Re: [Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...
2009/9/28 wiki-li...@phizz.demon.co.uk: From the earlier poster Teofilo: I disagree. I think the priority is to have the full resolution pictures of Public Domain works. That seems to be a demand to have the highest resolution copies possible. That sets it out as a goal, not a demand. But getting back to the case in question - we're talking about the sort of museum that's actually a government sub-department. Thus, public domain images that the taxpayer has *already paid for*. I see nothing whatsoever unreasonable about the idea of asking-to-demanding those. They're owned by the public, not by the museum bureaucrats. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...
David Gerard wrote: 2009/9/28 wiki-li...@phizz.demon.co.uk: From the earlier poster Teofilo: I disagree. I think the priority is to have the full resolution pictures of Public Domain works. That seems to be a demand to have the highest resolution copies possible. That sets it out as a goal, not a demand. But getting back to the case in question - we're talking about the sort of museum that's actually a government sub-department. Thus, public domain images that the taxpayer has *already paid for*. I see nothing whatsoever unreasonable about the idea of asking-to-demanding those. They're owned by the public, not by the museum bureaucrats. In defense of museums, some of them do get it. The images of golden artifacts from the Staffordshire Hoard were immediately released under a CC license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/finds/sets/72157622378376316/with/3944490322/ Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Life Long Learning Virtual Conference
Hello list , Based on the foundation proposals and the other projects that I am working on, I have chosen something that I think mixes in with the wikimedia foundation, creative commons, opencourseware and openstreetmap. it is the goal of life long learning and sharing of knowledge, from your home : Here is a 48 minute talk that I recorded, to cover all these ideas. http://www.archive.org/details/LLLVConf_LifeLongLearningVirtualConferenceDedication http://lllvconf.ning.com/profiles/blogs/dedication-1 you are all invited to participate. all the best, mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Strategic Planning Office Hours
On Sep 28, 2009, at 10:56 AM, Philippe Beaudette wrote: IRC office hours for the strategy project are upon us again Our next office hours will be: 20:00-21:00 UTC, Tuesday 29 September. Local timezones can be checked at http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=9day=29year=2009hour=20min=0sec=0p1=0 Office hours are on IRC (#wikimedia-strategy at freenode) You can access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net/ and filling in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. Another option is http://chat.wikizine.org. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
Thank you, Brion. Through your many years of volunteering and then staff work, you've secured your place in Wikimedia history. It's been a pleasure to work with you over the years, and I'm glad you'll continue to be involved. As I said privately, I'm happy you've found a great open source company to work for, but of course it's a great loss to the organization. :-( We'll be doing lots of internal planning to manage this transition period. Separately, we'll also be posting at least two software engineering jobs soon, in addition to the CTO job which is already posted. If any of you have any referrals (ideally people who can relocate to San Francisco), please let me know off-list. And please be forgiving of tech delays in the coming months. Thanks, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
Hi Greg, a quick note on Sue's behalf since we're all quite swamped right now. On the tech side of things we're planning for the CTO transition right now, as well as building up our capacity; those are core foundation-building priorities that have to be higher than any specific deployment, particularly given Brion's departure now. We haven't committed to a specific FlaggedRevs deployment deadline precisely because there isn't enough capacity right now to allocate to the project. Pretty much all development work is done by a single contractor, Aaron Schulz, who is amazing and deserves massive credit for the fact that there is a usable FlaggedRevs extension at all, which is in production use on our second-largest Wikipedia and many others. There's no project manager for it, there are no other developers who are assigned to working with Aaron, nor are there team meetings to plan the further roll-out of the product. The only situation where there's actually a dedicated full-time team working on one specific problem-set is the usability project, and that's because we've been able to receive an $890,000 grant specifically to build it. It's time-limited, but we're looking for ways to extend it past its grant run. As I think has been visible with the successful roll-out of the usability beta, the milestones so far, etc., this is one viable approach to get stuff done. Should we have a dedicated quality assurance team? Perhaps; it's a high-risk but potentially also high-gain technology priority. Is it higher priority than, for example, massively improving mobile access to Wikipedia and thereby potentially reaching hundreds of millions of new readers/contributors? Maybe: The Strategy Project is designed to help us answers these questions. At this stage of organizational development, we can possibly have 2-3 usability-sized tech projects per year. There are other ways to support project roll-outs, such as hiring product/project managers, which we've budgeted for but may have to delay past the other planned tech hiring. All that said, even with Brion transitioning, we're hoping to have at least some scheduled small group conversations about the roll-out plan, and Brion is hoping to invest some of his remaining time with it in helping to get the extension ready for en.wp. It's not trivial: The scalability concerns at that size are a step more serious than with de.wp, and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. The user interface is well-suited for the current de.wp implementation, but needs some TLC to work for the flagged protection use case. We're committed to getting there but at this stage I can't give you a better promise than allocating some percentage of the core team to supporting the UI development, testing, and production roll-out, hopefully resulting in a full production roll-out prior to the end of this year. Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
2009/9/28 Mohamed Magdy mohamed@gmail.com: This really sucks. Hey, we'll all live, and he's alive and well :-) I'm now sending the job opening around my SF contacts ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
