Re: [Foundation-l] [Slashdot] Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad
2009/7/21 wiki-li...@phizz.demon.co.uk: If you have a personal use, want to illustrating an article or blog that is not Adsense rich, have an academic use, or a small scale fundraising non-profit fine take what you want. If on the other hand you are share cropping with Google Ads, using the images to tart up an otherwise tawdry commercial web site, are involved in online selling, are a commercial advertising or publishing house, then kiss my arse. The NC license serves very well. Certainly. I don't release every pic I take under a free license ... hardly any of them, actually. For Wikimedia purposes, though, one has to really let it free. Explaining this to professional content creators and media companies leads to exploding heads. Pointing out that giving it all away has made Wikipedia a top-ten website and must be doing all right from it isn't enough to convince them ... it goes so much against everything they think they know about the world. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Slashdot] Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad
2009/7/20 Stephen Bain stephen.b...@gmail.com: 'To me the problem is the Wikipedia rule of public use,' says Jerry Avenaim, a celebrity photographer. 'If they truly wanted to elevate the image on the site, they should allow photographers to maintain the copyright.' We should definitely take advice from a professional photographer who doesn't understand what a licence is. He does - he's a Wikimedia contributor! I'd suggest a quote got over-compressed there. The Slashdot coverage appears surprisingly clueful - i.e., that reusability and a proper free license comes first. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Imagine this, if a gallery or museum has a painting of some Leonard van der Olsen-Mozart (he don't exist, hopefully..) then this museum should make sure there is a bio for the person and of his painting of The fallen Madonna with the big bottom, and those should link back to the galleries own pages. At those pages the gallery should make available any high res copies, uv-scans, scientific works, etc, about the painting and the painter. We should be the yellow pages for the GLAM-institutions. It should be so important for them to have a presence on Wikipedia that it should raise questions from the government if they don't have a sufficient presence. Giving galleries lots of links to their pages is something we should be happy to do, as it's informative, educational and helps the reader. One of the many Freedom Of Information requests people have filed with the NPG in the past week (since this storm broke) is: what proportion of their web hits are from Wikipedia/Wikimedia? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: geni wrote: 2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. We do not have the capacity to raise sufficient funds to make it a worthwhile business model. How do you know that? Not out of our pockets directly, anyway. But helping them lobby for better funding from sources other than copyright claims on public domain works is absolutely in our interest as well as theirs. If we can set up such a program, we could plausibly help do something very financially efficient in terms of what we'd put into it. We already have lots of volunteers who would be very keen to help any way they can with such programs. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] New Larry Sanger project: WatchKnow
http://www.watchknow.org/ CC-by-sa educational videos for school kids. Currently building up a head of steam before its official big splash launch: http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/07/17/garrison-keillor-notices-my-birthday/ - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Attribution on small interactive devices and systems
2009/7/17 Harald Krichel harald.kric...@googlemail.com: Shouldn't we set up our own URL-aliasing service? This would also have the advantage that you could be sure that the wikimedia shortened urls only lead to wikimedia domains. I know of: http://enwp.org/ http://enwn.net/ - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: If we forget about politics and who-did-what, what is the common grounds between us and them? To me it seems like they want us to use their material, but that they are scared to let go of a possible income. This seems fairly similar to the Galleri NOR -case. Would it be possible for us to define an acceptable resolution that is also acceptable for them? They have a lot more material available and to me the whole thing seems to be less than optimum for both parties. They want to get the material known, but also have the option to sell high resolution versions. We want to illustrate articles, but have no need to sell our copies, neither do we need highres versions - we infact downsample the versions. This is in fact an apposite question - Erik has said WMF's in negotiation with the NPG: Quick note: The National Portrait Gallery contacted us to see if we can find a compromise regarding the images in question, and we’ve entered good faith discussions with them. Feel free to point this out in relevant places. That's a *really good thing*, because a lawsuit would be stupid for both of us. And working with people is always better than working against them. (The real problem, IMO, is funding - that governments tell galleries they have to make money from exploiting the works in their possession. This was barely workable last century, and is increasingly untenable in this one. This will require working with ministries of culture.) So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 geni geni...@gmail.com: Not really. Remember there are a bunch of other collections. Many will be looking to use the NPG's business model. National maritime museum, Imperial war museum, British library, Various national archives. Can't afford to buy them all off. It's worth noting that governments often expressly tell their galleries to be more businesslike and expressly require them to squeeze every penny from the (public domain) works they own. And to hell with the mission statement. So it'll be the usual mix of gentle one-at-a-time persuasion, luring people in, working under the radar, shifting paradigms, changing the culture, warping reality to a better shape, speaking softly and the occasional burst of action. Nothing we're not used to. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. That's what I mean - this issue goes way beyond NPG into how arts institutions are funded and sustained, which is why the NPG or people therein may believe they're really fighting for their lives and we threaten that. And if the NPG doesn't think that, other galleries may think that. And they may be right, if their funding's really bad. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 Lars Aronsson l...@aronsson.se: Ah, but do governments really say this? I think it's museum people who want to play business because business is glamorous and state-owned administration is dull and grey. I don't think governments originally came up with this idea. I have been told this by Wikimedians who used to work in and with such institutions. Governments told them to be more businesslike, this attracted the people you describe. Someone should do research and cite sources. Wikipedia's article on museums, or the history of museums, should have a section about this annoying trend. I guess museum journals of the recent decades should have articles that can be cited as sources. I wonder if anyone's written about this without being sued ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Has anyone been in touch with NPG yet?
2009/7/13 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: From your text I get the impression that it is something special that we put annotations about a work with the digital copy. I would argue that this is something that we should do with all our material. The annotations that exist about a work, the references to the GLAM (galleries libraries archives museums) are as important to us as they are to anyone else. It is in the annotations, the rreferences to the GLAM where the original can be found that provides the provenance that gives assurance that the image is a truthful depiction of whatever it is supposed to be. These annotations are as important as citations in our Wikipedia articles. Absolutely. But if we make a point of it to them that would undoubtedly help. (c.f. why image restorers should properly be credited, even if their work does not create a new copyright - it's part of the relevant history of the image and correctly informs the viewer as to its provenance.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] About that sue and be damned to the NationalPortrait Gallery ...
2009/7/12 Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com: On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 2:11 AM, Tom Maaswinkeltom.maaswin...@12wiki.eu wrote: The part I am talking about is the part where they say that they want to talk to the Wikimedia Fundation to have a discussion about making low-resolution images of paintings in its collection available! Incidentally, the NPG appears to have removed the zoomify feature from their website (or at least it wasn't present on the sample of images I looked at). As a result, it would appear that WMF presently has more detailed images on Commons than are available in any form on NPG's website. In the typical case, our images appear to be 3 or 4 times larger in linear dimension than the largest view they currently make available. Oh, that's good. We had to destroy the images to propagate them. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] About that sue and be damned to the National Portrait Gallery ...
