Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as much resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry most would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge, and an open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru
I think we could hire professional fact checkers and target articles that have gotten off track. I don't think a great deal of money would be necessary to set an example, and illustrate some of our notorious problems. In general more money, however, draws flies even better than shit.
Fred Bauder
On Wed, 17 May 2017 18:08:08 +0100 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as much resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry most would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge, and an open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 1:19 AM, FRED BAUDER fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I think we could hire professional fact checkers and target articles that have gotten off track. I don't think a great deal of money would be necessary to set an example, and illustrate some of our notorious problems.
This is what the AROWF system from last year's Google Summer of code was supposed to show how to support:
https://priyankamandikal.github.io/posts/gsoc-2016-project-overview/
https://priyankamandikal.github.io/posts/gsoc-2016-project-overview/This year the CMUSphinx project is building an interactive voice-response computer-aided instruction system which teaches people how to use the AROWF system (and in the process tries to teach how to resolve NPOV disputes, out of date statements, and a few other backlog categories it tracks) while at the same time remediating spoken English pronunciation. I am currently consulting at a company in Beijing which has 23 million customers in China's K-6 public schools, They have offered to help collect some of the data required to build this system, and the GSoC student assigned to it has been doing pretty well.
One billion dollars, judiciously invested, is an income of present-day value around 20 to 30 million dollars a year for ever. That would buy any of the following
* One reasonably expensive book per month for every one of the 30,000 most active content contributors for ever * 300 full-time permanent employees -- programmers, fact-checkers, old-style editors, translators, innovators, researchers * 200 ongoing Ph.D-level research projects in data science, knowledge management, knowledge delivery, artificial intelligence, machine translation * Fully-paid bursaries to Wikimania every year for ten people from each of the 250 largest projects; * JSTOR subscription for ever for the 30,000 most active content contributors; * Local travel bursaries to Wikimedia meetups and conferences for everyone who ever contributes to the project;
HTH "Rogol"
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 4:51 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 1:19 AM, FRED BAUDER fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I think we could hire professional fact checkers and target articles that have gotten off track. I don't think a great deal of money would be necessary to set an example, and illustrate some of our notorious
problems.
This is what the AROWF system from last year's Google Summer of code was supposed to show how to support:
https://priyankamandikal.github.io/posts/gsoc-2016-project-overview/
https://priyankamandikal.github.io/posts/gsoc-2016-project-overview/This year the CMUSphinx project is building an interactive voice-response computer-aided instruction system which teaches people how to use the AROWF system (and in the process tries to teach how to resolve NPOV disputes, out of date statements, and a few other backlog categories it tracks) while at the same time remediating spoken English pronunciation. I am currently consulting at a company in Beijing which has 23 million customers in China's K-6 public schools, They have offered to help collect some of the data required to build this system, and the GSoC student assigned to it has been doing pretty well. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act together and become a true leader in software and content localization. Currently we are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is probably translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
1. Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become the industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is it important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites, platforms, and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English, and is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the whole world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of the world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities need stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation and scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing, literacy programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published book; this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be done with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but we should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs resources. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Cycle_...
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as much resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry most would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge, and an open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
With that amount of money, we could probably put an end on closed science in less than a decade, and make open access and open science the new standard. There's already a lot of efforts going on, but incumbent publishers are much more rich and resourceful. Lobbying, advocacy, outreach could do a lot, from our part. We are probably better equipped to coordinate bottom-up efforts (hackathons, tools and whatnot), and we would be better suited for the whole diplomatic/political/top-down side of it.
Making open science the new standard would be a goal to itself and leverage for other results. We'd end up with a lot more free content for Wikimedia projects, probably better advocacy and outreach for us in Universities and research centers. We would spread and promote the Mertonian norms of science¹, which are already our values. Also, there's a fair chance for this new open science standard to sustain itself, as in the current system scientists and researchers *already* do research, publish and review for free.² A new paradigm for science and research could also be very important for developing countries, in which scientists are often required to adequate to mainstream science (eg. they are not able to research areas which would benefit their local community, like local diseases).
Aubrey
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms ² of course they are paid by their institutions, but the "act of publishing" and the whole scholarship workflow is "embedded" and already paid for.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act together and become a true leader in software and content localization. Currently we are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is probably translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
- Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become the
industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is it important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites, platforms, and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English, and is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the whole world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of the world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities need stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation and scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing, literacy programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published book; this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be done with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but we should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs resources. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as
much
resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry most would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge, and
an
open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I saw a very interesting documentary about a South American country (Brazil? Argentina?) where they were already ignoring Western copyright law in order to free up collaboration in science. I have no idea what the legal repercussions are of doing something like that and from what I have seen on English Wikipedia, it still looks like Big Pharma rules the medical world. If we could somehow talk universities into daring to do open research, sharing data from the beginning, then that would be key moving forward. Now it seems to be a race in the dark to see who gets to publish first and the data is always reverse-engineered later. Sad.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:02 PM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
With that amount of money, we could probably put an end on closed science in less than a decade, and make open access and open science the new standard. There's already a lot of efforts going on, but incumbent publishers are much more rich and resourceful. Lobbying, advocacy, outreach could do a lot, from our part. We are probably better equipped to coordinate bottom-up efforts (hackathons, tools and whatnot), and we would be better suited for the whole diplomatic/political/top-down side of it.