Thomas Dalton wrote: 2009/9/28 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org: I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. Congratulations on your new job, but I must confess to seeing this as bad news, rather than exciting news... I'm glad you intend to make your departure as smooth as possible, but it is disappointing that you couldn't stay full-time until there was a new CTO and handover properly. The Wikimedia movement is significantly worse off without you - I was really looking forward to you handing over the administrative part of your job and concentrating on coding, great things would have happened, I'm sure! However, I wish you the best of luck in the future and I looked forward to seeing you around here, even if it is a little less often. Fortunately, if you read Brion's entire message, the Wikimedia movement is not going to be left without him, and you will still be able to see him around (probably a little less often, yes). So I'm not sure why you finish up by referring to him in the past tense. I certainly won't pretend that the Wikimedia Foundation is eager to see Brion leave its staff. But one of the things that's important to us is to make sure employees have opportunities to grow and develop, and in some cases that growth will lead them into new opportunities outside the organization. So with that I wish Brion all the best with his new job. I look forward to his ongoing contributions to MediaWiki development, and I hope that his other work will also add significantly to the free culture movement, so that it really develops an ecosystem and not just a couple of peculiar organizations. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Mohamed Magdy mohamed@gmail.com wrote: This really sucks. As Kat Walsh alluded to on ... Facebook?!?... free/libre real-time services are more important than a lot of Wikimedians think (because we've spent so long pushing back against merely social uses of our wikis?). In the grand scheme of the things we care about, development in that area may be a more critical immediate need than continued work on MediaWiki. Brion put it perfectly: People need the ability to control their own presence on the web instead of hoping Facebook or Twitter always treat you the way you want. Wikipedia has had enough success that it's bought some time in terms of establishing the ability (and right) of people to control and use educational material how they want. There's still a lot to do, but the free culture approach is starting to pick up momentum. For so-called social networking services, it's still an uphill battle. -Sage ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
2009/9/28 Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net: Thomas Dalton wrote: 2009/9/28 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org: I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. Congratulations on your new job, but I must confess to seeing this as bad news, rather than exciting news... I'm glad you intend to make your departure as smooth as possible, but it is disappointing that you couldn't stay full-time until there was a new CTO and handover properly. The Wikimedia movement is significantly worse off without you - I was really looking forward to you handing over the administrative part of your job and concentrating on coding, great things would have happened, I'm sure! However, I wish you the best of luck in the future and I looked forward to seeing you around here, even if it is a little less often. Fortunately, if you read Brion's entire message, the Wikimedia movement is not going to be left without him, and you will still be able to see him around (probably a little less often, yes). So I'm not sure why you finish up by referring to him in the past tense. I can tell you precisely why I finished up by referring to him in the past tense - I can't type! That should have said look forward. I apologise for the misunderstanding! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. * *Oppose* - It won't necessarily be so easy to find someone to fill your shoes and manage things as well as you have with improvements in MediaWiki, as well as site operations. You will be missed. Seriously, I'm disappointed to see you go, though wish you the best with your new position. -Aude -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) CTO, Wikimedia Foundation San Francisco ___ 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] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
Hoi, Brion thank you for everything and more. I am happy that LocalisationUpdate is live... but I am sad for all the other things that will be postponed. I am sad because there are so many things that are waiting to be assessed. I am happy for you, but to me it feels like MediaWiki meets the truckfactor. I can imagine that there is never a good moment to leave ... but I am happy that you will be around ... Am I write that StatusNet is the equivalent of Twitter ? I might give it a try :) Thanks, Gerard 2009/9/28 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. I've been contributing to StatusNet (formerly Laconica) as a user, bug reporter, and patch submitter since 2008, and I'm really excited at the opportunity to get more involved in the project at this key time as we gear up for a 1.0 release, hosted services, and support offerings. StatusNet was born in the same free-culture and free-software community that brought me to Wikipedia; many of you probably already know founder Evan Prodromou from his longtime work in the wiki community, launching the awesome Wikitravel and helping out with MediaWiki development on various fronts. The big idea driving StatusNet is rebalancing power in the modern social web -- pushing data portability and open protocols to protect your autonomy from siloed proprietary services... People need the ability to control their own presence on the web instead of hoping Facebook or Twitter always treat you the way you want. This does unfortunately mean that I'll have less time for MediaWiki as I'll be leaving my position as Wikimedia CTO sooner than originally anticipated, but that doesn't mean I'm leaving the Wikimedia community or MediaWiki development! Just as I was in the MediaWiki development community before Wikimedia hired me, you'll all see me in the same IRC channels and on the same mailing lists... I know this is also a busy time with our fundraiser coming up and lots of cool ongoing developments, so to help ease the transition I've worked out a commitment to come into the WMF office one day a week through the end of December to make sure all our tech staff has a chance to pick my brain as we smooth out the code review processes and make sure things are as well documented as I like to think they are. ;) We've got a great tech team here at Wikimedia, and we've done so much with so little over the last few years. A lot of really good work is going on now, modernizing both our infrastructure and our user interface... I have every confidence that Wikipedia and friends will continue to thrive! I'll start full-time at StatusNet on October 12. My key priorities until then are getting some of our key software rollouts going, supporting the Usability Initiative's next scheduled update and getting a useful but minimally-disruptive Flagged Revisions configuration going on English Wikipedia. I'm also hoping to make further improvements to our code review process, based on my experience with our recent big updates as well as the git-based workflow we're using at StatusNet -- I've got a lot of great ideas for improving the CodeReview extension... Erik Moeller will be the primary point of contact for WMF tech management issues starting October 12, until the new CTO is hired. I'll support the hiring process as much as I can, and we're hoping to have a candidate in the door by the end of the year. -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) CTO, Wikimedia Foundation San Francisco ___ 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] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: I was really looking forward to you handing over the administrative part of your job and concentrating on coding, great things would have happened, I'm sure! No reason he can't keep coding. He just won't be paid for it. :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: [snip] plan, and Brion is hoping to invest some of his remaining time with it in helping to get the extension ready for en.wp. It's not trivial: The scalability concerns at that size are a step more serious than with de.wp, Of course. But I wasn't expecting a turn up on English Wikipedia yet. I'm asking why the 25 lines of configuration that EnWP specified have not yet been