Lilburne writes:
"> My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well
as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me,
"Those will all be Google shills correct?"
Incorrect. My work, and EFF's work, to take two example, predate Google's involvement in public policy by 15 years.
I understand that for "keyboard cowboys" it may be hard to understand that mere agreement with a corporation some of the time does not equal being a "shill" and does not entail agreeing with a corporation all the time. But those of us who actually do activism and public policy work know who we are and why we do it.
In those contexts, I've never heard of you before. Tell us more about your activism and public-policy work!
--Mike
On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 5:42 AM, wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
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Today's Topics:
- Re: Fwd: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships (Cristian Consonni)
- Call for Election Committee candidates (Alice Wiegand)
- Re: Fwd: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships (Anthony Cole)
- Re: Fwd: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships (Gerard Meijssen)
- Re: Announcing: The Wikipedia Prize! (Lila Tretikov)
- Re: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships (Lilburne)
Message: 1 Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 19:44:21 +0200 From: Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Message-ID: CAEs8i0h8LKHtDEMb-Erw02ZrKNnT+MdXdjYs9pGmDOGeveKvcg@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi Andreas,
2015-04-02 18:25 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
As mentioned previously, what I have seen is recent additions to Internet.org, describing Internet.org app launches bundling Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Zero (along with a small and varying number of other sites) in the following countries:
I need another clarification. As far as I know (and I recall a question in the board Q&A at Wikimania in London), it's internet.org making available Wikipedia content (as per the license) on their app. It is not an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation and (therefore) it is not related to Wikipedia Zero. Also, internet.org/Facebook can do this thanks to our license (more below). Unless something changed in the last months you can not say that Wikipedia Zero is bundled with Facebook Zero.
[...]
Note that Facebook actually seems to contain a complete mirror of Wikipedia, judging by the presence of even fairly obscure Wikipedia articles on its pages (selected using "Random article"). See e.g.
This is failry old news, these pages exists since 2010: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/21721
Given the limitations Wikipedia Zero users labour under, it is actually fairly immaterial to users whether they see the Wikipedia article in Facebook Zero or Wikipedia Zero. The key difference is that in Facebook Zero, they will not see Wikipedia's logo and fundraising banners. (They also can't see the talk pages in Facebook.) They will have a less clear impression of Wikipedia's brand, and the whole thing will still primarily be a Facebook experience to them.
I see the problem, but this is not related at all with Net Neutrality.
This is what you can do with any free/libre content. There is no way to stop Facebook (or Flickr [sic et simpliciter]) from reusing our content. Let me quote SJ (again from the Board Q&A in London) "Please reuse our content". There should be as few limitations as possible to reusing the content, in principle. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia for this very exact reason after all. Even in a world with the strongest possible Net Neutrality laws in force Facebook will be able to do this.
Let me weigh in another argument, I know that the idea of a "Public space on the internet" is accepted even in the framework of Net Neutrality. The idea is that some list of websites that offer public services (e.g. government websites, public libraries websites, schools and universities websites) should always be accessible with no charge. In this view Wikipedia could be included in the list as an educational non-profit (other projects may also be included, e. g. the Khan Academy). Wikimedia Foundation, in this sense, is leading by example.
C
Message: 2 Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 22:28:47 +0200 From: Alice Wiegand awiegand@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Election Committee candidates Message-ID: CAJO1yKBSi+DgQhjf4m-Z1BtgSx1PV_F5E72vPW8=BZ=d5j8h2g@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi Everyone,
2015 is an election year for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees as well as for the Funds Dissemination Committee https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee.
As you may recall the Board has three directly-elected members who serve for two years. Currently they are Phoebe Ayers (Phoebe https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe), Samuel Klein (SJ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sj) and María Sefidari (Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm). As in the past years we rely on an effective election committee to coordinate the elections for us along with staff support and a Board liaison. Not only do they guarantee that the election is overseen by an independent body, but they also make sure that the tremendous amount of work that needs to be done is taken care of. My job, as this year's Board liaison, is to coordinate the formation of this committee and to support them in their work while serving as the primary point of contact with the Board regarding the process..
This is a call for volunteers to serve on the election committee. If you feel that you can contribute to this committee, please email James Alexander (Jalexander@wikimedia.org) and give a small summary of why you think you would be able to help out with this process.
