. However we must try to handle such issues with tact. At the extreme end of this problem, I believe someone from the foundation must intervene with those who claim false authority. Such as an editor who believes he knows better than others on copyright issues and implies he has the approval of the Jimbo and the ability to see that the foundation shuts down a project if the contributors do not submit to his opinion. This is an extreme case where action is needed.
Background: The most distressing part of a Russian copyright dispute regards rehabilitated prisoners, including the men and women who died in Soviet Gulags. A new Russian law, which becomes active Jan 1, 2008, will apparently restore IP rights on their works for 70 years + the date of their most recent postmortem rehabilitation. As many of these authors, such Osip Mandelstam have no heirs (the gulag authorities seems to have failed to have prisoners create wills before seeing to their early deaths) so everything will be inherited by the Union of Russian Writers and the Russian State which killed him in a concentration camp in 1938. This is obviously distressing to ex-pat contributors. They would like further opinions but are instead threatened that further delay in deleting these works will lead to the project being shut down.
Alex Spade[1]: This information and other copyright info comes from Alex Spade who delivers such information as if he has authority on copyright interpretations. He leads the contributors at ru.WS to believe he is in communication with the WMF about this matter and his rulings have WMF approval. Whether he meant to foster such a belief or simply neglected to correct it, I cannot say. From my time spent with babelfish and the community discussion page of ru.WS [2] I find the following examples to a fair representation of his tone. He did give a breakdown of why he believes the copyright issue exists, but was not open to discussion or requests for further opinions. Is it truly such an air-tight case? I am not sure. However with restorations that apparently go into effect *next* year, but are not valid now, I would be looking for other opinions as well. Even if his opinion tuns out to be correct, it cannot excuse the way he is handling this issue. Translations by Dmitrismirnov:
«Уважаемые участники, и в особенности, администраторы русской Викитеки. Даже без грядущих изменений законодательства об АП в России, вы вообще соблюдать текущее то законодательство собираетесь? Или вы добиваетесь, чтобы фонд по чьей-нибуть заявке (ну, например, моей) закрыл проект, также: как в своё время француский викицитатник? Alex Spade 11:56, 8 сентября 2007 (UTC)» Translation: Respected participants and in particular the administrators of the Russian Wikisourse, Even without the future changes of the copyright law in Russia, are you going to keep the current law? Or you strive that the Wiki-fundation would shut project by somebodys claim (for example, by mine), like it was with the French Wiki-Quote sometime ago?
And later:
Вижу, что всё сложно, и слишком много ограничений, которые разрушают всё лучшее, что есть в Викитеке. Jimbo должен знать о наших проблемах и понять наше недовольство. Надеюсь, Вы ему передадите это Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Translation:[Dmitr Simirnov: I see that all this is complicated, and there are too many limitations, which destroy all best part of the Wikisourse. Jimbo must know about our problems and understand our dissatisfaction. I hope, you will communicate this to him. Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Он об это и так знает, но лицензию GFDL никто менять не будет - видимо решили жить под не самой удачной лицензией, чем нарваться на необходимость перелицензирования миллионов страниц и изображений, созданных миллионами участников. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)
Translation: [Alex Spade: He knows about this definitely. But nobody will change the license GFDL so they probably decided to live with not the most successful license, which is better than to change of millions of pages and images, created by million participants. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Such heavy-handiness and false authority shown here are damage to the reputation of WMF. Dmitrismirnov [3] is not only a notable composer and therefore has real-world appreciation of IP rights, but he also is a valued Wikimedian as a literary translator. He is truly creating free works we would not otherwise have in the world by releasing his translations under the GFDL. We all create free work in some way, but I have a special appreciation for those who participate in the more skilled endeavors. And it especially offends me to see what I feel to be deception used to close this discussion possibly driving away a contributor I value.
Birgitte SB
[1]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alex_Spade [2]http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%... [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Nikolayevich_Smirnov_%28composer%29
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Hello,
It seems there was some problem with the Rissian text. I copied that again from the discussion http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Emergency_evacuation
I hope I did it right.
