[Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
WereSpielChequers
werespielchequers at gmail.com
Tue Sep 13 11:25:03 UTC 2011
It isn't entirely clear from the posts on this list whether this is a fork
of half the community of WikiNews or half of EN Wikinews. Looking at the
OpenGlobe site I get the impression it is the latter. Clearly there is a
difference in impact between the two, and it would be good to hear from
those who've chosen not to fork as to how healthy the rest of Wikinews is
and how they intend to respond to the fork.
If OpenGlobe succeed in creating an equally open but more inclusionist fork
that is more friendly, and also more welcoming to new editors, then they
will be hard to compete with. It is a good aim though and very sad that they
thought they had to fork to achieve it. When the anti advertising fork
happened wikimedia responded by dropping plans for advertising, and I hope
that we can respond to this fork with a similar attitude of seeking to
address the problems that drove people away.
I wish both forks well. We now need to be realistic that News is a yet more
crowded market, and other than closer synergy between Wikinews and Wikipedia
I see difficulty in getting WikiNews to the point where the problems that
inspired the fork can be resolved. One possible solution would be to try and
get the WikiProjects to be more generically Wikimedia rather than as at
present very Wikipedia focussed. This could be done by running a bot on
WikiNews to inform relevant Wikiprojects, so when someone submitted a
wikinews story relating to Archaeology in India, Wikiprojects India and
Archaeology both had requests for reviewers.
Another solution would be to upend our approach to IT development, whether
you are a fan of Wikilove and article feedback both are very much topdown
initiatives. I think it would be great if we could ringfence some IT budget
for bottom up initiatives, the image filter consultation had a question as
to how important that development was, but lacked the comparators that would
have made the question meaningful. What I'd like to see is a
prioritisation page on Meta comparing the priority of multiple potential
developments, - much like the way Wikimania chooses presentations. That way
projects and editors could make a pitch for IT investments that their
communities actually had consensus for - currently even EN wiki can get
consensus for change but not get IT resource for it to happen.
Regards
WereSpielChequers
On 13 September 2011 06:39, <foundation-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org>wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: A Wikimedia project has forked (Stephen Bain)
> 2. Re: A Wikimedia project has forked (geni)
> 3. Re: Wiki Loves Monuments (Was: On curiosity, cats and
> scapegoats) (Milos Rancic)
> 4. Re: A Wikimedia project has forked (Erik Moeller)
> 5. Re: A Wikimedia project has forked (Sue Gardner)
> 6. Re: A Wikimedia project has forked (Phil Nash)
> 7. The Wikinews fork: updates (Tempodivalse)
> 8. Re: On curiosity, cats and scapegoats (Keegan Peterzell)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:36:54 +1000
> From: Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAO5b2ftngOmENaYDQ7F4nQ8Tx3fG0d5FOMzWwfOiHqYndhNwbQ at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 9:26 AM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> > I would characterize WMF's prioritization as an "A rising tide lifts
> > all boats" policy. Improvements are generally conceived to be widely
> > usable, both in Wikimedia projects and even outside the Wikimedia
> > environment, and to have the largest possible impact. Even if a first
> > deployment is Wikipedia, they will generally benefit other projects as
> > well.
>
> I believe the correct name for that is the trickle-down effect :)
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 02:15:51 +0100
> From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAOU87sQPag3+ULEmDZT78bVLR+=8MSo+C6BjcS9vJfATeoVefA at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 12 September 2011 23:45, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Now: what do we need to do to make Wikinews better and more useful?
> > What are the costs and technical or other work involved?
>
> Very little. Mostly wikinews is misstargeted. Yet another website
> rewriting AP reports is never going to draw crowds. Wikinews needed
> original research and never really had very much of it. It is also
> operating in an extremely crowded market where as wikipedia had the
> field pretty much to itself when it started.
>
> > ?MZM, you are
> > confused in this thread - Wikimedia doesn't exist to serve EN:WP, or
> > to serve its most popular *current* project, it exists to support the
> > global dissemination of all sorts of knowledge, and collaboration to
> > create that knowledge.
>
> The reality is however that it's always en.pedia that is on the
> receiving end of whatever the foundation wants to do at any given
> time.
>
>
>
>
> --
> geni
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:45:59 +0200
> From: Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wiki Loves Monuments (Was: On curiosity,
> cats and scapegoats)
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAHPiQ2FBuo_0Zg_Oa91z1ZbHC-P=m_R9ixa61oZseFRQt9PpFQ at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-2
>
> 2011/9/12 Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com>:
> > W dniu 12 wrze?nia 2011 19:30 u?ytkownik Tomasz Koz?owski
> > <odder.wiki at gmail.com> napisa?:
> >> On 12.09.2011 19:05, Milos Rancic wrote:
> >>
> >>> Eh, wrong example. There is Wikimedia Macedonia and they really hate
> >>> monuments because every local tycoon builds monuments in Macedonia,
> >>> presently.
