I made a little post on why this is just as a ridiculous idea as Egypt.
http://wikinewsie.org/editors_blog/?p=53
I have been speaking against Wikimania since the decision was made to
hold Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria, Egypt
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids/Alexandria>.
Now the decision has been made to hold Wikimania 2009
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009> in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. My opinion: Another flop.
In my opinion, Wikimania should be more about the people who contribute
to the various Wikimedia Foundation projects and less about seeing
what’s the classiest and or fanciest areas we can hold the event.
Lets be realistic for a second. Contributers, at least from my personal
experience are not rich. Many of them are young adults and some are even
older. But my point is not more than half of all contributers can’t
afford to fork out thousands of thousands of dollars to travel, in some
cases across several continents, to go to Wikimania. Not to mention that
Wikimania should be held in a place where most contributers would feel
safe or welcomed.
I would also like to see Wikinews get something out of this. Wikimania
obviously gets some kind of press, so why is Wikinews not the first
thing the Foundation goes to to release such information? Why have they
not made an effort to see Wikinews is definitely part of Wikimania(s)?
*See the link above for more.*
http://wikinewsie.org/editors_blog/?p=51
I'd invite everyone to comment on this, please let me know if you're
accredited and not actually allowed to write new posts. I will promote your
account on the blog when you do so.
Brian McNeil
FYI: May 1 deadline for 10K grants for 'women in online news'
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The other sue gardner
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:17:03 -0400
From: Julie Drizin <julie(a)j-lab.org>
To: <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org>
You don't know me, but you happen to share a name with our web designer
Susie Gardner of hop studios who also worked at CBC, I believe
Anyhow, I just thought you might know someone or many people who should
apply for funding from this new effort to support women innovators in the
world of journalism. Feel free to spread the word -- widely.
Attention creative women: McCormick Tribune New Media Women Entrepreneurs
program will give $10,000 in seed funding to 3 new online news initiatives.
Deadline to apply is May 1, 2008. More info and application at
http://www.newmediawomen.org. NMWE is a project of J-Lab: The Institute for
Interactive Journalism.
Thanks,
Julie Drizin
Assistant Director
J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism
7100 Baltimore Avenue, Suite 101
College Park, MD 20740-3637
p: 301.985.4020
e: julie(a)j-lab.org
Www.j-lab.org
Please translate this announcement into other languages and forward it
to other mailing lists and village pumps. (The translators list has
already been notified and will help with this process.)
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany have collaborated, with
financial support from Wikimedia France, to support development of a
new extension to our software
which makes it possible to flag versions of wiki articles as having
reached a certain quality. This new toolset could mark the beginning
of a new era for Wikipedia and its sister projects, giving readers
more transparency than ever about the quality of a given article. A
special note of thanks to Aaron Schulz, who has developed much of the
functionality as a volunteer -- we would not be where we are today
without him. The ongoing support and patience of Philipp Birken from
the German chapter was also critical.
Before this functionality will be enabled on any Wikimedia project, it
needs to be tested thoroughly for usability, bugs, security and
performance. Test wikis have been set up in English and German
(because the German Wikimedia community has been driving the
development of this functionality from the beginning).
http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/
These wikis contain a copy of the Wikibooks database. This copy is
completely separate from the "real" Wikibooks, so do not worry about
destroying anything of value. Please follow the instructions on the
Main Pages to participate. If you do not speak English or German, we
encourage you right now to
- set up test wikis independently using the open source extension
available from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs ,
or
- change the user interface preference, and create pages in the
English test wiki in your language.
This is due to our limited capacity to set up additional wikis. If you
feel you really, absolutely, strongly need a test wiki in your
language, please file a request through:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
Wikimedia communities will also have to decide what kind of
configuration to use for their project. Key questions to answer
include:
- What quality attributes should there be?
- Who should be permitted to flag changes as having been reviewed for
vandalism, or for other quality attributes?
- Should the default view for unregistered users change to the "stable
version" on all pages, some pages, or no pages?
The German Wikimedia community has implemented a particular
long-standing community proposal and will probably go live the soonest
with this configuration; other communities will still have to develop
consensus.
== What's next? ==
The test will run at least until April 10, 2008 before the extension
is implemented live on any wiki. This is to allow any serious problems
to be surfaced by the community. If there are no critical open issues
as of April 10, any language/project community will be permitted to
file a request through https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ to activate the
extension. This request will have to point to pages in the project
indicating a consensus to move forward. Detailed instructions to do so
will be posted on the test wikis.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Guys,
I initially emailed Mike Godwin about this, thinking that in his capacity as
legal counsel, and with his many, many years of online experience, he could
perhaps help in getting this resolution amended, or cut the gordelian knot
that it has placed on the Wikinews project.
My key concern is the retroactive application of this policy, and how this
impacts the Wikinews project. The resolution itself seems eminently sensible
and reasonable for a project such as Wikipedia where the goal is to provide
as current as possible an encyclopedia article and the project can live
without an image, or supersede a less-than-free image at some point in the
future. Yet, with Wikinews, I believe it has a seriously detrimental effect.
Our project has a policy of fully protecting - effectively archiving - any
article older than seven days. We document history as it happens, and even
when we are wrong the most we are about to do is append a correction. I
would like to think this attitude could, over time, garner us more respect
than many mainstream sources who will simply "vanish" things out of their
archives to avoid being seen as having made a mistake.
