Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory. For example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] should become mandatory as a guideline to all projects. This article is very important as it put into practice the NPOV principle as well as the desicion-by-consensus and the differentiation between facts and views principles. I suppose there are other recommendation of this kind that should become mandatory guidelines. I am not suggesting a constitution or a full rule book. I do suggest to carefully single out several basic principles, since the projects' autonomy is a bit too wide, especially as we want to promote cross-contributions between projects. Dror
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On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 2:49 PM, Dror K dror1975@icqmail.com wrote:
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed.
Why? Things have worked pretty well so far, on many projects.
Also, ignore all rules ;-)
Magnus
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 2:49 PM, Dror K dror1975@icqmail.com wrote:
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed.
Why? Things have worked pretty well so far, on many projects.
And on others, not so much. We have projects where the community is dictated to by a vocal minority of administrators; we even have editors organized into hierarchies based on the quantity and quality of their contributions. I've had administrators on minor-language Wikipedias stare at me blankly when I explained the concept of NPOV, and it was less than a year ago that we had to explain the notion of Free licensing to a not-so-minor language project, who, when informed that their "used with permission" images weren't acceptable under the GFDL, wanted the Foundation to pursue reusers after they re-tagged them GFDL.
Back in Days of Yore, when our view was "if you build it, they will come," we set up lots of Wikipedias without actual communities of editors. What filled the vacuum wasn't always connected with the broader Wikimedia community, and we shouldn't assume that everyone falls in line with the "mainstream" culture of our European-language projects.
Austin
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 2:49 PM, Dror K dror1975@icqmail.com wrote:
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed.
Why? Things have worked pretty well so far, on many projects.
And on others, not so much. We have projects where the community is dictated to by a vocal minority of administrators; we even have editors organized into hierarchies based on the quantity and quality of their contributions. I've had administrators on minor-language Wikipedias stare at me blankly when I explained the concept of NPOV, and it was less than a year ago that we had to explain the notion of Free licensing to a not-so-minor language project, who, when informed that their "used with permission" images weren't acceptable under the GFDL, wanted the Foundation to pursue reusers after they re-tagged them GFDL.
Back in Days of Yore, when our view was "if you build it, they will come," we set up lots of Wikipedias without actual communities of editors. What filled the vacuum wasn't always connected with the broader Wikimedia community, and we shouldn't assume that everyone falls in line with the "mainstream" culture of our European-language projects.
Austin
From what I've heard from others who work on smaller wikis it seems
like the core social policies are often the ones that break down, i.e. if a group of admins decides to sieze control etc. So maybe we should stop arguing about *content* policies (which are obviously different from project to project, though not that different) and focus on a set of core social policies for the projects that can and should be the "norm" on anything the Foundation does. For instance:
* civility * consensus * openness -- by default anyone is welcome to participate, unless/until they behave badly
this is pretty basic stuff, but it seems that they are sometimes these qualities are in short supply. On a small wiki without of a lot of guidance, it may be that these community principles do not in fact develop "naturally", depending on the people involved. It would be interesting to hear more about case studies from smaller projects.
phoebe
Yeah social global norms may help, but I would like to point out a set of brief words won't work.
For example, civility ... I have seen frequently civility was raised as the rationale of proposed blocking *and* unblocking on the Japanese Wikipedia: one can argue someone broke down civility so much as to deserve being blocked and the guy on the contrary can argue it is against civility to have him blocked. Anyway we need to explain to some extent what the global community expect in each item. Accepted wisdom may vary from culture to culture.
On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 3:28 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 2:49 PM, Dror K dror1975@icqmail.com wrote:
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed.
Why? Things have worked pretty well so far, on many projects.
And on others, not so much. We have projects where the community is dictated to by a vocal minority of administrators; we even have editors organized into hierarchies based on the quantity and quality of their contributions. I've had administrators on minor-language Wikipedias stare at me blankly when I explained the concept of NPOV, and it was less than a year ago that we had to explain the notion of Free licensing to a not-so-minor language project, who, when informed that their "used with permission" images weren't acceptable under the GFDL, wanted the Foundation to pursue reusers after they re-tagged them GFDL.
Back in Days of Yore, when our view was "if you build it, they will come," we set up lots of Wikipedias without actual communities of editors. What filled the vacuum wasn't always connected with the broader Wikimedia community, and we shouldn't assume that everyone falls in line with the "mainstream" culture of our European-language projects.
