Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
I agree 100% with this. Some people on Wikimedia want to enforce copyright much beyond what is reasonable. This is hurt us, and is outside of our mission. Yann 2011/7/13 Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com: Links by themselves are not copyrightable, and are not unfree. So your argument, which you keep repeating is not germane to this point. The point is, the copyright police have taken a fear (of something which has never occurred in actual law), and made it a point of battle. We are arbiters of information content, should not be acting as the police and judge over what is on YouTube. We cannot know is something loaded is under copyright or not and should not be attempting to know. It's none of our business. Our business should be merely to decide what is useful for our project. The links themselves, I repeat, are free. The point of contention is whether a link by itself IS a copyright violation. And on the presumption that it MIGHT be (which is itself ridiculous) our project suffers immense harm by a handful of u persons. All that is beside the point, my point, which is that a link cannot be a copyright violation, and cannot be licensed. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
There are practices which are beyond the pale, for example, linking to a pirated copy of the latest Harry Potter movie. Linking to the typical YouTube video of unknown provenance is quite another matter; although it is quite true that in both cases there may be a technical copyright violation. In the second case, there is usually no one complaining. When there are complaints YouTube takes the material down. The copyright police demand proof of ownership and either expiration or release in instances where such information is unavailable. That may be what is required if we are to host the material, but might be unreasonable for mere linking. Fred I agree 100% with this. Some people on Wikimedia want to enforce copyright much beyond what is reasonable. This is hurt us, and is outside of our mission. Yann 2011/7/13 Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com: Links by themselves are not copyrightable, and are not unfree. So your argument, which you keep repeating is not germane to this point. The point is, the copyright police have taken a fear (of something which has never occurred in actual law), and made it a point of battle. We are arbiters of information content, should not be acting as the police and judge over what is on YouTube. We cannot know is something loaded is under copyright or not and should not be attempting to know. It's none of our business. Our business should be merely to decide what is useful for our project. The links themselves, I repeat, are free. The point of contention is whether a link by itself IS a copyright violation. And on the presumption that it MIGHT be (which is itself ridiculous) our project suffers immense harm by a handful of u persons. All that is beside the point, my point, which is that a link cannot be a copyright violation, and cannot be licensed. ___ 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] They do make or break reputations
Hi all, I haven't fully read the context of this thread, but something that did cross my mind recently, why do we treat YouTube-links different from other links here? Aren't most of our sources and external linked websites atleast as copyrighted as YouTube ? Consider links to IMDb for example, the content we link to, through that, is all copyrighted! Or just a good old Official website-link on an article about person X or organization Y, likely also All rights reserved. YouTube atleast is partially (and soon more) under a CC-license. -- Krinkle Fred Bauder wrote: There are practices which are beyond the pale, for example, linking to a pirated copy of the latest Harry Potter movie. Linking to the typical YouTube video of unknown provenance is quite another matter; although it is quite true that in both cases there may be a technical copyright violation. In the second case, there is usually no one complaining. When there are complaints YouTube takes the material down. The copyright police demand proof of ownership and either expiration or release in instances where such information is unavailable. That may be what is required if we are to host the material, but might be unreasonable for mere linking. Fred I agree 100% with this. Some people on Wikimedia want to enforce copyright much beyond what is reasonable. This is hurt us, and is outside of our mission. Yann 2011/7/13 Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com: Links by themselves are not copyrightable, and are not unfree. So your argument, which you keep repeating is not germane to this point. The point is, the copyright police have taken a fear (of something which has never occurred in actual law), and made it a point of battle. We are arbiters of information content, should not be acting as the police and judge over what is on YouTube. We cannot know is something loaded is under copyright or not and should not be attempting to know. It's none of our business. Our business should be merely to decide what is useful for our project. The links themselves, I repeat, are free. The point of contention is whether a link by itself IS a copyright violation. And on the presumption that it MIGHT be (which is itself ridiculous) our project suffers immense harm by a handful of u persons. All that is beside the point, my point, which is that a link cannot be a copyright violation, and cannot be licensed. ___ 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 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Yes, there are big differences between IMDB and YouTube rightswise. IMDB requires that every submission be reviewed for accuracy and content before acceptance. They are trying to compete with Baseline and want to be seen as an equal - so they (perhaps overzealously even) require that new