Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
2010/5/13 Delirium delir...@hackish.org: 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? (At a first read, I thought your response as a statement you found this proposal amusing) I might risk restating some points I already mentioned on other emails (and, worse, being a complete stranger, to not 'fit' on the discussions here), but I'm not disturbed by sexual content at all. I feel torture images disturbing, however. In fact, I remember not sleeping well after reading some random Wikipedia articles on the subject. To paraphrase Sharon Stone, blocking/blurring porn by default and failing to do this with torture images is an indecency. [ Actually I would find ok if a parent didn't liked his or her small children to view this (not just images, but text included - the richness of some wikipedians' prose is frightening..). But I find misguided any attempts by WMF sites to cooperate with any kind of parental control. That is, I think that building a place where everyone has access to the sum of human knowledge does not include or permit provisions for parental control. ] Other than that, I find that browsing the web at random might be embarrassing, if there are strangers at the room - like at an university lab or cybercafe (it's not a Wikipedia-specific problem actually). It's only a matter of chance if the next clicked link will have this kind of stuff or not. (Random example, many sites have porn ads, many forum links contains embedded pictures, etc). So I might disable image loading with a browser feature (I wouldn't trust the site to do this filtering - or, worse, IM friend links, with a lot of 4chan-like stuff: those memes will often spread porn to blogs and forums that wouldn't otherwise have it). This makes loading faster, plus if I the content I want to see require image loading, I may just click a button. Some browsers support this by default (such as opera), and others through an extension. (I don't usually do this btw, because I'm generally ok with it) Anyway, I am not proposing here to just include torture depictions in the (maybe long) of images censored for casual, unregistered readers. I disagree with any kind of opt-out censoring, for any purpose or pretext, even if to evade the censor it just requires a sign up. (Also, I think any poll for selecting the targets of the block would be biased towards supposing the majority of the voters supports some kind of censoring - even if 'nothing at all' is an option) But, to think about this a bit, it's a lot harder to block torture images than explicit porn, because of the political component here. For example: blocking recent Iraq american explicit torture images and failing to block detailed depictions of historical torture devices is unreasonable, since the shocking component - for me, at least - is often centered on it happening to some human being. The issue here would be where to draw the line, and the exact place might be interpreted as a form of political pushing. Wouldn't it be awesome if some pro-america editor managed to clean some articles for the casual reader? :) [ You might replace pro-america to anti-pornography as well - that's how I would see it ] -- 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] Wikimania 2011 announcement
The Wikimania jury has selected Haifa, Israel as the location for Wikimania 2011. Ther was a young jolly man from Haifa Who logged in to get the best airfare The Internet said, At once, you had to stop by in Gdansk but you wouldn't mind that, either? Congratulations from the 2010 team! -- Marcin Cieslak // sa...@saper.info ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Funny news from Poland
As you maybe now, after the sudden death of Lech Kaczynski (jn airjet crash in Smolens) we have now fast presidential election. One of the most serious candidates Bronisław Komorowski was cached with printed copy of Wikipedia article about Rada Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rada_Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa_Narodowego a presidential advisory board for national security :-) Journalist from Poland just started commenting if we really need a president who's main source of knowledge about national security comes form Wikipedia :-). http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/2169210,11,wikipedia_nowym_doradca_komorowskiego,item.html -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ 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
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: 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 It's been selectable in the user preferences for ages. -Peachey ___ 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)
Delirium wrote: 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? Ooh! Can I play? Beside those two, 3. people with perfect teeth smiling, 4. charred bodies, 5. decomposing bodies, 6. women with Double-D breasts -- or above, whether fully clothed or not, 7. any women with silicone implants, 8. tele-evangelists, 9. big hair, 10. Disco, including people dressed Disco-style, 11. Ku Kux Klansmen, 12. images of any foods made from liver, 13. sauerkraut, 14. suet, 15. lard, 16. skinned animals that haven't been fully butchered yet (including humans), ... Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ 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 13 May 2010 09:41, Marcin Cieslak sa...@saper.info wrote: The Wikimania jury has selected Haifa, Israel as the location for Wikimania 2011. Ther was a young jolly man from Haifa Who logged in to get the best airfare The Internet said, At once, you had to stop by in Gdansk but you wouldn't mind that, either? I appreciate the effort, but none of those rhymes work in my accent... ;) Congrats to the Haifa team, though! ___ 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
Myself and several other people find the new Wikipedia logo to be rather disappointing. Specifically it seems too small (lots of empty white space), and the edges of the puzzle pieces lack definition when shown at the web scale. For a discussion of this, including possible tweaks to make it bolder, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#New_logo -Robert Rohde ___ 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
2010/5/13 Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org: 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. Hope you won't forget to change the logo here: http://www.wikipedia.org/ :-) -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Funny news from Poland
2010/5/13 Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com: Journalist from Poland just started commenting if we really need a president who's main source of knowledge about national security comes form Wikipedia :-). Better than Fox news, I'd wager :-) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Funny news from Poland
Well, he might turn it another way: He checked in person whether no real state secret is presented to public in that article :) ... or (making some good PR for Wikimainia ;) ) that he checked himself whether article is good enough as Wikipedia project is so important (and because some of those nasty joutnalists will need Wikipedia to get some knowledge for themselves :-P ) 2010/5/13 Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com: As you maybe now, after the sudden death of Lech Kaczynski (jn airjet crash in Smolens) we have now fast presidential election. One of the most serious candidates Bronisław Komorowski was cached with printed copy of Wikipedia article about Rada Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rada_Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa_Narodowego a presidential advisory board for national security :-) Journalist from Poland just started commenting if we really need a president who's main source of knowledge about national security comes form Wikipedia :-). http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/2169210,11,wikipedia_nowym_doradca_komorowskiego,item.html -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
Tim Starling wrote: They are serving the interests of who? And who can revoke the trust upon a specific trustee, or the entire board, in the event it was misused? As a non-membership non-profit corporation, federal law dictates that it must have a Board and that the Board has final responsibility. The Articles of Incorporation could have specified means for oversight of the Board, say by the community, but this was not done. They simply say that the Board will make its own rules for how its members are replaced. Yes, this is how it is organizationally. The white elephant in the room though is that this is all pretty academic because of the fact that Wikimedia projects operate under a Free Licence. What ever the legal situation is organizationally, it is very near suicidal for the foundation to have any larger disconnect with the community than which happened just recently. It would only be an act of self-preservation for the Board of Trustees to seek to find ways to decisively prevent a recurrence. As per Jimbos instruction to look to the future than the past, I would suggest that the Board look post-haste into instituting some form of institution that can offer (perhaps under a similar confidentiality agreement that the board itself operates under) constructive advice in a timely manner (rather than after the fact), when it deliberates which direction the Board of Trustees wants to take things. My suggestion would be that as a first, rudimentary step, such a Community Advisory Group consist of one person of known communicative ability and insight (as determined by the Board of Trustees themselves) from each Project, when feasible representing more than one language in the overall distribution. That is to say, one person each, from Wikipedias, Commons, Wikinews projects, Wikiquote projects, Wikibooks projects, Wiktionaries, Wikiversities, the Wikispecies, Wikisource. Assuming I haven't forgotten any projects, that would make a nine member group. The law gives us some protection, in that it prevents Board members from running the Foundation for their own personal gain (aside from reasonable salaries and expenses). However, it's still very important that we pick Board members carefully when we have community elections, and that we encourage the existing Board to make good choices for appointments. This is of course indisputable. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ 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)
