Re: [Foundation-l] Another board member statement
stevertigo wrote: Kat Walsh k...@wikimedia.org wrote: Commons should not be a host for media that has very little informational or educational value This is too broad. Confine the scope toward dealing with what does not belong, rather than trying to suggest that everything be purposed as stated above. Prurient and exhibitionist are terms which seem to adequately define what doesn't belong. I tend to agree. Informational or educational value is at first sight a noble goal, but is as subjective in its definition as notable.This is not to say that your proferred terms will always be clear, but the grey areas will likely be narrower. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
Tim Starling wrote: Solution 1: Exercise editorial control to remove particularly offensive images from the site. Standard answer 1: Some people may wish to see that content, it would be wrong for us to stop them. Solution 2: Tag images with an audience-specific rating system, like movie classifications. Then enable client-side filtering. Standard answer 2: This could potentially enable censorship which is wrong as per answer 1. Also, we cannot determine what set of content is right for a given audience. By encouraging people to filter, say, R-rated content, we risk inadvertently witholding information that they would have consented to see, had they been fully informed about its nature. Solution 3: Tag images with objective descriptors, chosen to be useful for the purposes of determining offensive character by the reader. The reader may then choose a policy for what kinds of images they wish to filter. Standard answer 3: This also enables censorship, which is wrong as per answer 1. Also, tagging images with morally-relevant descriptors involves a value judgement by us, when we determine which descriptors to use. It is wrong for us to impose our moral values on readers in this way. The fundamental principle of libertarianism is that the individual should have freedom of thought and action, and that it is wrong for some other party to infringe that freedom. I've attempted to structure the standard answers above in a way that shows how they are connected to this principle. Those who rely on standard answers don't really exercise freedom of thought, only an absence of thought. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Another board member statement
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 7:05 AM, stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote: Kat Walsh k...@wikimedia.org wrote: Commons should not be a host for media that has very little informational or educational value This is too broad. Confine the scope toward dealing with what does not belong, rather than trying to suggest that everything be purposed as stated above. Prurient and exhibitionist are terms which seem to adequately define what doesn't belong. I disagree. Pictures should be judged on their value for Commons, not on something else. And that value is decided by what the picture _is_ (as Kat says, informational and/or educational) not by what it _is not_. If the best (from an informational perspective) picture we have of a subject is prurient or exhibitionist, then I want to keep it. If on the other hand a picture has been done very tasty, but nobody can find a reason to call it informational, then I won't shed a tear about it being deleted. -- André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
Aryeh Gregor wrote: On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 1:13 AM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On foundation-l we are divided between moderates and libertarians. The libertarians are more strident in their views, so the debate can seem one-sided at times, but there is a substantial moderate contingent, and I count myself among them. Conservatives have no direct voice here, but they are conceptually represented by Fox News and its audience. There are some people here who exactly fit your description of conservatives, such as me. But we're forced by the overwhelming libertarian majority to play the part of moderates as a compromise. Regardless, more people than just religious conservatives would prefer not to see naked people without warning. At the very least, few people would be happy in unexpected nudity showing up while they're browsing at work, with children watching them, etc. -- it's embarrassing. You're probably correct that this is *historically* due to religious conservatism, but the preference remains even for completely irreligious people. This is an important point, and I say this as one who considers himself to be somewhere on the irreverently liberal (not libertarian) end of the spectrum. Even as one who considers some measure of these illustrations as acceptable, but who regards an excess of them to be tiresome, especially when they start to appear in unexpected circumstances. Perhaps a parallel might be drawn with a deeply religious conservative beset by proselytizers intent on converting him to the beliefs he already has with arguments far below the quality of his own theological experience. The standard objection here is But then we have to hide Muhammad images too! This is, of course, a non sequitur. A large percentage of English speakers prefer not to see nude images without warning, but only a tiny percentage prefer not to see pictures of Muhammad, so the English Wikipedia should cater to the former group but not the latter. The Arabic Wikipedia might also cater to the latter group -- indeed, I see no pictures of Muhammad at http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/محمد. But we only need to look at large groups of viewers, not small minorities. If the minority is small enough, their benefit from not having to see the images is outweighed by the majority's benefit in the aesthetic appeal of the images. Each such issue will have its own spectrum of supporters and detractors. It should not be our role to decide for them; we can only make it easier for them to make decisions consistent with their own beliefs. It's really very easy to determine where to draw the line. There are a multitude of English-language informative publications (encyclopedias, newspapers, news shows, etc.) published by many independent companies, and the major ones all follow quite similar standards on what sorts of images they publish. Since news reporting, for instance, is very competitive, we can surmise that they avoid showing images only because their viewers don't want to see them. Or if it's because of regulations, those are instituted democratically, so a similar conclusion follows. Not necessarily. Supermarket tabloids still sell well. Sometimes it's the advertisers, and not the readers who determine this. The solution is very simple. Keep all the images if you like. Determine, by policy, what sorts of images should not be shown by default, based on the policies of major publications in the relevant language. If an image is informative but falls afoul of the policy, then include it as a link, or a blurred-out version, or something like that. This way people can see the images only if they actually want to see them, and not be forced to see them regardless. Each project will be left to determine its own standards. When dealing with Commons relevant language is a meaning less term. It would hardly be any great burden when compared to the innumerable byzantine policies that already encumber everything on Wikipedia. That speaks to keeping things simple, avoiding the compulsion to overexplain everything. Excessive explanation tends to make laws and policies more obscure. The reason that this isn't the status quo has nothing to do with libertarianism. As I argue above, the properly libertarian solution would be to give people a choice of which images they view if there's doubt whether they'd like to view them. Rather, quite simply, we have sexual images in articles without warning because Wikipedia editors tend to be sexually liberal as a matter of demographics, and have a lot more tolerance for nudity than the average person. With no effective means of gathering input from non-editors, they decide on an image policy that's much more liberal than what their viewers would actually like. This is a gratuitous disservice to Wikipedia's viewers, and should be rectified. I have no problem with a liberal
Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective
On 12 May 2010 00:38, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: I think we will only make progress when we accept the apologies of the people involved. I can understand that they want to at least formally defend the original board statement, but I think they--and we all- -recognize that the discussion has moved in a somewhat more permissive direction now than that first statement implied. When people admit they've acting over-hastily, as by now I think essentially everyone has, I don't see the point of continue to berate them about it. The board has grievously condemned the work of the volunteers on Commons. whoops sorry lol really doesn't cut it to restore trust in them. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Everton Zanella Alvarenga everton...@gmail.com wrote: 2010/5/11 Amory Meltzer amorymelt...@gmail.com: So if I could distill this announcement, it would be $1.2M to liaison with profs to essentially grade public policy articles so that our unpaid volunteers can correct errors, add sources, and fix the proverbial 'awk' in the margins - is that correct? Wikipedia is written by hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world, and that won't change with this project. The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will recruit Wikipedia volunteers to work with public policy professors and students to identify topic areas for improvement, and work to make them better. Some of that work will take the form of classroom assignments, and pilot activities will begin during the 2010 fall academic semester Hummm, I don't know how this money will be used, but this can be a really good project. As stated above, Wikipedia will continue to be written by volunteers, then I don't think there wil be any liaison with professor. But also also want know details how it'lll be done. I really hope it can extends to other languages and I'll be happy to follow details of this project and talk to the organizers. I remember when Kul visited Brazil, I talked to him the importanc...e, in my opinion, of approaching specialists for estimulating them to write on Wikipedia and participate on other Wikimedia projects. It is great to have organizational support from the Foundation for this type of collaboration. There are international public policy projects and organizations that do collaborative work and would definitely be ripe areas for focus as a source of volunteer editors, a resource for content, and a topic for articles. The public policy area is one that can be taken across different language wikis by volunteers if there is there is an interest from the communities. Sydney Poore (FloNight) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
--- On Tue, 11/5/10, wjhon...@aol.com wjhon...@aol.com wrote: If there is enough of a perceived need for content filtering, someone will fill that void. That someone does not need to be us. Google does this job with their image browser already without the need for any providers to actively tag any images. How do they do that? I have no idea, but they do it. I would suggest a child-safe approach to Commons, is simply to use the Google image browser with a moderate filter setting. Try it, it works. It doesn't work if you enter Commons through the main page, or an image page, and then search through its categories. The best-thumbed pages of library books are usually the ones that have nude images; it's human nature. Commons is no different if you look at the top-1000. With respect to minors, the libertarian position that anyone should be able to see whatever they want to see is simply a fringe position. Every country legally defines some things as harmful to minors* and expects providers to behave in a way that prevents that harm. Arguing about whether the harm is real is an idle debate that's of no interest to teachers, say, who are legally bound by these standards and can experience professional repercussions if they fail in their duty of care. I would suggest that any parent who is allowing their young children as one message put it, to browser without any filtering mechanism, is deciding to trust that child, or else does not care if the child encounters objectionable material. The child's browsing activity is already open to five million porn site hits as it stands, Commons isn't creating that issue. And Commons cannot solve that issue. It's the parents responsibility to have the appropriate self-selected mechanisms in place. And I propose that all parents who care, already *do*. So this issue is a non-issue. It doesn't actually exist in any concrete example, just in the minds of a few people with spare time. As I see it, a working filter system for adult content would relieve teachers and librarians of the headache involved in making Commons or WP available to minors. Do we have figures on how many schools or libraries in various countries block access to Wikimedia sites over concerns related to content harmful to minors? Is this a frequently-voiced concern, or are we making more of it than it is? The most sensible access control system would be one that can be set up on a physical computer used by minors. (Linking it to user account data would not work, as IP users should have normal access.) And if the same child is allowed to surf the net freely by their parents at home, then that is perfect. It is the parents' choice, and every parent handles this differently. If an outside developer were to create such a filter product, that would be great too. I just wonder how they would cope with categories and images being renamed, new categories being created, etc. And does anyone actually know how Google manages to filter out images in safe search?Andreas * See the Miller test for minors reproduced at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Pornography ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
I am sorry about the horrible formatting in my last post (any advice appreciated). I'll try this again. --- On Tue, 11/5/10, wjhon...@aol.com wjhon...@aol.com wrote: If there is enough of a perceived need for content filtering, someone will fill that void. That someone does not need to be us. Google does this job with their image browser already without the need for any providers to actively tag any images. How do they do that? I have no idea, but they do it. I would suggest a child-safe approach to Commons, is simply to use the Google image browser with a moderate filter setting. Try it, it works. It doesn't work if you enter Commons through the main page, or an image page, and then search through its categories. The best-thumbed pages of library books are usually the ones that have nude images; it's human nature. Commons is no different if you look at the top-1000. With respect to minors, the libertarian position that anyone should be able to see whatever they want to see is simply a fringe position. Every country legally defines some things as harmful to minors* and expects providers to behave in a way that prevents that harm. Arguing about whether the harm is real is an idle debate that's of no interest to teachers, say, who are legally bound by these standards and can experience professional repercussions if they fail in their duty of care. I would suggest that any parent who is allowing their young children as one message put it, to browser without any filtering mechanism, is deciding to trust that child, or else does not care if the child encounters objectionable material. The child's browsing activity is already open to five million porn site hits as it stands, Commons isn't creating that issue. And Commons cannot solve that issue. It's