Regards,
Yann
Birgitte SB a écrit :
The lack of copyright advice forcing us to rely on ourselves (namely amateurs) being a problem is old news. But this is situation where I believe amateur copyright enforcer has gone too far.
Contributors never like to hear that they misjudged copyright and must remove their work. However we must try to handle such issues with tact. At the extreme end of this problem, I believe someone from the foundation must intervene with those who claim false authority. Such as an editor who believes he knows better than others on copyright issues and implies he has the approval of the Jimbo and the ability to see that the foundation shuts down a project if the contributors do not submit to his opinion. This is an extreme case where action is needed.
Background: The most distressing part of a Russian copyright dispute regards rehabilitated prisoners, including the men and women who died in Soviet Gulags. A new Russian law, which becomes active Jan 1, 2008, will apparently restore IP rights on their works for 70 years + the date of their most recent postmortem rehabilitation. As many of these authors, such Osip Mandelstam have no heirs (the gulag authorities seems to have failed to have prisoners create wills before seeing to their early deaths) so everything will be inherited by the Union of Russian Writers and the Russian State which killed him in a concentration camp in 1938. This is obviously distressing to ex-pat contributors. They would like further opinions but are instead threatened that further delay in deleting these works will lead to the project being shut down.
Alex Spade[1]: This information and other copyright info comes from Alex Spade who delivers such information as if he has authority on copyright interpretations. He leads the contributors at ru.WS to believe he is in communication with the WMF about this matter and his rulings have WMF approval. Whether he meant to foster such a belief or simply neglected to correct it, I cannot say. From my time spent with babelfish and the community discussion page of ru.WS [2] I find the following examples to a fair representation of his tone. He did give a breakdown of why he believes the copyright issue exists, but was not open to discussion or requests for further opinions. Is it truly such an air-tight case? I am not sure. However with restorations that apparently go into effect *next* year, but are not valid now, I would be looking for other opinions as well. Even if his opinion tuns out to be correct, it cannot excuse the way he is handling this issue. Translations by Dmitrismirnov:
«Уважаемые участники, и в особенности, администраторы русской Викитеки. Даже без грядущих изменений законодательства об АП в России, вы вообще соблюдать текущее то законодательство собираетесь? Или вы добиваетесь, чтобы фонд по чьей-нибуть заявке (ну, например, моей) закрыл проект, также: как в своё время француский викицитатник? Alex Spade 11:56, 8 сентября 2007 (UTC)»
Translation: “Respected participants and in particular the administrators of the Russian Wikisourse, Even without the future changes of the copyright law in Russia, are you going to keep the current law? Or you strive that the Wiki-fundation would shut project by somebody’s claim (for example, by mine), like it was with the French Wiki-Quote sometime ago?”
And later:
Вижу, что всё сложно, и слишком много ограничений, которые разрушают всё лучшее, что есть в Викитеке. Jimbo должен знать о наших проблемах и понять наше недовольство. Надеюсь, Вы ему передадите это Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Translation:[Dmitr Simirnov: I see that all this is complicated, and there are too many limitations, which destroy all best part of the Wikisourse. Jimbo must know about our problems and understand our dissatisfaction. I hope, you will communicate this to him. Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17
Он об это и так знает, но лицензию GFDL никто менять не будет - видимо решили жить под не самой удачной лицензией, чем нарваться на необходимость перелицензирования миллионов страниц и изображений, созданных миллионами участников. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)
Translation: [Alex Spade: He knows about this definitely. But nobody will change the license GFDL – so they probably decided to live with not the most successful license, which is better than to change of millions of pages and images, created by million participants. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Such heavy-handiness and false authority shown here are damage to the reputation of WMF. Dmitrismirnov [3] is not only a notable composer and therefore has real-world appreciation of IP rights, but he also is a valued Wikimedian as a literary translator. He is truly creating free works we would not otherwise have in the world by releasing his translations under the GFDL. We all create free work in some way, but I have a special appreciation for those who participate in the more skilled endeavors. And it especially offends me to see what I feel to be deception used to close this discussion possibly driving away a contributor I value.
