On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 00:53, Ting Chen <wing.phil...@gmx.de> wrote: > Hello Sarah, > > I would put it somehow differently. If Virgin Ventures has a tool with > which a newbie (or also an oldbie) can in a very intuitive way construct > a well formatted article from the scrap, so something like that magic > editor we had talked about for long time and never realized until now, > and it is open source, I would certainly consider a button in the > toolbox like "Use the wizard to start an article". > > On 12.11.2010 07:44, wrote SlimVirgin: >> If I were to set up Virgin Ventures to write high-quality, >> policy-compliant articles for companies and people that needed them -- >> benefiting the subjects, the readers, and Wikipedia -- might I be >> given a button in the toolbox too? "Red link? Click here for the >> Virgin!"
Hello Ting, The concern is this: the argument is that because the people behind [[PediaPress]] in Germany -- who I assume were Wikipedians -- put their time into creating the "create book" software, they should be allowed a return on their investment, unlike Wikipedia's writers who are expected to donate their skills for free. Therefore, the Foundation gave them access to some of cyberspace's most expensive real estate in the sidebar, and the company is allowed to keep 90 percent of the profit by printing articles in book form. And I believe it's not actually PediaPress doing the printing. They have a contract with yet another company for that -- [[Lightning Source]] -- a print-on-demand subsidiary of Ingram Industries Inc. http://mickrooney.blogspot.com/2010/06/lsi-expandpartnership-with-pediapress.html PediaPress is owned by Brainbot Technologies, which says on its website that it aims to exploit Wikipedia content commercially, and it was to this end that PediaPress was set up. http://brainbot.com/services/wikis/ Google translate -- http://translate.google.com/#de|en| It raises lots of questions, but two big ones: 1. How was PediaPress/Brainbot chosen to do this, out of all the companies in the world that would have paid the Foundation for access to a "create book" function in the sidebar? and 2. It presupposes that technical know-how can be monetized, but editorial input on Wikipedia -- the material Brainbot/PediaPress wants to sell -- should be done without payment. Wikipedians who have been paid for writing articles (including policy-compliant ones) have been blocked or ostracized. They've not been offered sidebar access by the Foundation. Can the Foundation please explain how Brainbot/Pediapress was chosen? Also, can it reassure us that in future all Wikipedians (or everyone in general) will have the chance to compete for openings like this, whether using technical or editorial skills? Sarah _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l