2009/7/11 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Would I be right in assuming that you are American? You certainly have Oh, and Ray is Canadian ;-p (I had people in the Slashdot thread assuming I was American despite the davidgerard.co.uk domain ...) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] About that sue and be damned to the NationalPortrait Gallery ...
2009/7/11 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: In the case of GalleriNOR several people uploaded images from the site without prior agreement with neither NB nor NF. After a while I get in touch with them and asked how we should handle the case, what people believed was the right thing to do from our side and what NB and NF wanted to do. First the stand was established as the images must be deleted and we don't want to delete them, then we said okey we will attempt to get them deleted through due process - but hey, how much of the traffic come from our site? Then things get a bit amusing. The thing is, about 60% of the traffic originates from Wikimedia Commons and with the additional internal traffic generated from this we probably generates over 80% of the traffic on the site. This isn't neglible amouths of traffic on a site, removing the images on Commons would pull the plug on the majority of the traffic. :-D We should ask the NPG about their website traffic ;-) Do all NPG images have a link back? They should. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] The problem with native languages vs. the lingua franca
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/world/asia/10iht-malay.html The Malaysian government has declared that science instruction will be conducted in Bahasa rather than English. Parents, teachers and professors are very unhappy because English is the language of science. This sort of thing affects the quality of our projects in languages other than English. I'm not sure what to suggest, but it struck me as relevant to language issues we face. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The problem with native languages vs. the lingua franca
2009/7/10 Pavlo Shevelo pavlo.shev...@gmail.com: Would you please be more clear in This sort of thing affects the quality of our projects in languages other than English. ? I mean what kind of affects (positive/negative) do you mean and what is the cause mechanism between such governmental rulings and quality of projects in local (national) languages? I'm not sure, that's why I just posted the link. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The problem with native languages vs. the lingua franca
2009/7/10 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: So, even a discipline with a lot of polyglots can't work without lingua franca. I remember reading in Isaac Asimov's autobiography how, as a chemist in the 1940s, he had to learn French and German well enough to read papers in those languages. So the lingua franca in a field varies with time as well as field. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Recommending a Browser for High Quality Ogg Theora Video Support
2009/7/10 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Does this mean that you would advise against Ubuntu for their use of iceweasel and their inability to provide the 3.5 release in a timely fashion ? That question really doesn't make any sense in context. Why would we advise *against* an OS? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] mo.wikipedia is not yet renamed to mo-cyrill as it was promised !!
2009/7/10 Mark Williamson node...@gmail.com: I'm not suggesting that anybody ignore the issue, just that a different approach be taken to resolution. I am. Nobody cares, approximately. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Recommending a Browser for High Quality Ogg Theora Video Support
2009/7/11 geni geni...@gmail.com: Ubuntu is as much a software package including an OS as a pure OS. It can be considered amusing that the bundling that got Microsoft into trouble has become standard practice for pretty much any general user orientated OS these days. This is a misconception: they got into trouble for abusing their monopoly by software bundling, not for the software bundling itself. In any case, your comment in no way actually advances the original question. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] About that sue and be damned to the National Portrait Gallery ...
... the National Portrait Gallery appear to be sending legal threats to individual uploaders, after the Foundation ignored their claims as utterly, utterly specious. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dcoetzee/NPG_legal_threat The editor in question is US-based. So. What is WMF's response to this odious attempt to enclose the commons? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] About that sue and be damned to the National Portrait Gallery ...
On 11/07/2009, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: Technically, the user could just ignore this - a lawsuit in a UK court without relevant jurisdiction, under US law as applies, can be ignored. A default judgement against him might be entered, however, and that might make future travel to Europe difficult. Note that the most recent attempts by the UK legal system to extend their reach to actions in the US (libel judgements) is resulting in new US law specifically disallowing such things. I hadn't realised at the time of my original post that the editor in question was American. To recap: A UK organisation is threatening an American with legal action over what is unambiguously, in established US law, not a copyright violation of any sort. o_0 I hope someone's made sure Mike is aware... ? I posted to the comcom list, cc Mike. The Wikimedia twittersphere is going fucking batshit about this (unsurprisingly), it may have legs. No-one at the NPG who could deal with this will be in until Monday (it's 1:30am here); I wonder if they'll be surprised at the orderly queue of people at their door with pitchforks and torches. I scribbled a blog post to try to make stuff clearer: http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2009/07/11/sue-and-be-damned/ - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Recommending a Browser for High Quality Ogg Theora Video Support
2009/7/9 Michael Dale md...@wikimedia.org: * Google Chromium -- supports h.264 and ogg theora video natively. Again ogg performance is not very high quality. It uses the ffmpeg library which features a non-optimal theora decoder. Things like seeking presently don't work very reliably. Does Chromium actually support h.264? Chrome will *next* version but not this one. While Apple does at least support adding in of codecs into the quicktime system and some people form Apple have had friendly conversations with us. The Apple Corporation essentially says it can't ship default support for xiph because of perceived patent risk. With Google shipping Chrome with ogg support the submarine patent argument (that no other large company is shipping ogg) would appear to be less valid. Perhaps we as wikimedia could help apple do the right thing? There's no fallback provision for iPhone users. This is because of Apple's active decision not to support Theora. Either we appear defective (Sorry, we can't serve you a file you can use, we suck) or we correctly note that the problem is Apple's decision (Sorry, your iPhone cannot play this video as Apple does not support Ogg Theora). Apple are presumably not ashamed of their decision. Perhaps we could ask what they consider a suitable wording and go from there. Presently the proposed solution is to soft link to the Mozilla Firefox browser: see mockup: http://metavid.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/upgrade_to_firefox.png I'd say For better rather than For best. There should probably be a link to an editable page where people will doubtless go into intricate geeky detail. There remains the question of what to do for iPhone (and presumably Nokia) users whose phone providers have actively decided to exclude Theora from their devices. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Recommending a Browser for High Quality Ogg Theora Video Support
2009/7/9 geni geni...@gmail.com: Mention VLC plugin perhaps? Again, you're making suggestions to create an image of pseudo-neutrality. The VLC plugin is notoriously problematic in practice. Your suggestion would be actively misleading. I strongly suggest you read the wikitech-l thread. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Recommending a Browser for High Quality Ogg Theora Video Support
2009/7/9 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: 2009/7/9 geni geni...@gmail.com: Mention VLC plugin perhaps? Again, you're making suggestions to create an image of pseudo-neutrality. The VLC plugin is notoriously problematic in practice. Your suggestion would be actively misleading. I strongly suggest you read the wikitech-l thread. Here, I'll even do some of your homework for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/extensions/OggHandler/OggPlayer.js?10 - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why Wikipedia and not the Wikipedia?