added to the test wiki at http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. Please help me understand the implications of this statement. The English Wikipedia reached an overwhelmingly strong decision to try a particular mode of operation. I hope you can appreciate how difficult it can be to balance various interest and achieve agreement on a change with such a widespread impact on a project as large and well established as EnWP. Enhancements were made to the software by volunteers to support the proposal and a configuration was designed. Since then there has been almost no progress in turning up a public trial wiki with this configuration for testing and further refinement. Now, we (I do know know for whom you speak) are concerned about an underspecified concern regarding a negative impact on participation. So? Now what? Does the now staff obstruct the rollout with passive resistance and year+ delays? Based both on the actions thus far and on your statement this is what it sounds like to me. Is this sort of over-concern regarding participation, so paranoid that it obstructs a simple time limited trial of an article selective feature, the behavior we can now expect from the WMF now that it has substantial funding tied to unspecified participation goals? I too am concerned about participation: I'm concerned that people who came to build a project together will not want to participate under a Wikimedia Foundation which views its contributors as 'users' rather than partners. Reaching a design for the policy and configuration and educating and convincing people is the result of thousands of hours of volunteer labor from hundreds of people across several years. Moreover, the ability to reach a decision to try something at this scale is a ray of hope that EnWP hasn't become totally stuck and immune to change. All of this is wasted if the Wikimedia Foundation isn't able or willing to hold up its side of its partnership with the community. The user interface is well-suited for the current de.wp implementation, but needs some TLC to work for the flagged protection use case. The community has largely taken care of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions/Implementation#PHP_configuration Of course, there will need to be additional refinement but that can not proceed until the test wiki is up. We're committed to getting there but at this stage I can't give you a better promise than allocating some percentage of the core team to supporting the UI development, testing, and production roll-out, hopefully resulting in a full production roll-out prior to the end of this year. When will the test wiki be activated? This requires something like pasting 25 lines of configuration, an extension install, and kicking a maintenance script. Even if everything else is delayed having the text site up and running would allow the community to test and provide feedback to volunteer developers who can refine the software in advance of the availability of resources for the large scale deployment. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
2009/9/28 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org: I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. Obviously I've talked with Brion in person, so he knows this, but I will say it publicly too: he will be hugely, enormously, massively missed. What Michael says is true: people have a right to pursue their dreams and goals and personal development wherever it takes them, and I too am happy that Brion will continue to be moving forward the free culture agenda and helping to build a better ecosystem of projects and organizations. I've got an account on identi.ca which I haven't yet used: perhaps my first use of it will be congratulate Brion on his new job :-) IMO Brion is the single most central figure in the Wikimedia movement, second only to Jimmy. His work with us should be honoured and celebrated. We'll be doing some of that inside the staff within the next few weeks, and I expect the Board will plan something for him too. But we'll need to be creative: after all, there is already a Brion Vibber Day. New ideas are welcome :-) Thanks, Sue ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
2009/9/28 Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com: Of course. But I wasn't expecting a turn up on English Wikipedia yet. I'm asking why the 25 lines of configuration that EnWP specified have not yet been added to the test wiki at http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page I'll review the current state of the prototype w/ Brion this week and whatever needs to be done to get broader testing will get done ASAP. and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. Please help me understand the implications of this statement. It simply means that a) we want to make sure that for the production roll-out, the user interface is not insane and appropriate to the specific en.wp configuration that's been proposed; b) we'll want to track participation metrics after the roll-out to see what the impact of this technology is. Accusations of obstructionism don't help; I understand where these come from, but it's a massive case of assume bad faith. Please stop it. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: [snip] plan, and Brion is hoping to invest some of his remaining time with it in helping to get the extension ready for en.wp. It's not trivial: The scalability concerns at that size are a step more serious than with de.wp, Of course. But I wasn't expecting a turn up on English Wikipedia yet. I'm asking why the 25 lines of configuration that EnWP specified have not yet been added to the test wiki at http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. Please help me understand the implications of this statement. The English Wikipedia reached an overwhelmingly strong decision to try a particular mode of operation. I hope you can appreciate how difficult it can be to balance various interest and achieve agreement on a change with such a widespread impact on a project as large and well established as EnWP. Enhancements were made to the software by volunteers to support the proposal and a configuration was designed. Since then there has been almost no progress in turning up a public trial wiki with this configuration for testing and further refinement. Now, we (I do know know for whom you speak) are concerned about an underspecified concern regarding a negative impact on participation. So? Now what? Does the now staff obstruct the rollout with passive resistance and year+ delays? Based both on the actions thus far and on your statement this is what it sounds like to me. Is this sort of over-concern regarding participation, so paranoid that it obstructs a simple time limited trial of an article selective feature, the behavior we can now expect from the WMF now that it has substantial funding tied to unspecified participation goals? I too am concerned about participation: I'm concerned that people who came to build a project together will not want to participate under a Wikimedia Foundation which views its contributors as 'users' rather than partners. Reaching a design for the policy and configuration and educating and convincing people is the result of thousands of hours of volunteer labor from hundreds of people across several years. Moreover, the ability to reach a decision to try something at this scale is a ray of hope that EnWP hasn't become totally stuck and immune to change. All of this is wasted if the Wikimedia Foundation isn't able or willing to hold up its side of its partnership with the community. The user interface is well-suited for the current de.wp implementation, but needs some TLC to work for the flagged protection use case. The community has largely taken care of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions/Implementation#PHP_configuration Of course, there will need to be additional refinement but that can not proceed until the test wiki is up. We're committed to getting there but at this stage I can't give you a better promise than allocating some percentage of the core team to supporting the UI development, testing, and production roll-out, hopefully resulting in a full production roll-out prior to the end of this year. When will the test wiki be activated? This requires something like pasting 25 lines of configuration, an extension install, and kicking a maintenance script. Even if everything else is delayed having the text site up and running would allow the community to test and provide feedback to volunteer developers who can refine the software in advance of the availability of resources for the large scale deployment. Greg, why can't we just put the code up on the Toolserver? Why does the foundation need to be involved at all? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On 9/28/09 12:53 PM, Sage Ross wrote: As Kat Walsh alluded to on ... Facebook?!?... free/libre real-time services are more important than a lot of Wikimedians think (because we've spent so long pushing back against merely social uses of our wikis?). In the grand scheme of the things we care about, development in that area may be a more critical immediate need than continued work on MediaWiki. The social side is quite important here too... social interaction is probably one of the key areas we really need to improve on for Wikipedia/Wikimedia. No matter what else we improve technically I think we all are aware that there are serious problems with how people interact in our community, and that's one of the major stumbling blocks for new users. Wikipedia has had enough success that it's bought some time in terms of establishing the ability (and right) of people to control and use educational material how they want. There's still a lot to do, but the free culture approach is starting to pick up momentum. For so-called social networking services, it's still an uphill battle. Yep... what I do find encouraging is that many of the big social-networking services are picking up on the idea that easy interoperability is a win for everyone a lot quicker than, say, the IM wars of the 2000s or the email wars of the late 80s/early 90s. (Remember when CompuServer and AOL users couldn't email each other? Hah!) But that's something that could disappear quickly as long as it's a world where there's only a small number of big players... -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On 9/28/09 12:56 PM, Anthony wrote: On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: I was really looking forward to you handing over the administrative part of your job and concentrating on coding, great things would have happened, I'm sure! No reason he can't keep coding. He just won't be paid for it. :) The more things change, the more they stay the same? ;) -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: 2009/9/28 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org: I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. Obviously I've talked with Brion in person, so he knows this, but I will say it publicly too: he will be hugely, enormously, massively missed. What Michael says is true: people have a right to pursue their dreams and goals and personal development wherever it takes them, and I too am happy that Brion will continue to be moving forward the free culture agenda and helping to build a better ecosystem of projects and organizations. I've got an account on identi.ca which I haven't yet used: perhaps my first use of it will be congratulate Brion on his new job :-) IMO Brion is the single most central figure in the Wikimedia movement, second only to Jimmy. His work with us should be honoured and celebrated. We'll be doing some of that inside the staff within the next few weeks, and I expect the Board will plan something for him too. But we'll need to be creative: after all, there is already a Brion Vibber Day. New ideas are welcome :-) Thanks, Sue ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l And on that note, I propose we rename MediaWiki to BrionWiki. Added benefit: we can finally put the name confusion to rest ;-) In all seriousness though. Brion: best of luck on the new job and with future endeavors. You will be missed greatly by both devs and Wikimedians alike. And you'll still have commit access, so I hope to keep seeing Revert rXXX, totally broken -Chad ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. Please help me understand the implications of this statement. It simply means that a) we want to make sure that for the production roll-out, the user interface is not insane and appropriate to the specific en.wp configuration that's been proposed; Aren't our volunteers qualified to contribute to this? b) we'll want to track participation metrics after the roll-out to see what the impact of this technology is. I'm not sure what after the fact analysis has to do with the deployment schedule. Accusations of obstructionism don't help; I understand where these come from, but it's a massive case of assume bad faith. Please stop it. Bad faith — I don't think those words means what you think they mean. I don't think anyone at the WMF is acting in bad faith. Surely if you intended to harm Wiki(p|m)edia you could come up with something better than this. My leading hypothesis were either that the staff was incredibly overloaded with new initiatives like usability and strategywiki that there simply hasn't been time to even make a simple configuration change; ghat WMF's priorities have become so warped due to petitioning by niche interests that it can't complete a simple request for its largest project, or that the WMF staff has decided that it knows better than hundreds of contributors and that it needed to act paternalistic and protect the community against its own decision by ignoring it. I am not the only person to harbor these concerns, for example see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisionsdiff=316628512oldid=316625478 . All off of these can be supported by the facts in front of me; None of them reflect very positively on Wikimedia's staff, but neither require even an ounce of bad faith. If assume good faith has become a code-word for pretend everything is done perfectly; ignore problems; provide no criticism then it's an aspect of our culture that needs to be eliminated. I felt the latter hypothesis was supported by your statement that we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. Even with your clarification I can't help but understand that when I ask 'Why is FOO being delayed' and you respond (in part) 'Because we are concerned that it will harm things' that you aren't saying that you're intending to obstruct the deployment... Extracting the purest (strawman?) form of statement: It has not been done yet, in part, because we think what the community decided may harm participation. However, we aren't working with the community to ameliorate this harm is pretty much the definition of obstruction. This is precisely the thing I was talking about when I said that I'm concerned that Wikimedia is treating the contributors as 'users' rather than partners: If there are concerns about negative side-effects of an initiative with a partner, you talk them out and find solutions, you don't drag your feet on implementing and hope the demand goes away— though some organizations find that to be an acceptable approach to handling needy customers. If Wikimedia were more communicative about limitations and timelines and more responsive to requests there wouldn't be as much need or room to speculate. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions)for English Wikipedia.