Samuel Klein wrote: I agree strongly with this. You are right to point out the connection to improving BLP policies -- we should be much more careful to confirming model rights for people in any potentially exploitative or embarrassing photos. Such ideas have been around for a long time. What are the arguments against implementing stronger requirements for images of people? Not an argument as such, but I would imagine that with regard to amateur photography of all sorts, in the long term the main effect would be to educate them in the correct practices of model rights. After all I would expect that amateur photographers would not really have great difficulty in obtaining model rights, once they know that is a requirement. It might however have a chilling effect on those people sharing images that don't really require model releases, such as photographs shot in public spaces, especially where the person in the frame can't even be recognized. Another question is, if such a stance on model rights were taken, would it be reasonable to just retroactively apply it to images already on the site, or should there be a reasonable attempt to inform the uploaders to let them secure a model release and add it to the media information. I think something like that was done when we went to town on images that didn't have a specified rationale of use. None of these is an argument against, as such, just pointing out some of the ramifications that might follow. My guess is that after a lot of existing images were removed, the ratio of new images uploaded would infact be skewed *in* *favor* of amateur images, rather than *against*. I could be wrong of course. It still might be worth doing just for its own sake. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)
Gregory Maxwell wrote: There are also people who are honestly offended that some people are offended by human sexuality content— and some of them view efforts to curtail this content to be a threat to their own cultural values. If this isn't your culture, please take a moment to ponder it. If your personal culture believes in the open expression of sexuality an effort to remove redundant / low quality sexuality images while we not removing low quality pictures of clay pots, for example, is effectively an attack on your beliefs. These people would tell you: If you don't like it, don't look. _Understanding_ differences in opinion is part of the commons way, so even if you do not embrace this view you should at least stop to understand that it is not without merit. In any case, while sometimes vocal, people from this end of the spectrum don't appear to be all that much of the community. I apologize for the late reply, but since this issue is of a long term nature, hopefully not much harm will come from only commenting on it now. I fully admit I experienced a Hey, I resemble that remark! moment regarding the middle part of the paragraph. My culture is certainly near the end of the spectrum mentioned, being as I am from Finland (if it tells you anything, we usually consider our neighbors to the west, the Swedes, as hopelessly repressed sexually --- and I am not even kidding) While I am sure there are people to whom the whole paragraph applies fully in every respect (and I would imagine as you say they will likely be a vanishingly small percentage of the community), my personal angle to the issue is completely different, and I doubt I am alone. I am not at all offended that people have the capacity to be offended by whatever gets their goat. I too have the capacity, but perhaps with respect to other things. I absolutely have no problem with that. Personally what was offensive was not people not bowing down before my cultural values, so to speak. What *was* offensive however was that people from on high chose a matter of such obviously subjective import to privilege a *specific* standard of mores. Not the fact that it wasn't *mine*, but that it was a specific one. This problem is compounded by the fact that such action hugely legitimizes the argument -- while being certainly untrue -- that Wikimedia is not genuinely an international project. *This* is the real issue that needs to be addressed, if any real progress is to be made, in healing most of the wounds the community has incurred. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ 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
Hello! What should be my course of action if I find that the replacement of the old 3D logo with a new wannabe-Web-2.0 melted circle offends my aesthetic sense to the degree inexpressible in any human language? --vvv ___ 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
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: However, I am missing why it was decided to decrease the size of the logo. It definitely looks more professional, but also somewhat less friendly to me. Maybe it is just me, maybe not - I just would like to understand the rationale first. And is there any chance that the middle horizontal line is made slightly less intense? Right now, the attention is drawn there (at least for me) instead of the open part at the top. It gives me a slight impression as if the bowl is about to burst. Which is of course a valid representation of the truth with all community uproar lately, but I don't think it should be our message :) It was jarring at first, and I'll grant that the initial shock (seriously, somehow this slipped under my radar entirely) accounts for most of my aversion, but I have to agree with Lodewijk. I couldn't quite quantify it, at first, but I think corporate vs. friendly is a good assessment—and the middle line is indeed rather distracting. Fundamentally, though, it just looks imbalanced to me. I don't mean for my personal aesthetic to in any way diminish the hard work of everyone involved in improving the logo—and in many respects, particularly in the use of a free font, it is an improvement—but... ew? Austin ___ 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
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. The new, smaller logo is visible now on Wikipedia. I think it needs refinement to reach professional quality. Keep in mind the logo contest that produced the previous logo - the contest winning design looked crude, but was the basis for the final version - which was arrived at after some critiquing and tweaking. -SC ___ 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
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Thank you for this deep analysis. While claiming that we should not compromise any of the principles, you didn't address directly the possibility that we won't reach everybody if we don't compromise. Reaching every human is a (currently and apparently) conflicting principle with free uncensored information. What is your vision about that? Wait for better times? Do you think that with time, the inherent virtues of our model will end convincing the reluctant or opposed people of today? On 12/05/2010 17:50, David Goodman wrote: 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
Re: [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)
Thank you for retaking the thread, Jussi-Ville. Please allow me to share some thoughts about attitudes on nudity, unneccessary provocation and Jimmy Wales' action. I remember something I heard on Wikipedia Weekly, a year ago or so, I believe it was even before the Virginkiller issue (the Scorpions' cover). Andrew Lih said that many Wikipedians laugh about pornography/nudity issues and have a laissez-faire-I-don't-care attitude. Like let the world think what it wants, we Wikipedians go simply on with what we doing. Andrew Lih disqualified that attitude as immature and ignorant (sorry, I do not recall the precise words). People who have difficulties with nudity etc. are a legitimate part of our community and our readership and we should at least listen to them and try to find a compromise that does not hurt someone's feelings unnecessarily, even if in many points they would have to give in. This came up in me again on March 21st, this year. A group arround Achim Raschka improved the article Vulva in German Wikipedia and promoted it through the procedure to make it Article of the day. So on that Sunday, the Main page of German Wikipedia presented the article with an illustration. On a Wikipeda meeting on Cologne, then, I heard people grinning about the dream of all puberal vandals came true: a pussy on Main page. I was not sure what to think about that, but I come more and more the conclusion that it was an unneccessary provocation, at least the illustration. I know about some people who are honestly shocked by graphic nudity (some are religious, others not); so when they go to an article such as vulva or fellatio it is at their own risk, but they should not be confronted with a vulva picture at the Main page where they don't expect it. This should apply, I think, also to other pictures people may find disturbing, for example about people deformed by deaseses or injuries. There are simply subjects and illustrations that are not like all others. So when illustrating the article Holocaust you can and should use pictures of dead bodies [1], but for a link from the Main page it is preferred to use someting like the Entrance to Auschwitz [2]. Some Wikipedia commuties might want to have rules of their own, depending on the Wikipedians and the expected readership. I noticed that while German Wikipedia's article Penis has photographs, Arabic Wikipedia's is illustrated only by a medical drawing. About the deletions on Commons in the last days: I cannot imagine that there were significant losses of valuable illustrations. But in general I wonder that a board member is deleting these pictures in person. In my humble opinion, if a community is late with important policy making, the board has all right to take action (as the board, or the Foundation, is finally responsable for the projects). But there should be a board decision, and the implementation should be left to a collaborator of Wikimedia Foundation. You would also find it strange seeing the Queen of