@Teofilo. Thanks for your comments. The licensing and attribution
requirements in the proposed Terms of
use<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use#7._Licensing_of_Content>are
intended to be exactly the same as the current Terms
of use <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_use>. If you don't
believe that is the case, it would be most helpful if you could include
your comments on the discussion
page<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use>,
so we can correct this. If it provides any comfort, I have lived 10 years
in Europe while working extensively with European legal issues. Indeed, I
was awarded the honor of Chevalier de l'ordre national du Merite by the
French government because of my abilities to bridge the differences between
U.S. and French law. And I also enjoyed studying European and
international law at the University of Strasbourg. That said, I'm always
open to suggestions to better improve my understanding of other cultures
and laws, and, for that reason, your participation on the discussion page
would be most welcome.
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 8:14 AM,
<foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>wrote:
> Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: "Terms of use" rewrite winding down (Przykuta)
> 2. Re: "Terms of use" rewrite winding down (Federico Leva (Nemo))
> 3. Re: Regarding Berkman/Sciences Po study (Kim Bruning)
> 4. Re: Regarding Berkman/Sciences Po study (Kim Bruning)
> 5. The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on Commons and on all
> Wikimedia projects (Teofilo)
> 6. Re: The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on Commons and on
> all Wikimedia projects (K. Peachey)
> 7. Re: The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on Commons and on
> all Wikimedia projects (Teofilo)
> 8. Re: The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on Commons and on
> all Wikimedia projects (David Gerard)
> 9. Re: "Terms of use" : Anglo-saxon copyright law and
> Anglo-saxon lawyers : a disgrace for Continental Europeans (Teofilo)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:45:53 +0100
> From: Przykuta <przykuta(a)o2.pl>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Terms of use" rewrite winding down
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <53ade428.23dbef07.4ee52491.64fbe(a)o2.pl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> > Hi.
> >
> > The "Terms of use" rewrite is starting to wind down. The current draft is
> > here: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use>.
> >
> > All users are encouraged to edit and improve the draft before January 1,
> > 2012. In particular, the document could use a thorough copy-edit, so any
> > skilled copy-editors who are able and willing to donate a few minutes to
> > look over and clean up the draft would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Sometime in early 2012, a finalized version will be sent to the Wikimedia
> > Board for approval.
> >
> > MZMcBride
> >
>
> I've seen a little problem here:
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use
>
> Attribution: To re-distribute a text page in any form, provide credit to
> the authors either by including a) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to
> the page or pages you are re-using, b) ...
>
> I want to re-distribute a text page from Wikipedia. So, I will add a
> hyperlink
>
> You want to re-distribute a text page from my copy..., you will add a
> hyperlink to my copy
>
> N wants to re-distribute a text page from n-1 copy
>
> But what about authors?
>
> przykuta
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:05:00 +0100
> From: "Federico Leva (Nemo)" <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Terms of use" rewrite winding down
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <4EE5290C.3010404(a)gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> MZMcBride, 11/12/2011 19:02:
> > Hi.
> >
> > The "Terms of use" rewrite is starting to wind down. The current draft is
> > here:<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use>.
> >
> > All users are encouraged to edit and improve the draft before January 1,
> > 2012. In particular, the document could use a thorough copy-edit, so any
> > skilled copy-editors who are able and willing to donate a few minutes to
> > look over and clean up the draft would be greatly appreciated.
>
> For copy-editors: see here some info about translation tags etc.
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM/Translate
>
> Nemo
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:54:34 +0100
> From: Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Regarding Berkman/Sciences Po study
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <20111211225434.A21315(a)bruning.lan>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 01:19:04PM -0800, Dario Taraborelli wrote:
> > Kim,
>
> > I appreciate your contribution on the talk page of the project and
> > I am happy to host a conference call with Jerome some time this
> > week if you wish to help us out.
>
> I see quite some issues, but I recognize an olive branch when I see
> one. :-)
>
> Believe it or not, I've been trying to help, but I'm
> obviously somewhat frustrated now.
>
> Could we call privately first, at some time during the week?
>
> sincerely,
> Kim Bruning
> --
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:23:34 +0100
> From: Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Regarding Berkman/Sciences Po study
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <20111211232334.A21711(a)bruning.lan>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 12:27:34AM +0400, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
> > > I've already done some of that for you, together with Jerome. :-)
> > >
> > > A new subsection here would work:
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incide…
> > >
> >
> > I will do it right now,
>
> That's a good start!
>
> sincerely,
> Kim Bruning
> --
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:36:44 +0100
> From: Teofilo <teofilowiki(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on
> Commons and on all Wikimedia projects
> To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Message-ID:
> <CABsdk68drA4vpp-PMsdc2ABOtxrGPXcXx-5__OqUCboVz71UtA(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on Commons and on all Wikimedia
> projects
>
> 1 - Bug or feature ? It is a bug.
> 2 - The human bug
> 3 - The technical bug
> 4 - Unexhaustive list of related talks
>
>
> 1 - Bug or feature ? It is a bug.
>
> Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arameans&oldid=463282677
> : both pictures File:Aramean funeral stele Louvre AO3026.jpg and
> File:Si Gabbor funeral stele Louvre AO3027.jpg are tilted.
>
> It is somehow intentional, because it seems that the devs have
> suddenly decided that the exif orientation tag should be taken into
> account, while in the past users used had to use other ways to define
> image orientation.
>
> But even if it is intentional, we should call it a bug, because it is
> annoying to a lot of readers and uploaders whose pictures have been OK
> sometimes for years, and without warning they must suddenly change the
> orientation of their uploaded pictures. What about the pictures whose
> uploaders are no longer active ?
>
> So I hope everybody agrees that it is a bug.
>
> 2 - The human bug
>
> I think the Wikimedia Foundation should present officially its excuses
> to the readers and active users annoyed by the bug. The excuses could
> be linked from the rotatebot template, so that the concerned users
> could read them.
>
> The devs should find out what went wrong in the decision process to
> implement the 1.18 version, and try to find preventive measures so
> that big problems of this size do not occur again when a version
> upgrade is done. Is it really OK not to consult the Commons community
> before changing a picture-related feature ?
>
> 3 - The technical bug : deadline
>
> A lot of people should be thanked for having spared no energy to find
> the first steps toward solutions to the bug. A lot has been done. In
> particular a lot has been done to provide users easy access to a bot,
> called "rotatebot" which rotates pictures when needed. A lot of users
> have spent time tagging pictures with a "rotate" template, which calls
> the bot for help. Really a lot of people. The bot is busy, and the bot
> should be thanked, if it had brains to understand what "thank you"
> means.
>
> Despite all of that, despite the fact that the bot's speed was lately
> increased, we are still lacking a systematic solution which would
> correct all wrongly rotated pictures and a deadline.
>
> Let us stop asking users to individually tag every wrong picture! Let
> us have some developers create a tool to find wrong pictures and
> rotate them back to their original orientation!
>
> We need a deadline. We need to be able to say, In X month's time, all
> pictures will be back to normal.
>
>
> 4 - Unexhaustive list of related talks
>
>
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/10#Auto…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/10#Auto…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/10#Rota…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/10#prob…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/10#Rota…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/11#New_…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/11#Wron…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/11#.22R…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/12#Dire…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bistro#Monast.C3.A8re_Andronikov_…
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bistro#Monde_.C3.A0_l.27envers
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro/5_d%C3%A9cembre_2011#…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Image_rotation_-_I_a…
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bots/Work_requests#Maintenance_ca…
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Rotation
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rotatebot#Rotation_on_Wikipedia
>
> It is unexhaustive because I did not check Commons' help desk, nor
> every Wikipedia language version.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 01:26:58 +1000
> From: "K. Peachey" <p858snake(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on
> Commons and on all Wikimedia projects
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CADnECnUOdw8Ykjo=B=BBv8bX9Z8HN9Omsd-k4BkiGTUkMp5Qhw(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 12:36 AM, Teofilo <teofilowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > 1 - Bug or feature ? It is a bug.
> > ... snip ...
> > It is somehow intentional, because it seems that the devs have
> > suddenly decided that the exif orientation tag should be taken into
> > account, while in the past users used had to use other ways to define
> > image orientation.
> It's been a requested feature for a while, Someone finally got around
> to writing it (I believe it needed the Improved metadata handling
> backend first) and implementing it, It wasn't a sudden "oh lets write
> this and enable it in one day thing", a lot of work went into it and
> subsequent testing.
>
> > But even if it is intentional, we should call it a bug, because it is
> > annoying to a lot of readers and uploaders whose pictures have been OK
> > sometimes for years, and without warning they must suddenly change the
> > orientation of their uploaded pictures. What about the pictures whose
> > uploaders are no longer active ?
> >
> > So I hope everybody agrees that it is a bug.
> The bug I see is software people used to edit these images didn't fix
> the files metadata itself, thus in the end creating this situation
>
> > 2 - The human bug
> >
> > I think the Wikimedia Foundation should present officially its excuses
> > to the readers and active users annoyed by the bug. The excuses could
> > be linked from the rotatebot template, so that the concerned users
> > could read them.
> Excuses? The reasons why it's "broken" have been posted in many
> places, Last I checked the said template wasn't protected so anyone
> could and pointers to about why its happening.
>
>
> > The devs should find out what went wrong in the decision process to
> > implement the 1.18 version, and try to find preventive measures so
> > that big problems of this size do not occur again when a version
> > upgrade is done. Is it really OK not to consult the Commons community
> > before changing a picture-related feature ?
> Nothing much went wrong in the planning of this feature, The metadata
> backend was improved, the rotation feature was written, the feature
> was tested (and i'm aware of this because I did test it) and the
> feature did work as intended.
>
> And why should commons be notified when a MediaWiki core feature is
> written, why not ja.wikipedia or en.wikinews? just because commons is
> a end user of the software doesn't make it all that special, While yes
> the choice to deploy it to the cluster could have been handled
> differently it worked from all the testing that was performed (and the
> issues that were found from the testing were fixed before it was
> pushed out).
>
> Had more end users actually bothered to test the pre release(s) when
> they were staged on test. and test2.wikipedia, "issues" like this
> might had stood out more prominently so that its feature could have
> been considered after being tested on a wider scale.
>
>
> > 3 - The technical bug : deadline
> > ...snip...
> > Let us stop asking users to individually tag every wrong picture! Let
> > us have some developers create a tool to find wrong pictures and
> > rotate them back to their original orientation!
> I believe that can be done quiet easily with a DB query, Then it's
> just a matter of fixing the metadata attached in the file compared to
> actually re-rotating them again.
>
> > We need a deadline. We need to be able to say, In X month's time, all
> > pictures will be back to normal.
> A time line like that can't be given since there aren't plans to turn
> the feature off from my understanding, So this will conciebly be fixed
> when RotateBot fixes up the meta data on the files, Someone else does
> it, or a extension/feature is written so humans have a interface
> on-wiki to manually rotate the files to how they should be.
>
> -Peachey, Signing off on what is now a new day.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:46:41 +0100
> From: Teofilo <teofilowiki(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on
> Commons and on all Wikimedia projects
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CABsdk68j1AdLWVxC5_yH5p0yp656anGjR3aEHdAq4yWPTpiiZQ(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> The unrepentant attitude expressed above by K. Peachey increases the
> need for clear excuses from the Wikimedia Foundation, expressing
> clearly that something has gone wrong in the decision process, and
> that the people who think the relationship between users-community and
> developers the way K. Peachey is thinking, are mistaken. I don't want
> to address every single untruth included in K. Peachey's message.
> Let's say that when pictures are concerned, the input of the Commons
> community is useful, as is useful the input of the Georgian wikipedia
> when a Georgian-language-related feature is concerned. Let's say again
> that when users have been allowed for years - FOR YEARS - to upload
> pictures without concern for the exif orientation tag, revoking this
> allowance without prior warning is a breach of trust. And anyway, this
> is no reason to suddenly annoy readers, who are third parties in this
> developer-uploader misunderstanding and absence of dialogue. A
> Deadline is possible of course. All it needs is the political will
> from the Wikimedia Foundation management to impose a deadline to the
> devs.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:55:27 +0000
> From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug on
> Commons and on all Wikimedia projects
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAJ0tu1Fd-rvUG1O1uJ83=+CeRNTPRvuRG5aBaQ4tSfGU7p277Q(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On 12 December 2011 15:26, K. Peachey <p858snake(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It's been a requested feature for a while, Someone finally got around
> > to writing it (I believe it needed the Improved metadata handling
> > backend first) and implementing it, It wasn't a sudden "oh lets write
> > this and enable it in one day thing", a lot of work went into it and
> > subsequent testing.