Greg, I really don't want to reply to the specifics of this conversation -- Brion and Erik and others are much more deeply involved, and therefore better situated to respond. But I will say this: I know some people have speculated, or asked, if the Wikimedia Foundation is deliberately holding up implementation of FlaggedRevs in English Wikipedia, because the staff doesn't want it, or thinks it's a bad idea. For the record: we are not. I personally am worried that an aggressive deployment of FlaggedRevs may act as a barrier to new participants. The statistics for new editors on the German Wikipedia seem to suggest that their implementation has in fact caused a decline in new editors. I find that worrying. But I realize that 1) there may be other factors at play on the German Wikipedia, affecting participation, that are unrelated to FlaggedRevs, 2) the implementation of FlaggedRevs for English is quite different from the implementation on the German Wikipedia, and 3) the English community has made a decision, which it has every right to do. To be super-clear: the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation is not deliberately holding up rollout of FlaggedRevs on the English Wikipedia because of concerns about whether it's a good idea. WRT to your point about relative priorities: the Wikimedia Foundation has gotten funding from the Stanton Foundation and the Ford Foundation, that's specifically earmarked for usability work. That is good: usability is a critical priority. We can't reallocate that funding to other technical work: it's restricted to the purpose for which it was given. I hear your frustration about the slowness of implementation and I sympathize. But I don't want you to believe FlaggedRevs is being deliberately held up: it isn't. Thanks, Sue -Original Message- From: Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:59:44 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia. On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. Please help me understand the implications of this statement. It simply means that a) we want to make sure that for the production roll-out, the user interface is not insane and appropriate to the specific en.wp configuration that's been proposed; Aren't our volunteers qualified to contribute to this? b) we'll want to track participation metrics after the roll-out to see what the impact of this technology is. I'm not sure what after the fact analysis has to do with the deployment schedule. Accusations of obstructionism don't help; I understand where these come from, but it's a massive case of assume bad faith. Please stop it. Bad faith — I don't think those words means what you think they mean. I don't think anyone at the WMF is acting in bad faith. Surely if you intended to harm Wiki(p|m)edia you could come up with something better than this. My leading hypothesis were either that the staff was incredibly overloaded with new initiatives like usability and strategywiki that there simply hasn't been time to even make a simple configuration change; ghat WMF's priorities have become so warped due to petitioning by niche interests that it can't complete a simple request for its largest project, or that the WMF staff has decided that it knows better than hundreds of contributors and that it needed to act paternalistic and protect the community against its own decision by ignoring it. I am not the only person to harbor these concerns, for example see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisionsdiff=316628512oldid=316625478 . All off of these can be supported by the facts in front of me; None of them reflect very positively on Wikimedia's staff, but neither require even an ounce of bad faith. If assume good faith has become a code-word for pretend everything is done perfectly; ignore problems; provide no criticism then it's an aspect of our culture that needs to be eliminated. I felt the latter hypothesis was supported by your statement that we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. Even with your clarification I can't help but understand that when I ask 'Why is FOO being delayed' and you respond (in part) 'Because we are concerned that it will harm things' that you aren't saying that you're intending to obstruct the deployment... Extracting the purest (strawman?) form of statement: It has not been done yet, in part, because we think what the community decided may harm participation. However, we aren't working with the community to ameliorate this harm is pretty much the definition of obstruction. This is precisely the thing I was talking about when I said that I'm concerned that Wikimedia is treating
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 10:33 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/28 Mohamed Magdy mohamed@gmail.com: This really sucks. Hey, we'll all live, and he's alive and well :-) Yes. But I find it difficult to understand that he leaves wm for some social networking venture, I hope it is worth it. I wish you the best, I just don't agree with your decision on leaving (if it is possible to revert it...). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions)for English Wikipedia.