Austin
From what I've heard from others who work on smaller wikis it seems like the core social policies are often the ones that break down, i.e. if a group of admins decides to sieze control etc. So maybe we should stop arguing about *content* policies (which are obviously different from project to project, though not that different) and focus on a set of core social policies for the projects that can and should be the "norm" on anything the Foundation does. For instance:
- civility
- consensus
- openness -- by default anyone is welcome to participate,
unless/until they behave badly
this is pretty basic stuff, but it seems that they are sometimes these qualities are in short supply. On a small wiki without of a lot of guidance, it may be that these community principles do not in fact develop "naturally", depending on the people involved. It would be interesting to hear more about case studies from smaller projects.
phoebe
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On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Dror K dror1975@icqmail.com wrote:
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory. For example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] should become mandatory as a guideline to all projects. This article is very important as it put into practice the NPOV principle as well as the desicion-by-consensus and the differentiation between facts and views principles. I suppose there are other recommendation of this kind that should become mandatory guidelines. I am not suggesting a constitution or a full rule book. I do suggest to carefully single out several basic principles, since the projects' autonomy is a bit too wide, especially as we want to promote cross-contributions between projects. Dror
Like global policy pack that could be imported to new Wikipedias?
This is a good idea.
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Mohamed Magdy mohamed.m.k@gmail.com wrote:
Like global policy pack that could be imported to new Wikipedias?
This is a good idea.
I think Ziko was working on something like this...
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Mohamed Magdy mohamed.m.k@gmail.com wrote:
Like global policy pack that could be imported to new Wikipedias?
This is a good idea.
A good idea for new Wikipedias, maybe. It's only going to be useful if it includes only the important fundamentals, and is not loaded up with all sorts of bureaucratic cruft. The given example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] seems to me to be a particularly poor choice because it's unnecessary and seeks to impose behavior guidelines on a community that might not need them. There's a difference between saying "This is a list of requirements that a WMF project must satisfy" and "Here are a list of principles that en.wikipedia has embraced and wants to push onto other projects".
As for sister projects, I think it's a lousy idea. We can't have global policies that affect all projects, because the various projects are run so differently. A newly-created Wikibooks, for instance, would need a different "starter pack" of policies and templates then a new Wikiquote would. Even something such as NPOV, which seems to be such a hallowed standard on Wikipedia is treated surprisingly different on Wikiversity or Wikisource. Even Wikinews uses a different license that isn't completely GFDL-compatible, at least not bidirectionally.
If I had to pick some guidelines which truely should be global to all projects and languages, it would be a very short list (and some of these are probably pushing it):
1) The project should allow some form of anonymous content contributions 2) The project should not prevent people from creating new accounts (except from known vandal IPs, of course) 3) The project must follow the privacy policy, and the checkuser policy (where applicable) 4) The project should use an acceptable free content license, must obey the requirements of that license as best as is technically possible, and must attempt to prevent the use of the project for copyright violations (whatever that means, in whatever jurisdiction it means it in)
I can't really think of much more then this that is truely "global", and I'm certain even these are going to draw criticisms. My point here being that there aren't any real policies that can be made global, at least not when we consider the needs of all the sister projects.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Aug 4, 2008, at 8:49 AM, Dror K wrote:
Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory
I may be hopelessly naive about this, but my general experience would seem to suggest that there's not really a need for this, because folks who are attracted to Wikimedia projects tend to share our (deep down) core values. If not, our various communities tend to push them in that direction fairly strongly.
Attempting to impose en.wikipedia's worldview on things like this is probably doomed to failure, in my opinion... it's almost the online version of pushing a colonialist agenda.
Philippe
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
Attempting to impose en.wikipedia's worldview on things like this is probably doomed to failure, in my opinion... it's almost the online version of pushing a colonialist agenda.
Philippe
Also probably very harmful. Policy is not something that people should have absent a need. Let policy grow organically based on the needs of the users. You don't need to start people off with complex policy when they don't need it. Polls are evil and other essays exist, and can be referenced. No one starts a Wikipedia in a vacuum, and lessons learned from one will flow to another. But we shouldn't expect all the lessons learned on enwiki to be useful to everyone else.
