Hi all,
I'm forwarding the email below as it affects Wikimedia a bit, due to the following (extracted from Anthony Lester's Guardian article):
"The Bill sets out the circumstances in which an internet service provider or forum host should not be liable for defamatory material and sets time limits on suing."
The details can be found online at:
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/defamationhl.html
The appropriate section is section 9, "Responsibility for publication".
On the surface, it looks reasonable for Wikimedia (meaning the WMF primarily, but also WMUK if we ever assist with hosting), as we'd fall straight under 9.1a as a facilitator and hence would clearly not be liable. I have to admit to not being familiar with the details of existing law on this, but presumably it's a lot more unclear.
Mike
Begin forwarded message:
> From: news(a)libelreform.org
> Date: 27 May 2010 15:31:49 GMT+01:00
> To: libelreform(a)mikepeel.net
> Subject: Big news - Lord Lester has officially tabled a libel reform bill
>
>
> Dear friends
>
>
>
> A Libel Reform Bill has been tabled in the House of Lords
>
> Lord Lester QC has published a Private Members’ Defamation Bill to reform England’s outdated and unjust libel laws. This is the first attempt in over a century to put forward a wholesale redraft of our libel laws to address many of the issues our campaign has highlighted.
>
> Lord Lester’s Bill covers a great deal of the recommendations of the Libel Reform Campaign including a statutory defence for responsible publication on a matter of public interest; clarifying the defences of justification and fair comment, which will be renamed as ‘truth’ and ‘honest opinion’.
>
>
> The Bill will also:
>
> require claimants to provide evidence their reputation was damaged by an alleged libel before they can bring a case forward (they don’t have to do this at present) and make corporations prove financial damage before they can sue.
> Address the problems introduced by the rise of the internet and the culture of online publication including the multiple publication rule that makes each download a fresh instance of libel, and alter the responsibility of forum hosts for what is posted on their sites.
> Encourage the speedy settlement of disputes without parties having to bring in costly lawyers.
> Promote the speedy settlement of disputes without recourse to the courts.
> There is a great piece by Lord Lester on why he is doing this now here.
>
> And Simon Singh has written his thoughts on the bill here.
>
> Thanks to your support we’ve made the case that libel law reform is an issue politicians know they have to act on.
>
> There is widespread Parliamentary support for reform … the majority of eligible MPs signed up to an EDM supporting libel law reform in the last Parliament.
> There were general election manifesto commitments to reform from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, and Labour.
> Now, there is a coalition Government promise to reform the libel laws in the Queen’s Speech …
>
> …But we need new libel laws!
>
> In light of Lord Lester’s Bill, the Libel Reform Campaign is asking: will the Government now make clear its plans for reform? Will it support, adopt or develop this Bill?
>
> Help us keep the pressure on. Write to your MP asking them what the Government intends to do.
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Mike and Síle
>
> PS - for more details of the bill and complete coverage see www.libelreform.org
>
>
>
> --
> If you do not want to receive any more newsletters, this link
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> To update your preferences and to unsubscribe visit this link
> Forward a Message to Someone this link
Dear WM-UK,
At the suggestion of Mike Peel, I'm forwarding this mailout to the UK list
too in the hope that you might find it interesting. I have only been sending
these mailouts to people who have actively expressed interest in following
the British Museum - Wikipedia project but I can send them here too if you'd
like. You can read about the project itself here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/BM
Best,
Liam Wyatt/Witty Lama
Volunteer Wikipedian in Residence, British Museum
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com>
Date: 23 June 2010 18:28
Subject: Wikipedia - British Museum: Bits and pieces
To:
*you are receiving this because you have expressed interest in the British
Museum - Wikipedia collaboration project. If you do not wish to receive
these emails please tell me. Otherwise, please do pass them on to others.*
Dear all,
Just a couple of little things to mention about the ongoing collaboration
with the British Museum:
The combined pageviews for all articles related to the History of the World
project (using category:A history of the world in 100 objects) is just under
100,000 this month so far. This will continue to increase as the month goes
on and it does not include articles about generic subjects - only articles
that are specifically about the individual object in question. You can see
this here:
http://toolserver.org/~magnus/treeviews.php?depth=9&date=2010-06&cats=A+His…<http://toolserver.org/%7Emagnus/treeviews.php?depth=9&date=2010-06&cats=A+H…>that
a fair few of these didn't exist before last week.
- Several other libraries have expressed interest to me personally, or I've
heard through the grapevine that they too now want to do something
"in-house" with Wikipedia. This is not just in London (although several are)
but in the US, Australia and Spain. Nice :-) For example yesterday I met
with the V&A and today with the British Library to fly the flag. Equally the
Wikimedia-New York City and D.C. team have put a notice up saying that
they're going to have a meeting with the Smithsonian soon.
- The total pageviews so far this month for all articles related to the
British Museum (ignoring articles about staff) is 336,000
http://toolserver.org/~magnus/treeviews.php?depth=9&date=2010-06&cats=Briti…<http://toolserver.org/%7Emagnus/treeviews.php?depth=9&date=2010-06&cats=Bri…>
This is compared to last month's total of 500,000 which we'll probably
reach. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/BM#Quantitative Of all
the articles 16 are newly created since the backstage pass.