Birgitte SB
[1]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alex_Spade [2]http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%... [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Nikolayevich_Smirnov_%28composer%29
First things first - NOBODY speaks for the Foundation on legal issues except its counsel, Mike Godwin. Mike is constrained in his ability to offer opinions except to his client, WMF. Mike is not the person who answers copyright questions presented by the community; however, he is in a position to address issues which can lead to potential legal problems for the Foundation itself. This situation may or may not have a legal answer satisfactory to you or anyone else, and it may or may not lead WMF to conclude something or nothing must be done.
As a community matter, however, your point is alarming - people are seeking to speak on behalf of WMF when they (clearly) are not empowered to do so, and seek to carve out their position based on proximity to the aura of Jimbo. That *does* need to be addressed.
Thanks, Birgitte!
-Brad
On 10/17/07, Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote:
Hello,
It seems there was some problem with the Rissian text. I copied that again from the discussion http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Emergency_evacuation
I hope I did it right.
Regards,
Yann
Birgitte SB a écrit :
The lack of copyright advice forcing us to rely on ourselves (namely amateurs) being a problem is old news. But this is situation where I believe amateur copyright enforcer has gone too far.
Contributors never like to hear that they misjudged copyright and must remove their work. However we must try to handle such issues with tact. At the extreme end of this problem, I believe someone from the foundation must intervene with those who claim false authority. Such as an editor who believes he knows better than others on copyright issues and implies he has the approval of the Jimbo and the ability to see that the foundation shuts down a project if the contributors do not submit to his opinion. This is an extreme case where action is needed.
Background: The most distressing part of a Russian copyright dispute regards rehabilitated prisoners, including the men and women who died in Soviet Gulags. A new Russian law, which becomes active Jan 1, 2008, will apparently restore IP rights on their works for 70 years + the date of their most recent postmortem rehabilitation. As many of these authors, such Osip Mandelstam have no heirs (the gulag authorities seems to have failed to have prisoners create wills before seeing to their early deaths) so everything will be inherited by the Union of Russian Writers and the Russian State which killed him in a concentration camp in 1938. This is obviously distressing to ex-pat contributors. They would like further opinions but are instead threatened that further delay in deleting these works will lead to the project being shut down.
Alex Spade[1]: This information and other copyright info comes from Alex Spade who delivers such information as if he has authority on copyright interpretations. He leads the contributors at ru.WS to believe he is in communication with the WMF about this matter and his rulings have WMF approval. Whether he meant to foster such a belief or simply neglected to correct it, I cannot say. From my time spent with babelfish and the community discussion page of ru.WS [2] I find the following examples to a fair representation of his tone. He did give a breakdown of why he believes the copyright issue exists, but was not open to discussion or requests for further opinions. Is it truly such an air-tight case? I am not sure. However with restorations that apparently go into effect *next* year, but are not valid now, I would be looking for other opinions as well. Even if his opinion tuns out to be correct, it cannot excuse the way he is handling this issue. Translations by Dmitrismirnov:
«Уважаемые участники, и в особенности, администраторы русской Викитеки. Даже без грядущих изменений законодательства об АП в России, вы вообще соблюдать текущее то законодательство собираетесь? Или вы добиваетесь, чтобы фонд по чьей-нибуть заявке (ну, например, моей) закрыл проект, также: как в своё время француский викицитатник? Alex Spade 11:56, 8 сентября 2007 (UTC)»
Translation: "Respected participants and in particular the administrators of the Russian Wikisourse, Even without the future changes of the copyright law in Russia, are you going to keep the current law? Or you strive that the Wiki-fundation would shut project by somebody's claim (for example, by mine), like it was with the French Wiki-Quote sometime ago?"