England sweeping the streets of London in person, or handing you out a parking fine. Maybe it is useful to install an extra community assistant for Commons, given the importance of Commons for all projects, with at the same time an inherent weakness of Commons because many Wikipedians use it but do not engage in it specifically. Kind regards Ziko van Dijk [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_175-04413,_KZ_Auschwitz,_Einfahrt.jpg [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mass_Grave_Bergen_Belsen_May_1945.jpg 2010/5/13 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com: Gregory Maxwell wrote: There are also people who are honestly offended that some people are offended by human sexuality content— and some of them view efforts to curtail this content to be a threat to their own cultural values. If this isn't your culture, please take a moment to ponder it. If your personal culture believes in the open expression of sexuality an effort to remove redundant / low quality sexuality images while we not removing low quality pictures of clay pots, for example, is effectively an attack on your beliefs. These people would tell you: If you don't like it, don't look. _Understanding_ differences in opinion is part of the commons way, so even if you do not embrace this view you should at least stop to understand that it is not without merit. In any case, while sometimes vocal, people from this end of the spectrum don't appear to be all that much of the community. I apologize for the late reply, but since this issue is of a long term nature, hopefully not much harm will come from only commenting on it now. I fully admit I experienced a Hey, I resemble that remark! moment regarding the middle part of the paragraph. My culture is certainly near the end of the spectrum mentioned, being as I am from Finland (if it tells you anything, we usually consider our neighbors to the west, the Swedes, as hopelessly repressed sexually --- and I
Re: [Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)
2010/5/13 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com: Samuel Klein wrote: I agree strongly with this. You are right to point out the connection to improving BLP policies -- we should be much more careful to confirming model rights for people in any potentially exploitative or embarrassing photos. Such ideas have been around for a long time. What are the arguments against implementing stronger requirements for images of people? Not an argument as such, but I would imagine that with regard to amateur photography of all sorts, in the long term the main effect would be to educate them in the correct practices of model rights. After all I would expect that amateur photographers would not really have great difficulty in obtaining model rights, once they know that is a requirement. Why just amateur photos? Professional should respect model rights as much as amateur photos. None of these is an argument against, as such, just pointing out some of the ramifications that might follow. My guess is that after a lot of existing images were removed, the ratio of new images uploaded would infact be skewed *in* *favor* of amateur images, rather than *against*. I could be wrong of course. Interesting. Why do you think so? -- 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] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: Thank you for this deep analysis. While claiming that we should not compromise any of the principles, you didn't address directly the possibility that we won't reach everybody if we don't compromise. Reaching every human is a (currently and apparently) conflicting principle with free uncensored information. What is your vision about that? Wait for better times? Do you think that with time, the inherent virtues of our model will end convincing the reluctant or opposed people of today? I don't know that reaching everybody was ever a stated goal. Being theoretically available to everybody is a different matter... In any case this issue has been specifically addressed here: David (a real thought leader) Goodman wrote: 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. Kat Walsh wrote: 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. Obsessively chasing every last reader, every last editor, regardless of other factors is just as evil as the practice of chasing every last dollar. Diversity is good. Insisting that our _project_, rather than just the benefits of our good work, directly reach into the lives of each and every person, regardless of the costs? I'd call that megalomania. That isn't to say that balancing audience vs other factors isn't an important thing to do— the decision to run multiple language Wikipedias rather than just teach everyone English was arguably one such decision— but we _do_ have an answer for how we're going to help the people who are inevitably left out. We help them by being freely licensed so that its easier for others to specialize in helping those audiences. ___ 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
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 8:14 AM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: However, I am missing why it was decided to decrease the size of the logo. It definitely looks more professional, but also somewhat less friendly to me. Maybe it is just me, maybe not - I just would like to understand the rationale first. And is there any chance that the middle horizontal line is made slightly less intense? Right now, the attention is drawn there (at least for me) instead of the open part at the top. It gives me a slight impression as if the bowl is about to burst. Which is of course a valid representation of the truth with all community uproar lately, but I don't think it should be our message :) It was jarring at first, and I'll grant that the initial shock (seriously, somehow this slipped under my radar entirely) accounts for most of my aversion, but I have to agree with Lodewijk. I think you missed it because it wasn't really discussed before as part of the vector update... right? I admit I didn't read all the announcements, but was this discussed/announced earlier? -- phoebe ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)
Ziko van Dijk wrote: So when illustrating the article Holocaust you can and should use pictures of dead bodies [1], but for a link from the Main page it is preferred to use someting like the Entrance to Auschwitz [2]. Some Wikipedia commuties might want to have rules of their own, depending on the Wikipedians and the expected readership. I noticed that while German Wikipedia's article Penis has photographs, Arabic Wikipedia's is illustrated only by a medical drawing. Here it is important that much more that an issue of cultural identity, these kinds of things are an issue of trends in time. Like the resurgence of the moral majority in the USA which has happened in the last few decades; Arabic cultures mores have shifted in time. I had the privilege of listening to Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila who has made a special study of Arabic culture, discuss Arabic erotic poetry through-out the ages. During the Golden Age of Islam it was much more eclectic and permissively pluralistic than the Christian or Jewish cultures of the time, and its erotic poetry remarkably sensuous. The instructional manuals for sexual expression written at that time were much more explicit than today could find a publisher in the west. About the deletions on Commons in the last days: I cannot imagine that there were significant losses of valuable illustrations. But in general I wonder that a board member is deleting these pictures in person. In my humble opinion, if a community is late with important policy making, the board has all right to take action (as the board, or the Foundation, is finally responsable for the projects). But there should be a board decision, and the implementation should be left to a collaborator of Wikimedia Foundation. You would also find it strange seeing the Queen of England sweeping the streets of London in person, or handing you out a parking fine. The Queen did drive a truck during the blitz, though. I am not going to comment on whether the media-blitz by Fox News rises to the level of World War II in context. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ 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
Hi, On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Victor Vasiliev vasi...@gmail.com wrote: What should be my course of action if I find that the replacement of the old 3D logo with a new wannabe-Web-2.0 melted circle offends my aesthetic sense to the degree inexpressible in any human language? I'd try to express it in Klingon; it was removed from the logo, so it would only be fair. -- Guillaume Paumier This message may contain traces of humor. Read responsibly. ___ 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
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 6:32 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: I think you missed it because it wasn't really discussed before as part of the vector update... right? I admit I didn't read all the announcements, but was this discussed/announced earlier? That's the point I was trying not to be a jerk about—I'd like to think that I'm fairly attentive to this, particularly since the logos are a special concern of mine, but I don't remember any kind of public discussion or request for comments beforehand. Now that I look at the relevant wiki pages, it clearly wasn't any kind of secret, but I can't help but wonder if it was deliberately not made widely known. My response to Jay's message was to post links to the two image files in the hope that someone else would complain, I'm really honestly tired of being so negative. I like every concept in the discussion of the new logo. I think the font change looks fine. But the loss of contrast and definition is unfortunate— at least on my eyes and system the new image looks somewhat blurry and indistinct. But before expressing this view I went and conducted an informal taste test on my system at my office: Four our of four people prefer the old image, and while they had certainly seen the old logo before none of them are Wikipedia regulars. I am less confident about unbalanced. The old logo could also be said to be visually unbalanced and perhaps we're just used to it? None of my test subjects raised imbalance as an issue, they all commented that it was less clear. One comment was forgettable. Oh well— at least we've got something to complain about and improve. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)