Another way to think of this, Is there some problem that needs to be solved by this? Are smaller wikis currently being hurt by not having enough policy?
I may be hopelessly naive about this, but my general experience would seem to suggest that there's not really a need for this, because folks who are attracted to Wikimedia projects tend to share our (deep down) core values. If not, our various communities tend to push them in that direction fairly strongly.
Attempting to impose en.wikipedia's worldview on things like this is probably doomed to failure, in my opinion... it's almost the online version of pushing a colonialist agenda.
Totally agree that this is not necessary - much paperwork, discussion, !voting, etc and very very little actual benefit.
Most projects are quite mature and settled their own rules, standards, etc. Coming in as a "big boss from foundation" and telling to change things around will only cause resentment.
I think the only global principle that's true to all projects is FREEDOM. Both in $ and (c) sense. So give the projects another freedom: decide its own policies.
Renata3
Hoi, I am really interested to learn how you come to the conclusion that most projects are quite mature. If anything given the statistics that are available to us all I would come to exactly the other conclusion.
- For most languages the localisation is still abysmal - Most projects have so little content, new content or changed content that they hardly make a dent in butter - More then half of our projects, probably two thirds are not involved in issues that have to do with the Wikimedia Foundation, without their presence we do not have a clue what we can do for these people these projects.
When you talk about freedom, you have to appreciate that freedom exists in relation to others. When communities exist of single individuals or small groups that dominate by pressing their point of view. Several of these "freedoms" effectively prevent many other legitimate people joining these projects because they do not recognise themselves in what should be their project .
While I agree with you that freedom is an important ingredient for the well being of projects and communities, many projects do not have the size and the basic set of values that you would recognise as essential for the success of those projects.
Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
I may be hopelessly naive about this, but my general experience would seem to suggest that there's not really a need for this, because folks who are attracted to Wikimedia projects tend to share our (deep down) core values. If not, our various communities tend to push them in that direction fairly strongly.
Attempting to impose en.wikipedia's worldview on things like this is probably doomed to failure, in my opinion... it's almost the online version of pushing a colonialist agenda.
Totally agree that this is not necessary - much paperwork, discussion, !voting, etc and very very little actual benefit.
Most projects are quite mature and settled their own rules, standards, etc. Coming in as a "big boss from foundation" and telling to change things around will only cause resentment.
I think the only global principle that's true to all projects is FREEDOM. Both in $ and (c) sense. So give the projects another freedom: decide its own policies.
Renata3 _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I am really interested to learn how you come to the conclusion that most projects are quite mature. If anything given the statistics that are available to us all I would come to exactly the other conclusion.
I did not mean language versions of whatever sister projects we have (or their relative success or popularity). I mean sister projects themselves. They been running for quite some time now. Correct me if I am wrong, but Wikiversity is the youngest one and it's already 2 years old.
From my (very limited) experience language versions of the projects really
start with translating basic English policies, instructions, etc and then based on this "template" continue to develop their own rules as the need arise. So in a way we ~might~ have somewhat unified policies -- those of English language (just dated at different times and amended afterward).
And when I wrote "freedom" I meant the right to amend, add, reject, re-write (in other words, edit) those policies copied over from English version when they need it and when the project organically grows up for the task. As Florence said "left free of deciding the path they use to reach the global goal."
<off-topic>
- More then half of our projects, probably two thirds are not involved in
issues that have to do with the Wikimedia Foundation, without their presence we do not have a clue what we can do for these people these projects.
Sorry to tell you, but as long as the website is running and the tools are functioning, the projects do not really need the foundation... That is the strength and weakness of all Wikimedia projects: the community has almost total ownership of whatever is going on (there are of course oddball legal & other issues that need to be overseen from above).
How many times a newcomer would post something on this mailing list relating to one or the other local project (usually asking to resolve a dispute) and would be referred back -- not a foundation issue? What could the foundation do, say, regarding abysmally small Arabic Wikipedia (generating some press after Wikimania)? or regarding a war between admins on x project? Very very little (a local chapter could do much more). </off-topic>
many projects do not have the size and the basic set of values that you would recognise as essential for the success of those projects.
They (language editions) will start by copying goals and values from English projects and then will build their own culture on it. Whenever they feel like. Whenever they are big enough. And they will hold dear those principles built by "we, the people" as opposed to those principles artificially created by "he, the boss" and handed down as ten commandmends in stone to Moses. That will take time, but I don't think we have a deadline.