The Committee is responsible for planning and maintaining virtually every aspect of the Board election. For example, the Committee plans the type of voting, suffrage criteria, and criteria for candidacy, helps to draft and organize all of the official election pages on Meta, verifies that candidates and voters meet the criteria, audits votes to ensure there are no duplicate votes or other problems, et cetera. You can expect that this work will take an average 5-10 hours a week with a few periods of relative quiet and a few periods of heavy work during and after each election (the FDC and Board elections are planned to be separate this year).
If you decide to join the committee you will have to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_handbook/email_templates#Notification_that_identification_is_required because of the personal information you have access too and must be at least 18 years of age. In addition you cannot be part of the election committee if you are planning to be a candidate or are planning to support any candidate publicly.
To ensure we get going as quickly as possible, committee members will start to be seated as soon as we have 4-5 good candidates with an anticipated first meeting of Friday April 10th (or soon after, depending on committee availability). The deadline for volunteers, however, is Friday, April 17th UTC 12:00.
The committee and staff will be setting up the election pages soon and the call for candidates, led by a letter from the Board, which will be going out shortly. If you're interested in running for either the Board or the FDC, I encourage you to read up on prior elections https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013and the groups themselves to prepare your statements!
Regards, Alice.
-- Alice Wiegand Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Message: 3 Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 07:52:20 +0800 From: Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Message-ID: CADnSFR+WrE3pb06tgw3vhfxQu_VriZSDDEaLJg6eW6c=5LV7-Q@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
No one would care about Wikipedia Zero if Wikipedia was a reliable source.
Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole
On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 1:44 AM, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Andreas,
2015-04-02 18:25 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cristian Consonni <
kikkocristian@gmail.com>
wrote:
2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
As mentioned previously, what I have seen is recent additions to Internet.org, describing Internet.org app launches bundling Wikipedia
Zero
and Facebook Zero (along with a small and varying number of other sites)
in
the following countries:
I need another clarification. As far as I know (and I recall a question in the board Q&A at Wikimania in London), it's internet.org making available Wikipedia content (as per the license) on their app. It is not an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation and (therefore) it is not related to Wikipedia Zero. Also, internet.org/Facebook can do this thanks to our license (more below). Unless something changed in the last months you can not say that Wikipedia Zero is bundled with Facebook Zero.
[...]
Note that Facebook actually seems to contain a complete mirror of Wikipedia, judging by the presence of even fairly obscure Wikipedia articles on its pages (selected using "Random article"). See e.g.
This is failry old news, these pages exists since 2010: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/21721
Given the limitations Wikipedia Zero users labour under, it is actually fairly immaterial to users whether they see the Wikipedia article in Facebook Zero or Wikipedia Zero. The key difference is that in Facebook Zero, they will not see Wikipedia's logo and fundraising banners. (They also can't see the talk pages in Facebook.) They will have a less clear impression of Wikipedia's brand, and the whole thing will still primarily be a Facebook experience to them.
I see the problem, but this is not related at all with Net Neutrality.
This is what you can do with any free/libre content. There is no way to stop Facebook (or Flickr [sic et simpliciter]) from reusing our content. Let me quote SJ (again from the Board Q&A in London) "Please reuse our content". There should be as few limitations as possible to reusing the content, in principle. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia for this very exact reason after all. Even in a world with the strongest possible Net Neutrality laws in force Facebook will be able to do this.
Let me weigh in another argument, I know that the idea of a "Public space on the internet" is accepted even in the framework of Net Neutrality. The idea is that some list of websites that offer public services (e.g. government websites, public libraries websites, schools and universities websites) should always be accessible with no charge. In this view Wikipedia could be included in the list as an educational non-profit (other projects may also be included, e. g. the Khan Academy). Wikimedia Foundation, in this sense, is leading by example.
C
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Message: 4 Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 07:36:48 +0200 From: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Message-ID: CAO53wxVusfbyBrX-pAqHgjfKYmZ97=UEXb+WUnwRW4mThy7aqw@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hoi, Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an encyclopaedia. It is not original research. Studies have indicated that Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors. Wikipedia does link ever more to the VIAF indicators by the OCLC and thereby it links to the sum of all knowledge as it is available in libraries.
I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed, people do care about Wikipedia Zero. It is why Wikipedia Zero is not part of any walled garden; it is there for every company who cares to provide it free of charge.
For the rest I find that I am getting annoyed. Thanks, GerardM
On 5 April 2015 at 01:52, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
No one would care about Wikipedia Zero if Wikipedia was a reliable source.
Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole
On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 1:44 AM, Cristian Consonni <kikkocristian@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi Andreas,
2015-04-02 18:25 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cristian Consonni <
kikkocristian@gmail.com>
wrote:
2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
As mentioned previously, what I have seen is recent additions to Internet.org, describing Internet.org app launches bundling Wikipedia
Zero
and Facebook Zero (along with a small and varying number of other
sites)
in
the following countries:
I need another clarification. As far as I know (and I recall a question in the board Q&A at Wikimania in London), it's internet.org making available Wikipedia content (as per the license) on their app. It is not an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation and (therefore) it is not related to Wikipedia Zero. Also, internet.org/Facebook can do this thanks to our license (more below). Unless something changed in the last months you can not say that Wikipedia Zero is bundled with Facebook Zero.
[...]
Note that Facebook actually seems to contain a complete mirror of Wikipedia, judging by the presence of even fairly obscure Wikipedia articles on its pages (selected using "Random article"). See e.g.
This is failry old news, these pages exists since 2010: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/21721
Given the limitations Wikipedia Zero users labour under, it is actually fairly immaterial to users whether they see the Wikipedia article in Facebook Zero or Wikipedia Zero. The key difference is that in Facebook Zero, they will not see Wikipedia's logo and fundraising banners. (They also can't see the talk pages in Facebook.) They will have a less clear impression of Wikipedia's brand, and the whole thing will still
primarily
be a Facebook experience to them.
I see the problem, but this is not related at all with Net Neutrality.
This is what you can do with any free/libre content. There is no way to stop Facebook (or Flickr [sic et simpliciter]) from reusing our content. Let me quote SJ (again from the Board Q&A in London) "Please reuse our content". There should be as few limitations as possible to reusing the content, in principle. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia for this very exact reason after all. Even in a world with the strongest possible Net Neutrality laws in force Facebook will be able to do this.
Let me weigh in another argument, I know that the idea of a "Public space on the internet" is accepted even in the framework of Net Neutrality. The idea is that some list of websites that offer public services (e.g. government websites, public libraries websites, schools and universities websites) should always be accessible with no charge. In this view Wikipedia could be included in the list as an educational non-profit (other projects may also be included, e. g. the Khan Academy). Wikimedia Foundation, in this sense, is leading by example.
C
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Message: 5 Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 02:30:05 -0700 From: Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing: The Wikipedia Prize! Message-ID: CAByo0cFuwM9Sq0TY_ZUcMzVpsqKmp1NRGbkV_fz8fozj9T11FQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
All,
As Tim mentioned we are seriously looking at privacy/identity/security/anonymity issues, specifically as it pertains to IP address exposure -- both from legal and technical standpoint. This won't happen overnight as we need to get people to work on this and there are a lot of asks, but this is on our radar.
On a related note, let's skip the sarcasm and treat each other with straightforward honestly. And for non-English speakers -- who are also (if not more) in need of this -- sarcasm can be very confusing.
Thanks, Lila
On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 4:02 PM, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Brian,
2015-03-30 0:25 GMT+02:00 Brian reflection@gmail.com:
Although the initial goal of the Netflix Prize was to design a collaborative filtering algorithm, it became notorious when the data was used to de-anonymize Netflix users. Researchers proved that given just a user's movie ratings on one site, you can plug those ratings into another site, such as the IMDB. You can then take that information, and with some Google searches and optionally a bit of cash (for websites that sell user information, including, in some cases, their SSN) figure out who they
are.
You could even drive up to their house and take a selfie with them, or follow them to work and meet their boss and tell them about their views
on
the topics they were editing.
somewhat tangentially, and to bring back this to topic to a more scientific setting I would like to point out that there has already been reasearch in the past on this topic.
I highly recommend reading the following paper:
Lieberman, Michael D., and Jimmy Lin. "You Are Where You Edit: Locating Wikipedia Contributors through Edit Histories." ICWSM. 2009. (PDF < http://www.pensivepuffin.com/dwmcphd/syllabi/infx598_wi12/papers/wikipedia/l...
)
For those of you that don't want to read the whole paper, you can find a recap of the most relevant findings in this presentation by Maurizio Napolitano: < http://www.slideshare.net/napo/social-geography-wikipedia-a-quick-overwiew
The main idea is associating spatial coordinates to a Wikipedia articles when possible, this articles are called "geopages". Then you extract from the history of articles the users which have edited a geopage. If you plot the geopages edited by a given contributor you can see that they tend to cluster, so you can define an "edit area". The study finds that 30-35% of contributors concentrate their edits in an edit area smaller than 1 deg^2 (~12,362 km^2, approximately the area of Connecticut or Northern Ireland[1] (thanks, Wikipedia!)).