the parents responsibility to have the appropriate self-selected mechanisms in place. And I propose that all parents who care, already *do*. So this issue is a non-issue. It doesn't actually exist in any concrete example, just in the minds of a few people with spare time. As I see it, a working filter system for adult content would relieve teachers and librarians of the headache involved in making Commons or WP available to minors. Do we have figures on how many schools or libraries in various countries block access to Wikimedia sites over concerns related to content harmful to minors? Is this a frequently-voiced concern, or are we making more of it than it is? The most sensible access control system would be one that can be set up on a physical computer used by minors. (Linking it to user account data would not work, as IP users should have normal access.) And if the same child is allowed to surf the net freely by their parents at home, then that is perfect. It is the parents' choice, and every parent handles this differently. If an outside developer were to create such a filter product, that would be great too. I just wonder how they would cope with categories and images being renamed, new categories being created, etc. And does anyone actually know how Google manages to filter out images in safe search? Andreas * See the Miller test for minors reproduced at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Pornography ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com wrote: [snip] However, I also see the issue from another frame that is not part of Tim's spectrum. Sexual photographs, especially those of easily recognized people, have the potential to exploit or embarrass the people in them. I place a high value on not doing harm to the models pictured. Sexually explicit photographs are only one of many classes of photograph which pose the risk of embarrassment. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Childhood_Obesity.JPG (the original was not anonymized, and this image was subject to a lengthy argument as the photographer was strongly opposed to concealing the identity of the involuntary model) Or people who might show up here without their knoweldge, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People_associated_with_HIV/AIDS (Not even getting into all the photographs of people performing activities which are illegal in some-place or another, simply being gay will get you executed in some places, no explicit photographs required, and using some drugs can get you long sentences in many others...) So please don't make it out like there is a unique risk there. Commons has a policy related to identifiable images: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people (and why do people on foundation-l keep insisting on discussing these things without even bothering to link to the existing policy pages?) I'm all for strengthening it up further, but I hope an hysterical reaction to sexual images isn't abused to make a mess of the policy and convert it into something which will be less practically enforceable than the current policy. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Another board member statement
Stephen Bain wrote: It is not too broad; Commons has always distinguished itself in this way from general purpose photo/media hosting services like Flickr or YouTube. Andre Engels wrote: I disagree. Pictures should be judged on their value for Commons, not on something else. And that value is decided by what the picture _is_ (as Kat says, informational and/or educational) not by what it _is not_. If the best (from an informational perspective) picture we have of a subject is prurient or exhibitionist, then I want to keep it. If on the other hand a picture has been done very tasty, but nobody can find a reason to call it informational, then I won't shed a tear about it being deleted. I had thought Sam said it nicely when he noted that Commons won its independence years ago. Not all 6 million and growing media items on Commons are going to be used on encyclopedia, news, and book articles. 'Twas not long after Commons went live that people started understanding the wisdom in the proposer/founder's design. Normal Commons usage was vastly exceeding objective media requirements, and an crafting an exclusive policy for a free culture (Wikimedia) project just didn't make sense. There are whole entire art and curated art projects on Commons which have little connection to other Wikimedia projects other than that they advance free culture by being freely licensed. -SC ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
--- On Tue, 11/5/10, wjhon...@aol.com wjhon...@aol.com wrote: I would suggest a child-safe approach to Commons, is simply to use the Google image browser with a moderate filter setting. Try it, it works. Actually, it doesn't. For example, if you search for masturbation site:commons.wikimedia.org you get explicit photographs, both with Strict and Moderate safe search. Andreas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Motives?
I just realised: Every single one of Wales' actions make sense if Jimbo was trying to completely purge Commons of anything the least bit controversial to kill the story, figuring it could be brought back in a couple months. His statements lend strong support to this theory. Consider: *[http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=prevoldid=38806204 Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support. bThis includes immediate deletion of all pornographic images./b] *[http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3ASexual_contentaction=historysubmitdiff=38893040oldid=38891318 This portion of policy against sexually explicit images applies to both actual photographs as well as drawings.] (change made by him to [[Commons:Sexual content]], which other editors had edited to forbade from applying to artworks - in other words, an expansion based on media focus) *[http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJimbo_Walesaction=historysubmitdiff=38891882oldid=38891748 We can have a long discussion and work out a new set of parameters after the cleanup project is completed. It is not acceptable to host pornography in the meantime.] *[http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJimbo_Walesaction=historysubmitdiff=38891882oldid=38891748 I have redeleted the image for the duration of the cleanup project. We will have a solid discussion about whether Commons should ever host pornography and under what circumstances at a later day - June 1st will be a fine time to start.] *[http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesoldid=39075883#Next_steps I had thought that a good process would be to engage in a very strong series of deletions, including of some historical images, and then to have a careful discussion about rebuilding. That proved to be very unpopular and so I regret it. It also may have had the effect of confusing people about my own position on what to keep and what to get rid of.] *[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058086.html There was a crisis situation and I took action which ended up averting the crisis. In the process I stepped on some toes, and for that I am sorry.] *[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057896.html We were about to be smeared in all media as hosting hardcore pornography and doing nothing about it. Now, the correct storyline is that we are cleaning up. I'm proud to have made sure that storyline broke the way it did, and I'm sorry I had to step on some toes to make it happen.] A complete panicked purge of all potentially objectionable material, followed by its reinstatement when media focus is off of us is I don't even know where to begin. It treats editors as pawns in some big chess game, and, I will point out again: Wales never revealed this was about the Media until after his deletion spree. ...I'll leave it to others to comment. I'm too shocked. -Adam ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Motives?