Making open science the new standard would be a goal to itself and leverage for other results. We'd end up with a lot more free content for Wikimedia projects, probably better advocacy and outreach for us in Universities and research centers. We would spread and promote the Mertonian norms of science¹, which are already our values. Also, there's a fair chance for this new open science standard to sustain itself, as in the current system scientists and researchers *already* do research, publish and review for free.² A new paradigm for science and research could also be very important for developing countries, in which scientists are often required to adequate to mainstream science (eg. they are not able to research areas which would benefit their local community, like local diseases).
Aubrey
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms ² of course they are paid by their institutions, but the "act of publishing" and the whole scholarship workflow is "embedded" and already paid for.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act
together
and become a true leader in software and content localization. Currently
we
are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is
probably
translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
- Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become
the
industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is it important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites,
platforms,
and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English,
and
is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the whole world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of
the
world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities need stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation and scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing, literacy programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published
book;
this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be
done
with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but we should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs
resources.
See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as
much
resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry
most
would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge,
and
an
open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I love it, although I suspect that 1B wouldn't be enough. The industry of for-profit academic publishing is probably worth much more than that, and it won't give up easily.
Not that I don't support the general idea, but the resistance will be hard.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 21:02 GMT+03:00 Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com:
With that amount of money, we could probably put an end on closed science in less than a decade, and make open access and open science the new standard. There's already a lot of efforts going on, but incumbent publishers are much more rich and resourceful. Lobbying, advocacy, outreach could do a lot, from our part. We are probably better equipped to coordinate bottom-up efforts (hackathons, tools and whatnot), and we would be better suited for the whole diplomatic/political/top-down side of it.
Making open science the new standard would be a goal to itself and leverage for other results. We'd end up with a lot more free content for Wikimedia projects, probably better advocacy and outreach for us in Universities and research centers. We would spread and promote the Mertonian norms of science¹, which are already our values. Also, there's a fair chance for this new open science standard to sustain itself, as in the current system scientists and researchers *already* do research, publish and review for free.² A new paradigm for science and research could also be very important for developing countries, in which scientists are often required to adequate to mainstream science (eg. they are not able to research areas which would benefit their local community, like local diseases).
Aubrey
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms ² of course they are paid by their institutions, but the "act of publishing" and the whole scholarship workflow is "embedded" and already paid for.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act
together
and become a true leader in software and content localization. Currently
we
are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is
probably
translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
- Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become
the
industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is it important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites,
platforms,
and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English,
and
is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the whole world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of
the
world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities need stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation and scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing, literacy programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published
book;
this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be
done
with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but we should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs
resources.
See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as
much
resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry
most
would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge,
and
an
open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
We have built up an amazing amount of good will. When we raise money we spend some of that good will. Unless we have something worth spending it on, no need to do so. We already have a lot of professional fact checkers. I for example am a professional and check a lot of facts :-) Cochrane has also just hired someone to help me.
With respect to what could benefit from more money:
1) Our readers want rich content. We need a team working on tools that allow our communities to create the rich content our readers have requested. I know this was something Yuri was working on but the team has unfortunately been disbanded.
2) The community tech team does great work. They have way more great ideas than they can solve. Would be good to see that team either doubled or tripled in size. Part of it could dedicated to issues from the Global south / language issues.
3) We have a partnership with Translators Without Borders and thus access to 1,000s of translator volunteers. Most do not want to learn and will not learn how to edit Wikipedia. I was personally paying a coordinator to manage the project however he now has a full time job as a high school teacher. I am looking for someone to replace him.
Our communities already donate to us billions of dollars worth of value a year (would be interesting to actually calculate this number if it has not been already calculated). Uptodate, another online medical encyclopedia, brings in about 2 billion dollars a year through subscriptions.
James
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 11:18 AM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
I love it, although I suspect that 1B wouldn't be enough. The industry of for-profit academic publishing is probably worth much more than that, and it won't give up easily.