2009/7/7 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com: Once a name or monument transcends what it originally named and is used by reference to describe similar things elsewhere, there is a tendency to add the definite article -- the Earth, the Sun, the Sphinx, the Oracle, the Colosseum. I do see people running wikis of any sort on their own or their company site, with a comment that they have 'set up their own wikipedia'. This would be consistent with calling the original Project 'the' Wikipedia. That's common usage, which we're trying to drive back out by pointing out that's a trademark and wiki is the generic term ;-) Of course, then you have people using wiki to mean Wkipedia ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: How do you fully consult the community consensus?
2009/7/3 Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com:
{{qif}} was being used massively, even if the majority of the community
didn't know about it (or care). It supported their work and allowed them
to do the things with templates that they needed in articles. I would
argue these complex templates came from the community's needs.
Your last sentence is key here. Templates that present a (relatively)
simple interface but have complex plumbing to do cool things are
much-wanted and much-needed.
However, the ParserFunctions language sucks because it was made up as
it goes along and resembles nothing so much as an [[esoteric
programming language]]. A better language will make it easier to
program templates that do complex things with a simple interface.
- d.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: How do you fully consult the community consensus?
2009/7/6 geni geni...@gmail.com: Questionable. Since for fairly obvious reasons you can't let wikipedians execute arbitrary code through templates there is always going to be the problem of wikipedians useing workarounds that generate problematical code. ParserFunctions is already Turing-complete, so your first clause is factually inaccurate. The present workaround is to kill template computations that take too long. The problems are: (1) they're hard to program (2) they're hard to parse. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Attribution on small interactive devices and systems
2009/7/4 Peter Gervai grin...@gmail.com: On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 21:45, John at Darkstarvac...@jeb.no wrote: There is a solution, and it is rather puzzling. The license talks about identification by an URI, and this can be defined several ways. We can simply define an URI like Wikipedia:My article or perhaps cc:nn Not very much different from an URL, it requires a net connection as well. Still I believe URL is a correct pointer to the license, clickable or not. And the original work. In particular, a revision ID is a unique reference to a particular revision on a particular copy of MediaWiki, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/?oldid=299753371 (where I put [[:en:Karl Malden]]'s birth name into the intro). - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No default codec for video and audio in HTML5
2009/7/3 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: A compromise is a win-win. In the absence of a compromise its a lose-lose. Except that H264 wins since almost all of us already support it. Relying on something rendered radioactive by the software patents attached to it is not a win. It would be lovely if H.264 wasn't, legally speaking, toxic waste. However, it is. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] The edit heard round the world
Anyone able to help with this? (Durova's been doing a lot of restoration work on Commons. There has also been discussion on wikien-l about crediting restorers - there's frequently no copyright obligation to credit restorers, but doing so is (a) polite (b) more accurate sourcing (c) encourages more good restorations on Commons. Ideas for workable restorer crediting welcomed.) - d. -- Forwarded message -- From: Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com Date: 2009/6/27 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The edit heard round the world To: English Wikipedia wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi all, Have been working on coaxing the return of a talented editor by the name of Shoemaker's Holiday--who is by far WMF's most skilled volunteer at restoring historic etchings. Turns out he's been working on an important project: perhaps someone can help obtain source material. The subject is Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.19159 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.01657 As you can see, both of the Library of Congress copies are missing sections of data due to damage. If we can obtain a high resolution scan from a third copy of this etching, it will become possible to assemble a composite of the complete engraving. (For Wikimedians who aren't US-Based, the Boston Massacre was a key event that preceded the American Revolution. Paul Revere's famous depiction helped spread dissatisfaction with colonial rule). What we're looking for are editors who to interface with historic societies or libraries that own an original copy of the engraving. Particularly within Boston or Massachusetts, although copies probably exist across various locations in the eastern United States. We're looking to obtain an uncompressed scan of the document on the order of 25MB-100MB. Source credit will be provided to the institution, of course, and the final work might be selected to run on Wikipedia's main page. Please contact me if you can assist or provide contacts. -Durova -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Iran?
2009/6/21 Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net: Sure, transparency is a problem, but its absence alone does not imply fraud. It hurts the Iranian authorities even more if the vote count is accurate because nobody believes them. Evidence the numbers were made up: humans are not very good at picking random numbers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/20/AR200906204.html (This is way off-topic ...) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Google Translate now assists with humantranslations of Wikipedia articles
2009/6/21 Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.yu: Дана Saturday 13 June 2009 18:20:36 picus-viridis написа: IMHO automatic translations into Polish are useless, as they only allow rough orientation in the contents of an article. It concerns not only How is rough orientation in the contents of an article useless? It's not useless, but it's not all that useful. I find when translating from other Wikipedias to add to the English version of an article that it's the subtle and important details that get mashed to uncertainty. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Info/Law blog: Using Wikisource as an Alternative Open Access Repository for Legal Scholarship
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2009/06/19/using-wikisource-as-an-alternative-open-access-repository-for-legal-scholarship/ Interesting. How well does this fit with what Wikisource does? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons
[foundation-l added back to cc: as well as commons-l] 2009/6/15 Gnangarra gnanga...@gmail.com: Sysops on Commons arent just handed the tools they first must seek a level of trust from the community that trust is because there are times when a person must act in the interest of Commons. As a long term sysop on Commons and one the higher end contributors sysops do have a level of authority and need to exercise their judgement more frequently without discussion then other larger projects (like de,en) one the problems is that at times there arent the experienced people around to enable a thorough discussion before acting. This is a particluar problem with local copyright issues as an Australian I got a good understand of OZ law and know where to get more info, I also gained a fair understanding of US over time and out of necessity but I have a very limited smattering of it for elsewhere when there is the necessity to make a move if I cant get independent opinions/help then I would defer to safest solution for Commons Yeah. The problem is that to be an admin on Commons requires you to be a copyright law edge-cases nerd way beyond the point where any reasonable person would just say bugger it, just sue me. And the persistence to deal with, what is it, 10%? of uploads being unacceptable for one reason or another. So you'll get people - and it's fewer and fewer - who tend to be interested in Commons as a standalone project and are indifferent-to-hostile to the service project angle. The bureaucratic obstructionism - not active hindering (well, maybe just a bit), just passive not-caring - accorded the recent Pikiwiki problems is a perfect recent example. Possible solution: active recruitment drive on client wikis of underrepresented languages. Get interested sysops on those wikis to go through suitable training to become Commons. This requires setting out precisely what a Commons admin needs to know. Establish clear and somewhat objective criteria for Commons admins. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons
2009/6/15 Rama Neko raman...@gmail.com: The service project angle worries me too. I have noticed that many articles of Wikipedia, the service project that makes it easier to find media in Commons by providing encyclopedic context to our content, utterly lack the proper links to our galleries and categories. Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are copyright violations. In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots of out-of-scope party snapshots, too. I'd hope this isn't a summary of the views of other Commons admins. Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons
2009/6/15 Marcus Buck m...@marcusbuck.org: David Gerard schrieb: I'd hope this isn't a summary of the views of other Commons admins. Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive? That was an inversion, a change of perspective. A rhetorical measure, that is intended to show how some arguments of the other party feel. Sometimes this can lead to a catharsis where suddenly the own arguments seem less general and valid and suddenly you can appreciate and understand the worries of the other. Sometimes. No, I emailed Rama about this first and he said he was entirely serious (and added a string of personal attacks). It's actually verified as his honest view of things. Which suggests he shouldn't be let near anything to do with any other project, but anyway. So the question is how much this is the atmosphere on Commons. If so, it needs urgent outside action, and no two ways about it. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] How to help convince Google not to foul up HTML5 video?