What's shocking? There's no revelation in your post. Do we need yet one more thread discussing Jimmy's actions? It's probably time to let the soaring flames of outrage gutter out, since the Founder flag has been neutered and no other outcome is likely. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Motives?
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: What's shocking? There's no revelation in your post. Do we need yet one more thread discussing Jimmy's actions? It's probably time to let the soaring flames of outrage gutter out, since the Founder flag has been neutered and no other outcome is likely. Agreed. I think that Stu addressed this type of concerns and apologized to the Commons community. We should wait now to see their concrete steps. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Motives?
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: What's shocking? There's no revelation in your post. Do we need yet one more thread discussing Jimmy's actions? +1. Thank you. We don't, especially when most of them keep getting spawned by the same people. Adam: You've been repeating yourself for days and haven't added anything new to the conversation. Until you can come up with something worthwhile to say, please stop posting to foundation-l on the subject. -Chad ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Motives?
How many more threads are you going to create on the exact same issue? There are currently 9 threads created by you in my in box and they all detail the same thing. I would also point out that what you are stating is nothing new whatsoever; I believe that Jimbo said very early on that he was removing borderline images as well arguing that they could be brought back trough deletion discussions. Half the debate surrounding Jimbo has been about this, so i doubt you are telling anyone anything new. Besides, you might want to consider dropping the stickhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stick, since i have a slight idea that your horde looks like thishttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Man_sitting_on_a_dead_horse_%281876_-_1884%29.jpgby now. Jimmy apologized, his founder flags rights are lessened and more talk will help no one. ~Excirial On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Adam Cuerden cuer...@gmail.com wrote: I just realised: Every single one of Wales' actions make sense if Jimbo was trying to completely purge Commons of anything the least bit controversial to kill the story, figuring it could be brought back in a couple months. His statements lend strong support to this theory. Consider: *[ http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=prevoldid=38806204 Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support. bThis includes immediate deletion of all pornographic images./b] *[ http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3ASexual_contentaction=historysubmitdiff=38893040oldid=38891318 This portion of policy against sexually explicit images applies to both actual photographs as well as drawings.] (change made by him to [[Commons:Sexual content]], which other editors had edited to forbade from applying to artworks - in other words, an expansion based on media focus) *[ http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJimbo_Walesaction=historysubmitdiff=38891882oldid=38891748 We can have a long discussion and work out a new set of parameters after the cleanup project is completed. It is not acceptable to host pornography in the meantime.] *[ http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJimbo_Walesaction=historysubmitdiff=38891882oldid=38891748 I have redeleted the image for the duration of the cleanup project. We will have a solid discussion about whether Commons should ever host pornography and under what circumstances at a later day - June 1st will be a fine time to start.] *[ http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesoldid=39075883#Next_steps I had thought that a good process would be to engage in a very strong series of deletions, including of some historical images, and then to have a careful discussion about rebuilding. That proved to be very unpopular and so I regret it. It also may have had the effect of confusing people about my own position on what to keep and what to get rid of.] *[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058086.html There was a crisis situation and I took action which ended up averting the crisis. In the process I stepped on some toes, and for that I am sorry.] *[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057896.html We were about to be smeared in all media as hosting hardcore pornography and doing nothing about it. Now, the correct storyline is that we are cleaning up. I'm proud to have made sure that storyline broke the way it did, and I'm sorry I had to step on some toes to make it happen.] A complete panicked purge of all potentially objectionable material, followed by its reinstatement when media focus is off of us is I don't even know where to begin. It treats editors as pawns in some big chess game, and, I will point out again: Wales never revealed this was about the Media until after his deletion spree. ...I'll leave it to others to comment. I'm too shocked. -Adam ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com wrote: [...] However, I also see the issue from another frame that is not part of Tim's spectrum. Sexual photographs, especially those of easily recognized people, have the potential to exploit or embarrass the people in them. I place a high value on not doing harm to the models pictured. This is essentially a consent issue. If the model is a well-known porn star and wants to be shown nude to the world, then there is no problem. However, many of the sexual images we receive depict non-notable individuals who appear to be engaged in private conduct. If the uploader is being honest and responsible, then this may be fine too. However, if the uploader is malicious, then the subject may have no idea how their image is being used. Even if the person pictured consented to having the photographs made, they may still be horrified at the idea that their image would be used in an encyclopedia seen by millions. At present, our controls regarding the publication of a person image are often very lax. With regards to self-made images, we often take a lot of things on faith, and personally I see that as irresponsible. In a sense, this way of looking at things is very similar to the issue of biographies of living persons. For a long time we treated those articles more or less the same as all other articles. However, eventually we came to accept that the potential to do harm to living persons was a special concern which warranted special safeguards, especially in the case of negative or private information. I would say that publishing photos of living persons in potentially embarrassing or exploitative situations should be another area where we should show special concern for the potential harm, and require a stronger justification for inclusion and use than typical content. (Sexual images are an easy example of a place where harm might be done, but I'd say using identifiable photos of non-notable people should be done cautiously in any situation where there is potential for embarrassment or other harm.) Obviously, from this point of view, I consider recent photos of living people to be rather different from illustrations or artwork, which would require no special treatment. Much of the discussion has focused on the potential to harm (or at least offend) the viewer of an image, but I think we should not forget the potential to harm the people in the images. I would like to second this particular point, though I am largely inclusionist in the larger debate here. I handled an OTRS case in which exactly this happened; a ex-boyfriend stole a camera which a female college student had taken private nude pictures, posted them to Flickr, then someone copied them to Wikipedia to illustrate one of our sex-related articles (for which, the specific picture was reasonably educational/on topic/appropriate). The student was extremely upset and angry about each of these abuses of her privacy and property. This is probably the exception rather than the rule, but it is worth keeping in mind. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