>
>
> * How many existing uploads, used on the wikis, were previously
> wrongly rotated and were fixed by the feature?
> * How many existing uploads, used on the wikis, were previously
> correctly rotated and were messed up by the feature?
>
> i.e., was there strong reason to apply it to past images, not just new
> ones?
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:14:37 +0100
> From: Teofilo <teofilowiki(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Terms of use" : Anglo-saxon copyright law
> and Anglo-saxon lawyers : a disgrace for Continental Europeans
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CABsdk69+KhDV_E+hRur9teW9pA2Z7iKVKAXOXHTxvRL95+L5vA(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Le 11 d?cembre 2011 19:02, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> a ?crit :
> > Hi.
> >
> > The "Terms of use" rewrite is starting to wind down. The current draft is
> > here: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use>.
>
> >From the point of view of Continental Europe, where creators enjoy
> advanced copyright laws which protect their attribution right, I think
> this implementation of the - creator belittling - US copyright law on
> Wikimedia projects is a disgrace. What the licensing section of this
> draft terms of use is saying is that the WMF simply disregards the
> attribution rights which are granted by law in their countries. It is
> humiliating.
>
> By the clever use of attribution licenses, there was a way to
> conciliate continental European laws and US or British laws. The WMF
> decides not to do so, and to stubbornly push the US-copyright law
> point of view. It is a pity.
>
> Perhaps the WMF should not have relied on a US lawyer alone. Perhaps a
> team associating a US lawyer with a continental Europe lawyer would
> have been better.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
> End of foundation-l Digest, Vol 93, Issue 27
> ********************************************
>
--
Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
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San Francisco, CA 94105
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6750
gbrigham(a)wikimedia.org
*California Registered In-House Counsel*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
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Thanks for checking in and taking an interest Toni.
Alhen's response was useful and he has a point. As long as the extension is fragmented among the different individual projects, those projects have the final say in who gets access to the tool and who does not. By the way, there is no equivalent for Commons. We have been using categories and checking contributions to track student work (there are always some who forget categories), but it is more time consuming than using the extension.
Over the longer term, we may want to think about changing how the tool is hosted and accessed as it is not like the other tools which have a direct effect on content in individual projects. However, I realize that would probably mean a significant engineering effort, and the Edinburgh meeting made clear the extension was not a priority. Maybe a wish list for the extension is something to discuss on outreach? What I dont know is if the extension is an very important tool outside of en.wiki. It has not seemed to be until now for es.wiki.
On the plus side, I sort of have a "stick" to get teachers to fiddle with es.wiki more and get more familiarized as to how it works, just what there students will be doing and what the common questions will be. While this semester will be extremely busy for us and any help/support from the ed world would be very much appreciated, we can manage on our own if need be. Fortunately I have several servicio social students repeating with Wikipedia as they truly enjoy it and will be naturals as "campus ambassadors." Several teachers have some experience working with Wikipedia from last semester (and will be getting recognition for such from the School of Humanities). Paola now has access, and two more directors are very interested with one probably already having enough edits to get access the tool. If classes do the preliminary work before the main event/editathon in early March, we should be OK. We just need to prepare tasks for the different groups that already have experience in photo description and article translation, leaving article creation to a small group of students who show a talent for writing and working their way around the wiki with minimal help.
And Happy Holidays!
Leigh
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 12:06:18 -0500
From: toni.sant(a)wikimedia.org.uk
To: education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Education] denied access to course extension
I believe that this sort of discussion would be more useful on a wiki talk page (outreach?) rather than "locked up" in a listserv. Just my 2c, of course. :-)
Happy holidays y'all!
Toni
---
Dr Toni Sant - Education Organiser, Wikimedia UKtoni.sant(a)wikimedia.org.uk +44 (0)7885 980 536
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
On 16 December 2014 at 19:24, Leigh Thelmadatter <osamadre(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for your input Alhen!
I understand the biblio's point of view in that teachers should have have a minimum amount of wiki experience before assigning stuff to their students. I have been pushing this to my department and above. For this reason we have been holding lots of training sessions since last summer and just had two last week with the participation 15 or so. This gives teachers a good start in of what Wikipedia is about, but it does not generate a large number of teacher edits right away. One thing we have changed is that teachers must upload an article to complete training, generally a translation. You can see this in the course up right now in the tool https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Program:Tec_de_Monterrey,_Campus_Ci…
On the other hand, I finally got admin interested in Wiki enough to back our program (called Wiki Learning), an incredibly important step as it makes teachers take the idea more seriously. So Im trying to balance es.wiki's needs along with the my school's (and the Ed Program's) desire to expand working with Wikipedia among students. While teachers will not be anywhere near as experienced as I am (or as my fellow project leaders Paolaricaurte and Lourdes Epstein), they do understand the very basics and have the support of experienced students working with Wiki in other capacities (servicio social, becarios, etc) to as in a capacity similar to Campus Ambassadors. As project leader for Wiki Learning, I am responsible for monitoring the teachers, as well as training people to eventually take over that capacity at campuses outside my own.
If the biblios decide not to grant the tool, I simply means that I will be creating the classes and depending on what teachers decide (es.wiki or Commons) that can be 40 or more classes. In some ways, it is easier. I can create the classes using systematic names but it will be hell for me for the first week or so. (We never 100% know which classes we have until the first week of the semester, go figure.) Well not quite me alone as Jmvkrecords has already indicated that he will give it to Paolaricaurte.
These are major growing pains and granted, a GOOD (as well as unexpected) problem to have.
Leigh
From: alhen.wiki(a)gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 14:22:40 -0400
To: education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Education] denied access to course extension
I participated on such discussion about whether to give course coordinator flag to the teachers.
The general idea is that they will need someone monitoring their work. Eswiki, as many others I guess, has a long history of students and teachers using the wiki without reading the policies. That said, I understand why they want to take the process as slow as possible. Please, don't take it personal.
I recommend you get a biblio(sysop) involved so he can back you up and help you control the whole projecta and edits. I see the main problem here is that many users will come to edit on es.wiki with little or no experience, and the course coordinator will have the same experience of those who are participating for the first time. Feel free to correct me if I am missing anything.
Alhen
@alhen_
alhen at most places.
Coordinator at Wikimedia Bolivia
https://www.fb.com/wikimediabolivia
Thrive, live, and bloom.
On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Leigh Thelmadatter <osamadre(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Ive been told that they are placing the same requirements on the course coordinator flag as they do on all others.. a certain amount of online history with es.wiki. I have made the arguments that you suggest Samir and User:Jmvkrecords has said he will discuss it with other admins (bibliotecarios), but he has stated that the community has the final say.
Question: why is this tool separated under the various language projects? First, this limits the monitoring/documenting to a single language (if students do projects in en.wiki and es.wiki, there needs to be two extensions) and who needs the tool is very different from the others. Why dont we have one course extension that can scrape the data from whatever project students are working on?
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 18:41:10 +0200
From: selsharbaty(a)wikimedia.org
To: education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Education] denied access to course extension
Hi Leigh,
To help with your question may I ask you first if there is a local policy for the use of the education extension user rights on the Spanish Wikipedia?
If there is a policy that supports the admin's reply, then unfortunately there will be nothing to do with that.
If the answer is no, then you can reapply on the same page or separately on other adimns talk pages relying on many factors:
1. The ed extension user rights help only with ed program pages and don't give any special rights on the article name space.
2. The use of the ed extension is to help the coordinators and volunteers of the program even if they don't have any edits on Wikipedia.
3. On Wikipedia in other languages, admins don't, usually, apply such requirements on ed user rights. (Please note that the policies of each wiki community may vary from another and they are the only authority on their policies and its application)
I hope this helps with your issue.
Cheers,
Samir Elsharbaty
Communications Intern, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
+2.011.200.696.77
selsharbaty(a)wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org
On 15 Dec 2014 19:46, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" <nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Leigh Thelmadatter, 13/12/2014 03:34:
Basically the answer is no. They have to have editing experience and
show that they at least have the ability to speak Spanish and show they
can be good course coordinators.
Did you try asking some more admins (on their talk page) to chime in? Often such request pages are only watched by a small "specialised" group.
Nemo
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On 17 July 2014 22:37, Jonathan Morgan <jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> First, I wanted to highlight the important issue that Heather raises here,
> because although it's a separate issue, it's an important one:
>
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 2:38 AM, Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ...
>>
>>
>> One immediate requirement that I've been talking to others about is
>> finding ways of making the case to the WMF as a group of researchers for
>> the anonymization of country level data, for example. I've spoken to a few
>> researchers (and I myself made a request about a year ago that hasn't been
>> responded to) and it seems like some work is required by the foundation to
>> do this anonymisation but that there are a few of us who would be really
>> keen to use this data to produce research very valuable to Wikipedia -
>> especially from smaller language versions/developing countries. Having an
>> official process that assesses how worthwhile this investment of time would
>> be to the Foundation would be a great idea, I think, but right now there
>> seems to be a general focus on the research that the Foundation does itself
>> rather than enabling researchers outside. I know how busy Aaron and Dario
>> (and others in the team) are so perhaps this requires a new position to
>> coordinate between researchers and Foundation resources?
>>
>
> As a community-run group, RCOM doesn't have any role in making non-public
> data available to researchers. However, Aaron and I are putting together a
> proposal for a workshop
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:CSCW15_workshop> that would
> address issues like this. That's work we're doing in an official capacity,
> as opposed to the RCOM work, which is volunteer.
>
Jonathan, it looks like this will be a great workshop and I think CSCW is a
great venue! but I don't think it addresses the issue unless there's
something I'm missing (like an invitation, for example! ;) I see that the
workshop is forward-facing but its aim seems to be to work with a bunch of
different communities like Reddit and GalaxyZoo. What we need are better
channels as Wikipedia researchers to communicate our needs as researchers
operating outside the WMF. And preferably in a way that doesn't require us
to have to travel to Canada to a workshop to do it!
And, I offered it as a joke but it reminds me of a small, subtle point, I
think it would be nice if you could offer an invitation to the researchers
on this list to join the workshop and/or workshop planning when you
advertise the work you're doing on this. I know it's a wiki and anyone
could probably join, but I feel like there is enormous possibility for the
group represented here to feel involved and recognised, and I, for one,
would like to be invited sometimes.. to the fun stuff, that is, not just
the hard, arduous stuff :)
Best,
Heather.
>
> On RCOM more generally... I think clarifying the role of the committee,
> and getting a larger and more diverse set of people involved, might help
> make RCOM work. But as Aaron can attest, it is difficult to get people to
> agree on what RCOMs role should be, let alone get them to work for RCOM.
>
> I've been involved with RCOM for a while, albeit not very actively.
> Unfortunately, I think that the fact that the only people who "review"
> requests *happen to be** WMF staffers contributes to confusion about
> RCOM's role and it's authority. IMO, if RCOM or any other subject
> recruitment review process is to succeed, we need:
>
> - more wiki-researchers who are willing to regularly participate in
> both peer review *and* in developing better process guidelines and
> standards (it's really just Aaron right now)
> - more *Wikipedians* who are willing to do the same
> - some degree of buy-in from the Wikimedia community as a whole. RCOM
> needs legitimacy. But where, and from whom? Subject recruitment is a global
> concern, but the proposed subject recruitment process is focused on en-wiki
> (mostly because that's where most of the relevant research activities *that
> we are aware of* are happening). How to make RCOM more global?
>
> RCOM is in a tough spot right now. We can't force researchers to submit
> their proposals, or abide by the
> suggestions/recommendations/decisions/whatever that result from their
> review. But because we *look like *an official body, it's easy to blame
> us for failing to prevent disruptive research (if you're a community
> member), for "rubber stamping" research that we like (ditto), or for
> drowning research in red tape (if you're a wiki-researcher).
>
>
> - J
>
> *we were wiki-researchers first!
>
>
>
>
>> Heather Ford
>> Oxford Internet Institute <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk> Doctoral Programme
>> EthnographyMatters <http://ethnographymatters.net> | Oxford Digital
>> Ethnography Group <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=115>
>> http://hblog.org | @hfordsa <http://www.twitter.com/hfordsa>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 17 July 2014 08:49, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, I meant the community/communities of WMF. But the authority of
>>> the community derives from WMF, which chooses to delegate such matters. I
>>> think that “advise” is a good word to use.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Kerry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> *From:* Amir E. Aharoni [mailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il]
>>> *Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 5:37 PM
>>> *To:* kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com; Research into Wikimedia content and
>>> communities
>>>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can
>>> and cannot recruit me for whatever purposes.
