Hi,
Topic: Sandbox Server (http://beta.wikiversity.org/wiki/Sandbox_Server)
I have "speak" with Daniel of the German Wikimedia and he has said that the WMDE would sponsor us a server. The details and condition:
• We (respectively one of us) rent the server and we (the person) send the bill to the WMDE and then they repays the costs
• The WMDE gives for first time max. 50 €/month
• The server hosts only projects, software, etc. which are for the Wikimedia community
• We must send every three month a report which include:
o Current projects
o How the community accepts the projects
o Our ideas for the next three months (which extensions, software, etc. should be develop, which software should test, etc.)
If all is OK, we need one who rents the server and we must create a first report of our ideas for the next three months.
Daniel of the WMDE is in the mailing list, too. We can ask him if there are some questions.
Viele Grüße
Jan Luca
Please point to any policy on P2PU that purports that the voice of the
community can affect changes in the structure.
I certainly was not aware of, nor made aware of, any place or system within
P2PU where a person could actually cite policy to enact changes.
If the meaning and nature of "rough consensus" and the specific issue, is
determined by the existing power structure, and that power structure is not
available to be modified, than what you have really is a oligarchic
benevolence government. That's not open in any sense of the word with which I'm
familiar. I do not like dictators, be they single persons, or a dozen
oligarchics. This isn't ancient Greece, and any system of "We'll listen to you
as long as we like to but we're not under any requirement to do anything
the public wants" isn't an open governance system.
Policies vague to the point where a government can do whatever they want
anyway, are worthless policies.
In a message dated 1/24/2011 1:06:31 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
holtzermann17(a)gmail.com writes:
At present, the policy is supposed to be based on "rough consensus" -
so if there wasn't a consensus around the issues you brought up, then,
yeah, the discussion was likely to just be over.
In a message dated 1/24/2011 11:47:12 AM Pacific Standard Time,
holtzermann17(a)gmail.com writes:
> I think there is a specific form of power (or some other feature) that
> you feel needs to exist within the organisation that doesn't, you (or
> anyone) can bring it up in the community mailing list and get a
> response. You can also contribute to the development process on
> github, or volunteer to help out with the project in any other way.
> If you're simply put off by P2PU's current lack of bureaucratic
> structure, you can wait a bit and give them another try when they
> become a more formal organisation. >>
>
I have, their response is to silence those who speak out. Or to refuse to
address the issue.
I'm not concerned by their "lack of bureaucratic structure". I'm concerned
by their lack of any sort of election process, or any kind of requirement
to listen to the voice of the contributors.
It's one thing to *teach* open governance. I'm quite skeptical of any
organization which does not *have* open governance.
There is no barrier whatsoever, to the implimentation, right now, today,
right this second, of elections and open governance.
The barrier is the people at P2PU do not wish to give up any control or
power over their group.
To me that's a no-starter right there. Period.
I have contributed, I have volunteered. But I won't any longer, until they
institute elections. And that means to *all* positions, not just a few
lower ones.
Will Johnson
In a message dated 1/22/2011 2:15:11 PM Pacific Standard Time,
holtzermann17(a)gmail.com writes:
> As you indicated, a core group started
> things, and for the most part these people are still around and have
> the power to write checks and so forth. However, it's not as if they
> rule with an iron fist or anything like that. Most discussions seem
> to happen in public mailing lists, and the people who have the power
> to sign checks seem pretty adamant that that's where "decisions" are
> made too.
There is no evidence that those who are at the top, have any inclination
whatsoever to be subject to vote. There are no votes for any board members,
nor any officers. All positions are appointed by those at the top.
That's not any sort of "open governance" of which I'm aware. It's the
complete opposite. It's an oligarchy.
There is no path, nor even any possibility of any person gaining any form
of power within P2PU outside of those who currently rule.
That's how it stands today.
That's my critique.
Will Johnson
In a message dated 1/22/2011 8:25:29 AM Pacific Standard Time,
teemu.leinonen(a)aalto.fi writes:
> Collaborating with the P2PU and all the other open education projects
> is extremely important. When the movement is growing (as I hope)
> different approaches with a similar kind of objectives will benefit all.
>
>
P2PU is open only in that you can volunteer to help it.
It is not open in its governance which is tightly held to a few people and
not available for any kind of change. Not open to election, modification,
policy changes of any sort. Certainly you can *offer* suggestions, but there
is no model to obtain a position at which suggestions can be effected.
I would suggest that P2PU is not the sort of system with which we'd want to
co-operate until they open all levels of their system.
Will Johnson
This may turn out to be a huge win for free culture if it's
administered well. Many of the resulting resources may turn out to be
useful for Wikibooks, Wikiversity and Wikimedia Commons. I'm
especially pleased that they avoided adding non-commercial use
restrictions.
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/26100
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
> I think with many of the Wikiversitys
> there is still the challenge to find what is it for. I would propose
> that Wikiversity could focus on:
>
> (1) collaborative learning in online courses in the P2PU style
> (http://p2pu.org/ ), just being more community-driven and open, and
>
> (2) building interactive self-study courses (computer-based training)
It would probably be possible to start a School of the Wiki Way or
something similar *within* P2PU. There is already a School of
Webcraft, and now a School of Social Innovation, and School of the
Mathematical Future (the latter one I helped start).
At the moment, I don't see a particular reason for Wikiversity to
rebuild P2PU infrastructure from scratch, when it could instead be
reused to do something cool more quickly and then tweaked with
considerable future promise. I know several P2PU courses are using
Wikiversity as a place to host some of their content, and perhaps good
things would come from a suitable bidirectional channel :)
As for the computer-based training idea: not likely to go from 0 to
8000BPS overnight. Does Wikiversity have a roadmap? If CBT was in
the roadmap, it might actually happen ;). Note, in my Ph. D. project
I'm working on something related, for mathematics, in the PlanetMath
setting.
One thing both P2PU and PlanetMath have in common is that they are not
wikis, at least not in the traditional sense, though both have wiki
aspects. I've often asked myself what PlanetMath's role is in the
"wiki world" of wikimedia. Wikiversity could also ask what its role
is in the broader and often non-wiki, or not exclusively wiki, world
of online educational communities.