Milos Rancic wrote: On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Let me know if I'm missing anything important. Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content, but as related to cultural taboos or to offensive imagery if we want to use euphemism. Under the same category are: * sexual content; * images Muhammad; * images of sacral places of many tribes; * etc. I'm sure you mean sacred instead of sacral :-) . I've just went to Wikipedia [1] (accidentally, instead of Wiktionary) to see the difference between sacral and sacred and I've seen that those words are synonyms. Anyhow, it is good to know that sacral is at leas ambiguous. (Sacral is a borrowed word in Serbian, too; and Latin words make life easier to one native speaker of Serbian when he speaks English [and some other languages] :) ) Borrowed words can also be false friends. Sacral as sacred tends to be a more recent and specialized usage of the word, applicable to, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, anthropology and religion. Sometimes for me the danger is to know the language too well, and in the present context that started with pornographic images I only too easily imagined a series of photos about the sacral places of individuals. :-D Censoring by default puts us back in the same old conflict of having to decide what to censor. Given a random 100 penis pictures we perhaps need to ask questions like what distinguishes penis picture #27 from penis picture #82. The same could be asked about numerous photographs of national penises like the Washington Monument or Eiffel Tower. ... Voting is evil, particularly when it entrenches the tyranny of the majority. People should be able to choose categories and to vote about them. That doesn't seem very practical. The choice of categories would itself be the source of disputes. If what is seen depends on where one lives there would be an endless stream of variations that could not be easily tracked. A 51% vote can as easily go in the opposite direction on the very next day. That part of proposal is not about denying to anyone to see something, but to put defaults on what not logged in users could see. There should be a [very] visible link, like on Google images search, which would easily overwrite the default rules. Personal permission would overwrite them, too. (If I was not clear up to now, cultural censorship won't forbid to anyone to see anything. It would be just *default*, which could be easily overwritten.) I agree that users' choice should be paramount. Making that choice needs to be carefully worded. Simply putting, Do you want to see dirty pictures? on the Main Page would inspire people to actively look for those pictures. The point is that cultural censorship should reflect dominant position of one culture. My position is that we shouldn't define that one of our goals is to enlighten anyone. We should build knowledge repository and everyone should be free to use it. However, if some culture is oppressive and not permissive, it is not up to us to *actively* work on making that culture not oppressive and permissive. The other issue is that I strongly believe that free and permissive cultures are superior in comparison with other ones. Reflecting the dominance of one culture is dangerous, and in the extreme has led to genocidal behaviour, and served to make the great inquisition holy. It is somewhat naïve to believe that we can limit ourselves to strictly factual data. There is implicit enlightenment in the choice of which facts to present. The encyclopedists of the 18th century likely thought of themselves as bringers of enlightenment. The 1389 Battle of Kosovo is of great historical importance to Serbs, but another group might not attach such importance to a battle from more than six centuries ago and omit iit entirely. I agree that liberating oppressed people is not one of our tasks. We should not be the ones going into China or Iran to make a fuss when those governments have blocked access to Wikimedia projects. That's up to the residents of those countries. Nor should we alter our presentation of data when those governments insist on their version of the truth. It's unfortunate that some governments would view a dispassionate treatment of facts as subversive. So, basically, if residents of Texas decide to censor all images of Bay Area, including the Golden Gate Bridge, because they worry that Bay Area values are transmissible via Internet (as they are), I don't have anything against it. If more than 50% of Wikipedia users from Texas think so, let it be. Other inhabitants of Texas would need just to simply click on
Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective
David Goodman wrote: I think we will only make progress when we accept the apologies of the people involved. I can understand that they want to at least formally defend the original board statement, but I think they--and we all- -recognize that the discussion has moved in a somewhat more permissive direction now than that first statement implied. When people admit they've acting over-hastily, as by now I think essentially everyone has, I don't see the point of continue to berate them about it. We're returning to normalcy. Perhaps the most useful thing people with any view on the issue could do is contribute to specific discussions on improvements in how we handle challenges, on possible software improvements , and on deletion and undeletion of particular images. Indeed! Moving forward does not depend on determining who was right about historical wrongs.. Ec On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 6:32 PM, K. Peachey p858sn...@yahoo.com.au wrote: On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 7:48 AM, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote: ...snip... Jimmy acknowledged this wasn't right and I respect his apology. ...snip... - stu Yes! because no one would consider starting discussion on wiki first before drawing their guns and start shooting? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2011 announcement
Sue Gardner wrote: And thanks to the jury and its moderators: Mariano, Austin, Mako, Teemu, Delphine, James, Joseph, Stu, Phoebe, James Cary. I know we all appreciate your hard work. (James definitely had some late nights, and I will be curious to see if he volunteers for the jury again next year ;-) He probably just needs reassurance that he won't be laboring under a cloud, even if he does some of his best work there. Ray ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