On 05/13/2010 09:36 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: During the Golden Age of Islam it was much more eclectic and permissively pluralistic than the Christian or Jewish cultures of the time [...] Which reminds me of another interesting historical tidbit. I was rummaging for story about Samuel Johnson and people hunting for naughty words in his dictionary, when I came across a Google Books reproduction of an 1896 periodical titled The Homiletic Review, edited by I.K. Funk, of Funk and Wagnalls. It appears that a competitor to their dictionary culled the naughtiest bits from the Funk Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, used those to claim they were filth-mongers, and set out to create a giant hullabaloo. What I quote below is a spirited defense of recording all the words as they are used. In the original, it's followed by a page of quotes from scholars, teachers, and editors applauding a neutral, uncensored reference work. It's funny to see how little has changed. A VILE ATTACK ON THE STANDARD DICTIONARY. A grave wrong is being perpetrated by a reprinter of one of the English competitors of the Funk Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, assisted by some unscrupulous agents of other dictionaries—a wrong that cannot be excused by the exigencies of commercial rivalry. As is well known, in all unabridged dictionaries it is necessary to give the definitions of certain indelicate words. Eighteen of these words (selected out of a vocabulary of over 300,000 terms in the Standard) have been collected and printed with their definitions by the reprinter of this English dictionary, and circulars containing them are being distributed among teachers, school trustees, and parents all through this country, stirring up a filthy agitation that will end, unless frowned down by the public press and other leaders of public opinion, in setting people of prurient minds and children everywhere to searching dictionaries for this class of words. One of these publications contains such outrageously unjust comments as the following: About two years ago the publishing house of Funk Wagnalls brought into the world a monstrosity entitled the Standard Dictionary of the English Language. So far as relates to its collection of obscene, filthy, blasphemous, slang, and profane words. It has no counterpart in dictionaries of the English Language. It is but fair to the press and scholars of England to say that the English critics have in no way seconded this unfair assault, but are unanimous in the most unqualified endorsement of the American work, the standard Dictionary, expressing in many ways the same opinion as that of the St. James's Budget [weekly edition of the St. James's Gazette] London, which said: To say that it is perfect in form and scope is not extravagance of praise, and to say that it is the most valuable Dictionary of the English language is but to Repeat the obvious. The Standard Dictionary should be the pride of literary America as it Is the admiration of literary England. The insincerity of this attack on the Standard is seen in the fact that nearly every one of these 18 words is in the English work published by this reprinter, and it contains other words so grossly indelicate and withal so rarely used as to have been excluded from the Standard and from nearly all the other dictionaries. Fifteen out of the eighteen words (and others of the came class) are, and properly so, in the Century Dictionary, and they are to be found, with scarcely an exception, in every other reputable unabridged dictionary, and this class of words is invariably recorded in the leading dictionaries of all languages. Since this attack was made, we have submitted to Charles A. Dana and to a number of well-known educators the question whether we committed an error in admitting into the Standard, as have other dictionaries, this class of words. The answer has been without an exception, You did not. The fact is, extraordinary care was used by the editors of the Standard to protect the language. Of the more than 500,000 words collected by the hundreds of readers employed to search all books of merit from Chaucer's time to the present, over /300,000 were excluded wholly from the vocabulary/; hence there was no need to pad the vocabulary. The rules of exclusion and inclusion were most carefully made and rigidly enforced. A most perplexing problem from beginning to end was how to reduce the vocabulary, not how to enlarge it. Compression was carried by many devices to the extremest degree. The editors who passed upon the admission of words numbered over one hundred of the best known writers and scholars In America and England. To accuse such men of
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
Jay Walsh wrote: 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 This should the lesser of our concerns. This is a SVG. The file should contain the text in editable form (in Wikipedia-logo-v2-blueprint.svg it is stored as paths). Creating pngs becomes automatic. Moreover, I don't see the point of uploading hundreds of pngs. The backend should be able to handle it just fine. Localization would be placing the localized The Free Encyclopedia text in the appropiate place. Now we should focus on making it look good, getting all the feedback that is coming from them, so that we can eg. make it larger. For instance, I would make darker the border of the upper right piece. Compared with the old one, it looks too flat. ___ 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
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 7:11 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 6:32 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: I think you missed it because it wasn't really discussed before as part of the vector update... right? I admit I didn't read all the announcements, but was this discussed/announced earlier? That's the point I was trying not to be a jerk about—I'd like to think that I'm fairly attentive to this, particularly since the logos are a special concern of mine, but I don't remember any kind of public discussion or request for comments beforehand. Now that I look at the relevant wiki pages, it clearly wasn't any kind of secret, but I can't help but wonder if it was deliberately not made widely known. My response to Jay's message was to post links to the two image files in the hope that someone else would complain, I'm really honestly tired of being so negative. I laughed out loud at the crescendo of people trying not to be jerks, finally reaching a reverse cascade of as long as it's been said, yeah, I was just trying to be nice before. I am less confident about unbalanced. The old logo could also be said to be visually unbalanced and perhaps we're just used to it? I'm sure that's part of it—the old one really does look a bit crowded, looking at it objectively. What makes me say unbalanced is, very simply, the ratio of text to puzzle globe. The globe just looks too small. Oh well— at least we've got something to complain about and improve. We could always go back to talking about porn on Commons. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, William Pietri wrote: I was rummaging for story about Samuel Johnson and people hunting for naughty words in his dictionary, when I came across a Google Books reproduction of an 1896 periodical titled The Homiletic Review, edited by I.K. Funk, of Funk and Wagnalls. It appears that a competitor to their dictionary culled the naughtiest bits from the Funk Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, used those to claim they were filth-mongers, and set out to create a giant hullabaloo. Thank you so much for this historical perspective. It is indeed interesting to watch history repeat itself. I didn't know about this particular case before. I can only hope the Wiktionary communities have learned their history better than some others; otherwise perhaps they'll be next on the chopping block! - --Mike -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkvsOnwACgkQst0AR/DaKHvFWwCgqemiuyU0eWWUBY259z7e736U vdEAoKgChs+I1Q2EvSP+myqzZKm/IvYc =rWEw -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ 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
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 7:11 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: Oh well— at least we've got something to complain about and improve. We could always go back to talking about porn on Commons. Austin n. what about Wikimania rotation? Come on, let's talk about something easy. ever hopeful, Phoebe ___ 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
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, Austin Hair wrote: I am less confident about unbalanced. The old logo could also be said to be visually unbalanced and perhaps we're just used to it? I'm sure that's part of it—the old one really does look a bit crowded, looking at it objectively. What makes me say unbalanced is, very simply, the ratio of text to puzzle globe. The globe just looks too small. The globe isn't actually too small, I think it just _looks_ that way because: 1) the new logo has more space in it, in particular at the top 2) the new logo is typically viewed with Vector, which has more space around the logo than monobook did. Take a look at the new logo with ?useskin=monobook and I think you'll find it looks larger. In fact, monobook crowded the logo a bit uncomfortably. For use in Vector, I think the logo could be made larger, as it currently does not fill the space set aside for it. Vector handles the spacing; the logo doesn't need to have padding in the image as well. - --Mike -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkvsO2gACgkQst0AR/DaKHuIIgCeP6lzijRS3ErIJJrCQoYZM0gE j4wAnA6taeIa8Jew9L33axW83K8yQZgl =BrDs -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ 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
