Hi all,
Somehow I just found out about this via a European. Good thing
someone's paying attention. ;)
http://creativecommons.org.au/node/133
Could be of interest esp. to those in Queensland and/or students.
cheers
Brianna
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
On 12/10/2007, Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Its a good idea to have individual chapters
>
> The way I thought we are working is to create WMA first, then WMA helps the
> states create chapters during 2008, once created the states would have a
> representative on the WMA committee, realising that not every state is going
> to have the critical mass to support a local chapter initially anyway.
I was going to say that I think WMF expect max one chapter per nation
state, then I remembered about the recent American Pennsylvania
chapter talk. So is it one chapter per legal jurisdiction?
I am not sure that I think multiple legal entity chapters within
Australia would be a great idea. What with the small population. I
would prefer formal state structures within a single legal entity
being Wikimedia Australia, I think. The European chapters for example
have one per nation despite larger populations than us. I am not too
convinced that the distance necessitates separate legal entities.
On a related note,
For those who missed it, Florence recently reported on foundation-l
about the recent Board meeting. Her email is here:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/20666
Specifically:
>>
Sue Gardner began the
discussion by presenting a possible strategy to clarify the relationship
between WMF and Wikimedia Chapters. The strategy outlines 4 types of
relationships, essentially ranging from business development with
revenue sharing over traditional non-profit activities to informal
affilitations.
Far ranging discussion resulted, hmmm, with obvious agreement resulting.
(...) We also agreed on the
need for a systematic process of gathering feedback from the chapters on
their expectations & perceived purpose should precede a strategy draft
from WMF about the relationship with chapters.
<<
So, we are not a chapter, and they won't be getting feedback from us
:) but it is worth thinking about anyway.
To me the purpose of a chapter, as in creating and maintaing a local
legal entity, is mainly two-fold, or maybe they are in fact the same
fold:
1) To gain the benefits from official/formal legal status within
Australia. This includes potentially access to grants and funding,
charity status to make donations (to us?) in AU$ tax deductible,
potential partnerships with Australian groups such as universities.
Also, greater respect and visibility.
2) To encourage and enable face to face meetings of Wikimedians on a
greater scale than local meetups. Although this is sometimes derided
as merely "throwing parties" I think it is much more powerful than
that. Connections made or cemented face to face are much stronger than
those only through email or wiki. That goes for connections within the
group of Wikimedians and also between non-Wikimedians and "friends
and allies" such as free software people, free content people,
education people. Such meetings can boost everyone's enthusiasm and
motivation and also spread disparate knowledge quickly and effectively
over short, sharp bursts.
Some other ideas...
3) (probably should be 0) To carry out the WMF's vision and mission
within Australian territory and within an Australian context. This
could mean Wikibooks(Wikiversity) adapted to Australian (ahem state)
curricula. It could mean Wikisource special topics on historical
Australian documents. It could also mean specialised DVDs or books
being produced and distributed, collecting (eg) Wikipedia articles on
Australian topics. [I personally would be delighted to see a disc of
Spoken Wikipedia as recorded by Australians... there are a few Aussies
who have done them and they are delightful to listen to.] It could
also mean talking to educators or students about a) how to use
Wikimedia resources effectively and b) the benefits of using wikis and
c) The benefits of using free licenses (creating free content).
4) To lobby the Australian government for reduced application of
copyright on Australian government-created works. To lobby Australian
public archives and collections for greater access to works in their
collections especially public domain works and digital access.
This point is my hobby-horse and also the most different from how WMF
acts in the US today so likely the most controversial.
However... through Wikimedia I have become aware of how we, the Aus
public, are unnecessarily dudded and deprived of works that are owned
by us (or by no one), collected for us, created by us, and yet somehow
are not recognised as belong to us.
Why did I become aware of this? Because the US has an amazing attitude:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000105----000…
that greatly benefits Americans... that greatly benefits Wikimedia...
that greatly benefits the whole world.
The US appears to be a world leader in this regard. Europe's space
agency the ESA is stupid and releases their images under a
non-commercial license. I will sincerely celebrate the day that
Wikimedian lobbying helps to overturn this.
Those of us who have used state libraries' or museums' online
collections will be aware that they frequently claim to have
reproduction or other rights on public domain material. This is wrong
and misleading... instead of acting as caretakers on our behalf they
frequently act as scolding nannies wrapping us on the knuckles for
daring to touch. So a related effort would be lobbying for greater
funding for digitisation of all kinds of archives.
5) To lobby and promote the use of free licenses in academia.
