----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Gervai" <grin(a)tolna.net>
To: <wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:05:49PM +0800, Ruimu wrote:
>
> > > How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
> > > set up a French nonprofit?
> >
> > Not much, I guess, except if Wikipedia becomes a den of negationists
> > (revisionist seems to be the only translation but I don't like it as any
> > historian is "revising" History), suicide apologists, or paedophiles.
>
> Maybe you're low on imagination. For example what if there's an article on
a
> politician which describes what he really have done, but what he does not
> like to have published? (Monsieur XY member of the parliament raped his 3
> daughters and the dog of the neighbour at age 12.) Or criticising
> (providing alternative points of view of) political moves, like cutting
> countries apart, killing people, etc?
>
> Oh well, maybe I get it wrong. It would happen in Hungary.
Well, erh... It's not my imagination. I listed those few topics (I may
have missed a couple more) that are actually under legal censorship in
France. (The law against negationism is, imho, a very awful law, one of the
worst in this country, but a necessary one in the context.) Censorship means
here that it is forbidden to publish a book that will be an apology of
suicide, paedophilia, or denying the reality of some crimes against humanity
(without having to prove anything). If you write a book stating that "Mr XY
raped Z...", you may face a libel suit, and have to prove your allegations.
(That's very different, as you can see.)
Censorship is a bad thing, but, except if you strongly believe that ALL mens
are good (at least "good enough"), it cannot be abandonned without being
replaced by something else. This "something else" could be (or has to be,
imho) replaced by self-censorship. Self-censorship is merely when you don't
reply to a Wikipedian that he is a pure idiot, even if you strongly think
that it is absolutely true. On usenet, I found an easy way to censor myself:
switch of "send immediatly" and always wait for the next day to send my
burning reaction. You can't imagine how many lines I have dropped this way
(and, incidentally, how many spelling and grammar mistakes that have been
fixed). That's self-censorship. Sadly, I don't see how to do this in a
simple way on Wikis.
Self-censorship is also here when one try not to push one's agenda too much,
or not to write on topic where it is too hard to achieve (as Uncle Ed said).
I used above the "good enough" expression: I think being "good enough" on WP
means to be able to censor oneself (what is much harder than simply being
polite).
P.S. : I know that censorship is a widely hated thing, so my ideas here may
seem to be hateful for some of you. Please consider that I tried to soften
them as much as possible, and that I'm not helped 'cause I'm not using my
mother tongue. Many evil things are necessary (on WP, banning someone is
this way; in society, I could say cops, laws, ...). Most of those evil
things are bad (and rejected) when they come from outside, I mean from
someone else. When you internalize them, they may not be so evil--that's my
key point.
How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
set up a French nonprofit?
http://www.computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/C1F6A082562EB682CC256E160006A4…
The portion that concerns me is that "Internet access providers" (but
what is the definition of that in the bill?) will be obligated to
filter "illegal content", which has a much wider scope in France than
in the US, including "material excusing crimes against humanity".
Currently, if the French government were to find material on Wikipedia
not to their liking, they would have little recourse against either
me, the Wikimedia Foundation, or the French end users who wrote the
material. I am in the U.S., the Wikimedia Foundation is in the U.S.,
and therefore I can freely ignore the judgments of French courts.
French end users are protected by this arrangement as well -- in order
for the French government to pursue an end user, they will need to
pierce the veil of anonymity given by Wikipedia usernames. Of course,
I would completely ignore any court order from France to hand over
such information.
On the other hand, if we had a French mirror operating under the
auspices of a French nonprofit subsidiary, that subsidiary could be
legally liable in such matters, thus putting us all at risk.
Perhaps this is all merely of academic concern -- Wikipedia is
self-consciously uncontroversial to a large extent. We don't advocate
anything, by design. Likely the law would not be abused to the extent
that Wikipedia would become a target. But I do know that French users
have often expressed concern that this article or that might be a
violation of French law. I don't have an opinion about the realism of
such concerns.
And so that's why I ask. As we move towards a European organization
and European subsidiary, what concerns should we have as to the proper
location of the organization?
--Jimbo
I'm looking for donor management systems software, preferably
GNU-free, although more important to me right now is doing a good job.
I am writing a tiny little internal website on my home machine using
PhP and MySQL to keep track of this information, but that's a pretty
feature-poor solution.
I want to be able to send receipts and thank you notes to donors, and
I want to be able to generate summary reports for the accountant, etc.