>>>
>>> I don't think that it really should be about WMF. The WMF shouldn't
>>> enforce anything. The community can formulate good practices for
>>> researchers and _advise_ community members not to cooperate with
>>> researchers who don't follow these practices. Not much more is needed.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
>>> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>>> “We're living in pieces,
>>> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-07-17 8:24 GMT+03:00 Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>:
>>>
>>> Just saying here what I already put on the Talk page:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I am a little bothered by the opening sentence "This page documents the
>>> process that researchers must follow before asking Wikipedia contributors
>>> to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
>>> experiments."
>>>
>>> WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and
>>> cannot recruit me for whatever purposes. What WMF does own is its
>>> communication channels to me as a contributor and WMF has a right to
>>> control what occurs on those channels. Also I think WMF probably should be
>>> concerned about both its readers and its contributors being recruited
>>> through its channels (as either might be being recruited). I think this
>>> distinction should be made, e.g.
>>>
>>> "This page documents the process that researchers must follow if they
>>> wish to use Wikipedia's (WMF's?) communication channels to recruit people
>>> to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
>>> experiments. Communication channels include its mailing lists, its Project
>>> pages, Talk pages, and User Talk pages [and whatever else I've forgotten]."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> If researchers want to recruit WPians via non-WMF means, I don’t think
>>> it’s any business of WMF’s. An example might be a researcher who wanted to
>>> contact WPians via chapters or thorgs; I would leave it for the
>>> chapter/thorg to decide if they wanted to assist the researcher via their
>>> communication channels.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Of course, the practical reality of it is that some researchers
>>> (oblivious of WMF’s concerns in relation to recruitment of WPians to
>>> research projects) will simply use WMF’s channels without asking nicely
>>> first. Obviously we can remove such requests on-wiki and follow up any
>>> email requests with the commentary that this was not an approved request.
>>> In my category of [whatever else I’ve forgotten], I guess there are things
>>> like Facebook groups and any other social media presence.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Also to be practical, if WMF is to have a process to vet research
>>> surveys, I think it has to be sufficiently fast and not be overly demanding
>>> to avoid the possibility of the researcher giving up (“too hard to deal
>>> with these people”) and simply spamming email, project pages, social media
>>> in the hope of recruiting some participants regardless. That is, if we make
>>> it too slow/hard to do the right thing, we effectively encourage doing the
>>> wrong thing. Also, what value-add can we give them to reward those who do
>>> the right thing? It’s nice to have a carrot as well as a stick when it
>>> comes to onerous processes J
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Because of the criticism of “not giving back”, could we perhaps do
>>> things to try to make the researcher feel part of the community to make
>>> “giving back” more likely? For example, could we give them a slot every now
>>> and again to talk about their project in the R&D Showcase? Encourage them
>>> to be on this mailing list. Are we at a point where it might make sense to
>>> organise a Wikipedia research conference to help build a research
>>> community? Just thinking aloud here …
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Kerry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> *From:* wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
>>> wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Aaron
>>> Halfaker
>>> *Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 6:59 AM
>>> *To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> RCOM review is still alive and looking for new reviewers (really,
>>> coordinators). Researchers can be directed to me or Dario (
>>> dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org) to be assigned a reviewer. There is also a
>>> proposed policy on enwiki that could use some eyeballs:
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
>>> nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> phoebe ayers, 16/07/2014 19:21:
>>>
>>> > (Personally, I think the answer should be to resuscitate RCOM, but
>>> > that's easy to say and harder to do!)
>>>
>>> IMHO in the meanwhile the most useful thing folks can do is subscribing
>>> to the feed of new research pages:
>>> <
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hid…
>>> >
>>> It's easier to build a functioning RCOM out of an active community of
>>> "reviewers", than the other way round.
>>>
>>> Nemo
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan T. Morgan
> Learning Strategist
> Wikimedia Foundation
> User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
> jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>
>
> Aaron, when I read that it is active because I had heard from others in
your team about a year or two ago that this wasn't going to be the vehicle
for obtaining permission going forward and that a new, more lightweight
process was being designed.
1) If anyone told you that we are no longer active, they were wrong.
2) The "lightweight" process you refer to is what I linked to in enwiki in
my previous response. See again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
Generally, there seems to be a misconception that RCom == paid WMF
activities. While RCom involves a relationship with the Wikimedia
Foundation, our activities as part of RCom are 100% volunteer and open to
participation from other Wikipedians (seriously, let me know if you want to
help out!), and as such, our backlog tends to suffer when our available
volunteer time does. FWIW, I became involved in this work as a volunteer
(before I started working with the WMF). With that in mind, it seems like
we are not discussing RCom itself which is mostly inactive -- so much as we
are discussing the subject recruitment review process which is still
active. Let me state this clearly: *If you send an email to me or Dario
about a research project that you would like reviewed, we will help you
coordinate a review. *Our job as review coordinators is to make sure that
the study is adequately documented and that Wikipedians and other
researchers are pulled in to discuss the material. We don't just welcome
broad involvement -- we need it! We all suffer from the lack of it.
Please show up help us!
To give you some context on the current stats and situation, I should
probably give a bit of history. I've been working to improve subject
recruitment review -- with the goal of improving interactions between
researchers and Wikipedians -- for years. Let me first say that *I'm game
to make this better**.* In my experience, the biggest issue to documenting
the a review/endorsement/whatever process that I have come across is this:
there seems to be a lot of people who feel that minimizing *process
description* provides power and adaptability to intended processes[1].
It's these people that I've regularly battled in my frequent efforts to
increase the formalization around the subject recruitment proposal vetting
process (e.g. SRAG had a structured appeals process and stated timelines).
The result of these battles is the severely under-documented process
"described" in meta:R:FAQ <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:FAQ>.
Here's some links to my previous work on subject recruitment process that
will show these old discussions about process creep
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_instruction_creep>.
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_Group
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_…
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Research&oldid=3546001…
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Research/Archive_1
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Research/Archive_2 --
Note that this was actually an *enwiki policy* for about 5 hours
before the RfC was overturned due to too few editors being
involved in the
straw poll.
For new work, see my current (but stalled for about 1.5 years) push for a
structured process on English Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment See also the
checklist I have been working on with Lane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment/Wikipedian_che…
When you review these docs and the corresponding conversations, please keep
in mind that I was a new Wikipedian for the development of WP:SRAG and
WP:Research, so I made some really critical mistakes -- like taking
hyperbolic criticism of the proposals personally. :\
So what now? Well, in the meantime, if you let me know about some subject
recruitment you want to do, I'll help you find someone to coordinate a
review that fits within the process described in the RCom docs. In the
short term, are any of you folks interested in going through some
iterations of the new WP:Research_recruitment policy doc?
-Aaron
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 2:38 AM, Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Agree with Kerry that we really need to have a more flexible process that
> speaks to the main problem that (I think) RCOM was started to solve i.e.
> that Wikipedians were getting tired of being continually contacted by
> researchers to fill out *surveys*. I'm not sure where feelings are about
> that right now (I certainly haven't seen a huge amount of surveys myself)
> but I guess the big question right now is whether RCOM is actually active
> or not. I must say that I was surprised, Aaron, when I read that it is
> active because I had heard from others in your team about a year or two ago
> that this wasn't going to be the vehicle for obtaining permission going
> forward and that a new, more lightweight process was being designed. As
> Nathan discusses on the Wikimedia-l list, there aren't many indications
> that RCOM is still active. Perhaps there has been a recent decision to
> resuscitate it? If that's the case, let us know about it :) And then we can
> discuss what needs to happen to build a good process.
>
> One immediate requirement that I've been talking to others about is
> finding ways of making the case to the WMF as a group of researchers for
> the anonymization of country level data, for example. I've spoken to a few
> researchers (and I myself made a request about a year ago that hasn't been
> responded to) and it seems like some work is required by the foundation to
> do this anonymisation but that there are a few of us who would be really
> keen to use this data to produce research very valuable to Wikipedia -
> especially from smaller language versions/developing countries. Having an
> official process that assesses how worthwhile this investment of time would
> be to the Foundation would be a great idea, I think, but right now there
> seems to be a general focus on the research that the Foundation does itself
> rather than enabling researchers outside. I know how busy Aaron and Dario
> (and others in the team) are so perhaps this requires a new position to
> coordinate between researchers and Foundation resources?
>
> Anyway, I think the big question right now is whether there are any plans
> for RCOM that have been made by the research team and the only people who
> can answer that are folks in the research team :)
>
> Best,
> Heather.
>
> Heather Ford
> Oxford Internet Institute <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk> Doctoral Programme
> EthnographyMatters <http://ethnographymatters.net> | Oxford Digital
> Ethnography Group <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=115>
> http://hblog.org | @hfordsa <http://www.twitter.com/hfordsa>
>
>
>
>
> On 17 July 2014 08:49, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, I meant the community/communities of WMF. But the authority of the
>> community derives from WMF, which chooses to delegate such matters. I think
>> that “advise” is a good word to use.
>>
>>
>>
>> Kerry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Amir E. Aharoni [mailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il]
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 5:37 PM
>> *To:* kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com; Research into Wikimedia content and
>> communities
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
>>
>>
>>
>> > WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and
>> cannot recruit me for whatever purposes.
>>
>> I don't think that it really should be about WMF. The WMF shouldn't
>> enforce anything. The community can formulate good practices for
>> researchers and _advise_ community members not to cooperate with
>> researchers who don't follow these practices. Not much more is needed.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
>> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>> “We're living in pieces,
>> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-07-17 8:24 GMT+03:00 Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>:
>>
>> Just saying here what I already put on the Talk page:
>>
>>
>>
>> I am a little bothered by the opening sentence "This page documents the
>> process that researchers must follow before asking Wikipedia contributors
>> to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
>> experiments."
>>
>> WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and
>> cannot recruit me for whatever purposes. What WMF does own is its
>> communication channels to me as a contributor and WMF has a right to
>> control what occurs on those channels. Also I think WMF probably should be
>> concerned about both its readers and its contributors being recruited
>> through its channels (as either might be being recruited). I think this
>> distinction should be made, e.g.
>>
>> "This page documents the process that researchers must follow if they
>> wish to use Wikipedia's (WMF's?) communication channels to recruit people
>> to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
>> experiments. Communication channels include its mailing lists, its Project
>> pages, Talk pages, and User Talk pages [and whatever else I've forgotten]."
>>
>>
>>
>> If researchers want to recruit WPians via non-WMF means, I don’t think
>> it’s any business of WMF’s. An example might be a researcher who wanted to
>> contact WPians via chapters or thorgs; I would leave it for the
>> chapter/thorg to decide if they wanted to assist the researcher via their
>> communication channels.
>>
>>
>>
>> Of course, the practical reality of it is that some researchers
>> (oblivious of WMF’s concerns in relation to recruitment of WPians to
>> research projects) will simply use WMF’s channels without asking nicely
>> first. Obviously we can remove such requests on-wiki and follow up any
>> email requests with the commentary that this was not an approved request.
>> In my category of [whatever else I’ve forgotten], I guess there are things
>> like Facebook groups and any other social media presence.
>>
>>
>>
>> Also to be practical, if WMF is to have a process to vet research
>> surveys, I think it has to be sufficiently fast and not be overly demanding
>> to avoid the possibility of the researcher giving up (“too hard to deal
>> with these people”) and simply spamming email, project pages, social media
>> in the hope of recruiting some participants regardless. That is, if we make
>> it too slow/hard to do the right thing, we effectively encourage doing the
>> wrong thing. Also, what value-add can we give them to reward those who do
>> the right thing? It’s nice to have a carrot as well as a stick when it
>> comes to onerous processes J
>>
>>
>>
>> Because of the criticism of “not giving back”, could we perhaps do things
>> to try to make the researcher feel part of the community to make “giving
>> back” more likely? For example, could we give them a slot every now and
>> again to talk about their project in the R&D Showcase? Encourage them to be
>> on this mailing list. Are we at a point where it might make sense to
>> organise a Wikipedia research conference to help build a research
>> community? Just thinking aloud here …
>>
>>
>>
>> Kerry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
>> wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Aaron
>> Halfaker
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 6:59 AM
>> *To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities
>> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
>>
>>
>>
>> RCOM review is still alive and looking for new reviewers (really,
>> coordinators). Researchers can be directed to me or Dario (
>> dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org) to be assigned a reviewer. There is also a
>> proposed policy on enwiki that could use some eyeballs:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
>> nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> phoebe ayers, 16/07/2014 19:21:
>>
>> > (Personally, I think the answer should be to resuscitate RCOM, but
>> > that's easy to say and harder to do!)