Renata3
On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
I think the only global principle that's true to all projects is FREEDOM. Both in $ and (c) sense. So give the projects another freedom: decide its own policies.
The most important principle for any edition of Wikipedia is to build an encyclopedia. So, it's not freedom. The most important principle for any edition of Wikinews is to build a news agency (or whatever the name is). Again, the most important principle is not freedom. ...
And there are some principles around building an encyclopedia, media storage, news agency etc. -- which are not, again, freedom.
Again, we have our own principles which Florence quoted (in relation to Wikipedia): Wikipedia is an encyclopedia NPOV; openness; civility; sources necessary / no original work; free licence; ignore all rules (except for the pillar rules). Somewhat different principles are around some other Wikimedia projects.
So, any project, while hosted at WMF servers, mustn't to deviate (significantly) from those principles. And there is no such freedom, like, for example, building a repository of hate speech or a repository of copyright infringements. There is no freedom to build a project driven by closed group of persons, too. Etc. etc.
On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
The most important principle for any edition of Wikipedia is to build an encyclopedia. So, it's not freedom.
That's not a principle, that's a goal. And Florence very nicely put it, "left free of deciding the path they use to reach the global goal." That's freedom I am talking about.
On Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
The most important principle for any edition of Wikipedia is to build an encyclopedia. So, it's not freedom.
That's not a principle, that's a goal. And Florence very nicely put it, "left free of deciding the path they use to reach the global goal." That's freedom I am talking about.
There is a set of relatively strict rules around building an encyclopedia, like:
- Encyclopedia is ideologically a positivist project. There is no such thing like, for example, an encyclopedia based on post-modernist (whatever that means) principles. - A derivative of the scientific method, the encyclopedic method, has to be applied strictly. There is no space for, let's say, applying methods of some religion in building an encyclopedia. - Encyclopedia is not an original research and, ideally, every claim has to be sourced. - While opinions are welcome if they are based on sources, one encyclopedic article mustn't be biased. - And so on. The most of basic principles described at the Wikipedia in English describe such rules.
The point here is that we don't need to be ideologically positivists, we don't need to apply scientific method in our personal lives, etc., but if we are building an encyclopedia, we have to apply those principles on building it. Otherwise, we wouldn't build an encyclopedia, but something else.
While our social relations should be free, there are a lot of rules (and rules are not free) which lay behind building an encyclopedia. And it is not possible to build an encyclopedia without following those rules. So, yes, every project should have some level of freedom (mostly related to the social relations), but every project has to apply rules which are about building an encyclopedia (of course, if the project is a Wikipedia; if it is, let's say, a Wikinews, it has to apply rules related to building a news agency).
While it is problematic to talk about "freedom" because interpretations of that word are not so consistent, it is dangerous to try to apply the most of semantic space of the word "freedom" to any kind of scientific (and thus, encyclopedic) work. Which means that we are far from from your construction "I think the only global principle that's true to all projects is FREEDOM.". You may define which freedoms all projects have, but strong positions like your is are far from reality, as well as they are dangerous.
2008/8/9 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
- A derivative of the scientific method, the encyclopedic method, has
to be applied strictly. There is no space for, let's say, applying methods of some religion in building an encyclopedia.
The catholic encyclopedia?
- Encyclopedia is not an original research and, ideally, every claim
has to be sourced.
Not so for example some of the early work in deciphering hieroglyphics was originaly published in the encyclopedia Britannica.
- While opinions are welcome if they are based on sources, one
encyclopedic article mustn't be biased.
EB1911 has some pretty clear biases.
We have some fundamental rules, that at least theoretically should be implemented on all projects. That all content are under GFDL and should thus be granted free for ever is one of these rules. NPOV is another such rule. Openness is also a foundamental rule of all WikiMedia projects.
And we have some rules that was issued by the foundation in the past. Only use free live person photographies is one of these rules that I can remember of now.
If the rules could and would be implemented on the individual projects is hard to say. It may be so that on some projects the rules are implemented more ridigly than on other projects. It is difficult, if not even impossible, to install a global mechanism to watch for the implementation of all these rules on all projects.