At some point I can envision (though I have no concrete plans at the
moment for this) a quarterly magazine or report containing news about
Wikipedia, a few well-chosen articles, etc. This would be made
available free on the web in pdf format or similar, and then donors
above some threshold could opt to receive a paper copy if they want.
All of this requires that I be conscientious about properly managing
information about donors.
Does anyone have direct experience in this area, with specific advice
for me as to what packages exist and what features I should be looking
for?
An example of proprietary software:
http://www.donorquest.com/http://www.donorquest.com/pricing.html
This one is completely unacceptable because (a) it is outlandishly
expensive, and (b) it only runs under Windows, and I don't even have a
windows computer running anymore.
My thinking is that in the long run, an open source solution will make
more sense, and not just from an ideological perspective, because we
can easily customize it to interface properly with our website
memberships.
-----
Imagine this scenario -- I get a $10,000 donation from someone, out of
the blue. I want to telephone them to give a personal thanks. I
would of course research them first, tracing their email to a user
account and looking at their edit history, to know their interests and
work on the website, if any. That's only basic courtesy.
With proper software that integrated everything, I could do all of
that with a couple of clicks from an internal donor management system,
so that I could afford the time to give personal thanks to much
smaller donors.
--Jimbo
While adding running balances to the summaries I discovered that the numbers
didn't add up. After some trial and error I fixed the errors. The biggest
problem was that many of the e-check PayPal transactions were erroneously
marked as "cleared" when they should have been marked as "uncleared" - this
mislabeling is frustrating but I know how to spot this in the future.
I am now very confident in the accuracy of these data.
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_PayPal_donations_for_2003
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ruimu" <ruimu(a)uestc.edu.cn>
> P.S. : I know that censorship is a widely hated thing, so my ideas here
may
> seem to be hateful for some of you. Please consider that I tried to soften
> them as much as possible, and that I'm not helped 'cause I'm not using my
> mother tongue. Many evil things are necessary (on WP, banning someone is
> this way; in society, I could say cops, laws, ...). Most of those evil
> things are bad (and rejected) when they come from outside, I mean from
> someone else. When you internalize them, they may not be so evil--that's
> my key point.
Just to make it clear: I don't support French law that was previously
the topic of this thread, and I personnally don't care at all on where a WP
server is to be installed in Europe. I just tried to link a little bit this
censorship issue on VfD, edit wars and Ban issues.
There are a couple of free options that a lot of nonprofits I've worked
with are using, but the best one I've seen is ebase 2.0
<http://www.ebase.org/>. However, as far as I know, it's only available for
the Mac and Windows platforms, since it's a a FileMakerPro application. (It
includes a run-time version of FileMakerPro so you don't even need to buy
FMP unless you want to do a lot of customization or use it across a network
or have it be web-enabled.) The FAQ are here:
<http://www.ebase.org/about/faq.htm>
ebase® 2.0 Community Relationship Management
By Nonprofits for Nonprofits
ebase 2.0 is powerful and affordable database software created by
TechRocks, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, for other nonprofits. ebase
software and manuals are distributed free of charge, however fees are
charged to access online support resources.
In collaboration with nonprofit staff, database developers, and
volunteers the ebase community ebase was designed to support the
operations of your organization without locking you into a proprietary data
structure or expensive software solution.
ebase enables you to build strong and lasting relationships with
your communities: members, donors, volunteers, activists, funders, and clients.
With ebase 2.0 you can:
* Integrate your data about community members in one place
* Manage and personalize email lists within ebase
* Track "who knows who" to build deeper relationships
* Own your own data: Secure your data and control it in-house
* Evaluate the cost-effectiveness of campaigns as you move donors and
volunteers up the "ladder of engagement"
ebase 2.0 support community contribution
Although ebase is distributed for free, the cost of supporting
ebase is recovered through fees to access online support resources. To help
keep costs low for groups that can't afford expensive support services,
please consider making a voluntary contribution to support the ebase
support community.
It's a At 04:26 PM 1/14/2004 +0000, you wrote:
>I'm looking for donor management systems software, preferably
>GNU-free, although more important to me right now is doing a good job.
>I am writing a tiny little internal website on my home machine using
>PhP and MySQL to keep track of this information, but that's a pretty
>feature-poor solution.
>
>I want to be able to send receipts and thank you notes to donors, and
>I want to be able to generate summary reports for the accountant, etc.
>
>At some point I can envision (though I have no concrete plans at the
>moment for this) a quarterly magazine or report containing news about
>Wikipedia, a few well-chosen articles, etc. This would be made
>available free on the web in pdf format or similar, and then donors
>above some threshold could opt to receive a paper copy if they want.