2009/9/28 Sue Gardner susanpgard...@gmail.com: Greg, I really don't want to reply to the specifics of this conversation -- Brion and Erik and others are much more deeply involved, and therefore better situated to respond. But I will say this: I know some people have speculated, or asked, if the Wikimedia Foundation is deliberately holding up implementation of FlaggedRevs in English Wikipedia, because the staff doesn't want it, or thinks it's a bad idea. For the record: we are not. I personally am worried that an aggressive deployment of FlaggedRevs may act as a barrier to new participants. The statistics for new editors on the German Wikipedia seem to suggest that their implementation has in fact caused a decline in new editors. I find that worrying. But I realize that 1) there may be other factors at play on the German Wikipedia, affecting participation, that are unrelated to FlaggedRevs, I was looking at those stats just a couple of days ago and it seems the decline started a month *before* the implementation of FlaggedRevs on dewiki, so it would seem to be due to something else. (Unless there is some error in my data.) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Staff office hours
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hello all! This Thursday, October 1, 2009 between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM PDT (UTC 16:00 and 17:00) Rand Montoya, Wikimedia's fundraiser will be joining us for office hours. Rand will be online to answer your questions and talk about the role of fundraising for the Wikimedia Foundation and the upcoming Fundriaser. The IRC channel that will be hosting Rand's conversation will be #wikimedia-office on the Freenode network. If you do not have an IRC client, you can always access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate PS: I'll be sending a follow up email to start a thread to discuss the times of the office hours. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkrBK7gACgkQyQg4JSymDYk3PACgzsGGLMJfXKqTETcZI1BW5fZd gnwAn0T+9iH+Jn1p32t3QdnOaCLPaI1K =JMir -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
Aude wrote: On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. * *Oppose* - It won't necessarily be so easy to find someone to fill your shoes and manage things as well as you have with improvements in MediaWiki, as well as site operations. You will be missed. Seriously, I'm disappointed to see you go, though wish you the best with your new position. -Aude -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) CTO, Wikimedia Foundation San Francisco Ack Brion, too quick on the draw... T_T I haven't gotten close enough to a extremely powerful JS based wiki engine to use this as propaganda to get people to try it out. *cough* Erm... I said nothing Heh, before I finished reading the e-mail. I was either thinking Joke, or Wiki Apocalypse. ~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://daniel.friesen.name] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On 9/28/09 2:23 PM, Domas Mituzas wrote: Hi! And you'll still have commit access, so I hope to keep seeing Revert rXXX, totally broken Don't be so harsh on Brion, not every commit of his has been totally broken :-) *reverts domas* :) -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org Subject: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet To: Wikimedia developers wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org, MediaWiki announcements and site admin list mediawik...@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 1:32 PM I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. Congratulations on you new job! I am excited for you and to learn more about ident.ca. I appreciate the effort you are committing to the prolonged transition. Thank you for all you have done; your commitment to Wikimedia will be a hard act to follow. I hope I will still see you around here (foundation-l). Birgitte SB ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On 9/28/09 4:18 PM, Brion Vibber wrote: On 9/28/09 1:04 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Erik Moellere...@wikimedia.org wrote: [snip] plan, and Brion is hoping to invest some of his remaining time with it in helping to get the extension ready for en.wp. It's not trivial: The scalability concerns at that size are a step more serious than with de.wp, Of course. But I wasn't expecting a turn up on English Wikipedia yet. I'm asking why the 25 lines of configuration that EnWP specified have not yet been added to the test wiki at http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page That config has been there for a month, but it might be broken in some way; as far as I know nobody's yet done any organized poking at the test site. We'll look it over in the next few days... It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Quick steps to try it out: 1) Find a nice page: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29 2) Hit the 'protect' link: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29action=protect 3) This page does not have a stable version; page stability settings can be configured. - click this link [ideally that next form will be better integrated into the protection form in future] http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Stabilizationpage=Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29 ^ At this point if you're an admin you can tweak the page stabilization settings which allows you to opt a page into FlaggedRevs. Switching it in for thie page to The stable revision; if not present, then the current/draft one, I now see the little 'sighted' box on the article page and have the review interface at the bottom (though some of the UI elements haven't been fully customized yet). -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: Gregory, To address: My leading hypothesis were either that the staff was incredibly overloaded with new initiatives like usability and strategywiki...WMF's priorities have become so warped due to petitioning by niche interests that it can't complete a simple request for its largest project.. Your quoting makes it sound like I'm calling usability and strategy wiki niche interest. Here is what I actually wrote: My leading hypothesis were either that the staff was incredibly overloaded with new initiatives like usability and strategywiki that there simply hasn't been time to even make a simple configuration change; ghat WMF's priorities have become so warped due to petitioning by niche interests that it can't complete a simple request for its largest project, or that the In bullet point form, my theories were: (1) Tech staff is so overloaded with new work from usability, etc. that they can't make a small configuration change for enwp or an enwp test. No matter how important these new initiatives are, if they are overburdening the staff this greatly than we have bitten off more than we can chew. (2) That WMF no longer cares about EnWP because advocates for other projects post almost daily on foundation-l while ENWP disproportionally underrepresented. (Enwp is off in it's own land) (3) That fears about flagged revisions were causing the WMF to delay. I'm pleased that Sue has responded resolutely to clarify that (3) is not her position. In any case, please endeavor to not misquote me in this manner in the future. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On 9/28/09 4:57 PM, Brion Vibber wrote: 3) This page does not have a stable version; page stability settings can be configured.- click this link [ideally that next form will be better integrated into the protection form in future] http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Stabilizationpage=Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29 ^ At this point if you're an admin you can tweak the page stabilization settings which allows you to opt a page into FlaggedRevs. Switching it in for thie page to The stable revision; if not present, then the current/draft one, I now see the little 'sighted' box on the article page and have the review interface at the bottom (though some of the UI elements haven't been fully customized yet). And note there's a 'Stability' tab in Special:Preferences to tweak your personal prefs for viewing stable vs draft versions and how to show the interface. http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On 9/28/09 4:57 PM, Brion Vibber wrote: Switching it in for thie page to The stable revision; if not present, then the current/draft one, I now see the little 'sighted' box on the article page and have the review interface at the bottom (though some of the UI elements haven't been fully customized yet). I've added notes to these effects with sample links on the main page: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] lots of people please test this :-)
