Ray Saintonge wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Angela wrote:
On 11/9/05, Anthere
<anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> I no longer think an uneditable wiki is the
best way to present the
> Foundation to the world.
I'll let other people make that decision.
I'd like to know if anyone still thinks it is a good idea, and if so
why? It clearly doesn't present an official view, so where is the
benefit in it being uneditable?
To whatever extent there really is official policy it makes sense that
it is uneditable, but there should be ample opportunity to comment that
is directly linked from the uneditable pages.
We then go back to the idea of the blog or of commenting spaces.
The current most pressing point imho is that editors can not directly
comment on news or even on pages. It would be helpful that talk pages
are opened to anyone, while the pages themselves have a restricted
access. I do not know if this is technically possible. Does anyone know ?
OR, it would make sense that the "news" section on the main page is
transformed in a collective blog, when anyone can comment at will any news.
Incidently, if
you read Traroth report, It says
1) Le Louvres is a famous french museum; hosting art, with most of it
much much older than 100 years old, so likely to be considered owned
by humanity
2) Le Louvres has started forbidding taking pictures from this art
3) Only photographers authorized to take picture of art will be Le
Louvres photographers, so ALL photos will be under cp. Which means
that unless you go to Paris and pay the entrance, all this artwork
will be only visible through work under copyright. None will be free
to use.
4) And Traroth concludes he does not think art and freedom will gain
much of this;
Now, on another note, compare it to Jimbo's speech at Wikimania, about
freeing 10 things...
How different is that ? How unofficial is it to try to push so that
people are free to take pictures of famous paintings 500 years old ?
To me, there is no difference. What Jimbo said in his Wikimania speech
is exactly what Traroth says about what is happening in Le Louvres;
The only difference is that Jimbo was speaking generally, while
Traroth is taking an example. But if the Foundation agrees that what
Le Louvres is doing (ie if the Foundation public view is that
forbidding access to old painting is just fine) then I must say I do
not agree with the Foundation public view at all.
I will go further in saying that Jimbo's public speech does not fit
either with the Foundation position.
Then, if neither Jimbo's nor my position are the positions of the
Foundation... how do we define what the official position of the
Foundation is ?
Isn't that the function of the Board? The Board can and should support
a policy of "freeing" the art and the museums, and explain what that
means in general terms. It should avoid taking that into great detail
because of the wide variety of country specific or project specific
circumstances that can exist. The wonder of NPOV is that it is very
difficult to pin down in a way that can be applied the same way to all
projects; at the same time it has been a key factor in Wikipedia's success.
When it comes to the Louvre situation it shoudl not be up to the
Foundation to take a specific stand about those circumstances, but it
can take the position in principle that photographs of portraits that
have themselves gone into the public domain in the relevant country are
not copyrightable. The French association may be able to elaborate this
further in relation to what its members may do in France, and what ways
of circumventing unjust rules are acceptable. If I visit France, and
choose to sneak a camera into the Louvre, I can still do so at my own risk.
Now, there is another important point.
Traroth position on Le Louvres issue is clearly supported by Wikimedia
France. Similarly, other people are currently working to free some
information, such as the people working on the ESA images issue. Most
of these actions are linked with the French and/or German associations.
Should we also remove all descriptions of what the german and french
associations are doing from the WMF website, upon the principle that
those actions are not official views of the Foundation ? Does that
mean what the associations do are contrary to the Foundation goals ?
Not at all.
I am quite worried of what you seem to imply in
saying that this
article does not reprensent our official view, because it represents
my view and quite probably the view of at least one chapter. If we
remove everything but only what Jimbo's words, then, I agree, there is
no sense in that website.
Whole Foundation views are not just about your or Jimbo's words. It is
always a problem when an organization has one key leader whose words are
so influential that they will be taken as absolute truth or duty. He
becomes trapped in his role as an idol. and must be careful with his
words lest some idiot take a ridiculously extreme interpretation. This
is why it's even more important for the Board to take a collective
representative position.
Ec
Agreed.
The main problem we then face here is basically that I am nearly the
only board member interested in putting information there, that goes
beyond just adding news to the news section.
Michael, I think, never added anything (he is working a lot on the
financial side in particular, but does so behind curtains). Tim has only
added meeting notes. Angela is mostly editing the news section. Jimbo, I
think, only ever added the announcement of Danny's employment. Even
pages such as benefactors are not updated.
We can not talk of taking a collective representative position when 4
members just do not comment publicly on their position. I could try to
add what I think is a summary, but how representative can it be if board
members do not even check what is written at all ?
You would believe it could be just managed the wikipedia way (cite your
sources...), but even this is not possible, as most discussions are in
private mails or on private mailing lists... so can not be cited at all.
So... trapped between the
* you can not talk in other people name
* but you can not cite their words either
What is left ?
Not much.
At this point, I can go back to my own blog and at least talk in my
name. Any other information, editors or non editors can go and seek it
with other board members or officers. If one wants to know more about
our grants, he may go and ask Danny. If one wants to know more about our
current legal issues, he can go and ask directly to Soufron. If one
wants to know more about business deals, he can go and directly ask to
Jimbo. Is that efficient ? Absolutely not.
Collective information can only provided if
* people collectively produce it
* or if people agrees that one of them provide, with the inherent risk
of erroneous interpretation.
To my opinion, the Foundation website should reflect what it is taking
care of, what its activity is, what is the opinion of its individual
members, or its collective opinion, as well as what the chapters are doing.
Fact is, if nothing is written at all, either the opinion will be that
we do nothing, or it will be that we are not transparent.
ant