Summary: Google Chrome includes Ogg support for the video element. It also includes H.264 support. Fine, but ... they're also testing HTML5 YouTube *only* for H.264. Mike Shaver from Mozilla has fairly unambiguously asked Chris diBona from Google what the heck Google thinks it's doing: http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020363.html Google appears to want Ogg support, but strictly as a sideline for H.264 support. Is there anyone around the Foundation who can ask them wtf? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
[cc'd back to wikitech-l] 2009/6/8 Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org: It's been discussed since OggHandler was invented in 2007, and I've always been in favour of it. But the code hasn't materialised, despite a Google Summer of Code project come and gone that was meant to implement a transcoding queue. The transcoding queue project was meant to allow transformations in quality and size, but it would also allow format changes without much trouble. Ahhh, that's fantastic, so it is just a Simple Matter of Programming :-D (I'm tempted to bodge something together myself, despite my low opinion of my own coding abilities ;-) ) Start simple. Upload your phone and camera video files! We'll transcode them into Theora and store them. Pick suitable (tweakable) defaults. Get it doing that one job. Then we can think about size/quality transformations later. Sound like a vague plan? Bottlenecks: 1. CPU to transcode with. 2. Disk space for queued video. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
2009/6/8 Peter Gervai g...@grin.hu: On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 17:26, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: It would be a simple matter of programming to have something that allows upload of encumbered video and audio formats and re-encode them as Ogg Theora or Ogg Vorbis. As a technical sidenote, it should be mentioned that recoding a lossy format to another lossy format results _always_ a worse quality output than the source lossy format. The amount of quality loss depends on countless factors and usually do not render the result useless, but the quality difference may be still audible/visible. Well, yeah. But until cameras or phones start recording Ogg Theora natively, we're likely stuck with this. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] UN announces free (cheap) online university
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30848 Free tuition, admission fee, testing fee. No word on freedom of materials. Anyone know more about details of this? Something we can help with? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
2009/6/8 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: I don't think that's all that's needed. There will be Wikimedians scouring the Internet for all free video in all of its forms (of which there is quite a lot) and uploading it to Commons. You'll need an entire encoding farm. Hard drives are cheap, its true, but redundant storage is less cheap as a function of reliability. Yes, that's true - easily re-encoding proprietary formats to an Ogg on Commonsn will lead to people loading Commons with lovely video. Mind you, the Wikimedians could do that with Firefogg. OTOH, hands up all those who have FF 3.5? (raises hand) And who's installed Firefogg? (puts hand down) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
It would be a simple matter of programming to have something that allows upload of encumbered video and audio formats and re-encode them as Ogg Theora or Ogg Vorbis. It would greatly add to how much stuff we get, as it would save the user the trouble of re-encoding, or installing Firefogg, or whatever. So why don't we do this? Has it been officially assessed as a legal risk * (and I mean more than people saying it might be on a mailing list **), has no-one really bothered, or what? * until the Supreme Court uses in re Bilski to drive the software patents into the ocean, cross fingers. ** though I fully expect people will now do so anyway - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
2009/6/7 Platonides platoni...@gmail.com: David Gerard wrote: Isn't Firefogg good enough? That's the solution being developed. Installing software is an extra step for the user, therefore bad. ** though I fully expect people will now do so anyway IANAL but See, told you! Does anyone have an informed, official opinion on this matter? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
2009/6/7 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: I think there are two issues for a proprietary - non-proprietary converter: 1. The conversion software itself must be FLOSS. 2. The format being converted must have an open specification (Flash being a good example of one that might be allowed to be converted). The first is easy: ffmpeg. It converts pretty much anything to pretty much anything. This is what I mean when I say that the technical side of such a thing would verge on the trivial. (Modulo a sufficiently CPU-endowed box for transcoding.) The second - if ffmpeg have worked out the format, it's hardly any sort of secret any more. I think it's something that would be worth doing to get more educational material into free formats and in a repository (Commons) that could spread them to the world, even if they did start in an encumbered format. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
2009/6/7 Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com: On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Robert Rohderaro...@gmail.com wrote: Patent encumbered formats often have licensing fees when you perform encoding / decoding at commercial scale. For example, the MPEG licensing association expects a fee from anyone distributing more than 100,000 MPEG encoded files per year, and those fees can run hundreds of thousands of dollars. The WMF has a big enough budget that they could probably consider paying such fees (and enough clout they might negotiate a better than average rate), but even so it is still likely that paying the MPEG tax would require forgoing one or more staff hires. It's not inconceivable, but such projects would require looking carefully at the trade-offs involved, and I think in many cases avoiding proprietary formats makes sense. Just to be clear, there are potential fees along all the food chain, i.e. encoding, decoding, and distribution. I picked on distribution because it was the one I knew off-hand. Since David is talking about decoding and re-encoding as Ogg, there would be a different set of fees to consider which I haven't looked at. I suppose we wait for the Supreme Court to make everything wonderful, then ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
2009/6/7 Mark (Markie) newsmar...@googlemail.com: Archive.org do this and I know the tech team at least have previously had meetings/discussions with them. Archive.org is of course a charity too. Does anyone know the arrangement allowing them to do this? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia tracks user behaviour via third party companies
2009/6/4 Pedro Sanchez pdsanc...@gmail.com: What I propose is this being re-added would cause a removal of sysop bit due to misuse of powers. Don't we have a committee that checks privacy violations? The Foundation would surely have this power. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia tracks user behaviour via third party companies