And later:
Вижу, что всё сложно, и слишком много ограничений, которые разрушают всё лучшее, что есть в Викитеке. Jimbo должен знать о наших проблемах и понять наше недовольство. Надеюсь, Вы ему передадите это Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Translation:[Dmitr Simirnov: I see that all this is complicated, and there are too many limitations, which destroy all best part of the Wikisourse. Jimbo must know about our problems and understand our dissatisfaction. I hope, you will communicate this to him. Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17
Он об это и так знает, но лицензию GFDL никто менять не будет - видимо решили жить под не самой удачной лицензией, чем нарваться на необходимость перелицензирования миллионов страниц и изображений, созданных миллионами участников. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)
Translation: [Alex Spade: He knows about this definitely. But nobody will change the license GFDL – so they probably decided to live with not the most successful license, which is better than to change of millions of pages and images, created by million participants. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Such heavy-handiness and false authority shown here are damage to the reputation of WMF. Dmitrismirnov [3] is not only a notable composer and therefore has real-world appreciation of IP rights, but he also is a valued Wikimedian as a literary translator. He is truly creating free works we would not otherwise have in the world by releasing his translations under the GFDL. We all create free work in some way, but I have a special appreciation for those who participate in the more skilled endeavors. And it especially offends me to see what I feel to be deception used to close this discussion possibly driving away a contributor I value.
Birgitte SB
[2]http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%...
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Nikolayevich_Smirnov_%28composer%29
-- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres
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Brad Patrick wrote:
First things first - NOBODY speaks for the Foundation on legal issues except its counsel, Mike Godwin. Mike is constrained in his ability to offer opinions except to his client, WMF. Mike is not the person who answers copyright questions presented by the community; however, he is in a position to address issues which can lead to potential legal problems for the Foundation itself. This situation may or may not have a legal answer satisfactory to you or anyone else, and it may or may not lead WMF to conclude something or nothing must be done.
As a community matter, however, your point is alarming - people are seeking to speak on behalf of WMF when they (clearly) are not empowered to do so, and seek to carve out their position based on proximity to the aura of Jimbo. That *does* need to be addressed.
And most presumably, Jimbo is not even aware he gave such power to Alex. What probably happen is that Alex wrote Jimbo a long email, and Jimbo most probably said that he supports anything that is good to the project (how could he say differently, he is not a russian ip lawyer !).
What I would first suggest is to ask Alex about his credentials to claim himself an expert on the matter. What is his nationality ? Which are his education credentials ? Does he have a professional experience on such matters ? If it turns out he is a professional on ip matter in Russia, I would suggest that he gets in contact with Mike Godwin, as his experience might prove unvaluable.
If it is not the case, it should be made clear Alex has no more standing than any editor on such matters on the russian wikipedia.
Aside from ip expertise, I would like to point out that no wikipedians and no staff member have the authority to close a project. Actually, a right word to use would not be "closing", but that Wikimedia Foundation stops supporting a project. The project could still exist, but it would have to be supported by another organization.
As such, I think that the decision to stop supporting a project is entirely within the realm of the board. Certainly not Alex. Alex can make a recommandation to "close" a project, just as any wikimedian can, just as the language committee can as well, just as Sue can recommand as well, just as Mike can recommand as well. But the final decision will be made by the board, likely after much thoughts and discussions. As far as I know, there is no planning to close this project. Last, when I say the decision will be made by the board, I really mean it. The board is made of 7 people, Jimbo being one of them.
I'd be happy to drop a word in the right place in the russian discussion, to clarify this.
However, I'd like that someone clarifies what Alex educational and professional background is. If I remember well, and unless I am mistaking, Alex is not russian, but an english editor. At least, I remember some interactions with him on the english wikipedia, hmmm, at least 3 years ago.
Ant
Thanks, Birgitte!
-Brad
On 10/17/07, Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote:
Hello,
It seems there was some problem with the Rissian text. I copied that again from the discussion http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Emergency_evacuation
I hope I did it right.
Regards,
Yann
Birgitte SB a écrit :
The lack of copyright advice forcing us to rely on ourselves (namely amateurs) being a problem is old news. But this is situation where I believe amateur copyright enforcer has gone too far.