> >>
> >> What was that supposed to mean? Either I don't get the joke or this
> >> isn't really a joke, is it?
> >>
> >
> > Maybe it is just missunderstanding of word "monument"? In "Wiki Loves
> > Monuments" it does not mean a memorial statue of the person, but an
> > "unmovable pice of human heritage" such as historical buildings, old
> > towns, old cementaries, etc. So - a recently built memoral of recent
> > political or social activities rather do not fulfill the definition.
> > In order to avoid this missunderstanding we called our (Polish) part
> > of "Wiki Loves Monuments" -"Wiki Lubi Zabytki". Maybe in Macedonian
> > there is similar word to Polish "zabytek" ?
>
> Not expert in Macedonian, but I think that you are probably right, as
> it seems that nouns are the same in Serbian: "spomenik" is both
> particular ("memorial statue") and general word (Belgrade Castle is
> also "spomenik"). There is a word "monument", but that one means
> something of really big importance (Egyptian pyramids are "monument";
> while even Belgrade Castle isn't usually named with that word;
> Wikipedia could be called "monument", as well) or for something very
> old, usually connected with civilization which doesn't exist anymore
> (obelisks could be called "monument").
>
> And, yes, according to Macedonians which I know (including
> Wikimedians), there is ongoing "monument/statue rush" in Macedonia.
> It's a kind of subcultural kitch movement among richer Macedonians. At
> lesser level, it could be seen in the rest of Balkans, as well.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:55:35 -0700
> From: Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAEg6ZHkKJZsWza+3RzUpkFiDdL4HhcT_EjVQuhawb6q37Hs=Rw at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 5:26 PM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> > My point is that without specific focus, these
> > other sites languish and slowly die. A software package that was built
> for
> > an encyclopedia can't work for a dictionary. It doesn't work for a
> > dictionary. It also can't and doesn't work for a number of other
> concepts.
>
> Of course, up to this point we all agree. That said, far from a myopic
> focus on English Wikipedia, strategies to support specialized needs
> and exploration of new ideas have long been very much a high priority
> for WMF. It's an issue that's very clearly articulated in the
> "Encourage Innovation" section of the strategic plan:
>
> [begin quote]
> Support the infrastructure of networked innovation and research.
> - Develop clear documentation and APIs so that developers can create
> applications that work easily with our platforms.
> - Ensure access to computing resources and data for interested
> researchers and developers, including downloadable copies of all
> public data.
> - Continually improve social and technical systems for volunteer
> development of core software, extensions, gadgets and other technical
> improvements.
>
> Promote the adoption of great ideas.
> - Develop clear processes for code review, acceptance and deployment
> so that volunteer development does not linger in limbo.
> - Organize meetings and events bringing together developers and
> researchers who are focused on Wikimedia-related projects with
> experienced Wikimedia volunteers and staff.
> - Showcase and recognize the greatest innovations of the Wikimedia
> movement, and create community spaces dedicated to the exploration of
> new ideas.
> [end quote]
>
>
> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary/Encourage_Innovation
>
> That strategy is very much reflected in our actions and our budgeting,
> as is evident from consulting recent activity reports.
>
> One can legitimately criticize that this helps achieve incremental
> improvements across the board, but leaves a gap of "large, focused
> investment to meet specialized needs" (e.g. build new software to
> support a wiki-based dictionary). But it doesn't necessarily have to
> do so.
>
> IMO, the question that's worth asking is: What's the constraint that's
> keeping more people from launching successful initiatives under the
> Wikimedia umbrella? There are clearly both technical and social
> constraints. One technical constraint is the fact that taking an
> initiative from scratch to a successful launch requires considerable
> WMF support along the way. How can we reduce the need for WMF
> organizational support?
>
> The Wikimedia Labs project (
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs ) is designed to push
> that boundary. In the "Test Dev Labs" environment, the goal is to make
> it possible to test and develop software under conditions that are
> very close to the WMF production environment. This means that,
> provided you're willing to invest sufficient resources, you should be
> able to get a project much closer to "WMF readiness" than you are
> today with far less WMF help. Indeed, it is designed to not become an
> on-ramp for new volunteers not just in development, but also site
> operations.