Even more than what Ray says: if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but reliable information, who will? Other sites may feel they have to censor; other uncensored sites may and mostly do have little standards of reliability. Some uncensored reliable sites are likely to require some form of payment, either directly or through advertising or government support. If there is a audience for compromised sources of information, there are many organizations eager to provide it. Other free uncensored reliable projects can be very important in their sphere, but we have an almost universal range. We're at present unique, which we owe to the historical fact of having been able to attract a large community, committed to free access in every sense, operating in a manner which requires no financial support beyond what can be obtained from voluntary contributions, and tied to no groups with pre-existing agendas--except the general agenda of free information. That we alone have been able to get there is initially the courage and vision of the founders, their correct guess that the conventional wisdom that this would be unworkable was erroneous, the general world-wide attractiveness of the notion of free information, and, at this point , the Matthew effect, that we are of such size and importance that working here is likely to be more attractive and more effective than working elsewhere--and thus our continuing ability to attract very large numbers of volunteer workers of many cultural backgrounds. We have everything to lose by compromising any of the principles. To the extent we ever become commercial, or censored , or unreliable, we will be submerged in the mass of better funded information providers. On the contrary, they have an interest in supporting what we do, because we provide what they cannot and give the basis for specialized endeavors. If there is a wish for a similar but censored service, this can be best done by forking ours; if there is a wish to abandon NPOV or permit commercialism, by expanding on our basis. We do not discourage these things; our licensing is in fact tailored to permitting them--but we should stay distinct from them. We have provided a general purpose feed and suitable metadata, and what the rest of the world does is up to them--our goal is not to monopolize the provision of information. We need not provide specialized hooks--just continue our goal for improved quality and organization of the content and the metadata. That China has chosen to take parts of our model and develop independently in line with its government's policy, rather than forking us, is possible because of the size of the government effort and, like us, the very large potential number of interested and willing highly literate and well-educated participants. All we can do in response is continue our own model, and hope that at some point their social values will change to see the virtues of it. If some other countries do similarly, we will at least have contributed the idea of a workable very large scale intent encyclopedia with user input. All information is good, though free information is better. If those in the Anglo-american sphere wish to censor, they know at least they have a potent uncensored competitor that it practice will also be available, which cannot but induce therm to a more liberal policy than if we did not have our standards. I wish very much Citizendium had succeeded--the existence of intellectual coopetition is a good thing. Even as it is, I think they have been a strong force in causing us to improve our formerly inadequate standards of reliability--as well as demonstrating by their failure the need for a very large committed group to emulate what we have accomplished, and also demonstrating the unworkability of excessively rigid organization and an exclusively expert-bound approach to content. I'm glad Larry did what he did in founding it--had it achieved more ,so would we have also. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Let me know if I'm missing anything important. Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content, but as related to cultural taboos or to offensive imagery if we want to use euphemism. Under the same category are: * sexual content; * images Muhammad; * images of sacral places of many tribes; * etc. I'm sure you mean sacred instead of sacral :-) . I've just went to Wikipedia [1] (accidentally, instead of Wiktionary) to see the difference between sacral and sacred and I've seen that those words are synonyms. Anyhow, it is good to know that sacral is
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On 12 May 2010 21:50, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Even more than what Ray says: +1 to this entire email. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
This post by David does prove that it is possible to argue, with intellectual integrity, that there are more important things at stake than getting Commons into schools. Andreas --- On Wed, 12/5/10, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: From: David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, 12 May, 2010, 21:50 Even more than what Ray says: if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but reliable information, who will? Other sites may feel they have to censor; other uncensored sites may and mostly do have little standards of reliability. Some uncensored reliable sites are likely to require some form of payment, either directly or through advertising or government support. If there is a audience for compromised sources of information, there are many organizations eager to provide it. Other free uncensored reliable projects can be very important in their sphere, but we have an almost universal range. We're at present unique, which we owe to the historical fact of having been able to attract a large community, committed to free access in every sense, operating in a manner which requires no financial support beyond what can be obtained from voluntary contributions, and tied to no groups with pre-existing agendas--except the general agenda of free information. That we alone have been able to get there is initially the courage and vision of the founders, their correct guess that the conventional wisdom that this would be unworkable was erroneous, the general world-wide attractiveness of the notion of free information, and, at this point , the Matthew effect, that we are of such size and importance that working here is likely to be more attractive and more effective than working elsewhere--and thus our continuing ability to attract very large numbers of volunteer workers of many cultural backgrounds. We have everything to lose by compromising any of the principles. To the extent we ever become commercial, or censored , or unreliable, we will be submerged in the mass of better funded information providers. On the contrary, they have an interest in supporting what we do, because we provide what they cannot and give the basis for specialized endeavors. If there is a wish for a similar but censored service, this can be best done by forking ours; if there is a wish to abandon NPOV or permit commercialism, by expanding on our basis. We do not discourage these things; our licensing is in fact tailored to permitting them--but we should stay distinct from them. We have provided a general purpose feed and suitable metadata, and what the rest of the world does is up to them--our goal is not to monopolize the provision of information. We need not provide specialized hooks--just continue our goal for improved quality and organization of the content and the metadata. That China has chosen to take parts of our model and develop independently in line with its government's policy, rather than forking us, is possible because of the size of the government effort and, like us, the very large potential number of interested and willing highly literate and well-educated participants. All we can do in response is continue our own model, and hope that at some point their social values will change to see the virtues of it. If some other countries do similarly, we will at least have contributed the idea of a workable very large scale intent encyclopedia with user input. All information is good, though free information is better. If those in the Anglo-american sphere wish to censor, they know at least they have a potent uncensored competitor that it practice will also be available, which cannot but induce therm to a more liberal policy than if we did not have our standards. I wish very much Citizendium had succeeded--the existence of intellectual coopetition is a good thing. Even as it is, I think they have been a strong force in causing us to improve our formerly inadequate standards of reliability--as well as demonstrating by their failure the need for a very large committed group to emulate what we have accomplished, and also demonstrating the unworkability of excessively rigid organization and an exclusively expert-bound approach to content. I'm glad Larry did what he did in founding it--had it achieved more ,so would we have also. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Let me know if I'm
Re: [Foundation-l] Towards actual clean-up...