Web bugs for statistical data are a legitimate want but potentially a horrible privacy violation. So I asked on wikitech-l, and the obvious answer appears to be to do it internally. Something like http://stats.grok.se/ only more so. So - if you want web bug data in a way that fits the privacy policy, please pop over to the wikitech-l thread with technical suggestions and solutions :-) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia tracks user behaviour via third party companies
2009/6/4 Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com wrote: However, perhaps a default AbuseFilter could be installed telling admins that installing Analytics is a violation of Foundation policy and that they'll get desysopped if they continue. That wouldn't stop Yeah, I meant it could detect and block the inadvertent uses by admins who think they are doing something cool / clever. Yeah, the actual problem is not malicious admins - it's admins trying to do a good and useful thing in good faith, that just happens to be a massive privacy policy violation. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia tracks user behaviour via third party companies
2009/6/4 Erik Zachte erikzac...@infodisiac.com: Considering web bugs: comScore also proposed such a scheme to us. Apart from the question how much it would bring us that we don't or can't figure out ourselves an overriding concern is privacy. So if we ran our own internal web bug mechanism, with due attention to privacy, etc - would it do anything for what you do? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] One Wikipedia Per Person (regarding the distribution of and the ability to read Wikipedia)
2009/5/31 Foxy Loxy foxyloxy.wikime...@gmail.com: Assembling a chain of production that long, particularly for a non-profit foundation that doesn't have the best reputation (I'm not saying it's justified, but many people in high places will go 'ew, wikipedia'). [citation needed] People in high places appear to love us and/or respect our power, in general. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] getting Wikipedia to the 5.2 billion people who can't access it
2009/5/31 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: Now my understanding is that the protocol for interserver communication isn't completed, and who knows it may be vaporware. But it's an intriguing possibility. (As I said in a previous message, finally the platform I need for P2Pedia is here.) Wave sounds more like a MovieOS version of Usenet. How would you do p2pedia via NNTP? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] One Wikipedia Per Person (regarding the distribution of and the ability to read Wikipedia)
2009/5/31 geni geni...@gmail.com: 2009/5/31 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: For a practical example, the Schools Wikipedia is proving enormously popular with teachers in countries of all economic levels. Requires something that can read a DVD, or have said DVD dumped onto its hard disk somehow, and in print it'd be roughly 15 Britannica volumes. However it is english only as far as I'm aware. Yes indeed. It is an improvement on nothing, however, and shows how similar things could be done for other languages (e.g. Schools Wikipedia was done by a charity for use in its own schools). - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1
2009/5/29 Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkb...@gmail.com: You know ... I can't think of a single instance in which I've ever seen Wikipedia content reused in which the GFDL was followed. In EVERY instance, the attribution has either been messed up or omitted altogether. I'm not saying this is a good thing, of course. That's because the GFDL is monstrously ill-suited to wiki content in the case of the suit from persistent insane content author threat model. In practice, best-effort is about the best that can be done. Even then the querulous will try to make trouble for the reusers (see [[:en:Talk:Freebase]] for a recent example). Ditching the GFDL in favour of a licence that's actually possible to keep to in practice is one of the best ideas ever. That other sites have used the GFDL following Wikimedia's lead is not a sufficient justification for claims or implications that the GFDL was in any way adequate for what we do, ever. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Google Wave and Wikimedia projects
2009/5/30 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: I don't get it... this is just MSN Messenger on steroids. It's a great idea and if it works it should be really useful, but it isn't world-changing and certainly isn't going to restructure the internet. No, no - it's Google Chat on steroids! With email and groups and uh other stuff! Picasa! And you can save it all as Knols! - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Goodbye
2009/5/26 Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com: I wish you all the best -- from now on, I will again rely on what I read about Wikimedia's fate in the media, albeit taking it with a pinch of salt... I give you at most three months before you can no longer resist the siren call of Edit this page ;-p Thanks for all your fantastic work, and here's to Austin and Ral's brains not melting from herding foundation-l :-) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Proposals re : sexual content on wikimedia
2009/5/22 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: 2009/5/22 private musings thepmacco...@gmail.com: Hi all, I saw this news item today; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8061979.stm and felt that it was tangentially related to the discussions on this list concerning sexual content on wikimedia - it's prompted me to make this reply anywhoo (both the story and the comments are worth reading, and I feel they deal with the 'baby' and 'bathwater' aspects reasonably well). I think you've started enough threads here on this topic now. It is clear that the community doesn't agree with you; this isn't going anywhere. Please drop it. +1 - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Licensing resolution
2009/5/23 Mike.lifeguard mikelifegu...@fastmail.fm: I have been keeping an eye on what content got imported on English Wikibooks. If there has been anything imported from offsite GFDL-only sources I'm not aware of it. To be honest though, that's not saying much - we often have contributors bring us whole books they wrote elsewhere - but that's not a violation since they'd be the copyright holder and can relicense it however they want. I doubt there are any similar cases which do violate the terms, but I'd love some help checking that. What are licensing requirements for Wikibooks and Wikisource? Did they require GFDL or would any free license do, as is the case for Commons? (I would have thought a freer choice of licenses would have been feasible, since works are likely to stay separate. I'd have particularly thought this the case for Wikisource.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] We're not quite at Google's level
2009/5/15 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Google has an hour of slow service and it's headline news. Imagine the donations we could get if our downtime (which, as David is fond of saying, is our most profitable product) got into the headlines! Originally a Jimbo quote :-) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikipedians groups on LinkedIn?