>>
>> IMHO in the meanwhile the most useful thing folks can do is subscribing
>> to the feed of new research pages:
>> <
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hid…
>> >
>> It's easier to build a functioning RCOM out of an active community of
>> "reviewers", than the other way round.
>>
>> Nemo
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>
>
On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 1:27 AM, Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Jonathan, it looks like this will be a great workshop and I think CSCW is
> a great venue! but I don't think it addresses the issue unless there's
> something I'm missing (like an invitation, for example! ;) I see that the
> workshop is forward-facing but its aim seems to be to work with a bunch of
> different communities like Reddit and GalaxyZoo. What we need are better
> channels as Wikipedia researchers to communicate our needs as researchers
> operating outside the WMF. And preferably in a way that doesn't require us
> to have to travel to Canada to a workshop to do it!
>
> And, I offered it as a joke but it reminds me of a small, subtle point, I
> think it would be nice if you could offer an invitation to the researchers
> on this list to join the workshop and/or workshop planning when you
> advertise the work you're doing on this. I know it's a wiki and anyone
> could probably join, but I feel like there is enormous possibility for the
> group represented here to feel involved and recognised, and I, for one,
> would like to be invited sometimes.. to the fun stuff, that is, not just
> the hard, arduous stuff :)
>
>
For me, it's just a matter of bandwidth. I get a lot of personal requests
for advice, pointers, data, etc from wiki-researchers. I try to answer
them, but I can't personally work with every researcher who wants special
access beyond public dumps, APIs, databases... or who wants an "in" on
subject recruitment. I don't scale all that well :)
Plus, that's an opaque and ad-hoc process, and it doesn't contribute to the
formation of public standards and guidelines that benefit other
researchers. Hence, the workshop. We will try to get a bunch of researchers
together in one place, figure out what their needs are, and get them
involved in developing a better process for quenching their data thirst!
Not sure I get your invite question, tho? Are you asking to be a co-author
on our workshop proposal? ;)
Best,
> Heather.
>
>
>
>>
>> On RCOM more generally... I think clarifying the role of the committee,
>> and getting a larger and more diverse set of people involved, might help
>> make RCOM work. But as Aaron can attest, it is difficult to get people to
>> agree on what RCOMs role should be, let alone get them to work for RCOM.
>>
>> I've been involved with RCOM for a while, albeit not very actively.
>> Unfortunately, I think that the fact that the only people who "review"
>> requests *happen to be** WMF staffers contributes to confusion about
>> RCOM's role and it's authority. IMO, if RCOM or any other subject
>> recruitment review process is to succeed, we need:
>>
>> - more wiki-researchers who are willing to regularly participate in
>> both peer review *and* in developing better process guidelines and
>> standards (it's really just Aaron right now)
>> - more *Wikipedians* who are willing to do the same
>> - some degree of buy-in from the Wikimedia community as a whole. RCOM
>> needs legitimacy. But where, and from whom? Subject recruitment is a global
>> concern, but the proposed subject recruitment process is focused on en-wiki
>> (mostly because that's where most of the relevant research activities *that
>> we are aware of* are happening). How to make RCOM more global?
>>
>> RCOM is in a tough spot right now. We can't force researchers to submit
>> their proposals, or abide by the
>> suggestions/recommendations/decisions/whatever that result from their
>> review. But because we *look like *an official body, it's easy to blame
>> us for failing to prevent disruptive research (if you're a community
>> member), for "rubber stamping" research that we like (ditto), or for
>> drowning research in red tape (if you're a wiki-researcher).
>>
>>
>> - J
>>
>> *we were wiki-researchers first!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Heather Ford
>>> Oxford Internet Institute <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk> Doctoral Programme
>>> EthnographyMatters <http://ethnographymatters.net> | Oxford Digital
>>> Ethnography Group <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=115>
>>> http://hblog.org | @hfordsa <http://www.twitter.com/hfordsa>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 17 July 2014 08:49, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yes, I meant the community/communities of WMF. But the authority of
>>>> the community derives from WMF, which chooses to delegate such matters. I
>>>> think that “advise” is a good word to use.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Kerry
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Amir E. Aharoni [mailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il]
>>>> *Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 5:37 PM
>>>> *To:* kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com; Research into Wikimedia content and
>>>> communities
>>>>
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can
>>>> and cannot recruit me for whatever purposes.
>>>>
>>>> I don't think that it really should be about WMF. The WMF shouldn't
>>>> enforce anything. The community can formulate good practices for
>>>> researchers and _advise_ community members not to cooperate with
>>>> researchers who don't follow these practices. Not much more is needed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
>>>> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>>>> “We're living in pieces,
>>>> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2014-07-17 8:24 GMT+03:00 Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>> Just saying here what I already put on the Talk page:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I am a little bothered by the opening sentence "This page documents the
>>>> process that researchers must follow before asking Wikipedia contributors
>>>> to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
>>>> experiments."
>>>>
>>>> WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and
>>>> cannot recruit me for whatever purposes. What WMF does own is its
>>>> communication channels to me as a contributor and WMF has a right to
>>>> control what occurs on those channels. Also I think WMF probably should be
>>>> concerned about both its readers and its contributors being recruited
>>>> through its channels (as either might be being recruited). I think this
>>>> distinction should be made, e.g.
>>>>
>>>> "This page documents the process that researchers must follow if they
>>>> wish to use Wikipedia's (WMF's?) communication channels to recruit people
>>>> to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
>>>> experiments. Communication channels include its mailing lists, its Project
>>>> pages, Talk pages, and User Talk pages [and whatever else I've forgotten]."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If researchers want to recruit WPians via non-WMF means, I don’t think
>>>> it’s any business of WMF’s. An example might be a researcher who wanted to
>>>> contact WPians via chapters or thorgs; I would leave it for the
>>>> chapter/thorg to decide if they wanted to assist the researcher via their
>>>> communication channels.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Of course, the practical reality of it is that some researchers
>>>> (oblivious of WMF’s concerns in relation to recruitment of WPians to
>>>> research projects) will simply use WMF’s channels without asking nicely
>>>> first. Obviously we can remove such requests on-wiki and follow up any
>>>> email requests with the commentary that this was not an approved request.
>>>> In my category of [whatever else I’ve forgotten], I guess there are things
>>>> like Facebook groups and any other social media presence.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Also to be practical, if WMF is to have a process to vet research
>>>> surveys, I think it has to be sufficiently fast and not be overly demanding
>>>> to avoid the possibility of the researcher giving up (“too hard to deal
>>>> with these people”) and simply spamming email, project pages, social media
>>>> in the hope of recruiting some participants regardless. That is, if we make
>>>> it too slow/hard to do the right thing, we effectively encourage doing the
>>>> wrong thing. Also, what value-add can we give them to reward those who do
>>>> the right thing? It’s nice to have a carrot as well as a stick when it
>>>> comes to onerous processes J
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Because of the criticism of “not giving back”, could we perhaps do
>>>> things to try to make the researcher feel part of the community to make
>>>> “giving back” more likely? For example, could we give them a slot every now
>>>> and again to talk about their project in the R&D Showcase? Encourage them
>>>> to be on this mailing list. Are we at a point where it might make sense to
>>>> organise a Wikipedia research conference to help build a research
>>>> community? Just thinking aloud here …
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Kerry
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> *From:* wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
>>>> wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Aaron
>>>> Halfaker
>>>> *Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 6:59 AM
>>>> *To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> RCOM review is still alive and looking for new reviewers (really,
>>>> coordinators). Researchers can be directed to me or Dario (
>>>> dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org) to be assigned a reviewer. There is also
>>>> a proposed policy on enwiki that could use some eyeballs:
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
>>>> nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> phoebe ayers, 16/07/2014 19:21:
>>>>
>>>> > (Personally, I think the answer should be to resuscitate RCOM, but
>>>> > that's easy to say and harder to do!)
>>>>
>>>> IMHO in the meanwhile the most useful thing folks can do is subscribing
>>>> to the feed of new research pages:
>>>> <
>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hid…
>>>> >
>>>> It's easier to build a functioning RCOM out of an active community of
>>>> "reviewers", than the other way round.
>>>>
>>>> Nemo
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan T. Morgan
>> Learning Strategist
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
>> jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>
>
--
Jonathan T. Morgan
Learning Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org
Oh, and as for examples, random-paging just got me this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Malou
Manual description: Belgian politician
Automatic description: Belgian politician and lawyer, Prime Minister of
Belgium, and member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium
(1810–1886) ♂
I know which one I'd prefer...
On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 10:50 AM Magnus Manske <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>
wrote:
> Thank you Dmitry! Well phrased and to the point!
>
> As for "templating", that might be the worst of both worlds; without the
> flexibility and over-time improvement of automatic descriptions, but making
> it harder for people to enter (compared to "free-style" text). We have a
> Visual Editor on Wikipedia for a reason :-)
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 4:07 AM Dmitry Brant <dbrant(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> My thoughts, as ever(!), are as follows:
>>
>> - The tool that generates the descriptions deserves a lot more
>> development. Magnus' tool is very much a prototype, and represents a tiny
>> glimpse of what's possible. Looking at its current output is a straw man.
>> - Auto-generated descriptions work for current articles, and *all future
>> articles*. They automatically adapt to updated data. They automatically
>> become more accurate as new data is added.
>> - When you edit the descriptions yourself, you're not really making a
>> meaningful contribution to the *data* that underpins the given Wikidata
>> entry; i.e. you're not contributing any new information. You're simply
>> paraphrasing the first sentence or two of the Wikipedia article. That can't
>> possibly be a productive use of contributors' time.
>>
>> As for Brian's suggestion:
>> It would be a step forward; we can even invent a whole template-type
>> syntax for transcluding bits of actual data into the description. But IMO,
>> that kind of effort would still be better spent on fully-automatic
>> descriptions, because that's the ideal that semi-automatic descriptions can
>> only approach.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Brian Gerstle <bgerstle(a)wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Could there be a way to have our nicely curated description cake and
>>> eat it too? For example, interpolating data into the description and/or
>>> marking data points which are referenced in the description (so as to mark
>>> it as outdated when they change)?
>>>
>>> I appreciate the potential benefits of generated descriptions (and other
>>> things), but Monte's examples might have swayed me towards human
>>> curated—when available.
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ok, so I just did what I proposed. I went to random enwiki articles and
>>>> described the first ten I found which didn't already have descriptions:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film about a Gulf War friendly-fire
>>>> incident*
>>>>
>>>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *largest known species of land snail,
>>>> extinct*
>>>>
>>>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *notable Kenyan authors*
>>>>
>>>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *annular eclipse which lasted
>>>> 77 seconds*
>>>>
>>>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *historic Civilian Conservation Corps
>>>> post-and-beam building*
>>>>
>>>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *debut 1980 studio album by Goombay Dance
>>>> Band*
>>>>
>>>> - "E-1027", *modernist villa in France by architect Eileen Gray*
>>>>
>>>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *park in Morris County, Texas, USA,
>>>> bordering Lake Daingerfield*
>>>>
>>>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *2014 Live album by Mexican pop singer
>>>> Fey*
>>>>
>>>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *6th UEFA Regions' Cup, won by Castile and
>>>> Leon*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And here are the respective descriptions from Magnus' (quite excellent)
>>>> autodesc.js:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film by Edward Zwick, produced by John
>>>> Davis and David T. Friendly from United States of America*
>>>>
>>>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *species of Mollusca*
>>>>
>>>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *Wikimedia list article*
>>>>
>>>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *solar eclipse*
>>>>
>>>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *Construction in Connecticut, United
>>>> States of America*
>>>>
>>>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *album*
>>>>
>>>> - "E-1027", *villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France*
>>>>
>>>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *state park and state park of a state of
>>>> the United States in Texas, United States of America*
>>>>
>>>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *live album by Fey*
>>>>
>>>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *none*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> Just trying to make my own bold assertions falsifiable :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The whole human-vs-extracted descriptions quality question could be
>>>>> fairly easy to test I think:
>>>>>
>>>>> - Pick, some number of articles at random.
>>>>> - Run them through a description extraction script.
>>>>> - Have a human describe the same articles with, say, the app interface
>>>>> I demo'ed.