>
>All of this requires that I be conscientious about properly managing
>information about donors.
>
>Does anyone have direct experience in this area, with specific advice
>for me as to what packages exist and what features I should be looking
>for?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com>
To: <wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 9:27 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law
> How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
> set up a French nonprofit?
Not much, I guess, except if Wikipedia becomes a den of negationists
(revisionist seems to be the only translation but I don't like it as any
historian is "revising" History), suicide apologists, or paedophiles.
On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:05:49PM +0800, Ruimu wrote:
> > How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
> > set up a French nonprofit?
>
> Not much, I guess, except if Wikipedia becomes a den of negationists
> (revisionist seems to be the only translation but I don't like it as any
> historian is "revising" History), suicide apologists, or paedophiles.
Maybe you're low on imagination. For example what if there's an article on a
politician which describes what he really have done, but what he does not
like to have published? (Monsieur XY member of the parliament raped his 3
daughters and the dog of the neighbour at age 12.) Or criticising (providing
alternative points of view of) political moves, like cutting countries
apart, killing people, etc?
Oh well, maybe I get it wrong. It would happen in Hungary.
Peter
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Hi,
FYI.
I think that might be interesting for European people who want to make
donations.
Regards,
Yann
Subject: Information Regarding Anticipated Future European Operations
Date: Tuesday 13 January 2004 03:22
From: "PayPal Inc." <announcements-account(a)paypal.com>
To: "Yann Forget" <yann(a)forget-me.net>
Dear Yann Forget,
We would like to update you on our preparations for the anticipated future
launch of PayPal (Europe) Ltd., a UK company, as the service provider for
PayPal customers in the European Union.
This is a positive development that would help us provide our European
customers with improved services to satisfy local needs, both online and
through our new European Customer Service Centre in Dublin.
We anticipate that PayPal (Europe) Ltd. will begin operating in February
2004, subject to receiving authorisation from the Financial Services
Authority (FSA) in the UK. Please note, no action will be necessary on your
part. You will be able to continue using your PayPal account as you do
today.
Your existing relationship
Until PayPal (Europe) Ltd. starts operating, your customer relationship
continues to be with PayPal, Inc., a US company regulated as a money
transmitter by various states in the US, under the PayPal User Agreement
governed by California law.
In June 2003, we applied to the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) for
authorisation for PayPal (Europe) Ltd. to operate as an Electronic Money
Institution (ELMI) in the European Union. This process is still in progress.
A new customer relationship
With the introduction of our new UK company, your customer relationship would
automatically reside with PayPal (Europe) Ltd. instead of PayPal, Inc. We
would also introduce a new User Agreement and Privacy Policy, similar to the
current agreements but without US-specific references and modified to comply
with UK financial services and consumer protection requirements.
While this transition is at least 30 days away, we encourage you to:
understand your rights and obligations. Please preview the PayPal (Europe)
Ltd. User Agreement and Privacy Policy
learn about the key changes and how they may affect you. Please visit the
PayPal (Europe) Ltd. FAQs page as well as the Policy Updates section for
more details.
If you do not wish to hold a PayPal (Europe) Ltd. account and would prefer to
continue your relationship with PayPal, Inc., you may only do so if your
primary address in your PayPal account, as of 1 February 2004, is a
legitimate postal address within the United States.
If your primary address is not in the United States and you do not wish to
receive services from PayPal (Europe) Ltd., you may close your account at
any time, either before or after the transition. To do so, log in to your
PayPal account and click 'Profile' to access the relevant link.
As we await authorisation from the FSA, we wish to inform you in advance of
our plans and how these may affect you. We will notify you of further
developments in the coming weeks. Until then, thank you for using PayPal.
Yours sincerely,
PayPal, Inc.
- --
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
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How about logging the failed "Go" queries on the server and ranking
them? Searching the Wikipedia can be pretty frustrating at times,
especially when you don't know exactly what you're looking for. You know
what I mean, you *know* what you're looking for, you just don't know
what exactly it is called, especially when that's an article which can
have a lot of names.
Once the queries are logged and ranked, a relatively simple mechanism
could be built to pick one of the top 100 every couple of hours and show
it somewhere in every page, obviously as long as the article hasn't been
already created. That way we increase the chances towards meaningful
pathfinding (#REDIRECTs) and *really* "wanted articles".
I'm aware this would incur a tad more load on the server, but since
people typically tend to follow links rather than search for stuff, I
don't think this would be a serious performance hit. What do you think?
--Gutza