In any case, the issue at point is images. One contributor has taken it upon
himself to unilaterally apply the resolution, knowing full-well that it has
widespread opposition within our community. I do not doubt that there were a
number of images within those deleted that should have gone quite some time
ago due to a lack of adequate fair use rationales and the like, but with so
many deleted it is very difficult to establish what has been reasonably
deleted, and what could have been salvaged.
One of my primary concerns is that this resolution was drafted whilst only
thinking of the Wikipedia project, and not taking into account the special
operating circumstances and needs of smaller projects - such as Wikinews.
Had the resolution contained an exemption clause for Wikinews that made it
effective from a specific date, I would not have found myself in the
position where I seriously considered nominating a fellow administrator for
desysopping due to unilateral implementation of the resolution. I avoided
doing so after raising the issue on our project's "Water Cooler" as it would
have been overly divisive, and venting there calmed me down enough to not
cause that much disruption to the project.
Moving on from that, I would like to discuss the possibility of the
resolution being amended to take into account the special needs of Wikinews.
Whilst Wikipedia can work from a very principled position where - if someone
is still alive - you do not use a non-free image of them, this is not
reasonable for Wikinews. As an example, if a popular pop star goes off the
rails and gets their head shaved, it would be wholly inappropriate to use an
older file photo of them with flowing locks, or wait six months until
someone snaps them at a press conference with their camera phone (after the
hair has grown back). I am sure that you will all be able to see from this
example, and others it might prompt you to dream up, that news has its own
special needs.
I would welcome the opportunity to open a dialogue on this, although I
appreciate it is an eleventh-hour appeal against this resolution.
Brian McNeil
Mike,
As you are doubtless aware, the Foundation passed a resolution which is
aimed at reducing - if not altogether eliminating - the use of non-free
images on WMF projects. I would greatly appreciate your considered opinion
on my concerns that this is to some extent incompatible with the project
goals of Wikinews, and that projects other than Wikipedia were not taken
into account when the resolution was drafted.
The resolution is to be applied retroactively, and one particular
contributor on Wikinews has taken it upon himself to apply this without
community consensus, or what I would have considered fair and reasonable
consultation. Yet, on Wikinews, we have a policy to fully protect and
archive our articles. Like Wikinews' license change to CC-BY-2.5, our
project would have greatly benefited from the resolution having a date it
was effective from - even if this was only specific to us - or any other
project that aims to provide a historical record. My personal opinion is
that what people see when an article is on the front page is what they
should see if they come back to it in a year's time, unless there are
serious copyright concerns with an image - as opposed to an overly
idealistic stance.
Is there any way you can see an additional clause being appended to the
image licensing policy? One that takes into account the special needs of
Wikinews? When the policy/directive was announced, I amended the copyright
message on Wikinews, adding the clause "Copyright terms on images may vary,
please check individual image pages prior to duplication." This seems
sensible, and as Wikipedia also allows fair use something they should likely
specify.
Brian McNeil
If anyone is interested in this conference, please contact to OWASP directly
better than me.
Regards,
Rico.
-----Original Message-----
From: owasp-all-bounces(a)lists.owasp.org
[mailto:owasp-all-bounces@lists.owasp.org] On Behalf Of Tom Brennan
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 1:49 AM
To: OWASP Worldwide Mailing List
Subject: OWASP NYC 10/2008
Its coming.... are you aware? Are you getting ready?
Full details:
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_NYC_AppSec_2008_Conference
Capacity for 1000 attendees
Call for papers is OPEN and SPONSORSHIP opportunities are available.
--
Tom Brennan
Board Member
OWASP Foundation
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tombrennan
Tel: 973-202-0122
Url: www.owasp.org
I sent it to OTRS (permission-sr, as it is in Serbian). "Wikinews
contributors" have the right to use all news from Beta News Agency
site under the conditions of CC-BY 2.5. This affects: Serbian, English
and Hungarian Wikinews. It also may affect future Albanian and Romani
Wikinews projects.
Hello!
I had gotten an invitation from Armorize Technologies earlier, If anyone is interested in the RSA Conference 2008, related to Information Security industry, Please refer to the link below for media accreditation.
http://www.rsaconference.com/2008/US/For_Press.aspx
The RSA Conference 2008 will be held from April 7 to April 11 at Moscone Center, San Francisco.
Best Regards,
Rico (Brock @ Wikinews).
PS: Also copied to Wikinews Mail-list.
Hello!
Mr. Sean Weide greeted me for the series report of 2008 Tour de Taiwan, will
anyone want to do some attempts on interviewing their team after the Tour de
Taiwan as they go back to United States?
Information copied to Wikinews Mail-list.
Regards,
Rico.
From: Sean Weide [mailto:sweide@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 2:21 AM
To: RicoCCShen(a)wikinewsie.org
Subject: Thank You For Your Reports
Good Morning:
Thank you very much for your reports, especially those which mention the
Team Type 1 pro cycling team at the Tour de Taiwan.
Keep up the great work.
Sean
Sean Weide
Media and Communications Director, Team Type 1
P: 785.304.1845 | F: 402.393.4603 | E: sweide(a)gmail.com