Contributors never like to hear that they misjudged copyright and must remove their work. However we must try to handle such issues with tact. At the extreme end of this problem, I believe someone from the foundation must intervene with those who claim false authority. Such as an editor who believes he knows better than others on copyright issues and implies he has the approval of the Jimbo and the ability to see that the foundation shuts down a project if the contributors do not submit to his opinion. This is an extreme case where action is needed.
Background: The most distressing part of a Russian copyright dispute regards rehabilitated prisoners, including the men and women who died in Soviet Gulags. A new Russian law, which becomes active Jan 1, 2008, will apparently restore IP rights on their works for 70 years + the date of their most recent postmortem rehabilitation. As many of these authors, such Osip Mandelstam have no heirs (the gulag authorities seems to have failed to have prisoners create wills before seeing to their early deaths) so everything will be inherited by the Union of Russian Writers and the Russian State which killed him in a concentration camp in 1938. This is obviously distressing to ex-pat contributors. They would like further opinions but are instead threatened that further delay in deleting these works will lead to the project being shut down.
Alex Spade[1]: This information and other copyright info comes from Alex Spade who delivers such information as if he has authority on copyright interpretations. He leads the contributors at ru.WS to believe he is in communication with the WMF about this matter and his rulings have WMF approval. Whether he meant to foster such a belief or simply neglected to correct it, I cannot say. From my time spent with babelfish and the community discussion page of ru.WS [2] I find the following examples to a fair representation of his tone. He did give a breakdown of why he believes the copyright issue exists, but was not open to discussion or requests for further opinions. Is it truly such an air-tight case? I am not sure. However with restorations that apparently go into effect *next* year, but are not valid now, I would be looking for other opinions as well. Even if his opinion tuns out to be correct, it cannot excuse the way he is handling this issue. Translations by Dmitrismirnov:
«Уважаемые участники, и в особенности, администраторы русской Викитеки. Даже без грядущих изменений законодательства об АП в России, вы вообще соблюдать текущее то законодательство собираетесь? Или вы добиваетесь, чтобы фонд по чьей-нибуть заявке (ну, например, моей) закрыл проект, также: как в своё время француский викицитатник? Alex Spade 11:56, 8 сентября 2007 (UTC)»
Translation: "Respected participants and in particular the administrators of the Russian Wikisourse, Even without the future changes of the copyright law in Russia, are you going to keep the current law? Or you strive that the Wiki-fundation would shut project by somebody's claim (for example, by mine), like it was with the French Wiki-Quote sometime ago?"
And later:
Вижу, что всё сложно, и слишком много ограничений, которые разрушают всё лучшее, что есть в Викитеке. Jimbo должен знать о наших проблемах и понять наше недовольство. Надеюсь, Вы ему передадите это Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Translation:[Dmitr Simirnov: I see that all this is complicated, and there are too many limitations, which destroy all best part of the Wikisourse. Jimbo must know about our problems and understand our dissatisfaction. I hope, you will communicate this to him. Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17
Он об это и так знает, но лицензию GFDL никто менять не будет - видимо решили жить под не самой удачной лицензией, чем нарваться на необходимость перелицензирования миллионов страниц и изображений, созданных миллионами участников. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)
Translation: [Alex Spade: He knows about this definitely. But nobody will change the license GFDL – so they probably decided to live with not the most successful license, which is better than to change of millions of pages and images, created by million participants. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]
Such heavy-handiness and false authority shown here are damage to the reputation of WMF. Dmitrismirnov [3] is not only a notable composer and therefore has real-world appreciation of IP rights, but he also is a valued Wikimedian as a literary translator. He is truly creating free works we would not otherwise have in the world by releasing his translations under the GFDL. We all create free work in some way, but I have a special appreciation for those who participate in the more skilled endeavors. And it especially offends me to see what I feel to be deception used to close this discussion possibly driving away a contributor I value.
Birgitte SB
[2]http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%... [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Nikolayevich_Smirnov_%28composer%29
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Such as an editor who believes he knows better than others on copyright issues and implies he has the approval of the Jimbo and the ability to see that the foundation shuts down a project if the contributors do not submit to his opinion. This is an extreme case where action is needed.