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 13/05/2010 13:01, Gregory Maxwell wrote: I don't know that reaching everybody was ever a stated goal. Being theoretically available to everybody is a different matter... Ah, that's the part that is not clear to me. If you talk about the intrinsic properties of the Big Project, I agree that the core must be free, uncensored resources. My concern, however, is about the interface with the real world, that is, the way this project containing information, ideas and knowledge (specifically set in the context of the 21st century, mostly english language, mostly western, mostly rich users) interacts with mankind. Allow me to explain: My current vision is that there are several main obstacles to a free interaction, for example: - - illiteracy - - no internet access - - cultural rejection - - political censorship With this context, I wonder if being theoretically available is enough, or if the Foundation and community should worry about solving or circumventing the pragmatical obstacles. I understand the debate of the last days as an example about what I call a political censorship, in a very generic meaning: an arsenal of cultural values and technological means that forbid some ideas to circulate, thus governing the minds into certain authorized or tolerated behaviours (and thoughts). I think most of mankind feel some kind of taboos are necessary to achieved a civilized society. This feeling leads to the need (and thus acceptation) of laws, which can be viewed as a legitimized form of censorship. Because of this generalized feeling towards laws, it is impossible to sum up all the knowledge of humanity without offending each of these cultural laws, and thus incommoding their believers. Abiding to the cultural laws of a community gives a sense of belonging, of identity, of security... It's a strong, common urge. Let's add to this fact that many of those laws are in the hands of tutors who use them as a tool to shape their protected ones. (It doesn't matter if I agree with their values or not, I'm focused on the mechanism.) The result is that you have deciding people between the foundation projects and their potential users, deciding people that have control of the flow of information. If they lose this control they lose power and their community (or child, for example) will lose faith in the official values and may start differing. From their perspective, it's the beginning of chaos. So, back to Wikipedia an Commons. Allowing such conflicts (free universal information versus locally controlled information) would antagonize the leaders and disturb the society order (which may be viewed as good or bad from our point of view, but is usually terrifying from theirs). The pragmatical approach seen in the debates is to compromise enough to avoid the conflicts and keep reaching the censored masses, minimizing the compromise of principles. The idealistic approach seems to only care about the internal community. For example: David (a real thought leader) Goodman wrote: If there is a wish for a similar but censored service, this can be best done by forking ours; But the wish to censor is not internal (except for parent maybe), thus a fork wouldn't be followed by users. It's not users who want the censorship system, it's detractors who don't want any out of their control, free access to information to begin with. My impressions from the last events is that people who believe in Wikipedia and Commons projects don't wish major changes to the censorship system that is satisfactorily self-managed by the users and editors. I think the people who feel strongly threatened by the lack of censorship on Wikipedia and Commons are whether from an opposing side or on a confused, testing phase. Because there is a war of influence, I wonder if we are robust enough to ignore the enemies we're creating by our very existence, given that they are influential. Fox News, Iran, China are just symptoms: what's happening here is that we're beginning to be a threat, imho, and that an escalation of hostility is to be expected the more we are successful and they become aware of us. Is it wise to ignore how the rest of the world reacts to the free access of information? Can the community thrives only on the shoulders of the people not offended by our current handling of information, or not? I don't know the answer, but I think we should be attentive and realistic enough to avoid a war, for example. That is not saying that we should change or compromise just to please. But if we choose to compromise, in this case allow some kind of censorship, forked or not, we need to know what's at stake and the dangers. Most of the libertarian communities that I know failed because they were too disturbing / annoying for the surrounding powers. There should be a constant acute perception of that. Maybe I've been too long in South America to have blind faith in our enemies, but a net with a few
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
Thanks, Lodewijk We've seen a lot of comments about the size of the puzzle globe, and I don't disagree that it might benefit from being increased in size slightly. I feel this might also affect the overall contrast and definition. The whole usability team is collecting feedback on this, and part of that is the overall shape and size of the identity. Thanks jay On May 13, 2010, at 5:37 AM, Lodewijk wrote: Hi Jay, thanks for your update. I am glad that the characters etc have been so thoroughly prepared, and I followed some of it - great team effort indeed. However, I am missing why it was decided to decrease the size of the logo. It definitely looks more professional, but also somewhat less friendly to me. Maybe it is just me, maybe not - I just would like to understand the rationale first. And is there any chance that the middle horizontal line is made slightly less intense? Right now, the attention is drawn there (at least for me) instead of the open part at the top. It gives me a slight impression as if the bowl is about to burst. Which is of course a valid representation of the truth with all community uproar lately, but I don't think it should be our message :) Best, Lodewijk 2010/5/13 Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com: 2010/5/13 Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org: 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. Hope you won't forget to change the logo here: http://www.wikipedia.org/ :-) -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ 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 -- 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] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Kalan kalan@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 22:44, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: We've seen a lot of comments about the size of the puzzle globe, and I don't disagree that it might benefit from being increased in size slightly. I feel this might also affect the overall contrast and definition. The whole usability team is collecting feedback on this, and part of that is the overall shape and size of the identity. As demonstrated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VPT#New_logo, simply resizing and re-contrasting doesn’t help much: the shape is still poor. So this is what should be focused IMO; apparently making the logo as similar to older one as possible should be the goal. This comment on the wiki seemed especially relevant: I just want to chime in on the new logo. The previous logo, which I created, was certainly not without its flaws, but the new logo suffers greatly on an aesthetic level: it is too small, the anti-aliasing is very low quality, and most importantly, the sense of texture created by the edges of the pieces is completely lost. Finally, I am rather disappointed I was not included in the process to revamp the logo. No attempt was made to reach out to me to let me know this process was even being undertaken. Very poor job on all accounts. nohat (talk) 18:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VPT#New_logo ___ 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
In regards to the new logo, 1. I like it. It looks a little odd by itself, but I think it really shines when you see it in Vector. It fits with a less boxy, sharp and jarring look like monobook has given us for years. A little larger couldn't hurt, but I'd like to remind people that a softer look for the puzzle is not inherently a bad thing. Perhaps we should give it a try for a bit before we demand revision, as anything new takes getting used to. 2. This is circumstantial I know, but if you search Twitter you'll see lots of people (i.e. readers) commenting on the new skin, and relatively few saying anything about the new logo. It seems close enough that most people might not even notice a change took place. Just my two cents, Steven Walling On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 12:07 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Kalan kalan@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 22:44, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: We've seen a lot of comments about the size of the puzzle globe, and I don't disagree that it might benefit from being increased in size slightly. I feel this might also affect the overall contrast and definition. The whole usability team is collecting feedback on this, and part of that is the overall shape and size of the identity. As demonstrated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VPT#New_logo, simply resizing and re-contrasting doesn’t help much: the shape is still poor. So this is what should be focused IMO; apparently making the logo as similar to older one as possible should be the goal. This comment on the wiki seemed especially relevant: I just want to chime in on the new logo. The previous logo, which I created, was certainly not without its flaws, but the new logo suffers greatly on an aesthetic level: it is too small, the anti-aliasing is very low quality, and most importantly, the sense of texture created by the edges of the pieces is completely lost. Finally, I am rather disappointed I was not included in the process to revamp the logo. No attempt was made to reach out to me to let me know this process was even being undertaken. Very poor job on all accounts. nohat (talk) 18:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VPT#New_logo ___ 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 7:53 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com simetrical%2bwikil...