Not that I don't support the general idea, but the resistance will be hard.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 21:02 GMT+03:00 Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com:
With that amount of money, we could probably put an end on closed science in less than a decade, and make open access and open science the new standard. There's already a lot of efforts going on, but incumbent publishers are much more rich and resourceful. Lobbying, advocacy, outreach could do a lot, from our part. We are probably better equipped to coordinate bottom-up efforts (hackathons, tools and whatnot), and we would be better suited for the whole diplomatic/political/top-down side of it.
Making open science the new standard would be a goal to itself and
leverage
for other results. We'd end up with a lot more free content for Wikimedia projects, probably better advocacy and outreach for us in Universities and research centers. We would spread and promote the Mertonian norms of science¹, which are already our values. Also, there's a fair chance for this new open science standard to sustain itself, as in the current system scientists and researchers *already* do research, publish and review for free.² A new paradigm for science and research could also be very important for developing countries, in which scientists are often required to adequate to mainstream science (eg. they are not able to research areas which would benefit their local community, like local diseases).
Aubrey
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms ² of course they are paid by their institutions, but the "act of publishing" and the whole scholarship workflow is "embedded" and already paid for.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a
million
dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act
together
and become a true leader in software and content localization.
Currently
we
are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is
probably
translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
- Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become
the
industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is
it
important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites,
platforms,
and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English,
and
is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the
whole
world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of
the
world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities
need
stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation
and
scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing,
literacy
programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published
book;
this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be
done
with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but
we
should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs
resources.
See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we
ask
donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get
there
soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as
much
resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry
most
would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge,
and
an
open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:18 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
I love it, although I suspect that 1B wouldn't be enough. The industry of for-profit academic publishing is probably worth much more than that, and it won't give up easily.
Not that I don't support the general idea, but the resistance will be hard.
I agree with you, but we're not starting from scratch. It's more than 30 years that the Open Access movement is pushing for a new scholarship, a lot of battles have been won, and there is a huge amount of literature, documentation and experience, about that. 1B is nothing, compared to the billions of profit made by the company. But I reckon it would be enough, properly spent, to push a single point of failure of the system. Of course, I don't know it yet, and I don't have a plan right now. But I'm quite confident that 1B $ could do the trick.
Aubrey
That is an interesting idea! Maybe we should be working on modelling the Bible better on Wikidata and cross-referencing it to dictionaries and all other religious texts. If it is so important for literacy, it may help unite efforts on labelling in Wikidata. I have no idea how many words are used in the Bible, but hopefully it will cover a lot of basic ground in any language. If the 2bn falls through I bet we could ask the Vatican for a grant to Wikidatafy the entire Catholic encyclopedia.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act together and become a true leader in software and content localization. Currently we are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is probably translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
- Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become the
industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is it important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites, platforms, and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English, and is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the whole world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of the world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities need stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation and scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing, literacy programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published book; this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be done with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but we should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs resources. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as
much
resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry most would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge, and
an
open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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(I'm not sure I was understood correctly... I didn't mean translating the Bible to yet more languages, but translating an encyclopedia to more languages.)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 21:11 GMT+03:00 Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com:
That is an interesting idea! Maybe we should be working on modelling the Bible better on Wikidata and cross-referencing it to dictionaries and all other religious texts. If it is so important for literacy, it may help unite efforts on labelling in Wikidata. I have no idea how many words are used in the Bible, but hopefully it will cover a lot of basic ground in any language. If the 2bn falls through I bet we could ask the Vatican for a grant to Wikidatafy the entire Catholic encyclopedia.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act
together
and become a true leader in software and content localization. Currently
we
are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is
probably
translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
- Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become
the
industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is it important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites,
platforms,
and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English,
and
is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the whole world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of
the
world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities need stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation and scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing, literacy programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published
book;
this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be
done
with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but we should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs
resources.
See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get there soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as
much
resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry
most
would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge,
and
an
open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I am pretty sure we already have the Bible translated in all the languages (don't know because I didn't check). You inspired me though to think about the benefits of interlinking it down to the word level and how that might benefit Wikidata in achieving a level playing field in basic terminology for everyday terms like "tree" "book" etc. We are still missing so many labels on Wikidata. Sigh
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
(I'm not sure I was understood correctly... I didn't mean translating the Bible to yet more languages, but translating an encyclopedia to more languages.)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 21:11 GMT+03:00 Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com:
That is an interesting idea! Maybe we should be working on modelling the Bible better on Wikidata and cross-referencing it to dictionaries and all other religious texts. If it is so important for literacy, it may help unite efforts on labelling in Wikidata. I have no idea how many words are used in the Bible, but hopefully it will cover a lot of basic ground in
any
language. If the 2bn falls through I bet we could ask the Vatican for a grant to Wikidatafy the entire Catholic encyclopedia.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a
million
dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon?
What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act
together
and become a true leader in software and content localization.