We need a new rule: "Thou shalt not take Jimbo's name in vain."
If Jimbo has an opinion on an issue, he can speak for himself, I'm sure.
On 17/10/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Such as an editor who believes he knows better than others on copyright issues and implies he has the approval of the Jimbo and the ability to see that the foundation shuts down a project if the contributors do not submit to his opinion. This is an extreme case where action is needed.
We need a new rule: "Thou shalt not take Jimbo's name in vain."
Referring to such as "Jimbomancy" is helpful in English.
If Jimbo has an opinion on an issue, he can speak for himself, I'm sure.
Thankfully he usually diplomatically refrains from such ;-)
- d.
Delphine Ménard wrote:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
Welcome to Franz Kafka's real world!
I often find that it's my most imaginative ideas that are ignored. When I read the messages of others it's easy when I can respond with a one-liner, but when someone like Anthere produces one of her most thoughtful comments to which I really want to reply I find myself paralyzed in contemplation with wanting to respond in a way that is just as thoughtful. The result is that much of what I want to say remains unsaid. Her comments to start the tread on "Governance" is a good example of that.
In Boston you commented to me quite rightly that you find some of my posts interesting, but tending to come too late in the thread. I often wonder whether there is any cure for that. I completely avoid IRC, because by the time that I would be ready to make a thoughtful response everyone else would have moved on to a different topic. As my teenage son, who manages several chat room conversations at the same time says, "Dad, you think too much."
Others who have responded to your request are quick to prescribe a set of steps or rules to deal with the problem. I don't think any of them will work, because we are dealing with a fundamental problem of human nature. This is compounded by the very real problem of information overload. That problem forces us to choose between alternative applications of our time, because it would be physically impossible to deal with all the demands.
There is no easily apparent result when one is asked to express their ideas in a broadly visionary way. Learning to vision is just not a part of our upbringing. I can easily imagine Jimbo in January of 2001 telling people about his plans for an encyclopedia, and receiving comments akin to Bill Cosby's "Riight! How long can tread water?" On the oher hand, when an apparently complete proposal is presented there is a near immediate response to specific criticism, and even an outright rejection can be satisfying if it comes immediately. It ties in with a broader need for instant gratification. Look at the energy that is often expended on deleting a tiny stub of an article with questionable notability. This absolutely ignorable backwater of the database becomes important by virtue of the emphasis on its unimportance. Nature's efficiencies include a tolerance for the useless. One can only wonder what would happen if the question of whether men should retain their nipples were put through one of our democratic processes.
I think that we have a lot of broader social trends that come into play here than most people are not even willing to imagine. I do not use the term paradigm shift lightly, but I do see us stuvk in one where it is easy to sympathize with the offspring of the Grand Inquisitor who would do whatever it takes to preserve a comfortable established order.
As we grow up we enclose and trap ourselves in a net of preconceptions. Democratic structures require a balance between diligence and trust before they can become fully effective. Trust also requires us to Assume Good Faith, and that's difficult to do when one is afraid of losing everything he doesn't have. It's so much easier to flounder about in Dante's fourth circle.
Thank you Delphine for providing me with an opportunity to rant. ;-)
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Delphine Ménard wrote:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
Welcome to Franz Kafka's real world!
I often find that it's my most imaginative ideas that are ignored. When I read the messages of others it's easy when I can respond with a one-liner, but when someone like Anthere produces one of her most thoughtful comments to which I really want to reply I find myself paralyzed in contemplation with wanting to respond in a way that is just as thoughtful. The result is that much of what I want to say remains unsaid. Her comments to start the tread on "Governance" is a good example of that.
In Boston you commented to me quite rightly that you find some of my posts interesting, but tending to come too late in the thread. I often wonder whether there is any cure for that. I completely avoid IRC, because by the time that I would be ready to make a thoughtful response everyone else would have moved on to a different topic. As my teenage son, who manages several chat room conversations at the same time says, "Dad, you think too much."