@gmail.com wrote: [[Daniel Pearl]] does not contain an image of him being beheaded (although it's what he's famous for), and [[Goatse.cx]] does not contain an image of its subject matter. Why? Primarily because of copyright issues, at least with regard to the latter, I believe. I used to joke about what's next, a photo on Goatse.cx? when arguing with the when you look up X you expect a photo of X crowd, but then, for a while it actually came true. This is a standard fair-use case: it's a notable image, and our informative article about it is not complete without a copy of the image. It's the same reason we can put an image on, I don't know, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Maar_au_Chat. Except we don't, because it's revolting. On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 3:53 AM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: 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. Okay, fine. Currently, people have no ability to decide whether they want to view a particular image. They get to see it with no warning whether they like it or not. I propose that if we think it's reasonably likely they wouldn't actually want to view it, they should be asked first, so they can decide not to see it if they prefer not to see it. Do you disagree? Not necessarily. Supermarket tabloids still sell well. Sometimes it's the advertisers, and not the readers who determine this. Because tabloids aim to provide entertainment more than information. If your goal is entertainment, then yes, more titillating content will scare away some readers; but it will attract others, because that sort of content does entertain people. So if you're a tabloid, the balance tilts more heavily toward prurient content (as well as exaggerated content, content based on shoddy evidence or rumor, . . .). If your goal is to provide information, on the other hand, you don't care so much if people are more entertained, and the balance leans more heavily in favor of the socially conservative. We should take our cues from reputable publications, not tabloids. (That said, I'm pretty sure tabloids in America don't routinely contain even topless pictures, let alone full-frontal nudity as at [[Human]].) Each project will be left to determine its own standards. When dealing with Commons relevant language is a meaning less term. I'm not talking about Commons. I'm talking about the Wikipedias, mainly, particularly the English Wikipedia. On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 12:17 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: 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? We have a perfectly good categorization system already, so any implementation would likely permit you to blacklist any category you like. Of course, this depends on someone maintaining an accurate [[Category:Spiders]] . . . this scheme doesn't work well if people remove redundant categories from images. It's also pretty ugly if every image has fifty categories, on the other hand. I'd hope that if people widely blacklist particular categories (especially if some projects do so by default), that would create the right incentives for people to categorize things in a way that's useful for the system. ___ 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 Thu, May 13, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.comsimetrical%2bwikil...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com simetrical%2bwikil...@gmail.com simetrical%2bwikil...@gmail.com simetrical%252bwikil...@gmail.com wrote: [[Daniel Pearl]] does not contain an image of him being beheaded (although it's what he's famous for), and [[Goatse.cx]] does not contain an image of its subject matter. Why? Primarily because of copyright issues, at least with regard to the latter, I believe. I used to joke about what's next, a photo on Goatse.cx? when arguing with the when you look up X you expect a photo of X crowd, but then, for a while it actually came true. This is a standard fair-use case: it's a notable image, and our informative article about it is not complete without a copy of the image. It's the same reason we can put an image on, I don't know, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Maar_au_Chat. Except we don't, because it's revolting. It's at this moments that I'm really thankful that spanish wikipedia has committed to actually be a free-content encyclopedia and only use Commons material (which, as we know, doesn't allow fairuse). I can only hope all this shaking won't change that. ___ 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
Mike.lifeguard wrote: The globe isn't actually too small, I think it just _looks_ that way because: 1) the new logo has more space in it, in particular at the top 2) the new logo is typically viewed with Vector, which has more space around the logo than monobook did. Take a look at the new logo with ?useskin=monobook and I think you'll find it looks larger. In fact, monobook crowded the logo a bit uncomfortably. For use in Vector, I think the logo could be made larger, as it currently does not fill the space set aside for it. Vector handles the spacing; the logo doesn't need to have padding in the image as well. --Mike Come on. The v2 *is* smaller. Open http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Wiki.png and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.png on two different tabs and switch between them. You will notice the change from italic to normal, that the W was bigger (bolder?) on the previous logo (we may want to increase it on v2) and that the ball was bigger. And by bigger I mean that on the previous logo the borders of the circle reached the left border of the W and the right of the A. The v2 goes from the middle of the W to 25% of the A. This is not a visual effect. Put your cursor on the right border of the globe and change tabs. Whoops, now there is almost a full piece to the border. ___ 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 think you mean http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/b/bc/20100513062230!Wiki.png. On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 4:34 PM, Platonides platoni...@gmail.com wrote: Mike.lifeguard wrote: The globe isn't actually too small, I think it just _looks_ that way because: 1) the new logo has more space in it, in particular at the top 2) the new logo is typically viewed with Vector, which has more space around the logo than monobook did. Take a look at the new logo with ?useskin=monobook and I think you'll find it looks larger. In fact, monobook crowded the logo a bit uncomfortably. For use in Vector, I think the logo could be made larger, as it currently does not fill the space set aside for it. Vector handles the spacing; the logo doesn't need to have padding in the image as well. --Mike Come on. The v2 *is* smaller. Open http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Wiki.png and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.png on two different tabs and switch between them. You will notice the change from italic to normal, that the W was bigger (bolder?) on the previous logo (we may want to increase it on v2) and that the ball was bigger. And by bigger I mean that on the previous logo the borders of the circle reached the left border of the W and the right of the A. The v2 goes from the middle of the W to 25% of the A. This is not a visual effect. Put your cursor on the right border of the globe and change tabs. Whoops, now there is almost a full piece to the border. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- - Brian ___ 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
Brian S wrote: I think you mean http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/b/bc/20100513062230!Wiki.png. Oh, right. I have still cached the nohat version on 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] Funny news from Poland
2010/5/13 Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com: As you maybe now, after the sudden death of Lech Kaczynski (jn airjet crash in Smolens) we have now fast presidential election. One of the most serious candidates Bronisław Komorowski was cached with printed copy of Wikipedia article about Rada Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rada_Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa_Narodowego a presidential advisory board for national security :-) Journalist from Poland just started commenting if we really need a president who's main source of knowledge about national security comes form Wikipedia :-). http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/2169210,11,wikipedia_nowym_doradca_komorowskiego,item.html -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html Given the simply staggering coverage of millitry issues on various wikimedia projects I can think of worse places to start. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
Jehochman has suggested that we need legal advice from the Foundation at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content with respect to § 2257[1}, and I tend to agree with him. The relevant discussion is here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#The_Case_for_Using_USC_2257_on_Wikimedia_Projects Editors have stated that the record-keeping requirements of § 2257 do not apply to Commons. Do we have a qualified legal opinion that backs this assertion up? From reading § 2257, it seems it is written with commercial providers of sexually explicit material in mind. Commons is not a commercial provider of such works. On the other hand, Commons licences state that material hosted on Commons is good for any use, including commercial use. This makes Commons a potential link in a chain leading to commercial use of material uploaded to Commons. Note that per § 2257 (h)(2)(iii), anyone inserting on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise managing the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, sexually explicit conduct is liable to receive a prison sentence of up to 5 years, for a first-time offence, if they fail to comply with the record-keeping requirements of § 2257. Doesn't this raise the possibility that Commons administrators might become personally liable if, for example, they decide to keep a sexually explicit image that is subsequently found to have depicted a minor? There are other aspects involved in drafting Commons:Sexual_content that need expert legal input, for example, which types of pornography are legal in the US, and which ones are not. We are all laypersons there, so please help us out. Andreas 1 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/718/usc_sec_18_2257000-.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Funny news from Poland