I don't think that we need other global rules at the moment. Im principle I think the selfgouvenment of the projects by themselves works quite well and I would like to keep global rules ordered by the foundation as few as possible.
Ting
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 06:49:32 -0700 Von: "Dror K" dror1975@icqmail.com An: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Foundation-l] It is high time we decided upon global Wikimedianprinciples
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory. For example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] should become mandatory as a guideline to all projects. This article is very important as it put into practice the NPOV principle as well as the desicion-by-consensus and the differentiation between facts and views principles. I suppose there are other recommendation of this kind that should become mandatory guidelines. I am not suggesting a constitution or a full rule book. I do suggest to carefully single out several basic principles, since the projects' autonomy is a bit too wide, especially as we want to promote cross-contributions between projects. Dror
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Ting Chen Wing.Philopp@gmx.de wrote:
We have some fundamental rules, that at least theoretically should be implemented on all projects. That all content are under GFDL and should thus be granted free for ever is one of these rules. NPOV is another such rule. Openness is also a foundamental rule of all WikiMedia projects.
Again, and I really can't stress this enough: These "fundamental rules" are not global! en.wikinews DOES NOT USE THE GFDL. It uses CC-BY instead, which is still free but isn't the same thing. en.wikiversity, en.wikisource, and en.wikiquote have very different meanings for NPOV then en.wikiversity does. Do yourself a favor and check out WV's policy page on the matter:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WV:NPOV
--Andrew Whitworth
Thank god someone was paying attention and noticed Wikinews wasn't GFDL. I was busy compiling a list of people to flame into smoking craters until you started shouting about this. Don't dictate to smaller projects, an 800lb gorilla throwing its weight around is just going to end up being attacked with biplanes fitted with machine guns.
Now, where did I put those goggles I stole off Biggles?
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Whitworth Sent: 04 August 2008 17:24 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] It is high time we decided upon globalWikimedianprinciples
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Ting Chen Wing.Philopp@gmx.de wrote:
We have some fundamental rules, that at least theoretically should be implemented on all projects. That all content are under GFDL and should
thus be
granted free for ever is one of these rules. NPOV is another such rule.
Openness is
also a foundamental rule of all WikiMedia projects.
Again, and I really can't stress this enough: These "fundamental rules" are not global! en.wikinews DOES NOT USE THE GFDL. It uses CC-BY instead, which is still free but isn't the same thing. en.wikiversity, en.wikisource, and en.wikiquote have very different meanings for NPOV then en.wikiversity does. Do yourself a favor and check out WV's policy page on the matter:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WV:NPOV
--Andrew Whitworth
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Again, and I really can't stress this enough: These "fundamental rules" are not global! en.wikinews DOES NOT USE THE GFDL. It uses CC-BY instead, which is still free but isn't the same thing. en.wikiversity, en.wikisource, and en.wikiquote have very different meanings for NPOV then en.wikiversity does. Do yourself a favor and check out WV's policy page on the matter:
Thank you very much for pointing out that. I didn't know that, but now I do, thus thank you again.
On the matter though, I don't see my statement wrong. All the projects you mentioned work on the same value like Wikipedia, despite having a different policy. en.wikinews doesn't use GFDL, but CC-BY, and it doesn't violate the value of free content. wikisource, wikiquote, commons and wikiversity have other definition about NPOV, because of the nature of the projects. The disclosure of bias on Wikiversity for example doesn't really works agains NPOV. It allows bias of view, but tells the user that here is a bias of view, and in the matter it shares the same value as the NPOV of wikipedia.
Your examples are very good examples against globally imposed rules.
Ting
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 10:15 AM, Ting Chen Wing.Philopp@gmx.de wrote:
We have some fundamental rules, that at least theoretically should be implemented on all projects. That all content are under GFDL and should thus be granted free for ever is one of these rules. NPOV is another such rule. Openness is also a foundamental rule of all WikiMedia projects.
Not all content is GFDL. Wikinews, for instance, cOmmons another example
NPOV is not a global principle (doesn't apply to wikiquote or commons)
Whatever "global" principles mustbe, they shouldn't be taken from Wikipedia, as each project has different issues and policies
And we have some rules that was issued by the foundation in the past. Only use free live person photographies is one of these rules that I can remember of now.