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 2:17 AM, Guillaume Paumier gpaum...@wikimedia.org wrote: Exactly; and it only works for MediaWiki websites. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for other platforms to hack/modify it and get it working with their platforms, just no one has probably tried so we havn't seen any such results. -Peachey ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2011 announcement
On 12 May 2010 20:18, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Sue Gardner wrote: And thanks to the jury and its moderators: Mariano, Austin, Mako, Teemu, Delphine, James, Joseph, Stu, Phoebe, James Cary. I know we all appreciate your hard work. (James definitely had some late nights, and I will be curious to see if he volunteers for the jury again next year ;-) He probably just needs reassurance that he won't be laboring under a cloud, even if he does some of his best work there. I defer to Ævar on that matter. :-) J. -- James D. Forrester jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] On Wikimania locations
Wikimania 2011 has come, yet again another location in the middle-east. It seems to me that every major populated geographic region has a multitude of sites which could create viable wikimania candidacies— and this has certainly been supported by the past applications. A leading application takes an enormous amount of work, expenditure of political energy, etc. on the part of the proposing team— work that could perhaps be applied to advancing the Wikimedia mission in other ways for candidacies which are ultimately fruitless. I believe that if you were to take the best candidate from each region and compare among them you'd find them all to be excellent options and ultimately end up choosing based little details and preferences, often ones mostly outside of the control of the applicants. Accordingly I believe it would be better if we pre-announced a preferred geography for the candidacies each year. Effort could then be conserved for producing really excellent proposals in those years when a candidacy is most likely to be successful. This could also be expected to result in better applications. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] On Wikimania locations
On 13 May 2010 01:32, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: Wikimania 2011 has come, yet again another location in the middle-east. yet again another? It's the second time... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] On Wikimania locations
I don't think I agree with Greg's idea, but let me make an alternate suggestion: That to avoid efforts being wasted on failed bids, we ask bidders to include plans for a downsized-budget version of each Wikimania proposal that could serve for a regional-scale Wikimedia conference. Then, worthy bids that do not win Wikimania could still be funded and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation as regional conferences. Thanks, Pharos On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: Wikimania 2011 has come, yet again another location in the middle-east. It seems to me that every major populated geographic region has a multitude of sites which could create viable wikimania candidacies— and this has certainly been supported by the past applications. A leading application takes an enormous amount of work, expenditure of political energy, etc. on the part of the proposing team— work that could perhaps be applied to advancing the Wikimedia mission in other ways for candidacies which are ultimately fruitless. I believe that if you were to take the best candidate from each region and compare among them you'd find them all to be excellent options and ultimately end up choosing based little details and preferences, often ones mostly outside of the control of the applicants. Accordingly I believe it would be better if we pre-announced a preferred geography for the candidacies each year. Effort could then be conserved for producing really excellent proposals in those years when a candidacy is most likely to be successful. This could also be expected to result in better applications. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] On Wikimania locations
*cough* there *is* a Wikimania-l, you know... (please keep it CCed at the very least) That being said, your idea is very interesting. On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: Wikimania 2011 has come, yet again another location in the middle-east. It seems to me that every major populated geographic region has a multitude of sites which could create viable wikimania candidacies— and this has certainly been supported by the past applications. A leading application takes an enormous amount of work, expenditure of political energy, etc. on the part of the proposing team— work that could perhaps be applied to advancing the Wikimedia mission in other ways for candidacies which are ultimately fruitless. I believe that if you were to take the best candidate from each region and compare among them you'd find them all to be excellent options and ultimately end up choosing based little details and preferences, often ones mostly outside of the control of the applicants. Accordingly I believe it would be better if we pre-announced a preferred geography for the candidacies each year. Effort could then be conserved for producing really excellent proposals in those years when a candidacy is most likely to be successful. This could also be expected to result in better applications. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:53 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 12 May 2010 21:50, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Even more than what Ray says: +1 to this entire email. Ditto. Another principle to state related to this (that I've been trying to think about how to expand upon): no resource that is compatibly-licensed is our adversary, and we should encourage that sort of competition. -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: k...@wikimedia.org * Personal: k...@mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:mindspillage IRC(freenode,OFTC):mindspillage * identi.ca:mindspillage * phone:ask ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
Kat Walsh wrote: On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:53 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 12 May 2010 21:50, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Even more than what Ray says: +1 to this entire email. Ditto. Another principle to state related to this (that I've been trying to think about how to expand upon): no resource that is compatibly-licensed is our adversary, and we should encourage that sort of competition. Which brings to mind a question. Is there useful content on Citizendium that might be ported over to Wikipedia? Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
Hi folks, Over the next day or so you'll be seeing some exciting changes to the Wikipedia user interface as Vector rolls out across English Wikipedia. In an earlier note on that topic, User Experience team project manager Naoko Komura mentioned another change - one that will bring some small improvements to the Wikipedia identity, namely the Wikipedia puzzle globe and the construction of the Wikipedia wordmark - the word and sentence underneath the puzzle globe. The first major change you'll see is a slightly different looking Wikipedia puzzle globe. Over a year ago the Foundation began to recognize the need to have the puzzle globe logo improved slightly - mostly because we had some errors in the type characters featured in the puzzle globe, and also because we needed a better quality version that could print better and at a larger scale. We also needed to do that without dramatically changing one of the most recognized and beloved logos on the internet. It seemed like an opportune moment to take our 2D globe, lovingly created by WP user:Nohat and improved/modified a cast of many other volunteers back in 2003, and take it to a truly 3D object. If we were going to undertake this process, we knew we would first need to populate the 'dark side of the puzzle globe' - and of course we turned to our volunteers to do just that. Cary Bass worked with a team of volunteers to begin that process, and to revisit the many suggested and improvised fixes to the globe that have taken place over the years. Most of that discussion