There was a Wikipedians group which was apparently started for networking (which in practice seemed to mean spam blasts), per http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2009/04/16/wikipedians-on-linkedin/ But there's at least a couple more groups which are sincere and were just put together by Wikipedians (i.e. not Foundation-official), e.g. http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=gid=104879 I have no idea about how to consolidate LinkedIn groups, but for the moment I suggest it would be an idea to make a wiki page (presumably on meta) for these. If there isn't one already. Same on other social networks. Anyone? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia is not the Karma Sutra, was Re: commons and freely licensed sexual imagery
2009/5/14 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: (In practice, those considering Wikipedia unsuitable for mass consumption write their own encyclopedia site, e.g. Conservapedia or Christopedia.) Or - how could I forget, the example of an actually good selection of Wikipedia that's proving very popular indeed with school teachers: http://www.schools-wikipedia.org/ - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia is not the Karma Sutra, was Re: commons and freely licensed sexual imagery
2009/5/14 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: 2009/5/14 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: So is my cookbook censored because it doesn't include a description of the Peloponnesian War? Of course not. It's not a matter of censorship, it's a matter of scope. If you wish to argue that pearl necklaces aren't encyclopaedic, then that is another question entirely and the answer should not be based on people being offended by images of them. Yes. Editing is censoring, therefore there is no such separate thing as censoring, therefore the decision to put a picture on [[Autofellatio]] (WARNING: contains photograph) is an editorial decision. Which it in fact was. Hit send too soon - The point is that disgusting or potentially morally corrupting or sacreligious have consistently been roundly rejected as editorial criteria. So it doesn't matter if someone tries to argue that editing is censorship, their editorial urge to do something others would call censoring has *still* consistently been roundly rejected. As I said, the most likely way to get such an effort off the ground is for someone to put together a filtered selection outside the live working wiki. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia is not the Karma Sutra, was Re: commons and freely licensed sexual imagery
2009/5/14 Sage Ross ragesoss+wikipe...@gmail.com: I don't have much to add, but I want to voice my strong agreement. Some sort of serious effort to reach out to the many users who don't share the outlook of our more-libertarian-than-the-general-population community is long overdue. Schools Wikipedia, or similar distributions. What you're talking about with reach out is limiting the contents of the live working site. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Long-term archiving of Wikimedia content
2009/5/10 Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net: I don't want to restart this rather long (but very interesting) topic, but I'd like to point out / remind people that a couple of well-placed fires could wipe out most of wikipedia et al. as we currently know it - surely the first priority, before thinking about the real long term, is to sort that out? Remember the Library of Alexandria... The new dumps are progressing very well. Presumably when they're done we can give the Internet Archive and any similar archivists a yell. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Congratulations to Gdansk!
2009/5/7 Dedalus deda...@wikipedia.be: Congratulations to the Poland team for winning the Wikimania 2010 bid! Danzig! /me runs away v. fast - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Murdoch newspaper websites to go paywall - opportunity for citizen journalism!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/07/rupert-murdoch-charging-websites Time for Wikinews to get recruiting ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Take a look at the latest rep watches
2009/5/7 Charlotte Webb charlottethew...@gmail.com: I think David Gerard said human postings generally do not score above 2.0 unless their vocabulary suggests a background in SEO, then it's higher. I don't remember saying the second part, but yeah, most human-written emails score below 2.0. However, enough score above 2.0 (up to 5 or even 7 is not uncommon) that email with a spam score over 2 should be held in the mod queue for inspection, not outright rejected or discarded. (We largely solved this on wikien-l by requiring membership to post at all. This is less than ideal for absolute openness, but we floated the idea on the list to no objection and it's made maintenance *way* easier.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Stategic planning : Sharing textbook knowledge
2009/5/7 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com: * Of course this could be boiled down to part of a good comprehensive article on Wikipedia in the same way that all wikiprojects could be merged into WP if one were so inclined... No, no. All wikiprojects could be merged into *Wikibooks* if one were so inclined. The encyclopedia is clearly only one book in the library, it's just by far the biggest one. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Usability Study Results (Sneak Preview)
2009/5/8 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: You went from 2,500 subjects to just 10? For a software test, which this mostly was, 5 is enough for excellent results in most cases. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Long-term archiving of Wikimedia content
2009/5/5 Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com: Of course, since all of Wikimedia's data is freely available, anyone else who'd like to store it in some durable form for any sum of money is absolutely free to do so. Or they could give Wikimedia a directed grant. But it would be a waste of Wikimedia's money. The best way is to make archives readily available so there are *lots* of copies. So first we need good dumps for people to make lots of copies of ... There are people like the Internet Archive as well. We should be making sure they have a copy of every database dump in their collection. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Long-term archiving of Wikimedia content
2009/5/5 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: However, most information isn't lost because of disaster, it is lost because people don't think they need it any more and delete/destroy it. Can we trust whoever is around in the future to continue to preserve the history dumps they've backed up? As I said, the Internet Archive considers precisely that their job (as an internet library). More examples than the IA would be good, of course. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Long-term archiving of Wikimedia content
2009/5/5 Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com: In 3000 years, nobody will give a rat's ass about Britney Spears' discography (again, to pick a random example of pop culture). That's a bet I'm willing to make. Depends if they rediscover publish or perish. The academic rat race is a study in squeezing blood from whatever stones are unturned. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] More on Wikimedia strategic planning
2009/5/5 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com: Heh, that reminds me of a fresh Finnish patented method of printing on concrete, and the freshly built archival building in Hämeenlinna. Here is a bit of detail of the wall of the building. see if it reminds you of anything familiar to us all? http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YiztANGzgQA/SFWP29Opa8I/AEE/X4b_e9sVd-8/s320/Blogiin+017.jpg This method of making a lasting impression on concrete is said to be not much more expensive than ordinary concrete. It reminded me of this entry in the Cracked If Everything Was Made By Microsoft competition: http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/4-29-09/AceJustice2.jpg (full page: http://www.cracked.com/article_17323_if-everything-was-made-by-microsoft.html ) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New Business Partnership with Orange
2009/4/23 geni geni...@gmail.com: Will any of the orange products support wikipedia's video format and by what mechanism? (hypothesising here) I expect that would require a converter from Ogg Theora to 3GP and Ogg Vorbis to MP3 in the first instance. Gently pressuring phone manufacturers to support Ogg formats may be quite feasible, however. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] ID requirements proposed for Germans using video sites
http://newteevee.com/2009/04/20/achtung-youtube-germany-proposes-federal-id-checks-for-online-video-sites/ German readers - how much of a danger is this? Is Commons enough of a video site? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] ID requirements proposed for Germans using video sites
2009/4/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Commons isn't a German site, so I don't see a problem. The WMF has always said that it intends to follow US law only and not try and cater to the laws of every country in the world - that includes Germany. The article mentions a plan to force German ISPs to block illegal sites, but that seems to be just to do with child pornography, similar to the IWF blacklist in the UK (but done officially, so it might actually be accountable). It seems unlikely to me that Germany would block access to non-child porn foreign sites until this law, people would immeadiately start comparing it to China and I doubt they want that. Heh. You do realise a lot of the Commons copyright rules started as the intersection of US and German law? That's why there's quite a lot of Commons admins from de:wp. In any case, us saying (in diplomatic wording) don't be silly would probably carry a lot of weight. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The EFF appears to be somewhat upset by the foundation
2009/4/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Very true. You have to balance starting high enough that you have room to come down with not appearing unreasonable. It's a difficult balancing act, and I'm not sure you got it quite right this time. Perhaps you could have requested they make wikipediaart.org into a portal page, linking to their site and to Wikipedia, but keep it under their control - basically a really big disclaimer. Then you could have settled for a nice small disclaimer like the one they've gone with. They're performance artists. This is more performance. They fooled the EFF into playing along. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] ID requirements proposed for Germans using video sites
2009/4/23 Sebastian Moleski seb...@gmail.com:
On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 6:30 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com
wrote:
... The WMF has
always said that it intends to follow US law only and not try and
cater to the laws of every country in the world - that includes
Germany
{{citation needed}}
The same reason we told the National Portrait Gallery in the UK sue
and be damned and haven't heard a peep from them since ;-)
(Not that being hardarsed is a good way to make friends. The Victoria
and Albert openly encouraging photographers for Wikipedia Loves Art is
more the sort of example we'd like to encourage - help their
educational mission and encourage people to go along, look at their
stuff, chuck a few quid in the donation box, etc.)