>>>>>
>>>>> If nothing else this exercise could perhaps make what's thus far been
>>>>> a wildly abstract discussion more concrete.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:17 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> If having the most elegant description extraction mechanism was the
>>>>>> goal I would totally agree ;)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Dmitry Brant <dbrant(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> IMO, allowing the user to edit the description is a missed
>>>>>>> opportunity to make the user edit the actual *data*, such that the
>>>>>>> description is generated correctly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 8:02 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> IMO, if the goal is quality, then human curated descriptions are
>>>>>>>> superior until such time as the auto-generation script passes the Turing
>>>>>>>> test ;)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I see these empty descriptions as an amazing opportunity to give
>>>>>>>> *everyone* an easy new way to edit. I whipped an app editing interface up
>>>>>>>> at the Lyon hackathon:
>>>>>>>> bluetooth720 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VblyGhf_c8>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I used it to add a couple hundred descriptions in a single day just
>>>>>>>> by hitting "random" then adding descriptions for articles which didn't have
>>>>>>>> them.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'd love to try a limited test of this in production to get a sense
>>>>>>>> for how effective human curation can be if the interface is easy to use...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 1:25 PM, Jan Ainali <
>>>>>>>> jan.ainali(a)wikimedia.se> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Nice one!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Does not appear to work on svwiki though. Does it have something
>>>>>>>>> to do with that the wiki in question does not display that tagline?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *Med vänliga hälsningar,Jan Ainali*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Verksamhetschef, Wikimedia Sverige <http://wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>>>> 0729 - 67 29 48
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *Tänk dig en värld där varje människa har fri tillgång till
>>>>>>>>> mänsklighetens samlade kunskap. Det är det vi gör.*
>>>>>>>>> Bli medlem. <http://blimedlem.wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 2015-08-18 17:23 GMT+02:00 Magnus Manske <
>>>>>>>>> magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Show automatic description underneath "From Wikipedia...":
>>>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> To use, add:
>>>>>>>>>> importScript ( 'User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js' ) ;
>>>>>>>>>> to your common.js
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:47 AM Jane Darnell <jane023(a)gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It would be even better if this (short: 3 field max)
>>>>>>>>>>> pipe-separated list was available as a gadget to wikidatans on Wikipedia
>>>>>>>>>>> (like me). I can't see if a page I am on has an "instance of" (though it
>>>>>>>>>>> should) and I can see the description thanks to another gadget (sorry no
>>>>>>>>>>> idea which one that is). Often I will update empty descriptions, but if I
>>>>>>>>>>> was served basic fields (so for a painting, the creator field), I would
>>>>>>>>>>> click through to update that too.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
>>>>>>>>>>> nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Jane Darnell, 15/08/2015 08:53:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes but even if the descriptions were just the contents of
>>>>>>>>>>>>> fields
>>>>>>>>>>>>> separated by a pipe it would be better than nothing.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> +1, item descriptions are mostly useless in my experience.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> As for "get into production on Wikipedia" I don't know what it
>>>>>>>>>>>> means, I certainly don't like 1) mobile-specific features, 2) overriding
>>>>>>>>>>>> existing manually curated content; but it's good to 3) fill gaps. Mobile
>>>>>>>>>>>> folks often do (1) and (2), if they *instead* did (3) I'd be very happy. :)
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Nemo
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Dmitry Brant
>>>>>>> Mobile Apps Team (Android)
>>>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> EN Wikipedia user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
>>> IRC: bgerstle
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dmitry Brant
>> Mobile Apps Team (Android)
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Brian Gerstle <bgerstle(a)wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Could there be a way to have our nicely curated description cake and
>>> eat it too? For example, interpolating data into the description and/or
>>> marking data points which are referenced in the description (so as to mark
>>> it as outdated when they change)?
>>>
>>> I appreciate the potential benefits of generated descriptions (and other
>>> things), but Monte's examples might have swayed me towards human
>>> curated—when available.
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ok, so I just did what I proposed. I went to random enwiki articles and
>>>> described the first ten I found which didn't already have descriptions:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film about a Gulf War friendly-fire
>>>> incident*
>>>>
>>>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *largest known species of land snail,
>>>> extinct*
>>>>
>>>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *notable Kenyan authors*
>>>>
>>>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *annular eclipse which lasted
>>>> 77 seconds*
>>>>
>>>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *historic Civilian Conservation Corps
>>>> post-and-beam building*
>>>>
>>>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *debut 1980 studio album by Goombay Dance
>>>> Band*
>>>>
>>>> - "E-1027", *modernist villa in France by architect Eileen Gray*
>>>>
>>>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *park in Morris County, Texas, USA,
>>>> bordering Lake Daingerfield*
>>>>
>>>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *2014 Live album by Mexican pop singer
>>>> Fey*
>>>>
>>>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *6th UEFA Regions' Cup, won by Castile and
>>>> Leon*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And here are the respective descriptions from Magnus' (quite excellent)
>>>> autodesc.js:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film by Edward Zwick, produced by John
>>>> Davis and David T. Friendly from United States of America*
>>>>
>>>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *species of Mollusca*
>>>>
>>>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *Wikimedia list article*
>>>>
>>>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *solar eclipse*
>>>>
>>>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *Construction in Connecticut, United
>>>> States of America*
>>>>
>>>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *album*
>>>>
>>>> - "E-1027", *villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France*
>>>>
>>>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *state park and state park of a state of
>>>> the United States in Texas, United States of America*
>>>>
>>>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *live album by Fey*
>>>>
>>>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *none*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> Just trying to make my own bold assertions falsifiable :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The whole human-vs-extracted descriptions quality question could be
>>>>> fairly easy to test I think:
>>>>>
>>>>> - Pick, some number of articles at random.
>>>>> - Run them through a description extraction script.
>>>>> - Have a human describe the same articles with, say, the app interface
>>>>> I demo'ed.
>>>>>
>>>>> If nothing else this exercise could perhaps make what's thus far been
>>>>> a wildly abstract discussion more concrete.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:17 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> If having the most elegant description extraction mechanism was the
>>>>>> goal I would totally agree ;)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Dmitry Brant <dbrant(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> IMO, allowing the user to edit the description is a missed
>>>>>>> opportunity to make the user edit the actual *data*, such that the
>>>>>>> description is generated correctly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 8:02 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> IMO, if the goal is quality, then human curated descriptions are
>>>>>>>> superior until such time as the auto-generation script passes the Turing
>>>>>>>> test ;)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I see these empty descriptions as an amazing opportunity to give
>>>>>>>> *everyone* an easy new way to edit. I whipped an app editing interface up
>>>>>>>> at the Lyon hackathon:
>>>>>>>> bluetooth720 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VblyGhf_c8>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I used it to add a couple hundred descriptions in a single day just
>>>>>>>> by hitting "random" then adding descriptions for articles which didn't have
>>>>>>>> them.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'd love to try a limited test of this in production to get a sense
>>>>>>>> for how effective human curation can be if the interface is easy to use...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 1:25 PM, Jan Ainali <
>>>>>>>> jan.ainali(a)wikimedia.se> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Nice one!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Does not appear to work on svwiki though. Does it have something
>>>>>>>>> to do with that the wiki in question does not display that tagline?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *Med vänliga hälsningar,Jan Ainali*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Verksamhetschef, Wikimedia Sverige <http://wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>>>> 0729 - 67 29 48
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *Tänk dig en värld där varje människa har fri tillgång till
>>>>>>>>> mänsklighetens samlade kunskap. Det är det vi gör.*
>>>>>>>>> Bli medlem. <http://blimedlem.wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 2015-08-18 17:23 GMT+02:00 Magnus Manske <
>>>>>>>>> magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Show automatic description underneath "From Wikipedia...":
>>>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> To use, add:
>>>>>>>>>> importScript ( 'User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js' ) ;
>>>>>>>>>> to your common.js
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:47 AM Jane Darnell <jane023(a)gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It would be even better if this (short: 3 field max)
>>>>>>>>>>> pipe-separated list was available as a gadget to wikidatans on Wikipedia
>>>>>>>>>>> (like me). I can't see if a page I am on has an "instance of" (though it
>>>>>>>>>>> should) and I can see the description thanks to another gadget (sorry no
>>>>>>>>>>> idea which one that is). Often I will update empty descriptions, but if I
>>>>>>>>>>> was served basic fields (so for a painting, the creator field), I would
>>>>>>>>>>> click through to update that too.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
>>>>>>>>>>> nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Jane Darnell, 15/08/2015 08:53:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes but even if the descriptions were just the contents of
>>>>>>>>>>>>> fields
>>>>>>>>>>>>> separated by a pipe it would be better than nothing.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> +1, item descriptions are mostly useless in my experience.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> As for "get into production on Wikipedia" I don't know what it
>>>>>>>>>>>> means, I certainly don't like 1) mobile-specific features, 2) overriding
>>>>>>>>>>>> existing manually curated content; but it's good to 3) fill gaps. Mobile
>>>>>>>>>>>> folks often do (1) and (2), if they *instead* did (3) I'd be very happy. :)
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Nemo
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Dmitry Brant
>>>>>>> Mobile Apps Team (Android)
>>>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> EN Wikipedia user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
>>> IRC: bgerstle
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dmitry Brant
>> Mobile Apps Team (Android)
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mobile-l mailing list
>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>
>
I guess I was not so much thinking of an general invitation to the R&D Showcase but a specific “expectation” (albeit couched as an invitation) on those given permission to recruit via WMF channels to give a few short (or long as appropriate to the stage of their research) talks on their project. Ditto research projects supported through IEG or similar.
I agree that OpenSym is available as a research conference but it is not run by our community and therefore doesn’t help to create a sense of community with the researchers in question. Wikimania is run by our community but isn’t a research conference (would not count as a publication for academic purposes). But I don’t know if it’s realistic to try to establish another conference in terms of the volunteer effort to run it.
Kerry
_____
From: wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Halfaker
Sent: Friday, 18 July 2014 1:45 AM
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
Kerry said:
Because of the criticism of “not giving back”, could we perhaps do things to try to make the researcher feel part of the community to make “giving back” more likely? For example, could we give them a slot every now and again to talk about their project in the R&D Showcase? Encourage them to be on this mailing list. Are we at a point where it might make sense to organise a Wikipedia research conference to help build a research community? Just thinking aloud here …
This is a bit different than the main topic, so I wanted to break it out into another reply.
We just had Nate Matias[0] from the MIT media lab present on his work at the last showcase[1]. We also just sent out a survey about the showcase that includes a call for recommended speakers at future showcases[2]. As for a Wikipedia research conference, see OpenSym[3] (formerly WikiSym) and Wikimania[4] (not as researchy, but a great venue to maximize wiki research impact).
0. http://natematias.com/
1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Research_and_Data/Showcase#July_20…
2. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2014-July/003574.html
3. http://www.opensym.org/os2014/
4. https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 8:30 AM, Aaron Halfaker <aaron.halfaker(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Aaron, when I read that it is active because I had heard from others in your team about a year or two ago that this wasn't going to be the vehicle for obtaining permission going forward and that a new, more lightweight process was being designed.
1) If anyone told you that we are no longer active, they were wrong.
2) The "lightweight" process you refer to is what I linked to in enwiki in my previous response. See again: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
Generally, there seems to be a misconception that RCom == paid WMF activities. While RCom involves a relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation, our activities as part of RCom are 100% volunteer and open to participation from other Wikipedians (seriously, let me know if you want to help out!), and as such, our backlog tends to suffer when our available volunteer time does. FWIW, I became involved in this work as a volunteer (before I started working with the WMF). With that in mind, it seems like we are not discussing RCom itself which is mostly inactive -- so much as we are discussing the subject recruitment review process which is still active. Let me state this clearly: If you send an email to me or Dario about a research project that you would like reviewed, we will help you coordinate a review. Our job as review coordinators is to make sure that the study is adequately documented and that Wikipedians and other researchers are pulled in to discuss the material. We don't just welcome broad involvement -- we need it! We all suffer from the lack of it. Please show up help us!
To give you some context on the current stats and situation, I should probably give a bit of history. I've been working to improve subject recruitment review -- with the goal of improving interactions between researchers and Wikipedians -- for years. Let me first say that I'm game to make this better. In my experience, the biggest issue to documenting the a review/endorsement/whatever process that I have come across is this: there seems to be a lot of people who feel that minimizing process description provides power and adaptability to intended processes[1]. It's these people that I've regularly battled in my frequent efforts to increase the formalization around the subject recruitment proposal vetting process (e.g. SRAG had a structured appeals process and stated timelines). The result of these battles is the severely under-documented process "described" in meta:R:FAQ <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:FAQ> .
Here's some links to my previous work on subject recruitment process that will show these old discussions about process creep <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_instruction_creep> .
