[Foundation-l] Re: Google Donating Bandwidth and Servers to Wikipedia

[Anthere]

Angela a écrit:

>>I personally discovered the page only
>>the next day, following the link from the /. article.
> 
> 
> The page was mentioned on this mailing list before it was on Slashdot.

Still, I discovered /. before I read all the mails on the ml :-)
I read the mailing lists through gname, so only from home and not all 
the time.
Plus there is a time discrepancy between the moment a mail is posted and 
it appears on gname.
So, no sorry, I discovered it through /. :-)
Either way, it does not matter, I just meant to clarify that this was 
not an official statement.



>>- Did the board wish to make a public announcement ?
> 
> 
> No. It would have been phrased as an announcement if that had been the case.
> 
> 
>>- If it had done so, would it have been done on meta ?
> 
> 
> No. Official things should go on the foundation wiki.
> 
> 
>>- Is there a difference between family talk on irc only available on
>>editors logs, and statement on a wiki page which can be linked by
>>everyone in the world ?
> 
> 
> No. Much of the information reported on the mailing list and Slashdot
> came from IRC anyway.


Yes.
This is exactly what I explained to Mark.

However, this is not what the outside world understand, because they 
just do not work as we do.

Look at a few announcements :

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/news/40554.html
"The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates the 
Wikipedia project among others, said Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News 
about Google has offered to host part of the free encyclopedia's content. "

or

"The foundation posted a short announcement on its Web site, which said 
that the terms (as yet undisclosed) were being considered by the 
Wikimedia board and that the group would meet with Google sometime in 
March."

with a link the page you created.

According to this journalist, what you posted (and that could have been 
posted by any of us, or even an anonymous person) was interpretated by 
"The foundation posted".

But the Foundation did not posted, you did.

Several bloggers just interpret the page the same way as this journal does.
The page casually created on meta is said an official announcement.
It is not.

I do not say it is critical in any way.

But that mean what any of us say may be interpretated as "official", and 
  if this is seen official, then it is logical at least that it is 
protected.

Otherwise, it should just be deleted.



>>- Now that most editors consider it official, what if the other board
>>members do not fully agree with it ?
> 
> 
> What exactly do you not agree with?

I was asked to keep details confidential.



>>- Now that bloggers and newspapers consider it official, does the
>>Foundation have a right to "control" what appears to be official
>>statement by itself ?
> 
> 
> Perhaps adding a "this is not official" notice would be better?

This is too late I fear :-)
But why not ?

But Angela, in any cases, I think we have to think about this for the 
future.


>>All what is above is only my opinion, not an official statement by the
>>Foundation :-)
> 
> 
> Ditto. 
> 
> Angela.

I must insist I do not criticize you in any way for setting up that 
page. The only points which concerns me in the long term are
1) that meta is used as a source of official news which are not and
2) that non official news transformed in official news should be 
protected without being called censorship.