played out on a meta page here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/Logo The results are fantastic, and now you can see many new languages and scripts represented. The final state for our puzzle globe is quite similar to the original, fixes some errors, and has replaced the Klingon logo with an Amharic character. The actual 3D construction of the new mark was carried out by a professional 3D animator, art director, and graphic designer, Philip Metschan, who is based in the SF Bay Area. Through his career Philip has worked for Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar, and currently he's also a visualization and concept artist for the DIRECT program (not surprisingly, it can be learned about on Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIRECT). We've created a new page on the Foundation wiki that talks about the revised 3D globe as well as the other improvements underway to the wordmark: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks/About_the_official_Marks You'll notice that the new variation of the typeface uses Linux Libertine as an alternative to Hoeffler, the original typeface used to create the wordmark. In order to facilitate the creation of so many new variations of the Wikipedia identity it was important to find a viable alternative - Hoeffler is a commercial typeface that not every project would have access to, nor own. Linux Libertine is very close to Hoeffler in its shape and style, and for on-screen viewing is almost identical to Hoeffler. The User Experience team also investigated another minor improvement: replacing the italicized The Free Encyclopedia with regular typeface. This ultimately resulted in improved on-screen readability, particularly in non-roman character sets. Right now volunteers are working with the new localization guide to create the hundreds of new identities needed for each language variation of Wikipedia. You can see the Commons gallery filling up here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/2.0 If you're interested in supporting this effort you can simply follow the guide referenced on the page, or reach out to the Foundation's volunteer coordinator, Cary Bass, directly, c...@wikimedia.org. It will take some time to create all of the marks, and initially the ops and User Experience team are rolling out the new identity on English Wikipedia and then focussing on other languages as soon as possible. Hopefully the millions of dedicated users of Wikipedia will appreciate this minor improvement to the Wikipedia identity across all of the project languages. This is also a great new tool for chapter and volunteer representatives around the world - this scalable, crisper version of the new puzzle globe is easier to work with in a variety of situations, but retains the character and look of its predecessor. As with any important identity, I'm certain it will see further evolutions and improvements. We're open to hearing your thoughts and views for the next iteration. Later today we'll also be posting this news to the Wikimedia blog, alongside updated news about the Vector roll-out, scheduled to unfold over the next 12 hours. I'd like to thank again the dozens of volunteers who have worked over the last year+ to navigate the challenge of filling up this now 3D globe with new symbols and marks, and the countless others who have scrutinized the first drafts of the logo to
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: It seemed like an opportune moment to take our 2D globe, lovingly created by WP user:Nohat and improved/modified a cast of many other volunteers back in 2003, and take it to a truly 3D object. If we were going to undertake this process, we knew we would first need to populate the 'dark side of the puzzle globe' - and of course we turned to our volunteers to do just that. [snip] You'll notice that the new variation of the typeface uses Linux Libertine as an alternative to Hoeffler, the original typeface used to create the wordmark. In order to facilitate the creation of so many new variations of the Wikipedia identity it was important to find a viable alternative - Hoeffler is a commercial typeface that not every project would have access to, nor own. Linux Libertine is very close to Hoeffler in its shape and style, and for on-screen viewing is almost identical to Hoeffler. [snip] I found the concept of these two improvements very exciting. Here are direct links to the old and new images for comparison: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Wiki.png ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
I looked but could not find an SVG version of the new logo without text on Commons for those who would wish to update sister project templates on non-Wikipedia projects. Basically, it would be a cropped version of http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-puzzleglobe-V2.svg and at Commons. If that could be added I would appreciate it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
SVG versions of the new globe, and the Wikipedia identity can be found here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks I don't believe all of those assets have migrated to Commons yet. On May 12, 2010, at 8:19 PM, Aaron Adrignola wrote: I looked but could not find an SVG version of the new logo without text on Commons for those who would wish to update sister project templates on non-Wikipedia projects. Basically, it would be a cropped version of http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-puzzleglobe-V2.svg and at Commons. If that could be added I would appreciate it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
2010/5/12 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com: (...) Which brings to mind a question. Is there useful content on Citizendium that might be ported over to Wikipedia? their best stuff is supposed to be here, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Approved_Articles -- Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva tolkiend...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
On 05/11/2010 09:45 AM, Aryeh Gregor wrote: The obvious solution is not to display images by default that a large number of viewers would prefer not to view. Instead, provide links, or maybe have them blurred out and allow a click to unblur them. You don't hide any information from people who actually want it (you require an extra click at most), and you don't force people to view images that they don't want to view. This allows as many people as possible to get what they want: people who want to see the images can see them, and those who don't can choose not to. The status quo forces people to view the images whether or not they want to. And a lot of people don't want to look at naked people without warning, for whatever reason. I don't actually mind this proposal, and would like it myself for a lot of pages. But I'm not sure naked people are actually at the top of the list (perhaps someone should try to determine it empirically via some sort of research on our readers?). If I personally were to list two kinds of images I would want hidden by default, it'd be: 1. spiders; and 2. gory medical conditions. Do I get that option? Do I get that option if more than x% of readers agree? -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
I have to say that I have been eagerly awaiting this day since I saw the first designs come out of the UX team's work (about a year ago?) To anyone, volunteer or Foundation employee, who made the impending switch to Vector a possibility, I want to express my sincerest thanks. Steven Walling http://enwp.org/User:Steven_Walling On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:24 PM, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: SVG versions of the new globe, and the Wikipedia identity can be found here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks I don't believe all of those assets have migrated to Commons yet. On May 12, 2010, at 8:19 PM, Aaron Adrignola wrote: I looked but could not find an SVG version of the new logo without text on Commons for those who would wish to update sister project templates on non-Wikipedia projects. Basically, it would be a cropped version of http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-puzzleglobe-V2.svgand at Commons. If that could be added I would appreciate it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