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_Group
o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_…
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Research <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Research&oldid=3546001…> &oldid=354600173
o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Research/Archive_1
o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Research/Archive_2 -- Note that this was actually an enwiki policy for about 5 hours before the RfC was overturned due to too few editors being involved in the straw poll.
For new work, see my current (but stalled for about 1.5 years) push for a structured process on English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment See also the checklist I have been working on with Lane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment/Wikipedian_che…
When you review these docs and the corresponding conversations, please keep in mind that I was a new Wikipedian for the development of WP:SRAG and WP:Research, so I made some really critical mistakes -- like taking hyperbolic criticism of the proposals personally. :\
So what now? Well, in the meantime, if you let me know about some subject recruitment you want to do, I'll help you find someone to coordinate a review that fits within the process described in the RCom docs. In the short term, are any of you folks interested in going through some iterations of the new WP:Research_recruitment policy doc?
-Aaron
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 2:38 AM, Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Agree with Kerry that we really need to have a more flexible process that speaks to the main problem that (I think) RCOM was started to solve i.e. that Wikipedians were getting tired of being continually contacted by researchers to fill out *surveys*. I'm not sure where feelings are about that right now (I certainly haven't seen a huge amount of surveys myself) but I guess the big question right now is whether RCOM is actually active or not. I must say that I was surprised, Aaron, when I read that it is active because I had heard from others in your team about a year or two ago that this wasn't going to be the vehicle for obtaining permission going forward and that a new, more lightweight process was being designed. As Nathan discusses on the Wikimedia-l list, there aren't many indications that RCOM is still active. Perhaps there has been a recent decision to resuscitate it? If that's the case, let us know about it :) And then we can discuss what needs to happen to build a good process.
One immediate requirement that I've been talking to others about is finding ways of making the case to the WMF as a group of researchers for the anonymization of country level data, for example. I've spoken to a few researchers (and I myself made a request about a year ago that hasn't been responded to) and it seems like some work is required by the foundation to do this anonymisation but that there are a few of us who would be really keen to use this data to produce research very valuable to Wikipedia - especially from smaller language versions/developing countries. Having an official process that assesses how worthwhile this investment of time would be to the Foundation would be a great idea, I think, but right now there seems to be a general focus on the research that the Foundation does itself rather than enabling researchers outside. I know how busy Aaron and Dario (and others in the team) are so perhaps this requires a new position to coordinate between researchers and Foundation resources?
Anyway, I think the big question right now is whether there are any plans for RCOM that have been made by the research team and the only people who can answer that are folks in the research team :)
Best,
Heather.
Heather Ford
Oxford Internet Institute <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk> Doctoral Programme
EthnographyMatters <http://ethnographymatters.net> | Oxford <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=115> Digital Ethnography Group
http://hblog.org <http://hblog.org/> | @hfordsa <http://www.twitter.com/hfordsa>
On 17 July 2014 08:49, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, I meant the community/communities of WMF. But the authority of the community derives from WMF, which chooses to delegate such matters. I think that “advise” is a good word to use.
Kerry
_____
From: Amir E. Aharoni [mailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il]
Sent: Thursday, 17 July 2014 5:37 PM
To: kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com; Research into Wikimedia content and communities
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
> WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and cannot recruit me for whatever purposes.
I don't think that it really should be about WMF. The WMF shouldn't enforce anything. The community can formulate good practices for researchers and _advise_ community members not to cooperate with researchers who don't follow these practices. Not much more is needed.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2014-07-17 8:24 GMT+03:00 Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>:
Just saying here what I already put on the Talk page:
I am a little bothered by the opening sentence "This page documents the process that researchers must follow before asking Wikipedia contributors to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and experiments."
WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and cannot recruit me for whatever purposes. What WMF does own is its communication channels to me as a contributor and WMF has a right to control what occurs on those channels. Also I think WMF probably should be concerned about both its readers and its contributors being recruited through its channels (as either might be being recruited). I think this distinction should be made, e.g.
"This page documents the process that researchers must follow if they wish to use Wikipedia's (WMF's?) communication channels to recruit people to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and experiments. Communication channels include its mailing lists, its Project pages, Talk pages, and User Talk pages [and whatever else I've forgotten]."
If researchers want to recruit WPians via non-WMF means, I don’t think it’s any business of WMF’s. An example might be a researcher who wanted to contact WPians via chapters or thorgs; I would leave it for the chapter/thorg to decide if they wanted to assist the researcher via their communication channels.
Of course, the practical reality of it is that some researchers (oblivious of WMF’s concerns in relation to recruitment of WPians to research projects) will simply use WMF’s channels without asking nicely first. Obviously we can remove such requests on-wiki and follow up any email requests with the commentary that this was not an approved request. In my category of [whatever else I’ve forgotten], I guess there are things like Facebook groups and any other social media presence.
Also to be practical, if WMF is to have a process to vet research surveys, I think it has to be sufficiently fast and not be overly demanding to avoid the possibility of the researcher giving up (“too hard to deal with these people”) and simply spamming email, project pages, social media in the hope of recruiting some participants regardless. That is, if we make it too slow/hard to do the right thing, we effectively encourage doing the wrong thing. Also, what value-add can we give them to reward those who do the right thing? It’s nice to have a carrot as well as a stick when it comes to onerous processes :-)
Because of the criticism of “not giving back”, could we perhaps do things to try to make the researcher feel part of the community to make “giving back” more likely? For example, could we give them a slot every now and again to talk about their project in the R&D Showcase? Encourage them to be on this mailing list. Are we at a point where it might make sense to organise a Wikipedia research conference to help build a research community? Just thinking aloud here …
Kerry
_____
From: wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Halfaker
Sent: Thursday, 17 July 2014 6:59 AM
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
RCOM review is still alive and looking for new reviewers (really, coordinators). Researchers can be directed to me or Dario (dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org) to be assigned a reviewer. There is also a proposed policy on enwiki that could use some eyeballs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
phoebe ayers, 16/07/2014 19:21:
> (Personally, I think the answer should be to resuscitate RCOM, but
> that's easy to say and harder to do!)
IMHO in the meanwhile the most useful thing folks can do is subscribing
to the feed of new research pages:
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hid…> &feed=atom&hidebots=1&hideredirs=1&limit=500&offset=&namespace=202>
It's easier to build a functioning RCOM out of an active community of
"reviewers", than the other way round.
Nemo
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With respect to one problem we are trying to solve, we need structures
which keep control of the Wikimedia Movement in the hands of the volunteers
who are actively involved in the movement itself. To achieve this I feel we
at least need the majority of the seats on the boards of our largest
movement entities to be directly appointed / elected from the membership of
the movement itself. And that these individuals need to be able to act in
the best interests of the movement as a whole.
This is not something Western corporations are easily structured to
accomplish. However, this is not solved by adding another layer of
bureaucracy, but by improving our current layers. We need to not
allow executive directors / paid staff / current board members undue
influence over bringing on future board members in the name of achieving
their own goals / acquiring certain expertise, etc rather than
accomplishing the communities direct will, with appropriate safeguards in
place.
My 2 cents
James
On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 4:36 PM <offline-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Send Offline-l mailing list submissions to
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Movement charter ratification process (Samuel Klein)
> 2. Re: Movement charter ratification process (Federico Leva (Nemo))
> 3. Re: Movement charter ratification process (Florence Devouard)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2024 16:16:42 -0400
> From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Offline-l] Re: Movement charter ratification process
> To: Using Wikimedia projects and MediaWiki offline
> <offline-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAAtU9W+4e50Sf=
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>
> Thanks both for these thoughts! I also don't want to "just" say yes or
> no, but those are the options.
> We can leave a detailed comment about what we actually want to see. Maybe
> we draft that collaboratively?
>
> Stephane writes:
> > TL;DR: too complicated; structurally unable to address any type of
> challenge.
>
> I agree with this assessment for now. Overall engagement in these matters
> has dropped steadily since 2018. Creating a new body that's likely to
> struggle but will take up the time of another 25-100 people, may be
> depleting a critical resource. My preference is not to 'fake it till we
> make it', but to make simple clear steps that play to our strengths, solve
> explicit problems, and don't further divide us. Iterating on and
> strengthening a much simpler + more focused charter/council could build
> shared identity, and feel like moving from success to success. On this
> issue, to me that suggests voting "No" with a detailed, constructive
> comment rather than "Yes" with such a comment.
>
>
> *Longer thoughts*:
>
> Even at the fully-subsidized WM Summit, people complained it was hard to
> make time to participate without an additional stipend. Not many attendees
> had experience or appetite to run a new parliamentary bureaucracy [except
> those already employed by affiliates, who would be ineligible]. I proposed
> simplifications
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sj/Design_chats/Charter/en> to the
> charter at the time; 8 people found me to share comments in person, but
> none left comments or edits online. (I would have been just as happy with
> postive or negative edits; but *no* edits suggests a lack of energy for
> real drafting of policy or process texts)
>
> Participants all wanted more say in global decisions, for various reasons
> (including wanting more say in their own budget growth), but there was an
> odd sense of dependency. At the end of the Summit, a working group was
> formed to organize the next Summit in two years' time. They nominated a
> spokesperson to report to the audience. He said, and I swear I did not
> hallucinate this, "We are excited to start planning the next summit. First
> we need the WMF to provide a staff facilitator to help us schedule our
> meetings and keep notes."
>
> In contrast, the editors on the projects are quite independent, but are not
> that interested in nebulous governance issues. (perhaps like many on this
> list ;) The unaffiliated community hasn't given much feedback up til now,
> and should be part of the next step of the process. We must upgrade our
> global self-governance if we want the projects to evolve and thrive... but
> we have to work up to that.
>
> Things we need:
> a) Some rebalancing of resources across the movement. The example
> championed by Brazil is a good one, we need more like that.
> b) Larger affiliates need more stable funding commitments. Like 3-year
> commitments that can be revised down in line with all budgets if there's a
> global shortfall.
> --> We don't need a charter for these things; but an interim group that
> pushes hard on global allocation percentages. The WMF has already
> committed to having a body that could do this, in place by January.
>
> Problems:
> c) The council as currently written is a new bureaucracy, accountable only
> to itself and its new time-consuming election process.
> d) The latest charter sets up the council to implement and enforce a new
> global strategy... something no one really asked for. It's unlikely to go
> well. (Read cynically, this is a way for the council to force WMF to
> change its plans. Not a good start to trust-building. Under
> "Responsibilities" for WMF, *but not for affiliates*, the Charter reads
> "*The
> Wikimedia Foundation should align its work with the strategic direction and
> global strategy of the Global Council*" )
>
> Problems that may be irreversible:
> e) The current charter is impossible to update. Any edits require 50
> people to support the change on Meta, plus months for translation +
> announcement + full-movement ratification. Of course an edit could change
> the amendment clause... but policy-creep suggests this won't happen. It
> makes no sense to *start* with the sort of red tape that will one day grind
> things to a halt.
> f) The worst outcome in my view is that we somehow create a new class of
> self-perpetuating 'paid global bureaucrats' who become a new power bloc,
> with its own problems and conflicts, without solving existing problems.
>
> Sam.
>
> On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 12:00 PM Stephane Coillet-Matillon <
> stephane(a)kiwix.org> wrote:
>
> > Ok, I’ll bite (I’m in a bit of a rush so apologies in advance if the tone
> > seems curt. Not the intent, but emails often come out as such)
> >
> > My first concern is that I still don’t know what the exact problem is
> that
> > this charter is trying to solve. If it is to restore some balance between
> > Chapters/UG on one hand and the Foundation on the other hand (basically
> > undo what Sue Gardner did 15+ years ago and spread money around), I’m not
> > convinced at all: no matter how we frame it, the WMF’s main mission is to
> > support the tech that makes the whole movement exist in the first place,
> > and it is in some respects struggling at that. Except for
> Wikidata/Wikibase
> > (managed by WMDE; and possibly Kiwix as it spun off from WMCH), I don’t
> see
> > chapters/UG having brought much to the table in that regard. Could it be
> > that they could not because they did not have the resources? Well, that’s
> > what someone writing an AI/crypto pitch deck would say, but I’m not
> > convinced.
> >
> > So what is left when all this is said and done is this charter being a
> > fight for the « proper » allocation of money, and there is plenty of
> > literature to explain that there will never be enough of that. Whatever
> the
> > problem, it won’t be solved. In fact, the Brazilians have been *very
> *smart
> > in pushing their requirements for a bigger focus on Global South users
> > (Global Majority is not a good term, so don’t @ me), and it really did
> not
> > require having 100 people sitting on some sort of council to get things
> > moving forward.