2010/5/13 geni geni...@gmail.com: 2010/5/13 Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com: As you maybe now, after the sudden death of Lech Kaczynski (jn airjet crash in Smolens) we have now fast presidential election. One of the most serious candidates Bronisław Komorowski was cached with printed copy of Wikipedia article about Rada Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rada_Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa_Narodowego a presidential advisory board for national security :-) Journalist from Poland just started commenting if we really need a president who's main source of knowledge about national security comes form Wikipedia :-). http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/2169210,11,wikipedia_nowym_doradca_komorowskiego,item.html -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html Given the simply staggering coverage of millitry issues on various wikimedia projects I can think of worse places to start. Yes, but, from a professional point of view, our coverage of geopolitical and national security and military issues *sucks*. Sorry to be blunt, but it's terrible. The WikiProject Military people are great at military history and hardware; contemporary issues and strategy and tactics and capabilities coverage, the sorts of things needed by current leaders, are not good. Our geopolitics issues are largely captured by special interest subgroups of people, ... It's not bad as a high school level intro, perhaps; not entirely neutral, but not bad at that level. It would not survive exposure to grad school level challenges or actual real world issue handling, by and large. -- -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] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DragonHawk/2010_logo#Comparison That's the clearest demonstration of the difference in size. New and Old compared. Both images are 250pixels wide. They should be basically equal, but are not. Those 2 images also clearly show the difference in detail, and why people are calling the new logo flat, and the middle-line too distinct. The unbalanced problem, is possibly due to the location of the individual glyphs within each separate puzzle piece. Previously, the glyphs were more in line with each other (the glyphs were almost parallel horizontally, if the globe was rotated to be straight). The new logo changes that, and places the glyphs in a distinct zigzag, up and down, around each horizontal band. This unbalance however is something that we might just need to get used to. A rotating animation might make it clearer what the intention is. The size and flatness however are severe problems. Hope that helps. Quiddity On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: Thanks, Lodewijk We've seen a lot of comments about the size of the puzzle globe, and I don't disagree that it might benefit from being increased in size slightly. I feel this might also affect the overall contrast and definition. The whole usability team is collecting feedback on this, and part of that is the overall shape and size of the identity. Thanks jay ___ 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, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com 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. A similar method is used by the Chinese Wikipedia article on masturbation. It hides its gallery of images in an expandable box: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%84%E7%B2%BE Andreas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: Jehochman has suggested that we need legal advice from the Foundation at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content with respect to § 2257[1}, and I tend to agree with him. The relevant discussion is here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#The_Case_for_Using_USC_2257_on_Wikimedia_Projects Editors have stated that the record-keeping requirements of § 2257 do not apply to Commons. Do we have a qualified legal opinion that backs this assertion up? From reading § 2257, it seems it is written with commercial providers of sexually explicit material in mind. Commons is not a commercial provider of such works. On the other hand, Commons licences state that material hosted on Commons is good for any use, including commercial use. This makes Commons a potential link in a chain leading to commercial use of material uploaded to Commons. Note that per § 2257 (h)(2)(iii), anyone inserting on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise managing the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, sexually explicit conduct is liable to receive a prison sentence of up to 5 years, for a first-time offence, if they fail to comply with the record-keeping requirements of § 2257. Doesn't this raise the possibility that Commons administrators might become personally liable if, for example, they decide to keep a sexually explicit image that is subsequently found to have depicted a minor? There are other aspects involved in drafting Commons:Sexual_content that need expert legal input, for example, which types of pornography are legal in the US, and which ones are not. We are all laypersons there, so please help us out. Andreas 1 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/718/usc_sec_18_2257000-.html I'm not sure the presence or absence of a legal imperative is fully relevant to the underlying question. The Commons project has a moral responsibility to take reasonable steps to ensure that subjects of sexually explicit media are (a) of legal majority and (b) have provided releases for publishing the content. The regulations exist for a good reason - to protect the subjects of photos from abuse and invasion of privacy. Why should we avoid taking those same steps? Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 9:25 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not sure the presence or absence of a legal imperative is fully relevant to the underlying question. The Commons project has a moral responsibility to take reasonable steps to ensure that subjects of sexually explicit media are (a) of legal majority and (b) have provided releases for publishing the content. The regulations exist for a good reason - to protect the subjects of photos from abuse and invasion of privacy. Why should we avoid taking those same steps? The obligation to protect people against an invasion of their privacy is not limited to, or even mostly applicable to sexual images. Although sexual images are one of several most important cases, the moral imperative to respect the privacy of private individuals exists everywhere. As such, Commons has a specific policy on this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Photographs_taken_in_a_private_place ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 10:14 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: The obligation to protect people against an invasion of their privacy is not limited to, or even mostly applicable to sexual images. Although sexual images are one of several most important cases, the moral imperative to respect the privacy of private individuals exists everywhere. As such, Commons has a specific policy on this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Photographs_taken_in_a_private_place Not much of a policy, in my opinion. A general statement of principle, with no mechanism of enforcement, doesn't have much impact on the state of things. We don't require evidence of release, but we should. And in the case of explicit content, we should require that release even if the photograph is taken in a public place. Topless sunbathing on a beach in Nice is not the same as a worldwide license for unlimited publicity. Nathan ___ 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
On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 5:00 AM, Kalan kalan@gmail.com wrote: As demonstrated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VPT#New_logo, simply resizing and re-contrasting doesn’t help much: the shape is still poor. So this is what should be focused IMO; apparently making the logo as similar to older one as possible should be the goal. To make it similar to the old one, yes. At the moment it's similar to the old old one (the original puzzle globe was more contrasty than the version we had most recently). Given that we're working here with a 2D render of the 3D model of the logo, these are just teething issues with finding exactly the right parameters (lighting, amount of AA, other postprocessing, etc) for the render. Would the people working on the logo be able to make the 3D model available for people to play with? -- Stephen Bain stephen.b...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