For another free/libre project with a geographic focus like OpenStreetMap this is even more marked, check out for example this tool «“Your OSM Heat Map” (aka Where did you contribute?)»[2] by Pascal Neis.
This, of course, is not a straightforward de-anonimization but this methods work in principle for every contributor even if you obfuscate their IP or username (provided that you can still assign all the edits from a given user to a unique and univocal identifier)
C [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_degree [2a] http://yosmhm.neis-one.org/ [2b] http://neis-one.org/2011/08/yosmhm/
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Message: 6 Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2015 10:41:59 +0100 From: Lilburne lilburne@tygers-of-wrath.net To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Message-ID: 55210367.6020807@tygers-of-wrath.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
On 02/04/2015 02:54, Mike Godwin wrote:
Andreas writes:
"Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view."
I said there are no facts, and you responded by citing opinion pieces. That's cool, but opinions are not themselves facts.
Furthermore, in some circles, I've been considered from time to time to be someone "prominent" whose entire career has been dedicated to a free and open web. If you're suggesting that everyone -- or even everyone "prominent" -- who believes in a free and open web "very strongly" disagrees with me, then you are misinformed.
No we think that there are relationships between faux advocacy and what benefits large multinational tech corporations to the detriment of everyone else. That we do not see 'citizen advocacy' groups speak out against the rape of privacy that online web operators engage in, that they speak mainly of governments who by and large out-source the surveillance to private companies.
For example did the EFF speak out about Google using "Apps for Education" to profile kids? No totally silent on the vile behavour of its pay master: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/04/30/google-stops-data-mining-student...
There is an honest difference of opinion about what the developing world needs first. And, in my experience, it is only individuals in developed, industrialized countries with very little direct knowledge about the infrastructural and access challenges in developing countries who imagine that zero-rated services are categorically a threat to "a free and open web.
That "free and open" is bullshit for the entrenchment of the status quo. That Government turned a blind eye to the abuses in the early days, effectively allowing monopolies to become established and that it about time that they reigned the bastards back. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/modernise_safe_harbour_for_the_tech_...
I've actually written about this issue at length, and will be publishing another article on the issue next week. I'll post the link here when I have it.
Whether the U.S. government's Federal Communications is not itself a "prominent organization" that has committed itself to "a free and open web" is a proposition worth challenging is, of course, up to you. But I hope you don't expect such a challenge to be taken seriously. I know the FCC's new Report and Order on net neutrality is a very long (400-page) document, and there is of course no requirement that you actually have read it (much less some appreciable fraction of the comments that led to it). But I've done so. The FCC expressly refused to adopt the categorical, simplistic, binary approach you have posted here.
Yeah we heard that. That despite all the supposed brouhaha http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/us-usa-internet-google-idUSKBN0L91...
The FCC came out in favour of - GOOGLE http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/13/net_neutrality_rules/
I gather that a recent FTC report is being investigated by a Senate that is waking up to the fiddling that is going on http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/03/senate_to_probe_obamagoogle_lovein/
My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me,
Those will all be Google shills correct? http://www.scribd.com/doc/103158031/Google-Shill-List http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/10/sopa_copyright_voluntary_...
In effect it is becoming clearer and clearer that the later day robber barons, their supporters and fellow travellers need a clear lessons in citizenship. That the rule of law is catching up. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/03/us/califomia-revenge-porn-sentence/index.html
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End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 133, Issue 17
On 05/04/2015 14:13, Mike Godwin wrote:
Lilburne writes:
"> My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well
as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me,
"Those will all be Google shills correct?"
Incorrect. My work, and EFF's work, to take two example, predate Google's involvement in public policy by 15 years.
Really! Seems that the EFF et al have been shilling for tech corporations at the expense of consumers for about 15 years or so. The others from the day before they formed.
I understand that for "keyboard cowboys" it may be hard to understand that mere agreement with a corporation some of the time does not equal being a "shill" and does not entail agreeing with a corporation all the time. But those of us who actually do activism and public policy work know who we are and why we do it.
Its not a case of 'sometimes' its nigh on all the time. You'd be more accurate to list the dozen or so times in the last 15 years when the EFF hasn't played drum major to corporate tech, beating out a voodoo rhythm to entrance the unwary.
In those contexts, I've never heard of you before. Tell us more about your activism and public-policy work!
Well one thing I don't need to go about name dropping to justify my words.
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