> >
> > Which brings me to the Global council, the one thing that really rattles
> > me. There is a structural risk in putting people in charge only because
> > they demonstrated their love and participation in the project rather than
> > because they have specific skills/vision needed to give directions to a
> > Foundation spending 100 millions each year. We already have that, and
> > though I like them as people I also remember
> >
>
Maybe I haven't looked in the right place, but why aren’t webfonts being
considered?
Webfonts would mean the same fonts can be delivered everywhere, relying on
installed font only as a last resort.
There are more options than just the 4 fonts mentioned (DejaVu Serif,
Nimbus Roman No9 L, Linux Libertine, Liberation Sans): PT Sans/PT Serif,
Droid Sans/Droid Serif and likes (Open Sans, Noto), the other Liberation
fonts and likes (Arimo, Tinos), Source Sans, Roboto, Ubuntu, Clear Sans, if
you just want hinted fonts and household names.
I’ll also point out that Georgia is a great font originally designed for
small size, and Helvetica Neue/Helvetica/Arial was originally designed for
display. When it comes to language coverage both are lacking but that
cannot be fixed easily.
On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 6:13 AM, Jared Zimmerman <
jared.zimmerman(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Ryan,
>
> Thanks for this analysis, I think it is a good summary of the thinking on
> the matter. The current order of fonts specified seems to be the best
> ordering seems to achieve the desired look and feel short of loading free
> webfonts, which the design team is not opposed to, but it would take more
> research.
>
> I do feel the design team has made a good effort to evaluate all of the
> fonts suggested by the community, and come to the conclusions that you
> clearly enumerated above, which is that specifying any of these fonts has
> one or more of the of the following consequences.
>
> 1. Penalize Linux users who have purposefully installed non-free fonts
> which map to the the desired design goals
> 2. Have no real effect, other that to appear to be endorsing FOSS fonts
> 3. Actively choose fonts which either don't look good (according to both
> users and the design team)
>
> Long term lets invest (time, money, expertise) to build or extend a
> beautiful well designed typeface that suites the needs of our projects.
> Let's investigate how this could affect performance of the site, but its a
> pretty common practice even for large, popular sites, so i'm sure it's
> doable, given enough research.
>
>
>
> *Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia
> Foundation
> M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman<https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 9:54 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>wrote:
>
>> Now that I've blamed everyone except for myself, I would like to suggest
>> that we stop pointing fingers and get down to brass tacks.
>>
>> My question for both the designers and the free font advocates is: Are
>> there any free fonts that are...
>> 1. widely installed (at least on Linux systems)
>> 2. easily readable and not distractingly ugly
>> 3. would not be mapped to by the existing stack anyway (i.e. are not
>> simply clones or substitutes for popular commercial fonts)
>>
>> If so, I think they deserve at least as much consideration as Georgia and
>> Helvetica Neue.
>>
>> Ryan Kaldari
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 9:07 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>wrote:
>>
>>> Frankly, I think there has been a large degree of intransigence on both
>>> sides. The free font advocates have refused to identify the fonts that they
>>> want to be considered and why they should be considered other than the fact
>>> that they are free, and the designers have refused to take any initiative
>>> on considering free fonts. The free fonts that I know have been considered
>>> are:
>>> * DejaVu Serif. Conclusion: Widely installed, but horribly ugly and
>>> looks nothing like the style desired by the designers.
>>> * Nimbus Roman No9 L. Conclusion: Basically a clone of Times. Most
>>> Linux systems map Times to Nimbus Roman No9 L, so there is no advantage
>>> to specifying "Nimbus Roman No9 L" rather than "Times" (which also maps
>>> to fonts on Windows and Mac).
>>> * Linux Libertine. Conclusion: A well-designed free font that matches
>>> the look of the Wikipedia wordmark. Unfortunately, it is not installed by
>>> default on any systems (as far as anyone knows) but is bundled with
>>> LibreOffice as an application font. If MediaWiki were using webfonts, this
>>> would likely be the serif font of choice rather than Georgia, but since we
>>> are relying on pre-installed fonts, it would be rather pointless to list it.
>>> * Liberation Sans. Conclusion: Essentially a free substitute for Arial.
>>> Like Nimbus Roman, there is no advantage to specifying "Liberation
>>> Sans" instead of "Arial" (which is at the bottom of the sans-serif stack)
>>> since Linux systems will map to Liberation Sans anyway, while other systems
>>> will apply Arial.
>>>
>>> As to proving the quality of Georgia and Helvetica Neue, I don't think
>>> the designers have done that, but I also haven't seen any evidence from the
>>> free font advocates concerning the quality of any free fonts. So in my
>>> view, both sides of the debate have been delinquent.
>>>
>>> Ryan Kaldari
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 4:16 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org>wrote:
>>>
>>>> <quote name="Steven Walling" date="2014-02-15" time="16:08:41 -0800">
>>>> > On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > > <quote name="Federico Leva (Nemo)" date="2014-02-15" time="22:52:31
>>>> +0100">
>>>> > > > And surely, before WMF/"MediaWiki" tell the world that no free
>>>> fonts
>>>> > > > of good quality exist, there will be some document detailing
>>>> exactly
>>>> > > > why and based on what arguments/data/research the numerous free
>>>> > > > alternatives were all rejected? Free fonts developers are an
>>>> > > > invaluable resource for serving Wikimedia projects' content in all
>>>> > > > languages, we shouldn't carelessly slap them in their face.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > I just skimmed the entire thread again, and yes, this has been
>>>> requested
>>>> > > a few times but no one from the WMF Design team has responded with
>>>> that
>>>> > > analysis (or if would respond with an analysis). The first time it
>>>> was
>>>> > > requested the person was told to ask the Design list, then the next
>>>> > > message CC'd the design list, but no response on that point.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > I don't see much on
>>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh
>>>> > > nor it's talk page. Nor
>>>> > >
>>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Design/Typography
>>>> > >
>>>> >
>>>> > There wasn't an answer because the question is a fundamental
>>>> > misunderstanding of the way CSS works and options that are within our
>>>> > reach. The question isn't "are there good free fonts?" the question
>>>> is "can
>>>> > we deliver good free fonts to all users?". I'll try to help the UX
>>>> team
>>>> > document the answer better.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>>
>>>> I may be part of the misunderstanding-of-how-things-work-in-font-land
>>>> contingent. Advice/clarity appreciated.
>>>>
>>>> Greg
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |
>>>> | identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Design mailing list
>>>> Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Design mailing list
>> Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Design mailing list
> Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
>
>
--
Denis Moyogo Jacquerye
African Network for Localisation http://www.africanlocalisation.net/
Nkótá ya Kongó míbalé --- http://info-langues-congo.1sd.org/
DejaVu fonts --- http://www.dejavu-fonts.org/
This argument is that copyright is irrelevant to Wikidata, and
Wiktionary. If this were acceptable - in law or to Wikidata - then they
would simply import any commercial dictionaries they wish.
It is not.
Amgine
On 2017-11-30 10:06, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
> Good (IMHO) summary by Yair Rand on CC-0 vs. CC-BY-SA for Wiktionary.
>
> Federico
>
> -------- Messaggio inoltrato --------
> Oggetto: Re: [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its
> considerations on Wikidata and CC-0
> Data: Thu, 30 Nov 2017 12:05:54 -0500
> Mittente: Yair Rand <yyairrand(a)gmail.com>
> Rispondi-a: Discussion list for the Wikidata project.
> <wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> A: Discussion list for the Wikidata project.
> <wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
>
> Wikidata is not replacing Wiktionary. Wikidata did not replace
> Wikipedia, and force all articles to be under CC-0. Structured data
> for Commons doesn't replace all Commons media with CC-0-licensed
> content. They didn't even set up parallel projects to hold CC-0
> articles or media. There is no reason to believe that structured data
> for Wiktionary would do any of these things. Wikidata is for holding
> structured data, and only structured data.
>
> The fact that France is in Europe is not, independently,
> copyrightable. The fact that
> File:Vanessa_indica-Silent_Valley-2016-08-14-002.jpg is a picture of a
> butterfly is not copyrightable. The facts that "balloons" is the
> plural of "balloon", and that "feliĉiĝi" is an intransitive verb in
> Esperanto, are not copyrightable. Even if they were copyrightable,
> copyrighting them independently would harm their potential reuse, as
> elements of a database, as has been previously explained.
>
> A Wikipedia article is copyrightable. Licensing it under CC-BY-SA does
> not particularly harm its reuse, and makes it so that reuse can happen
> with attribution. Wikidata includes links to Wikipedia articles, and
> while the links are under CC-0, the linked content is under CC-BY-SA.
> Similarly for Commons content. Wikipedia articles and Commons Media
> are not structured data, and as such, they do not belong in Wikidata.
>
> Elements of prose in Wiktionary, such as definitions, appendices,
> extensive usage notes and notes on grammar and whatnot, are
> copyrightable. Similar to Wikipedia articles, licensing them under
> CC-BY-SA would not particularly harm their reuse, as attribution is
> completely feasible. They are also not structured data, and can not be
> made into structured data. Wikidata will not be laundering this data
> to CC-0, nor will it be setting up a parallel project to duplicate the
> efforts under a license which is not appropriate for the type of content.
>
> Attempting to license the database's contents under CC-BY-SA would not
> ensure attribution, and would harm reuse. I fail to see any potential
> benefits to using the more restrictive license. Attribution will be
> required where it is possible (in Wiktionary proper), and content will
> be as reusable as possible in areas where requiring attribution isn't
> feasible (in Wikidata). There's no real conflict here.
>
> -- Yair Rand
>
> 2017-11-29 16:45 GMT-05:00 Mathieu Stumpf Guntz
> <psychoslave(a)culture-libre.org <mailto:psychoslave@culture-libre.org>>:
>
> Saluton ĉiuj,
>
> I forward here the message I initially posted on the Meta Tremendous
> Wiktionary User Group talk page
>
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wiktionary/Tremendous_Wiktionary_User_…>,
>
> because I'm interested to have a wider feedback of the community on
> this point. Whether you think that my view is completely misguided
> or that I might have a few relevant points, I'm extremely interested
> to know it, so please be bold.
>
> Before you consider digging further in this reading, keep in mind
> that I stay convinced that Wikidata is a wonderful project and I
> wish it a bright future full of even more amazing things than what
> it already brung so far. My sole concern is really a license issue.
>
> Bellow is a copy/paste of the above linked message:
>
> Thank you Lydia Pintscher
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lydia_Pintscher_%28WMDE%29>
> for taking the time to answer. Unfortunately this answer
> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Lydia_Pintscher_%28WMDE%29/CC-0>
> miss too many important points to solve all concerns which have been
> raised.
>
> Notably, there is still no beginning of hint in it about where the
> decision of using CC0 exclusively for Wikidata came from. But as
> this inquiry on the topic
>
> <https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/fr:Recherche:La_licence_CC-0_de_Wikidata,_o…>
>
> advance, an answer is emerging from it. It seems that Wikidata
> choice toward CC0 was heavily influenced by Denny Vrandečić, who –
> to make it short – is now working in the Google Knowledge Graph
> team. Also it worth noting that Google funded a quarter of the
> initial development work. Another quarter came from the Gordon and
> Betty Moore Foundation, established by Intel co-founder. And half
> the money came from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Institute for
> Artificial Intelligence (AI2)[1]
>
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wiktionary/Tremendous_Wiktionary_User_…>.
>
> To state it shortly in a conspirational fashion, Wikidata is the
> puppet trojan horse of big tech hegemonic companies into the realm
> of Wikimedia. For a less tragic, more argumentative version, please
> see the research project (work in progress, only chapter 1 is in
> good enough shape, and it's only available in French so far). Some
> proofs that this claim is completely wrong are welcome, as it would
> be great that in fact that was the community that was the driving
> force behind this single license choice and that it is the best
> choice for its future, not the future of giant tech companies. This
> would be a great contribution to bring such a happy light on this
> subject, so we can all let this issue alone and go back contributing
> in more interesting topics.
>
> Now let's examine the thoughts proposed by Lydia.
>
> Wikidata is here to give more people more access to more knowledge.
> So far, it makes it matches Wikimedia movement stated goal.
> This means we want our data to be used as widely as possible.
> Sure, as long as it rhymes with equity. As in /Our strategic
> direction: Service and //*Equity*/
>
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction/…>.
>
> Just like we want freedom for everybody as widely as possible.
> That is, starting where it confirms each others freedom. Because
> under this level, freedom of one is murder and slavery of
> others. CC-0 is one step towards that.