Gregory Maxwell wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 9:25 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not sure the presence or absence of a legal imperative is fully relevant to the underlying question. The Commons project has a moral responsibility to take reasonable steps to ensure that subjects of sexually explicit media are (a) of legal majority and (b) have provided releases for publishing the content. The regulations exist for a good reason - to protect the subjects of photos from abuse and invasion of privacy. Why should we avoid taking those same steps? The obligation to protect people against an invasion of their privacy is not limited to, or even mostly applicable to sexual images. Although sexual images are one of several most important cases, the moral imperative to respect the privacy of private individuals exists everywhere. As such, Commons has a specific policy on this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Photographs_taken_in_a_private_place This whole issue is a very delicate one, and I agree not really anything to do with whether the images are explicit or not. A selective harsher standard to apply to explicit images makes no sense whatsoever. Not in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of ethical behaviour. Anyone remember this case of Virgin Mobile using (or abusing) the CC 2.0 license in their advertising in a manner that the license specifically allows, but is just simply pretty damn sleazy? http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070921/003636.shtml ___ 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 5:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: 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. Yes. All of our core principles are designed to maximize the long-term benefit to humanity of free access to human knowledge; and those things are generally more important than any specific goal such as outreach to schools. David Goodman writes: if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but reliable information, who will? This is well said, as is the rest of your post. Having comprehensive free uncensored reliable information is essential to our mission. So is having information that is freely available to everyone. But there are barriers to both of these goals, and we will realize each of them partly on our own and partly through collaboration with other projects. Other comments: * Currently we do censor in the name of notability. In particular, established groups of editors censor the work of those who have different notability standards. Is this the right approach to take, or do you see those subselections also happening outside of a big tent for uncensored knowledge? * The Matthew effect has implications: modest changes to how welcoming we are can significantly expand the community contributing to free knowledge -- in a way that the right to fork has not. And unfriendliness often stems from editors who are defending core principles on the wikis. So it is worth finding ways to uphold our principles respectfully, without driving people away. About China's big online encyclopedias: 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. There is more that we can and should do. We should acknowledge the good work Hudong and Baike are doing to share knowledge - tremendously furthering part of our mission (if not the 'uncensored' part, certainly encouraging a generation of collaborators). [1] And, as with the Encyclopedia of Life, we should recognize that they are providing very meaningful cooperative competition. They are exploring different ways of presenting knowledge, creating views for multiple audiences, and building social networks and games around knowledge-creation -- all things we should be thinking hard about. We can learn quite a bit from one another before stumbling over licensing. Sam [1] Hudong's 'learn, create, collaborate' is a good slogan. 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
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
I continue to be inspired by the quality of discourse in this debate. Noein, I appreciate all of the points you make below, but want to call out one in particular: My current vision is that there are several main obstacles to a free interaction, for example: - - illiteracy - - no internet access - - cultural rejection - - political censorship Also - - language barrier for people literate in a language with no content. You are right that we should consider what we can do about pragmatic obstacles. And all of these are of real importance. Communities that are restricted by one of these obstacles are often those most in need of free access to information. Sam On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 2:31 PM, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 13/05/2010 13:01, Gregory Maxwell wrote: I don't know that reaching everybody was ever a stated goal. Being theoretically available to everybody is a different matter... Ah, that's the part that is not clear to me. If you talk about the intrinsic properties of the Big Project, I agree that the core must be free, uncensored resources. My concern, however, is about the interface with the real world, that is, the way this project containing information, ideas and knowledge (specifically set in the context of the 21st century, mostly english language, mostly western, mostly rich users) interacts with mankind. Allow me to explain: My current vision is that there are several main obstacles to a free interaction, for example: - - illiteracy - - no internet access - - cultural rejection - - political censorship With this context, I wonder if being theoretically available is enough, or if the Foundation and community should worry about solving or circumventing the pragmatical obstacles. I understand the debate of the last days as an example about what I call a political censorship, in a very generic meaning: an arsenal of cultural values and technological means that forbid some ideas to circulate, thus governing the minds into certain authorized or tolerated behaviours (and thoughts). I think most of mankind feel some kind of taboos are necessary to achieved a civilized society. This feeling leads to the need (and thus acceptation) of laws, which can be viewed as a legitimized form of censorship. Because of this generalized feeling towards laws, it is impossible to sum up all the knowledge of humanity without offending each of these cultural laws, and thus incommoding their believers. Abiding to the cultural laws of a community gives a sense of belonging, of identity, of security... It's a strong, common urge. Let's add to this fact that many of those laws are in the hands of tutors who use them as a tool to shape their protected ones. (It doesn't matter if I agree with their values or not, I'm focused on the mechanism.) The result is that you have deciding people between the foundation projects and their potential users, deciding people that have control of the flow of information. If they lose this control they lose power and their community (or child, for example) will lose faith in the official values and may start differing. From their perspective, it's the beginning of chaos. So, back to Wikipedia an Commons. Allowing such conflicts (free universal information versus locally controlled information) would antagonize the leaders and disturb the society order (which may be viewed as good or bad from our point of view, but is usually terrifying from theirs). The pragmatical approach seen in the debates is to compromise enough to avoid the conflicts and keep reaching the censored masses, minimizing the compromise of principles. The idealistic approach seems to only care about the internal community. For example: David (a real thought leader) Goodman wrote: If there is a wish for a similar but censored service, this can be best done by forking ours; But the wish to censor is not internal (except for parent maybe), thus a fork wouldn't be followed by users. It's not users who want the censorship system, it's detractors who don't want any out of their control, free access to information to begin with. My impressions from the last events is that people who believe in Wikipedia and Commons projects don't wish major changes to the censorship system that is satisfactorily self-managed by the users and editors. I think the people who feel strongly threatened by the lack of censorship on Wikipedia and Commons are whether from an opposing side or on a confused, testing phase. Because there is a war of influence, I wonder if we are robust enough to ignore the enemies we're creating by our very existence, given that they are influential. Fox News, Iran, China are just symptoms: what's happening here is that we're beginning to be a threat, imho, and that an escalation of hostility is to be expected the more we are successful and they become aware of us.
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
Vector is lovely, and continues to grow on me for browsing. Thank you to everyone who has worked on it! On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: The first major change you'll see is a slightly different looking Wikipedia puzzle globe. Over a year ago the Foundation began to It's great to see svg code that people can hack on. Is there a page on Meta for discussing the new logo? Among other things, we need somewhere to discuss progress on localizing the new logo into different languages. Perhaps the old Logo page could be updated with the latest status and links to discussions on other wikis as they develop: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/Logo Sam -- meta:sj ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Flagged Protection update for May 13
As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update. As I mentioned last week, we are starting pre-rollout activities while we finish up the last bits of development. Now that the successful launch of the new enwiki UI is out of the way, we will be getting together with Rob H. and the rest of the ops ninjas to discuss release dates. Also upcoming is a final pass at the terms and text, some more fiddling with cross-browser CSS and JavaScript issues, some work with the community to figure out the remaining details of the community side of the trial (keep an eye on RobLa's activity there), and a call for the nice people at the German Wikipedia to try our shiny new software with their config and make sure we haven't broken anything for them. (Regarding that, if some German speaker reading this would like to help set up the test site, we could use a hand. Contact me via direct email.) The discussion of rollout means that we think the software is, some minor nits aside, basically ready. Want to be sure? You can test it out here, and we'll even give you admin rights [1] to do so: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page To see what we've changed this week, there's a list here: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Flagged_Protection_updates#2010_May_13 To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog: http://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/46157 We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia. William [1] You know that you [2] have always wanted admin rights! [2] Except those of you who already have them. But for you, we have a whole wiki that you can go wild on. You can even have a wheel war if you want and we won't tell a soul. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