- d.
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Re: [Foundation-l] The EFF appears to be somewhat upset by the foundation
2009/4/23 Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net: It's basically proven by the notable lack of other art appearing on their site in the meantime. I was mildly amused that one of the sources on their wiki page drew a comparison between the project and Andrew Keen, which I suppose fits in with the performance art concept pretty well. Where performance art is trolling for money? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The EFF appears to be somewhat upset by the foundation
2009/4/24 Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net: David Gerard wrote: 2009/4/23 Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net: It's basically proven by the notable lack of other art appearing on their site in the meantime. I was mildly amused that one of the sources on their wiki page drew a comparison between the project and Andrew Keen, which I suppose fits in with the performance art concept pretty well. Where performance art is trolling for money? Hey, artists need to make a living, too. I'm increasingly a proponent of day jobs for them ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding biographies of living people)
2009/4/22 Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de: NPOV is mainly a principle of Wikipedia, later also used by Wikibooks and Wikinews. There is at least one project (Wikiversity) which explicitely allow participants not to follow NPOV, but the Disclosure of Point of Views in Wikiversity follow in principle the ideal of NPOV: It tells the reader and participants that the content has a point of view and thus gives the reader and participants to be aware of this and accordingly to adjust their judgement in reading and writing the content. I think the point is to have whatever would be the locally relevant version of neutrality. On Wikipedia it's NPOV. On Commons or Wikisource, I expect it would be neutrality of subject matter. Etc. The key point would be (something like) that Wikimedia projects are not for pushing views. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding biographies of living people)
2009/4/22 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: NPOV transformation to general neutrality will work in the most of the cases. A clear example for such transformation is Wikinews. Even called as NPOV, Wikinews neutrality is a different kind of approach because it is a journalistic one. And even then, some of the most interesting original content is interviews, which are all about the subjective POV of the interviewee. And if you want to force any kind of neutrality there, you would get the same kind of scientific production which existed in East European countries during 50s and 60s: A (very good) book about ancient Greek literature starts with 20-30 pages of Preface in which author explains relations between ancient Greek literature and Marxism. But, there were a lot of not so good books which had a lot of grotesque connections between Marxism and its content not just inside of their prefaces. I'm not clear on the connection between neutrality and Marxism ... could you explain the logical steps between the two clauses of your first sentence? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding biographies of living people)
2009/4/22 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 5:20 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: And if you want to force any kind of neutrality there, you would get the same kind of scientific production which existed in East European countries during 50s and 60s: A (very good) book about ancient Greek literature starts with 20-30 pages of Preface in which author explains relations between ancient Greek literature and Marxism. But, there were a lot of not so good books which had a lot of grotesque connections between Marxism and its content not just inside of their prefaces. I'm not clear on the connection between neutrality and Marxism ... could you explain the logical steps between the two clauses of your first sentence? I wanted to say that if neutrality is forced in a field which is not possible to present neutrally, you'll get bizarre explanations why some course or book is neutral. (As young revolutionary authorities demanded connection between any field of knowledge and Marxism.) Yes, that makes sense :-) Even further... Book in elementary algebra may be written well according to the NPOV (but, not by following neutrality!) because NPOV has clause which is related to the common knowledge. But, if you try to make a book with a specific approach to a number of micro and macro dimensions in the Universe, by using NPOV or neutrality, you would get a book which is not useful: en:wp has experienced this - the arbcom finally had to say no, peer-reviewed journals are more reliable sources on global warming than Rush Limbaugh radio transcripts or Michael Crichton novels, and fifty faith-based science advocates don't get to vote the UK's top climate scientist off the island. Don't be bloody stupid. In a few more words than that. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board statement regarding biographies of living people
2009/4/22 Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com: Am I on moderation? Not that I can see. Your previous email came through OK. However, note that even if you tell it to, Gmail will *not* show you a copy of messages you sent to a list. This is, apparently, for your comfort and convenience. If you're not sure if a message made it through, checking the archive page is useful (though it doesn't update instantly and can sometimes have a delay of hours). - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value?
2009/4/22 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com: Science is not yet neutral. The 'scientific method' we currently use as a meterstick is a fairly casual method, often producing biased or context-free results, which would be improved by a bit of the same self-reflection required to describe something with NPOV. That's why NPOV and Scientific Point Of View are different things. (speaking here as a sceptical atheist who considers Richard Dawkins entirely too moderate, I have had occasion to suggest to other sceptics that they tone it down for Wikipedia - anyone who disagrees won't listen, and anyone unconvinced will be put off by a didactic tone.) It's where the apparently-odd en:wp phrase verifiability not truth comes in: we're mere humans, we don't have access to cosmic truth in all its glory; verifiable references are all we have to go on and show to others. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New Business Partnership with Orange
2009/4/23 Kul Takanao Wadhwa kwad...@wikimedia.org: I am spreading the news around (I just posted to the internal list) about a new announcement going out in a couple hours. For the past few months I have been working on a deal with Orange (France Telecom) on a new kind of multi-platform (web, mobile, IPTV) partnership for the Wikimedia Foundation. This partnership will extend co-branding opportunities and have Wikipedia's knowledge brought to some new audiences. It will also allow for us to experiment with new technologies to improve the functionality and delivery of our content. Furthermore, this is an additional revenue stream to build on our most important revenue stream - our successful fundraising campaigns. In the Slashdot firehose, please vote up: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=viewid=4259249 - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Principle and pragmatism with nudity and sexual content
2009/4/20 Birgitte SB birgitte...@yahoo.com: I second this. Does anyone really believe it is even possible to set one standard of what it means to be 'collegial' and 'collaborative' for all cultures? These things are not absolute values and each community needs to work out what standards are most pragmatic for it's members. There is no shortcut or appeal to authority that can solve this for en.WP. en.WP has to do the work and find these answers from within. It has - PM doesn't like the answer and wants the Foundation to impose his preferred one. How many times has he brought this up? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] South Korean Government's regulations on real name for Internet
2009/4/10 RYU Cheol rch...@gmail.com: Here we have, http://ko.wikipedia.org/User:Ryuch/realname I qouted the names in the announcement of Communication Commission. It includes Yahoo and Microsoft as well as Google. Yahoo and Microsoft submitted to the law. And YouTube said what? ahahaha no. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/04/123_42862.html - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Compulsory policies for all Wikipedias
2009/4/9 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 7:49 PM, Jaska Zedlik jz5...@gmail.com wrote: So, does an all-Wikipedias rules list exist, or if not, what are there global rules which all the Wikipedias must follow? No. NPOV. Wikipedias which refuse it have been shut down. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Compulsory policies for all Wikipedias
2009/4/9 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 8:01 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/4/9 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 7:49 PM, Jaska Zedlik jz5...@gmail.com wrote: So, does an all-Wikipedias rules list exist, or if not, what are there global rules which all the Wikipedias must follow? No. NPOV. Wikipedias which refuse it have been shut down. The question was about a list which should exist somewhere (at Meta). Yes, we could do with one. BTW, probably I missed that some Wikipedia was shut down because of violating NPOV. Which Wikipedias were shut down because of NPOV violation? I understand it was a factor in the shutdown of the old-Belarusian and Siberian wikipedias. Not the only thing, but a factor. I could be wrong here on its importance, of course. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Fwd: Should WMF opt out of Phorm?