I also forwarded this to the English Wikipedia mailing list... Brion Vibber wrote: It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Quick steps to try it out: 1) Find a nice page: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29 2) Hit the 'protect' link: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29action=protect 3) This page does not have a stable version; page stability settings can be configured. - click this link [ideally that next form will be better integrated into the protection form in future] http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Stabilizationpage=Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29 ^ At this point if you're an admin you can tweak the page stabilization settings which allows you to opt a page into FlaggedRevs. Switching it in for thie page to The stable revision; if not present, then the current/draft one, I now see the little 'sighted' box on the article page and have the review interface at the bottom (though some of the UI elements haven't been fully customized yet). -- brion ___ 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] lots of people please test this :-)
On 9/28/09 5:15 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote: I also forwarded this to the English Wikipedia mailing list... Yay! :) Also added on the tech blog: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/flaggedrevs-test-wiki-awaits-you/ -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] lots of people please test this :-)
Brion Vibber wrote: On 9/28/09 5:15 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote: I also forwarded this to the English Wikipedia mailing list... Yay! :) Also added on the tech blog: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/flaggedrevs-test-wiki-awaits-you/ Actually it bounced, on account of I am not a subscriber there now, and I've gotta run so hopefully someone else will do that for me. :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 7:57 PM, Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org wrote: Of course. But I wasn't expecting a turn up on English Wikipedia yet. I'm asking why the 25 lines of configuration that EnWP specified have not yet been added to the test wiki at http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page That config has been there for a month, but it might be broken in some way; as far as I know nobody's yet done any organized poking at the test site. We'll look it over in the next few days... It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Holy crap! In my defense: It's pretty clear that no one was aware that it was turned up yet. The notice indicated that things were still being setup. Activating it requires a right that only you have at the moment: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsersgroup=sysop [if there is anyone but brion listed; they've since been added] The bugzilla bug has not been updated: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18334 Other people inquired about the test site: May 5, May 12, Jun 9, Jun 19, Jul 16th I inquired about this several times on wikitech-l: Aug 31 and Sep 1, then privately on Sep 15 and Sep 20th. Of course, people have inquired on EnWP itself too. As pointed out by Philippe, it came up in the 09/25 office hours IRC which included these gems: (I've cut ruthlessly, original is at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2009-09-25) [22:33pm] Natalie: SueGardner: What is the hold-up with flagged revisions on the English Wikipedia? It's been months and months. ... [22:39pm] Jake_Wartenberg: brion: so there is no flagged protection on flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org [22:39pm] Jake_Wartenberg: just flagged revs [22:40pm] cary: I think that's enough on Flagged Revs. Had I been aware of the discussion on IRC I would have first nagged you again about why you were saying it was there when it didn't appear to be! Thank you. My apologies: I'd have had little reason to complain if I'd know that the test was up; the absence of the test is what seemed outrageous. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Office hours
I think having the thursday meeting one or two more hours later would work fine for Europe, so if that works also better for Australia... Not sure about the Friday one, although the next day is weekend. 2130 UTC sounds like a good time though. 2009/9/29 Angela bees...@gmail.com 1) Have the Friday office hours one hour earlier (from 21:30-22:30 UTC) 2) Have the Thursday office hours one hour later (from 17:00-18:00 UTC) 3) Keep two sets of office hours the same, we cannot please everyone possible! If you make the Friday one earlier, it becomes more inaccessible to people in Asia and Western Australia who will likely be sleeping through the Thursday one. What about making both of them a couple of hours later? Angela ___ 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] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
2009/9/29 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org: It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Quick steps to try it out: [snip] Where do you want comments? I'll put the one I have so far here: What does Confirm stable version settings mean? It looks like an expiration time, but that doesn't fit the name... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Office hours
2009/9/29 effe iets anders effeietsand...@gmail.com: I think having the thursday meeting one or two more hours later would work fine for Europe, so if that works also better for Australia... Not sure about the Friday one, although the next day is weekend. 2130 UTC sounds like a good time though. 2130 UTC sounds a little late to me if we want Europeans there. We're on daylight saving time for another month (ish), so in Western Europe, that is 2330, finishing at 0030. That's pretty late. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] lots of people please test this :-)
On 9/28/09 5:19 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote: Brion Vibber wrote: On 9/28/09 5:15 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote: I also forwarded this to the English Wikipedia mailing list... Yay! :) Also added on the tech blog: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/flaggedrevs-test-wiki-awaits-you/ Actually it bounced, on account of I am not a subscriber there now, and I've gotta run so hopefully someone else will do that for me. :) I've made a post on wikien-l for ya. :) -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On 9/28/09 5:23 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Holy crap! In my defense: It's pretty clear that no one was aware that it was turned up yet. The notice indicated that things were still being setup. Totally fair -- there was just plain bad communication there! We've got things going now and folks are getting set up with local admin crat accounts to start poking it, so it looks like we've got this finally resolved. :) -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