The amount of information locked away in subscription-only journals is
nothing short of scandalous...education, via access to information, is
nothing short of revolutionary. What is the point of academia if not
to ultimately increase the public good. If so, it should be available
to the public.
I am not totally sold on the use of free licenses in, say, personal
art and photography. Things created by private citizens. But in the
case of academia, science, education, government, and *works that are
already free* due to copyright expiration, it is nothing short of
outrageous to make things expensive and difficult to access.
Again this point is more removed from what WMF does in the US, but I
think it has pretty clear links to the WMF vision.
So that's my thoughts about it.
cheers,
Brianna
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
Hi folks,
Last night we had a small meetup in Melbourne's City Library. Present
were myself (user:pfctdayelise), Stephen (user:thebainer),
user:Aliasd, user:Canley and user:Jayvdb.
We went over the draft constitution from meta and just talked about
the same stuff that we've been talking about here too. The most
interesting discussion, and certainly the discussion that needs the
most input from everyone, is about the aims. Stephen is going to try
to merge our meta draft constitution into the Victorian model rules.
When he does he will write back here. Then I think it would be
fruitful to spend a couple of weeks discussing the exact wording of
the aims.
Note that according to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Step-by-step_chapter_creation_guide ,
we need to get the bylaws (which I presume is our constitution)
approved by the Chapters committee before we submit it to Victorian
officialdom. Perhaps Nathan could comment about how long that is
likely to take given that he is on Chapcom. (Is that a COI? :))
We can have another Melbourne meetup between Nov 10-19. We will try to
arrange it so OIC and Sarah can attend and Brian and as many
Melburnians as possible, of course. Angela, if there's any potential
that you could be down here during that time period, I think that
would be awesome too.
There was some complaint about the timing, venue and short notice of
this meetup. :) Computerbank was suggested as a venue for the next
meeting, which seems like a good idea. Another possibility is the City
of Melbourne library that's near Jolimont station (because I found out
that library has a wireless network :) and their meeting room has an
AV setup too). But if Computerbank are happy to have us then we should
go for that, I think.
WRT the constitution, some of the proposed changes seem quite nitpicky
(and some were quite irrational :)). I think except for the
physical/virtual-attendance-of-meetings thing, we should as much as
possible adopt the simple model rules, with the understanding that we
are starting as a small organisation, and we should change the
constitution appropriately as we grow rather than try to anticipate
that too much when at the moment we are nothing.
regards,
Brianna
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
If anyone in Melbourne is available on the morning of 26th of October and
would be happy to talk about Wikipedia on TV, please contact me as soon as
possible.
Thanks.
Angela
Melbourne Meetup #7 is now active:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Melbourne_7
* Date: Wednesday 3rd October (Wiki Wednesday :))
* Time: 6pm-7:30pm
* Venue: City Library, Flinders Lane, CBD.
* Where exactly? Group Study Room.
Agenda:
MAKE WIKIMEDIA AUSTRALIA HAPPEN.
Melburnians, if we can't get it together this time, I feel the only
gallant thing to do is to hand the reins to Perth and say "there, but
for the grace of lazy Mexicans, go I." (Or you can blame me for the
short notice. Either way.)
The library doesn't officially have wireless :( although I had some
poor access from somewhere when I visited to make the room booking.
But if people bring their laptops that would be cool. I will bring
relevant docs on a USB stick and some printouts.
BE THERE OR WHEN THE WIKIMEDIA AUSTRALIA NATIONAL HERITAGE MONMUMENT
IS BUILT AND THE NAMES OF THE MEETUP#7 ATTENDEES ARE ETCHED FOR ALL
TIME INTO STONE YOU WILL MISS OUT...unless they manage to create stone
wikis by then. :o
cheers,
Brianna
On 27/09/2007, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/27/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Horse Bazaar is also where the Melbourne Twitter people meet up. They
> > have two giant projector screens covering most of the walls. So it is
> > a nice geeky cool bar. :)
>
> Ooh, with Mountain Goat on tap!
>
> Looks like a good spot for a future Melbourne meetup.
ok, maybe the next one :P
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
Our State Library here in the West has a large collection of
historical images, searchable and viewable directly in their online
catalogue. Here's an example:
http://tinyurl.com/2w2gzr
Every part of my law student mind screams "this circa 1900 image is in
the public domain now, no matter whatever copyright notices or demands
they slap on it", but I'm worried I've missed some key point along the
lines of "if it hasn't ever been published until they put it in their
catalogue, the copyright time doesn't start until now". Does anyone
have any more of an idea about this?
~Mark Ryan