Il giorno 26/apr/07, alle ore 10:53, Delphine Ménard ha scritto: 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

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(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 26/04/07, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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" :) -- schiste

On 4/26/07, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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

Delphine Ménard 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...

2007/4/26, Delphine Ménard <notafishz(a)gmail.com>om>: 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. -- Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

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 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%… [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Nikolayevich_Smirnov_%28composer%29 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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(a)forget-me.net> wrote:

On 17/10/2007, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Referring to such as "Jimbomancy" is helpful in English. Thankfully he usually diplomatically refrains from such ;-) - d.