- The Hoxne Challenge is on TOMORROW.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/BM/Hoxne_challenge. The fact of
this event is top story in this week's Wikipedia Signpost
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-06-21/News_a….
Even though we've not actually had the event yet - the mere fact of people's
willingness to get involved has *already* taken this article from 2kb in
length to 20kb! Here's the diff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hoxne_hoard&action=historysubmit&…'s
obviously a long way to go yet, but it's significantly better
already which is a fantastic achievement. Note that someone's even begun a
stub in French http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A9sor_de_Hoxne
If you can help out with this, please do. This article is already the 6th
most common source of inbound traffic to the BM site from Wikipedia (see
below).
- As you may have also noticed in that "signpost" article, the British
Museum have changed their collection website's frontpage to feature the most
prominent item from the Hoxne Hoard in quiet recognition of our event.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/explore_introduction.aspx They've also
been working away in the web team to make the records about the Hoard more
citable, findable and collated in one spot:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/h/the_hoxne_h…
of the things to come out of the backstage pass day was the
realisation
that it is very hard to reference the BM website if we're talking about a
collection of items. This link now compiles all of the links to the
individual sub-sections on one page.
- As you may have also noticed in the "Signpost" article - the BM has
started linking out to Wikipedia articles that are a) about objects in the
collection and b) Feature articles. The two examples so far are "Disasters
of War" and "Durer's Rhinoceros". See the bottom of the page:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/a/albr…http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/f/goya…
that the link to Wikipedia specifies that it's a Featured Quality
article which I think is a nice endorsement of WP's internal quality
assessments.
- We now have two projects that have grown out of the "one on one"
collaborations project. One with the Asia department and one with Prints and
Drawings department where the Wikipedian will come onsite every now and then
to be given access to the research libraries.
- Cyrus Cylinder is actively being reviewed as a FA candidate. Please
comment here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Cyrus_Cy…
indeed, if you're a curator reading this - peer reviews for any
article
related to your expertise are welcome. Bullet point lists are preferred as
this makes them easier to divide up amongst a group.
- Last night "Royal Gold Cup" featured in the "Did you know" section of the
mainpage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Gold_Cup bringing the total
number of mainpage appearances for BM objects in the last two weeks to 11!
Since then Royal Gold Cup has also been listed at FAC. Please help review it
too if you can.
- In terms of Wikipedia sending traffic to the BM website, Wikipedia remains
the single largest source of non-search engine traffic to the BM. The
articles that have sent the most number of people so far this month are (in
order): British Museum; Hedwig Glass; Lothair Crystal; Rosetta Stone; A
History of the World in 100 Objects; Hoxne Hoard; Lewis Chessmen; First
Jewish Revolt Coinage; and Ginger (mummy).
Whilst pageviews and reader-engagement on Wikipedia is a goal in its own
right, it's nevertheless interesting to see these stats as I think you can
see that we're having a direct influence on who visits the BM website and
where they go. I'm particularly interested to see the Coins one in that list
as it's the one BM department that we don't currently have an article about
any of their specific objects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish_Revolt_coinage
Please do get in touch if you have any questions, queries, offers to help
etc.
Liam Wyatt
Volunteer Wikipedian in Residence, British Museum
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata
Dear members!
My name is Kajura Felix aUgandan aged 26years old.I come from avery humble family background born to Mr.Rusoke Paul and Nakibuuka Christine.
Am an ex-seminarian who loved and started priestly formation at an age of 15years in the minor seminary.After which still filled with the passion to serve as apriest continued to the major seminary.Unfortunately,of late in 2006 when i was travelling back to the major to continue with the seminary formation,i was involved in afatal motorcar accident from which God saved my life for which i greatly thank him todate!
However,after recovery,i wasn't allowed to continue with priestly formation something that frustrated me!
Encouraged by God's grace,i let all that go and looked at what the future held for me.
In the year 2008,i applied to Makerere University which is the best and recognised national university in Uganda for abachelor's degree in commerce and i was granted aplace.This is where i have been since 2008,for two years now.
From the start,my parents have been supporting me to pursue my degree at the university through thick and thin together with my little efforts by doing some casual work when i could find it anyway.
Of recent,my ageing father who has been self employed was diagnosed with cancer and was advised by the doctors to stop working due to his poor health.And my ageing mother too who would remain supportive is apeasant susistence farmer who is now loaded with the responsibility of taking care of the family.
I have just accomplished my second year at the university and i still have more two to complete my degree.
Am worried about the way am going to coninue with my studies at the university because there are alot of requirements that i need to continue my studies at the university such as;tuition fees per semester,examination fees per semester,technology fees per semester,registration fees per semester,library fees per semester,development fees per semester,internship fees per academic year,accomodation,the list is long let alone personal requirements like meals and others which i have always foregone due to lack of money.
It is because of this kind of dilemma and challenge that am experiencing i decided to write on this e-mail address in search for someone to help me such that i can be able to accomplish my degree programme.
I shall therefore be very overwhemingly thankful to whoever shall respond to my humble request and cry!
May God bless you all.
For any one out there who wishes to give me any assistance,we can be in touch by e-mail,my e-mail address is;atenyifelis2005(a)yahoo.com