[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] We should permit Flash video playback

[GerardM]

Hoi,

You ask for examples of organisations that I had in mind when I wrote about
partnering. Here are some, there are many more.

There are many organisations like Kennisnet, for instance the Commonwealth
of Learning, that have as its mission the provision of educational content
to students. Many of them use MediaWiki in their own organisation or for
content they create. We have the perfect opportunity to realise many of the
needs that exist in this segment. When we were to provide IEEE-LOM meta data
with our content, we would become more valuable to educational systems and
this may lead to partnering on the sustainability and improvement of service
of our services.

Several universities have projects that have or are building functionality
and / or content, they are quite happy to make this available under a Free
license. Among them is the University of Amsterdam who is working on a peer
to peer implementation of MediaWiki. When we partner with the UvA on this
project, it is likely that this functionality is realised sooner. The
University of Leuven has expertise on the gathering of automated IEEE-LOM
data. When we value a partnership like this we could provide quality
IEEE-LOM data and improve on this as we learn better what can be done
automatically and what can be improved by a personal touch.

The "Gilde Samenspraak" is a Dutch organisation that helps people who are
new to the Netherlands and who are learning the Dutch language. Many of
these people are jobless and would be quite happy to learn about Wikipedia..
these people would be passive users of the Dutch language Wikipedia but they
could do a wealth of good on the many languages these people write. I am
sure organisations like this one exist in many places. By giving these
people something positive to occupy their time, we give people a sense of
purpose and increase their self esteem.

Many academic organisations are getting to grips with Open Access. Open
Access does not qualify as Free Culture. However, many scientists are also
enamoured with "this Wiki thing". When we build more relations in the Open
Access world and we actively invite academics to participate in our projects
under our conditions, they will become more aware of the values that exist
in what is a Free Culture. This will benefit the shift in academia that is
happening towards Open Access, it is likely to lead in more content
available under Free / Open licenses. It will make an increasing amount of
content available. While we celebrate all the moves that are in the right
direction, slowly but surely the dream of a Free Culture will be realised.

When the people organised in the Linguist List organise themselves to
improve content in Wikipedia, it is a big thing. Recognising this publicly,
the WMF shows its appreciation.. This in turn may give other people
organised in similar structures an incentive to do likewise.

With organisation like the FSF and the Creative Commons we already have many
links. Several of our people are involved with them. Organisations like
these provide a global role, there are many organisations that provide a
similar role on a national level. The Dutch chapter for instance is working
with national organisations to make people and organisations more aware
about issues like copyright and licenses. We ask for material that is
currently lacking in the Dutch Wikipedia. It is the partnering of many
organisations that to will make this a success.

These are many organisations we could collaborate or partner with. I do not
know any organisations that we should merge with, I think this would only
becomes clear when we build a working relationship. When we find that
activities have an overlap that make the continued existence of activities
in both organisations redundant, we could merge the activities. This might
lead to a merging of organisations but this would only become clear in time.

I am really happy that the notion of collaboration / partnering with other
organisations is not as foreign to the WMF as it has been in the past. I
welcome it when the collaborations that exist are made more prominent and
when we increase the number of partnerships and collaborations.

Thanks,
    GerardM



On 7/22/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/22/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > My hope is that with an organisation that will grow in its efficiency,
> there
> > will be more room for and importance given to explicit partnering with
> > organisations with whom we share objectives. Of importance is that we
> are
> > true to our principles in what we do. When we completely share the same
> > values and objectives, we should certainly partner and maybe even
> consider
> > merging.
> >
>
> Out of curiosity; which organisations do you feel we completely share the
> same
> values and objectives with, or which you think we should examine if we do
> share
> the same values and objectives with?
>
> That is, did you have specific organisations in mind when you wrote the
> above?
>
> --
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
>
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