>
> That's of course a risky project and it may not live up to our
> expectations. But it's IMO a smarter bet to make than just picking
> (with an unavoidable element of arbitrariness) one of the many
> specialized areas in which we currently aren't succeeding and throwing
> $ and developers at it. Because it could enable us to approach far
> more organizations and individuals to invest time and money in complex
> free knowledge problems without having to pass through the WMF
> bottleneck.
>
> There are literally thousands of mission-driven organizations that
> would love to find ways to help solve problems in the free knowledge
> spaces we're occupying. Yet, even Wikimedia's own chapter
> organizations are still only a relatively small part of the ecosystem
> of technical innovation (which is no discredit to the many things they
> have done, including some great technical work).
>
> Having organizations take on challenges either because they are
> inherently suited to do so, or simply because they have the
> organizational bandwidth, seems like a fairly rational path to
> increase our ability to get things done. If that's the world we want
> to live in, it also seems entirely rational to me that WMF should
> focus on general high impact improvements while continually investing
> a considerable amount of its capacity in helping more people to build
> great things.
>
> In addition to technical support systems, forks can be a very good and
> healthy part of that development (to break out of social constraints),
> as can be the development of new organizations. A Wikinews
> Foundation, or a Wiki Journalism Foundation, or some other such
> construct may make a lot of sense in the long run, specifically when
> it comes to the problem of citizen journalism.
>
> --
> Erik M?ller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:36:27 -0700
> From: Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAGZ0=LMsBjgFOJFkhnA0cbTMN9h2mr16ik+hGbF1heSXp=-KuQ at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 12 September 2011 18:15, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12 September 2011 23:45, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Now: what do we need to do to make Wikinews better and more useful?
> >> What are the costs and technical or other work involved?
> >
> > Very little. Mostly wikinews is misstargeted. Yet another website
> > rewriting AP reports is never going to draw crowds. Wikinews needed
> > original research and never really had very much of it. It is also
> > operating in an extremely crowded market where as wikipedia had the
> > field pretty much to itself when it started.
>
>
> On the English Wikinews [1] at least, it's seemed to me that part of
> the issue is that different editors are working on different genres of
> news. Some do celebrity coverage, others do investigative work or
> collaborative coverage of breaking events, etc. Those are quite
> different value propositions that appeal to different types of
> readers, and I would think that Wikinews has simply never produced
> enough critical mass of any one genre, sufficient to create and
> maintain a large readership that wants that genre.
>
> Jimmy said once that part of the reason Wikipedia works so well is
> because everybody knows what an encyclopedia article is supposed to
> look like. I think that's true, and I think Wikinews has suffered in
> comparison, because there are many different types of news, not just
> one.
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
>
> [1] the only one I personally can read
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:04:18 +0100
> From: "Phil Nash" <phnash at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <94B3D8AB562741668345CAC74D7A1089 at mothere50f7f7b>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> Sue Gardner wrote:
> > On 12 September 2011 18:15, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 12 September 2011 23:45, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Now: what do we need to do to make Wikinews better and more useful?
> >>> What are the costs and technical or other work involved?
> >>
> >> Very little. Mostly wikinews is misstargeted. Yet another website
> >> rewriting AP reports is never going to draw crowds. Wikinews needed
> >> original research and never really had very much of it. It is also
> >> operating in an extremely crowded market where as wikipedia had the
> >> field pretty much to itself when it started.
> >
> > Jimmy said once that part of the reason Wikipedia works so well is
> > because everybody knows what an encyclopedia article is supposed to
> > look like.
>
> Practical experience on a day-to-day basis would suggest that this is
> unduly
> optimistic. We are failing to attract new editors who can be, or wish to
> be,
> educated into "what an encyclopedia article is supposed to look like", and
> are discarding those experienced editors who do. Even those who remain but
> are becoming increasingly disillusioned with all the nonsense that goes on
> will eventually leave, or create a fork of Wikipedia, and to be honest, if
> I
> had the money right now, I'd do it myself, and cast ArbCom in its present
> form into the bottomless pit.
>
> I used to care about Wikipedia, as did others, but it's becoming
> increasingly difficult to do so.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 22:25:14 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Tempodivalse <r2d2.strauss at verizon.net>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] The Wikinews fork: updates
> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Message-ID:
> <987992995.5676448.1315884314473.JavaMail.root at vznit170060>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Hello! Thanks for the show of support; I was expecting the response to be
> more
> lacklustre than this. I can't answer everyone's comments individually, but
> I'll try
> to address some of the more common questions.
>
> To be clear, OpenGlobe was not created due to a dispute with the
> Foundation.