If the rules could and would be implemented on the individual projects is hard to say. It may be so that on some projects the rules are implemented more ridigly than on other projects. It is difficult, if not even impossible, to install a global mechanism to watch for the implementation of all these rules on all projects.
I don't think that we need other global rules at the moment. Im principle I think the selfgouvenment of the projects by themselves works quite well and I would like to keep global rules ordered by the foundation as few as possible.
Ting
Ting Chen wrote:
We have some fundamental rules, that at least theoretically should be implemented on all projects. That all content are under GFDL and should thus be granted free for ever is one of these rules. NPOV is another such rule. Openness is also a foundamental rule of all WikiMedia projects.
And we have some rules that was issued by the foundation in the past. Only use free live person photographies is one of these rules that I can remember of now.
?
I do not remember such rule.
The nearest rule I can think of is http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
Ant
If the rules could and would be implemented on the individual projects is hard to say. It may be so that on some projects the rules are implemented more ridigly than on other projects. It is difficult, if not even impossible, to install a global mechanism to watch for the implementation of all these rules on all projects.
I don't think that we need other global rules at the moment. Im principle I think the selfgouvenment of the projects by themselves works quite well and I would like to keep global rules ordered by the foundation as few as possible.
Ting
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 06:49:32 -0700 Von: "Dror K" dror1975@icqmail.com An: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Foundation-l] It is high time we decided upon global Wikimedianprinciples
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory. For example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] should become mandatory as a guideline to all projects. This article is very important as it put into practice the NPOV principle as well as the desicion-by-consensus and the differentiation between facts and views principles. I suppose there are other recommendation of this kind that should become mandatory guidelines. I am not suggesting a constitution or a full rule book. I do suggest to carefully single out several basic principles, since the projects' autonomy is a bit too wide, especially as we want to promote cross-contributions between projects. Dror
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 6:49 AM, Dror K dror1975@icqmail.com wrote:
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory. For example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] should become mandatory as a guideline to all projects. This article is very important as it put into practice the NPOV principle as well as the desicion-by-consensus and the differentiation between facts and views principles. I suppose there are other recommendation of this kind that should become mandatory guidelines. I am not suggesting a constitution or a full rule book. I do suggest to carefully single out several basic principles, since the projects' autonomy is a bit too wide, especially as we want to promote cross-contributions between projects. Dror
What about if a community decides it likes straight voting? What if another community decides it just really likes rules and IAR is a taboo over there? Like someone mentioned below Wikinews doesn't do GFDL.
- Joe
I am divided about your email.
First, I think it should not be posted on Foundation-l. Foundation-l is the list of the Foundation, and should deal with Foundation topics. I believe the values (principles) related to Foundation have already been led.
1) in the mission statement :http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission 2) in the value statement: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values
Either your email is about Wikipedia itself, and then, it should go to wikipedia-l
or, it is about all projects, in which case it should go to the meta list
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Second, I do agree with you clarity of "pillar" principles is necessary.
Imho, clarity of the pillars of Wikipedia is already achieved. Essentially, it is * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia * NPOV * openness * civility * sources necessary / no original work * free licence * ignore all rules (except for the pillar rules)
If some projects ignore these pillar rules, they should be better informed. That's only a *communication* issue
However, the pillar principles of other projects (eg, Wikinews, Wikibooks etc...) do not seem to be clearly agreed, and sometimes differ between linguistic versions. That's unfortunate, and I agree more discussion is necessary. I remember that's a point I pushed in the past as well (but I fear with not much impact :-))
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Third, I STRONGLY support the fact that all linguistic versions should be left free of deciding the path they use to reach the global goal, as long as they respect the pillar values. Polls (use or not) is not a pillar value; as such, each community should be free to decide to use it or not. At best, what we can help with is to favor sharing of experiences and of best practices.
Ant
Dror K wrote:
Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory. For example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] should become mandatory as a guideline to all projects. This article is very important as it put into practice the NPOV principle as well as the desicion-by-consensus and the differentiation between facts and views principles. I suppose there are other recommendation of this kind that should become mandatory guidelines. I am not suggesting a constitution or a full rule book. I do suggest to carefully single out several basic principles, since the projects' autonomy is a bit too wide, especially as we want to promote cross-contributions between projects. Dror
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We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects.
If you want a policy to be implemented in your local project you firstly have to translate it into your language.
Nemo
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