Others who have responded to your request are quick to prescribe a set of steps or rules to deal with the problem. I don't think any of them will work, because we are dealing with a fundamental problem of human nature. This is compounded by the very real problem of information overload. That problem forces us to choose between alternative applications of our time, because it would be physically impossible to deal with all the demands.
There is no easily apparent result when one is asked to express their ideas in a broadly visionary way. Learning to vision is just not a part of our upbringing. I can easily imagine Jimbo in January of 2001 telling people about his plans for an encyclopedia, and receiving comments akin to Bill Cosby's "Riight! How long can tread water?" On the oher hand, when an apparently complete proposal is presented there is a near immediate response to specific criticism, and even an outright rejection can be satisfying if it comes immediately. It ties in with a broader need for instant gratification. Look at the energy that is often expended on deleting a tiny stub of an article with questionable notability. This absolutely ignorable backwater of the database becomes important by virtue of the emphasis on its unimportance. Nature's efficiencies include a tolerance for the useless. One can only wonder what would happen if the question of whether men should retain their nipples were put through one of our democratic processes.
I think that we have a lot of broader social trends that come into play here than most people are not even willing to imagine. I do not use the term paradigm shift lightly, but I do see us stuvk in one where it is easy to sympathize with the offspring of the Grand Inquisitor who would do whatever it takes to preserve a comfortable established order.
As we grow up we enclose and trap ourselves in a net of preconceptions. Democratic structures require a balance between diligence and trust before they can become fully effective. Trust also requires us to Assume Good Faith, and that's difficult to do when one is afraid of losing everything he doesn't have. It's so much easier to flounder about in Dante's fourth circle.
Thank you Delphine for providing me with an opportunity to rant. ;-)
Ec
:-)
Amen
Delphine Ménard wrote:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
Delphine
ٍSimply because the place for discussion (fndn mailing list) isn't visible to many people.. and sometimes people just skip emails because there are so many (at least me ;)).. as said..there should be a place where all thoughts and ideas related to a particular subject is wrote and let all people know about it...
On 4/26/07, Mohamed Magdy mohamed.m.k@gmail.com wrote:
ٍSimply because the place for discussion (fndn mailing list) isn't visible to many people.. and sometimes people just skip emails because there are so many (at least me ;)).. as said..there should be a place where all thoughts and ideas related to a particular subject is wrote and let all people know about it...
I've found Wikipedia Signpost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost) to be an excellent resource for this sort of news pertaining to Wikipedia. While it may not have prevented this particular case of miscommunication, having a "Wikimedia Signpost" of sorts with significant open communication between its writers and the board, would probably be extremely helpful. If there is enough interest the most important articles could even be translated into multiple languages.
Wikipedia Signpost covers a lot of these Wikimedia issues already. I'm not sure if this issue was adequately covered there, as I just found out about Wikipedia Signpost recently. In any case, this is only part of the issue, but I think we all need to admit that there are still some serious communication issues within the WMF.
Anthony
2007/4/26, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Well, I'm not sure, I remember too few cases of either happening (being asked for input or getting something approved) to make a judgement, but I think it might have to do with the difference between 'vague' and 'concrete'.
If there is a request, it's usually quite vague (what should we do about this?). When there is something approved, it's well-defined and clear. And it's much easier to say what's good and bad about a specific solution than to make good input on what a solution should look like without any further specification.
In other words, people often have no idea what the solution should be, not rarely don't even have a clear view of what the question is that an answer is asked on, but when a given solution is proposed, it is quite easy to see what one does and does not like in it, and how (in a certain person's idea) it can be improved.
To get a hypothetical example: "We want to streamline the decision procedures for sysops on the various projects. Does anyone have a good idea how to do so?" will not get you much input, useful or otherwise. But "From now on each project should use this-and-this procedure to select sysops that we have devised" will get very much reaction from people who either don't like the idea of a single procedure at all or have problems with the proposed procedure.
2007/4/26, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds something to say?
Could you please give examples? Where has community input been asked and not given?
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