> The main reason for forking was the perceived hostility and rudeness among
> Wikinews editors,
> especially to newbies and outsiders, which makes it difficult to get
> anything done
> and drives off new recruits. Bureaucracy also
> played a role: article standards have become so high that very few stories
> make it to the front page; the project currently averages fewer
> than two published pages a day and 75%+ of stories are deleted as old news
> before they see
> "daylight". The stories that are published generally go live only after a
> lengthy delay and
> some time after the event has taken place, making their usefulness
> questionable.
>
> Re how we're going to be different from Wikinews: OpenGlobe is still in the
> developing
> stage, so I'm not sure what direction things will take, but two important
> things are on our
> agenda: make publication of articles much easier and more rewarding, and
> put the focus on
> quality, in-depth reporting, and articles on underreported but relevant
> events,
> instead of just rewriting an article done by AP or Reuters. We also might
> allow more
> "human interest stories", that are unbiased but thought-provoking, as an
> addition to the
> more typical coverage. (There's been a complaint that I've created several
> articles from the PD
> Voice of America, but rest assured I don't want to do that on a daily
> basis; I just needed "filler" for the main page
> until better articles could be made.)
>
> We probably can't keep up with the MSM with sheer manpower, but we can sure
> be a lot
> less biased/superficial. That, plus the fact that we're open-source, and
> anyone can
> contribute, gives us our own little (but important) niche. I think citizen
> journalism has
> become more appealing to the public over the past few years, and we're in
> position to
> take advantage of that.
>
> We have a freenode channel set up at #openglobe, and we're frequently
> brainstorming
> in there, so you're invited to join if you want to see what's going on (and
> have your own
> say).
>
> I've suddenly become quite busy with this new project, so please don't
> expect frequent replies
> to this list.
>
> Regards,
>
> -Tempodivalse (http://theopenglobe.org)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:39:27 -0500
> From: Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAELXKRK-chNaiXzkbYLsp+DQZs0FiiuHLYrZx8OW7_iMWuetWQ at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> I didn't participate in the referendum. I understood from the beginning
> that this was going to be implimented, the matter of community opinion is
> nice to ask for but didn't really matter, and ultimately the only thing
> that
> comes of this is help answering Islamic users questioning us showing
> depictions of Mohammed.
>
> The conversation in this thread has been engaging in helping me decide my
> opinion on a personal level: I'll go with the filter as responsible
> concept.
>
> Milos, you state that Americans see everything involving nudity under the
> label as porn and offensive, and filtering with that mindset is a bad idea.
> You're correct about Americans acting that way in general. I could pull a
> juvenile prank and replace someone's computer background with the image of
> a
> penis, and it will be called porn. It's not, it's an image of a penis, but
> that's the feeling we evoke.
>
> We're growing and developing in Islamic countries and countries with a high
> percentage of Islamic population. A highly held principle is not seeing,
> publishing, or distributing depictions of Mohammed. This is a deeply felt
> belief, one which makes any claims to offending morals seem trivial. We
> had
> a massive problem at the Arabic Wikipedia over providing content that
> depicted Mohammed. From our standpoint in customer relations on OTRS and on
> Wikimedia projects in general, we could do little but provide information
> on
> how the hide all images with the disclaimer of NOTCENSORED, NPOV, you
> should
> be more cultured than to believe that's actually what Mohammed looked
> like/be more open minded...the list goes on.
>
> Now, when we choose to point to cultural trends as a reason something is
> bad, the argument will die. If you inform most of the Western readers that
> you are offended by images of Mohammed, at some point someone will have the
> same reaction that happens when talking about Americans and sexual images.
> Americans might have the same argument used against them with Muslems.
> The
> point is that we have to respect cultural norms and see why they are what
> they are. We can disagree, but the first step for globalization is the
> ability to say "Oh, I see where you're coming from."
>
> What is fundamentally ingrained in a culture is part of the root of that
> culture. We're global, but culture is not. Which leads to...
>
> On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 2:58 AM, Fajro <faigos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Can anyone explain me how this Image Filter is not against the mission
> > of the Wikimedia Foundation?
> >
> > Letting some users to block Wikipedia content is NOT a good way to
> > "disseminate it effectively and globally" as stated in the mission
> > statement.
> >
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement
> >
> >
> > --
> > Fajro
> >
>
> I fundamentally disagree. If the content can be managed to be culturally
> sound, that is effective to disseminate globally. If Islamic countries do
> not want to see images of Mohammed, that is effect in maintaining other
> content without blocking the site. Same applies to other religious
> imagery,
> political imagery, sexual imagery, and whatever else. The filter is for
> images, and while pictures are louder than words, we can at least have the
> words while maintaining cultural integrity.
>
> --
> ~Keegan
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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