2009/9/29 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: 2009/9/29 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org: It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Quick steps to try it out: [snip] Where do you want comments? I'll put the one I have so far here: What does Confirm stable version settings mean? It looks like an expiration time, but that doesn't fit the name... Ah, it makes a little more sense once you have admin powers and rest of the settings appear. I would change the name, though, only the Confirm button in that section has anything to do with confirmation. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Office hours
on a friday? :S 2009/9/29 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com 2009/9/29 effe iets anders effeietsand...@gmail.com: I think having the thursday meeting one or two more hours later would work fine for Europe, so if that works also better for Australia... Not sure about the Friday one, although the next day is weekend. 2130 UTC sounds like a good time though. 2130 UTC sounds a little late to me if we want Europeans there. We're on daylight saving time for another month (ish), so in Western Europe, that is 2330, finishing at 0030. That's pretty late. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
2009/9/28 Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org: It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Thanks for looking into it, Brion. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
But not established users ? -Original Message- From: Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Mon, Sep 28, 2009 5:36 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia. On 9/28/09 5:23 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: It seems to work just fine, actually. The extension is on, the configuration is being loaded for the right database, and things seem to function when I test them. Holy crap! In my defense: It's pretty clear that no one was aware that it was turned up yet. The notice indicated that things were still being setup. Totally fair -- there was just plain bad communication there! We've got things going now and folks are getting set up with local admin crat accounts to start poking it, so it looks like we've got this finally resolved. :) -- brion ___ 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] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
2009/9/29 wjhon...@aol.com: But not established users ? Not established users what? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
You cut off the response.? I was responding directly to the post previous where it was stated that crats and admins could poke at this.? So I'm wondering why not open it to all established editors.? There are editors who have been around a long time and are not admins. -Original Message- From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Mon, Sep 28, 2009 5:56 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia. 2009/9/29 wjhon...@aol.com: But not established users ? Not established users what? ___ 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] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
2009/9/29 wjhon...@aol.com: You cut off the response.? I was responding directly to the post previous where it was stated that crats and admins could poke at this.? So I'm wondering why not open it to all established editors.? There are editors who have been around a long time and are not admins. You misunderstood - people are being made admins and crats on that wiki so they can poke at it. Anyone can request admin powers there. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
Thanks.? Ok I've found you do that now. http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page#Adminship_requests -Original Message- From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Mon, Sep 28, 2009 6:13 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia. 2009/9/29 wjhon...@aol.com: ?You cut off the response.? I was responding directly to the post previous where it was stated that crats and admins could poke at this.? So I'm wondering why not open it to all established editors.? There are editors who have been around a long time and are not admins. You misunderstood - people are being made admins and crats on that wiki so they can poke at it. Anyone can request admin powers there. ___ 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] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
Brion, thank you for your tremendous work, enthusiasm, and grace, and congratulations on your new job. StatusNet will be lucky to have you, and I hope this means among other things that we will see better integration of real-time communication into platforms such as wikis. On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Brion Vibber br...@wikimedia.org wrote: social interaction is probably one of the key areas we really need to improve on for Wikipedia/Wikimedia. Agreed, including both tracking real-time discussions and persistent personal status. There are many toolserver tools and extensions that share bits of this information, but it's tricky to maintain or search through. Michael Snow writes: I hope that his other work will also add significantly to the free culture movement, so that it really develops an ecosystem and not just a couple of peculiar organizations. Yes, an ecosystem of peculiar organizations would be handy. :-) SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: David Gerard wrote: 2009/9/28 wiki-li...@phizz.demon.co.uk: From the earlier poster Teofilo: I disagree. I think the priority is to have the full resolution pictures of Public Domain works. That seems to be a demand to have the highest resolution copies possible. That sets it out as a goal, not a demand. But getting back to the case in question - we're talking about the sort of museum that's actually a government sub-department. Thus, public domain images that the taxpayer has *already paid for*. I see nothing whatsoever unreasonable about the idea of asking-to-demanding those. They're owned by the public, not by the museum bureaucrats. In defense of museums, some of them do get it. The images of golden artifacts from the Staffordshire Hoard were immediately released under a CC license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/finds/sets/72157622378376316/with/3944490322/ Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen Very interesting that you should raise the Staffordshire Hoard images as an example. When they were first uploaded they were done so with a cc-by license and therefore were copied across to Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Staffordshire_hoard.jpg and appeard on the frontpage of en.wp as the in the news image. However, subsequently, the images were relicensed to cc-by-nc. Since we managed to get them when they were indeed cc-by our copies are legal (as mentioned at the bottom of our image page at the link I just gave). But it's an interesting that you should raise that one as an example :-) Also in defence of Museums, I can say very confidently that they are all working through the tough decisions about changing licenses and coming to grapple with this issue that we are so passionate about. Museums are a bit like ducks: it looks like nothing is happening when you just look at a duck floating in a pond, but underneath the water there is a lot of work going on to move it forward - you just can't see it. A positive experience of a Museum that we in Australia have been working with is the Powerhouse Museum. They wanted to make their content more open but the discussion about changing the license of images of objects is a long and complicated one that is still ongoing. So, they changed the license to something that they *know* they own the rights to - the documentation. See their post about it here: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2009/04/02/powerhouse-collection-documentation-goes-creative-commons/I think this a fantastic step and possibly even more valuable than the images themselves. And, is one step in a broader strategy of encouraging openness. -Liam [[witty lama]] ___ 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