> That's a thesis, you can propose to defend it but no one have to
> agree without some convincing proof. Data is different
> from many other things we produce in Wikimedia in
> that it is aggregated, combined, mashed-up, filtered, and so on much
> more extensively.
> No it's not. From a data processing point of view, everything is
> data. Whether it's stored in a wikisyntax, in a relational
> database or engraved in stone only have a commodity side effect.
> Whether it's a random stream of bit generated by a dumb chipset
> or some encoded prose of Shakespeare make no difference. So from
> this point of view, no, what Wikidata store is not different
> from what is produced anywhere else in Wikimedia projects.
> Sure, the way it's structured does extremely ease many things.
> But this is not because it's data, when elsewhere there would be
> no data. It's because it enforce data to be stored in a way that
> ease aggregation, combination, mashing-up, filtering and so on.
> Our data lives from being able to write queries over millions of
> statements, putting it into a mobile app, visualizing parts of it on
> a map and much more.
> Sure. It also lives from being curated from millions[2]
>
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wiktionary/Tremendous_Wiktionary_User_…>
>
> of benevolent contributors, or it would be just a useless pile
> of random bytes. This means, if we require attribution, in
> a huge number of cases
> attribution would need to go back to potentially millions of editors
> and sources (even if that data is not visible in the end result but
> only helped to get the result).
> No, it doesn't mean that. First let's recall a few
> basics as it seems the whole answer
> makes confusion between attribution and distribution of
> contributions under the same license as the original.
> Attribution is crucial for traceability and so for reliable and
> trusted knowledge that we are targeting within the Wikimedia
> movement. The "same license" is the sole legal guaranty of
> equity contributors have. That's it, trusted knowledge and
> equity are requirements for the Wikimedia movement goals. That
> means withdrawing this requirements is withdrawing this goals.
> Now, what would be the additional cost of storing sources in
> Wikidata? Well, zero cost. Actually, it's already here as the
> "reference" attribute is part of the Wikibase item structure. So
> attribution is not a problem, you don't have to put it in front
> of your derived work, just look at a Wikipedia article: until
> you go to history, you have zero attribution visible, and it's
> ok. It's also have probably zero or negligible computing cost,
> as it doesn't have to be included in all computations, it just
> need to be retrievable on demand. What would be the
> additional cost of storing licenses for each
> item based on its source? Well, adding a license attribute might
> help, but actually if your reference is a work item, I guess it
> might comes with a "license" statement, so zero additional cost.
> Now for letting user specify under which free licenses they
> publish their work, that would just require an additional
> attribute, a ridiculous weight when balanced with equity
> concerns it resolves. Could that prevent some uses for
> some actors? Yes, that's
> actually the point, preventing abuse of those who doesn't want
> to act equitably. For all other actors a "distribute under same
> condition" is fine. This is potentially computationally
> hard to do and and depending on
> where the data is used very inconvenient (think of a map with
> hundreds of data points in a mobile app).
> OpenStreetMap which use ODbL, a copyleft attributive license, do
> exactly that too, doesn't it? By the way, allowing a license by
> item would enable to include OpenStreetMap data in WikiData,
> which is currently impossible due to the CC0 single license
> policy of the project. Too bad, it could be so useful to have
> this data accessible for Wikimedia projects, but who cares?
> This is a burden on our re-users that I do not want to impose on them.
> Wait, which re-users? Surely one might expect that Wikidata
> would care first of re-users which are in the phase with
> Wikimedia goal, so surely needs of Wikimedia community in
> particular and Free/Libre Culture in general should be
> considered. Do this re-users would be penalized by a copyleft
> license? Surely no, or they wouldn't use it extensively as they
> do. So who are this re-users for who it's thought preferable,
> without consulting the community, to not annoy with questions of
> equity and traceability? It would make it significantly
> harder to re-use our data and be in
> direct conflict with our goal of spreading knowledge.
> No, technically it would be just as easy as punching a button on
> a computer to do that rather than this. What is in direct
> conflict with our clearly stated goals emerging from the 2017
> community consultation is going against equity and traceability.
> You propose to discard both to satisfy exogenous demands which
> should have next to no weight in decision impacting so deeply
> the future of our community. Whether data can be protected
> in this way at all or not depends on
> the jurisdiction we are talking about. See this Wikilegal on on
> database rights
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Database_Rights> for more
> details.
> It says basically that it's applicable in United States and
> Europe on different legal bases and extents. And for the rest of
> the world, it doesn't say it doesn't say nothing can apply, it
> states nothing. So even if we would have decided to
> require attribution it would
> only be enforceable in some jurisdictions.
> What kind of logic is that? Maybe it might not be applicable in
> some country, so let's withdraw the few rights we have.
> Ambiguity, when it comes to legal matters, also unfortunately often
> means that people refrain from what they want to to for fear of
> legal repercussions. This is directly in conflict with our goal of
> spreading knowledge.
> Economic inequality, social inequity and legal imbalance might
> also refrain people from doing what they want, as they fear
> practical repercussions. CC0 strengthen this discrimination
> factors by enforcing people to withdraw the few rights they have
> to weight against the growing asymmetry that social structures
> are concomitantly building. So CC0 as unique license choice is
> in direct conflict with our goal of *equitably* spreading
> knowledge. Also it seems like this statement suggest
> that releasing our
> contributions only under CC0 is the sole solution to diminish
> legal doubts. Actually any well written license would do an
> equal job regarding this point, including many copyleft licenses
> out there. So while associate a clear license to each data item
> might indeed diminish legal uncertainty, it's not an argument at
> all for enforcing CC0 as sole license available to
> contributors. Moreover, just putting a license side by side
> with a work does
> not ensure that the person who made the association was legally
> allowed to do so. To have a better confidence in the legitimacy
> of a statement that a work is covered by a certain license,
> there is once again a traceability requirement. For example,
> Wikidata currently include many items which were imported from
> misc. Wikipedia versions, and claim that the derived work
> obtained – a set of items and statements – is under CC0. That is
> a hugely doubtful statement and it alarmingly looks like license
> laundering <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/license_laundering>.
> This is true for Wikipedia, but it's also true for any source on
> which a large scale extraction and import are operated, whether
> through bots or crowd sourcing. So the Wikidata
> project is currently extremely misplaced to give
> lessons on legal ambiguity, as it heavily plays with legal blur
> and the hope that its shady practises won't fall under too much
> scrutiny. Licenses that require attribution are often used
> as a way to try to
> make it harder for big companies to profit from openly available
> resources.
> No there are not. They are used as /a way to try to make it
> harder for big companies to profit from openly available
> resources/ *in inequitable manners*. That's completely
> different. Copyleft licenses give the same rights to big
> companies and individuals in a manner that lower socio-economic
> inequalities which disproportionally advantage the former. The
> thing is there seems to be no indication of this working.
> Because it's not trying to enforce what you pretend, so of
> course it's not working for this goal. But for the goal that
> copyleft licenses aims at, there are clear evidences that yes it
> works. Big companies have the legal and engineering
> resources to handle
> both the legal minefield and the technical hurdles easily.
> There is no pitfall in copyleft licenses. Using war material
> analogy is disrespectful. That's true that copyleft licenses
> might come with some constraints that non-copyleft free licenses
> don't have, but that the price for fostering equity. And it's a
> low price, that even individuals can manage, it might require a
> very little extra time on legal considerations, but on the other
> hand using the free work is an immensely vast gain that worth
> it. In Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next
> library <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html> is
> stated /proprietary software developers have the advantage of
> money; free software developers need to make advantages for each
> other/. This might be generalised as /big companies have the
> advantage of money; free/libre culture contributors need to make
> advantages for each other/. So at odd with what pretend this
> fallacious claims against copyleft licenses, they are not a
> "minefield and the technical hurdles" that only big companies
> can handle. All the more, let's recall who financed the initial
> development of Wikidata: only actors which are related to big
> companies. Who it is really hurting is the smaller
> start-up, institution or
> hacker who can not deal with it.
> If this statement is about copyleft licenses, then this is just
> plainly false. Smaller actors have more to gain in preserving
> mutual benefit of the common ecosystem that a copyleft license
> fosters. With Wikidata we are making structured data about
> the world
> available for everyone.
> And that's great. But that doesn't require CC0 as sole license
> to be achieved. We are leveling the playing field to give
> those who currently don’t
> have access to the knowledge graphs of the big companies a chance to
> build something amazing.
> And that's great. But that doesn't require CC0 as sole license.
> Actually CC0 makes it a less sustainable project on this point,
> as it allows unfair actors to take it all, add some interesting
> added value that our community can not afford, reach/reinforce
> an hegemonic position in the ecosystem with their own closed
> solution. And, ta ta, Wikidata can be discontinued quietly, just
> like Google did with the defunct Freebase which was CC-BY-SA
> before they bought the company that was running it, and after
> they imported it under CC0 in Wikidata as a new attempt to
> gather a larger community of free curators. And when it will
> have performed license laundering of all Wikimedia projects
> works with shady mass extract and import, Wikimedia can
> disappear as well. Of course big companies benefits more of this
> possibilities than actors with smaller financial support and no
> hegemonic position. Thereby we are helping more people get
> access to knowledge from more
> places than just the few big ones.
> No, with CC0 you are certainly helping big companies to
> reinforce their position in which they can distribute
> information manipulated as they wish, without consideration for
> traceability and equity considerations. Allowing contributors to
> also use copyleft licenses would be far more effective to
> /collect and use different forms of free, trusted knowledge/
> that /focus efforts on the knowledge and communities that have
> been left out by structures of power and privilege/, as stated
> in /Our strategic direction: Service and Equity/.
> CC-0 is becoming more and more common.
> Just like economic inequality
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/economic_inequality>. But that is
> not what we are aiming to foster in the Wikimedia movement.
> Many organisations are releasing their data under CC-0 and are happy
> with the experience. Among them are the European Union, Europeana,
> the National Library of Sweden and the Metropolitan Museum of Modern
> Arts.
> Good for them. But they are not the Wikimedia community, they
> have their own goals and plan to be sustainable that does not
> necessarily meet what our community can follow. Different
> contexts require different means. States and their institutions
> can count on tax revenue, and if taxpayers ends up in public
> domain works, that's great and seems fair. States are rarely
> threatened by companies, they have legal lever to pressure that
> kind of entity, although conflict of interest and lobbying can
> of course mitigate this statement. Importing that kind
> of data with proper attribution and license
> is fine, be it CC0 or any other free license. But that's not an
> argument in favour of enforcing on benevolent a systematic
> withdraw of all their rights as single option to contribute.
> All this being said we do encourage all re-users of our data to give
> attribution to Wikidata because we believe it is in the interest of
> all parties involved.
> That's it, zero legal hope of equity. And our experience
> shows that many of our re-users do give credit to
> Wikidata even if they are not forced to.
> Experience also show that some prominent actors like Google
> won't credit the Wikimedia community anymore when generating
> directly answer based on, inter alia, information coming from
> Wikidata, which is itself performing license laundering of
> Wikipedia data. Are there no downsides to this? No, of
> course not. Some people chose
> not to participate, some data can't be imported and some re-users do
> not attribute us. But the benefits I have seen over the years for
> Wikidata and the larger open knowledge ecosystem far outweigh them.
> This should at least backed with some solid statistics that it
> had a positive impact in term of audience and contribution in
> Wikimedia project as a whole. Maybe the introduction of Wikidata
> did have a positive effect on the evolution of total number of
> contributors, or maybe so far it has no significant correlative
> effect, or maybe it is correlative with a decrease of the total
> number of active contributors. Some plots would be interesting
> here. Mere personal feelings of benefits and hindrances means
> nothing here, mine included of course. Plus, there is
> not even the beginning of an attempt to A/B test
> with a second Wikibase instant that allow users to select which
> licenses its contributions are released under, so there is no
> possible way to state anything backed on relevant comparison.
> The fact that they are some people satisfied with the current
> state of things doesn't mean they would not be even more
> satisfied with a more equitable solution that allows
> contributors to chose a free license set for their publications.
> All the more this is all about the sustainability and fostering
> of our community and reaching its goals, not immediate feeling
> of satisfaction for some people.
> *
>
> [1] Wikipedia Signpost 2015, 2nd december
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-12-02/Op…>
>
>
>
> *
>
> [2] according to the next statement of Lydia
>
> Once again, I recall this is not a manifesto against Wikidata. The
> motivation behind this message is a hope that one day one might
> participate in Wikidata with the same respect for equity and
> traceability that is granted in other Wikimedia projects.
>
> Kun multe da vikiamo,
> mathieu
>
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