Currently
we
are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is
probably
translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but:
- Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become
the
industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is
it
important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites,
platforms,
and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English,
and
is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the
whole
world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of
the
world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities
need
stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation
and
scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing,
literacy
programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published
book;
this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be
done
with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but
we
should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs
resources.
See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we
ask
donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Do we have the guts to do so?
Do we have the organizational capital to handle it? Or can we get
there
soon?
Do we have the moral right to take a lead in the world and ask for as
much
resources as needed?
Is our leader and our members willing to take big undertakings?
Are most of us ready to live in fear while the values that we cherry
most
would crumble under our own eyes?
Would it matter much if we as a movement would disappear? Or is it a struggle always a positive answer against the shadows in the world?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge,
and
an
open inclusive environment?
Would you take best wishes from a stranger like me?
Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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2017-05-17 10:38 GMT-07:00 Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il:
Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006.
That question was about a hundred million, actually:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-10-16/Copyri...
Many of those suggestions are interesting to read a decade later: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_wishlist (and talk page) https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-October/thread.html#2...
Some of the proposals have become reality since 2006, e.g.:
* sheet music - the Petrucci library/IMSLP, founded that year, seems to be doing a fairly good job here, at least regarding PD classical music (using MediaWiki no less)
* free maps and geodata - OSM
* all academic papers in JSTOR that are public domain - by JSTOR itself (but only partially, and not before Aaron Swartz became involved)
* Happy Birthday - via legal means (exposed as copyfraud via academic research and subsequently freed by lawsuit)
Regards, HaeB (T. Bayer)
Hi,
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
In many areas we lack good secondary sources. Some times we don't even have any secondary sources. I did some work at the National Manufacture of Ceramics of Sèvres in France[1]. They have knowledge there that is not in any book. It is transmitted directly from master to student...
My idea would be to create a publishing company that would hire specialists to write monographs on subjects where we lack good secondary sources. The compagny would regularly ask the wikimedians about which subjects they need sources.
Those works would be published under a Free Licence but independantly from the Wikipedias so there would be no risk for the Wikimedia Foundation to be seen as doing paid editing. Wikipedians would then be free to use those sources to improve the Wikipedias.
Regards.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacture_nationale_de_S%C3%A8vres
I like the idea. That is one big knowledge gap to be filled, but it could be started. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Lionel Allorge Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2017 10:32 PM To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Naive questions: what could do the movement with 1B dollars/euros?
Hi,
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
In many areas we lack good secondary sources. Some times we don't even have any secondary sources. I did some work at the National Manufacture of Ceramics of Sèvres in France[1]. They have knowledge there that is not in any book. It is transmitted directly from master to student...
My idea would be to create a publishing company that would hire specialists to write monographs on subjects where we lack good secondary sources. The compagny would regularly ask the wikimedians about which subjects they need sources.
Those works would be published under a Free Licence but independantly from the Wikipedias so there would be no risk for the Wikimedia Foundation to be seen as doing paid editing. Wikipedians would then be free to use those sources to improve the Wikipedias.
Regards.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacture_nationale_de_S%C3%A8vres
-- Lionel Allorge Wikimedia France : http://wikimedia.fr
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On 17 May 2017 at 18:08, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Space program. A billion should get you a couple of dawn clones and if you focus on flybys rather than orbits you can visit a bunch of asteroids.
Hello,
2017-05-17 10:08 GMT-07:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge, and an open inclusive environment?
"Truth, free knowledge, and an open inclusive environment" is already a pretty big commitment :)
From a numbers perspective, USD/EUR 1 billion isn't that much of a stretch.
Consider that the combined funds raised by the Wikimedia Foundation [1] and Wikimedia Deutschland [2] last year amount to approximately $85 million [3]. We're currently developing a movement-wide strategy using the 2030 time horizon [4], meaning 13 years from now.
If we're very conservative and assume no increase at all in funds raised across the movement during that period, that's still a low estimate of $85 million × 13 years ≈ $1.1 billion.
Of course, I'm not advocating against having big dreams. We can certainly do a lot more if we manage to accelerate our efforts and find new ways to finance them. My point is that it's less about the numbers, and more about what we decide to focus on (what we use the money for), and how committed we are to that goal (how quickly we get it).
This thread is a useful thought exercise because it helps us think big about what we really care about. The good thing is that now is the perfect time for everyone to share their thoughts on what they care about and what they think we should focus on over the next decade. The goal of the movement strategy discussions is precisely that. [4].
So I encourage everyone to participate in those discussions and make their voice heard. Because if we put our minds to it and agree on what to use it for, getting that $/€ 1 billion isn't unrealistic at all, and we can get it long before 2030.
[1] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2016/financials.html [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Jahr esbericht_Wikimedia_Deutschland_2016.pdf [3] This is a low estimate that doesn't include funds raised by other organizations. WMF and WMDE were the easiest to find. [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org