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/03/22/open-letter-call-for-major-websites-to-opt-out-of-phorm/ Should we say er, no, not our data either or ignore them? (This has been discussed on internal lists as well, with all commenting saying HELL YES. The question then is whether, by some obscure legal twist, this would leave WMF somehow exposed. And whether it's worth it anyway.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Request for your input: biographies of living people
2009/3/2 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: I just went to get some actual data. Here's the stats.grok.se hit count for [[:en:Wikipedia:Contact us]] and its subpages: 232227 Wikipedia:Contact us - ranked #366 page on Wikipedia for Feb 2009 2230 Wikipedia:Contact us/account questions 7773 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem 2016 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Copyright 472 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Delete or undelete 1793 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error 620 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from enterprise) 1196 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from subject) 474 Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Google_Earth 428 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/No article 711 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Poorly written 1967 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Vandalism 2021 Wikipedia:Contact us/blocked 2718 Wikipedia:Contact us/Contact a user 2160 Wikipedia:Contact us/Links 1893 Wikipedia:Contact us/login problems 3106 Wikipedia:Contact us/other 6704 Wikipedia:Contact us/Photo submission 3570 Wikipedia:Contact us/Top questions 2228 Wikipedia:Contact us/Warning messages I said I'd check back in a week, didn't I ... er. Well, the new links have been on [[Help:Contents]] for most of March! The numbers from stats.grok.se show March hits so far as: * Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem - 11595 (up from 7773 in Feb and 8259 in Jan) * Wikipedia:Contact us - 253665 (up from 232227 in Feb and down from 279774 in Jan) The increased hits on article problem may be worth the effort. The increased hits on Contact us not so much. The problem, of course, is that every new link or word of text on that page lowers its utility. That help! page should be as sparse as possible for user interface reasons. What do you all think? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City
2009/3/29 KillerChihuahua pu...@killerchihuahua.com: This is a lovely article, by a reporter who actually doesn't seem to be on a smear campaign or completely misunderstand how Wikipedia works - altho its unclear how much of that is due to reading The Wikipedia Revolution. Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html?ref=technology Noam Cohen is pretty au fait with Wikipedia and how it works. (In general, I'm really glad Wikipedia is utterly mainstream and gets coverage outside the ad-banner trolls of the tech press.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] NYTimes article: Exploring Fact City
2009/3/29 The Cunctator cuncta...@gmail.com: A lovely article. The only pity is it doesn't note how much of this social theory of wikis owes to Sunir Shah's pioneering work on MeatballWiki. MeatballWiki is all but unknown to most Wikipedians, let alone the outside world. That's not good. I recommend it to all here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeatballWiki http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl Think of it as meta-meta-wiki. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Publishers trying to close access to NIH-funded research
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/23/protect_our_access_to_medical_research/ Can the Foundation officially put in any words towards openness? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Proposed revised attribution language
2009/3/16 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:01 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: WMF advice can't actually construct new terms for the CC by-sa 3.0. It can't even release my contributions under CC by-sa 3.0, for that matter. No, but you did with the or later. Stop FUDding. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Proposed revised attribution language
2009/3/16 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: I don't think that's clear at all. In fact, I think what's clear is that if someone is releasing a work under a license, they are not releasing it under a license that doesn't yet exist. Yes, because Eben Moglen (who would have cleared the or later provision) knows so much less about how these things work than you do. I find myself oddly unconvinced. You are FUDding. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Proposed revised attribution language
2009/3/15 Charlotte Webb charlottethew...@gmail.com: This would still give the wrong data if the page has been moved to [[Xenu (Scientology)]] and the [[Xenu (disambiguation)]] is moved to [[Xenu]], which isn't a totally unreasonable outcome. You'd have to use something like: http://en.wikipedia.org/authors/46634 as an alias for: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46634action=history or have it forward to something like this better yet if it can be tweaked to accept a `page_id` parameter instead of a title (ideally made part of the software proper): http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=enwikifam=.wikipedia.orggrouped=onpage=Xenu Would this mean the vicious lunatic arsehole contributor (note I don't say hypothetical there, there are quite enough real-world examples of unbalanced nutters out to nail us on anything) who takes the mug-maker to court would win, or lose? To what extent? If the link was correct at the time, they could point to having followed the Wikimedia FAQ on the subject and completely demonstrate a good-faith attempt to keep to the license per wording and guidelines? This is what law is squishy means. It's not sane or reasonable to require that the Foundation's guidelines specify only actions that would be mathematically provably robust in all possible circumstances for an indefinite time into the future; in civil litigation, as any such suit would be, one does in fact get a lot of points for doing the reasonable thing to the best of one's abilities. - d. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Proposed revised attribution language
2009/3/15 geni geni...@gmail.com: Wikimedia is not a party to the license therefor it's FAQ is of no relevance. The answer again goes to the license text. You must...keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide ,reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author. The mug maker could lose the case on the grounds that the license made it clear that it is the person who is doing the reuse who has to provide the credit and attempting to do it via third parties is not legitimate. However any guidelines the foundation uses must be as robust as possible otherwise rather than being a significant part of the free content movement wikipedia ends up as the copyright equivalent of a radioactive mess no sane person would touch. Good thing we're not using an impossible-to-obey licence like the GFDL, then. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