indie film productions have documented festival screenings before acceptance. This restriction is NOT imposed on the 350 production companies who are members of AMPTP, who are able to list projects as being in development forever. YouTube uses a completely different approach. Anyone can put anything online anytime. The only time content origin is an issue is when it is challenged. Unlike other video sharing sites, there is no explicit opt in button asking if the uploader has copyright control over original content. The Wikimedia movement is on the bleeding edge of evolving copyright law, just as are Google, The Internet Archive and many other evolving content providers. It is unfortunate that YouTube is so frequently used to share content without the copyright holder's consent as it lowers the trust level. If someone wants to link to content they uploaded to a video sharing site for inclusion in Wikipedia, then use of a more trusted site might be in order to avoid editor action. How can we communicate this to the casual contributor? On 7/16/2011 5:00 AM, foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote: I haven't fully read the context of this thread, but something that did cross my mind recently, why do we treat YouTube-links different from other links here? Aren't most of our sources and external linked websites atleast as copyrighted as YouTube ? Consider links to IMDb for example, the content we link to, through that, is all copyrighted! Or just a good old Official website-link on an article about person X or organization Y, likely also All rights reserved. YouTube atleast is partially (and soon more) under a CC-license. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Krinkle krinklem...@gmail.com wrote: I haven't fully read the context of this thread, but something that did cross my mind recently, why do we treat YouTube-links different from other links here? Aren't most of our sources and external linked websites atleast as copyrighted as YouTube ? Consider links to IMDb for example, the content we link to, through that, is all copyrighted! Or just a good old Official website-link on an article about person X or organization Y, likely also All rights reserved. YouTube atleast is partially (and soon more) under a CC-license. There's a big difference - those are copyrighted _by the person who put the material on the web site_. On YouTube the videos are often uploaded by people who do not own the copyright, nor are connected to them. It's not copyright that is the problem, it is copyright violations. -- André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Where is that policy and discussion? In terms of en.wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ELNEVERhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ELNEVER#Restrictions_on_linking That is the main restriction against external linking which makes an extremely strong (even for WP policy) statement; *Material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works should not be linked.* * * Specific guidance on YouTube (and related) is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:YOUTUBE#Linking_to_user-submitted_video_sites Which clearly just cautions care against using such links (*Links should be evaluated for inclusion with due care on a case-by-case basis*). Policy discussion is best done on the relevant talk page. Although I seriously doubt that this is likely to be changed. Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Why can't we setup a meta server sandbox that allows these experimental things to be rapidly activated in the sense of giving each a virtual server slice. That way there is room to play and if something takes off it can then be allocated some serious resources. The ones that die on the vine won't be tying up much of any time or resources since they are virtual anyway. On 7/12/2011 11:16 AM, foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote: But now, I feel like we may be able to move back into an era of rapid experimentation, where new projects are more like unmanned 1940s test rockets-- they should be blowing up left and right, as we try to learn from the failed attempts. I'll go further-- provided we can do so cheaply, I want new projects that are like the ridiculous early failures of flight. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OJvv4LG9M]. I want to hear about a new WMF project and it's policy, think That's crazy-- that's never gonna get off the ground, and indeed, learn something from whether it crashes or whether it actually takes off. Having an early flight era attitude is how we can find something even better than Wikipedia. I agree a lot of ideas are unlikely to work-- but provided the resource usage is sufficiently negligible, let people start making insane flying machine projects, and eventually the wright brothers will show up. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Something better than Wikipedia ? I can think of something right off the bat. Kill the copyright police who do nothing useful and harm the project immensely. Go back to the more transparent rationale that copyright infringement rests solely upon the person who uploaded the copyrighted item, not on people who merely link to it. That would allow us to link to YouTube videos for example (not host them, just link to them). Why read an article on Wikipedia about say Shirley Temple, if someone else has an identical article AND video streaming as well so you can watch one of her movie or a newsreel interview. Re-hosters will eventually figure this out, grab all of our content and improve upon it. We should get there before they do. Will ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Go back to the more transparent rationale that copyright infringement rests solely upon the person who uploaded the copyrighted item, not on people who merely link to it. That would allow us to link to YouTube videos for example (not host them, just link to them). Why read an article on Wikipedia about say Shirley Temple, if someone else has an identical article AND video streaming as well so you can watch one of her movie or a newsreel interview. Re-hosters will eventually figure this out, grab all of our content and improve upon it. We should get there before they do. Strongly disagree. Wikipedia is built on the principle that freely licensed content rocks and is the future. Making use of non-freely licensed content makes that goal hypocritical and awkward. (by the way; there is not necessairily an issue with linking to Youtube content - if it is correctly licensed, then it is fine) Besides; no one has managed to make use of Wikipedia content and build on it in a way that you suggest - if it were so clear an advantage I am sure someone would have done it by now! Wikipedia but with extra non-free images and videos is not a Wikipedia with significant extra value. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but we have millions :) Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Again you are referring to the hosting or presentation of non-free content and I am not. I am not referring to the DISPLAY of videos within Wikipedia. Only the LINKING of videos from Wikipedia. 99.% of Youtube videos have no licensing information at all so there is no way to tell if they are being uploaded by the copyright holder. The Wikipedian copyright police take a worst-case position and disallow all such linking. I am suggesting that linking itself should be a moot issue. By the way Thomas this thread is for suggesting ways to move forward. -Original Message- From: Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Jul 12, 2011 12:45 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations Go back to the more transparent rationale that copyright infringement rests solely upon the person who uploaded the copyrighted item, not on people who merely link to it. That would allow us to link to YouTube videos for example (not host them, just link to them). Why read an article on Wikipedia about say Shirley Temple, if someone else has an identical article AND video streaming as well so you can watch one of her movie or a newsreel interview. Re-hosters will eventually figure this out, grab all of our content and improve upon it. We should get there before they do. trongly disagree. Wikipedia is built on the principle that freely licensed ontent rocks and is the future. Making use of non-freely licensed content akes that goal hypocritical and awkward. (by the way; there is not necessairily an issue with linking to Youtube ontent - if it is correctly licensed, then it is fine) Besides; no one has managed to make use of Wikipedia content and build on it n a way that you suggest - if it were so clear an advantage I am sure omeone would have done it by now! Wikipedia but with extra non-free images and videos is not a Wikipedia with ignificant extra value. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but we ave millions :) Tom __ oundation-l mailing list oundatio...@lists.wikimedia.org nsubscribe: 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] They do make or break reputations
Again you are referring to the hosting or presentation of non-free content and I am not. I am not referring to the DISPLAY of videos within Wikipedia. Only the LINKING of videos from Wikipedia. No, I realise that is what you are referring to - and I don't honestly see any huge value to linking to such material. For example; in the case of a music single article, if the user was looking for a video of the content they would have gone to Youtube, that is the recognised place to go. If they were looking for background info they come to Wikipedia. I see the minor value of linking out to Youtube to enhance reader experience in a small way; but balanced against our view of free content I feel that value is cancelled out. 99.% of Youtube videos have no licensing information at all so there is no way to tell if they are being uploaded by the copyright holder. The Wikipedian copyright police take a worst-case position and disallow all such linking. Not at all; in many cases it is obvious (or taken on good faith). In other cases Youtube is set up in such a way as to identify official accounts. Often it is 100% clear the content is not free or used properly. The critical issue is value; if non-free content adds substantial value then I 100% support the idea of linking or displaying it. This is the core of the current en.wiki non-free content policy. But in many cases that value is meh and encouraging such linking is a significant step backwards. I've also been quite happy taking the long view. In the ideal world we could place the music video directly in the relevant article - as it is copyright prohibits that. In not all that many years (although after we are gone, certainly) the video can be placed in the article. So I see no issue :) right now you can see it on Youtube, with dubious licensing. The next few generations will be able to see what their grandparents were watching/listening to on Wikipedia. :) By the way Thomas this thread is for suggesting ways to move forward. I'm not sure what you mean there exactly... that my view is the current standard and therefore irrelevant to moving forward? Pfft. :) Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
If you don't see the significant value in including video content, then I would suggest that you don't see the significant value in including photographic content either. I would suggest that's an outdated value system. A picture is worth a thousand words, an audio is worth ten thousand, a video is worth a million. Will Johnson ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
I'll go further-- provided we can do so cheaply, I want new projects that are like the ridiculous early failures of flight. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OJvv4LG9M]. I want to hear about a new WMF project and it's policy, think That's crazy-- that's never gonna get off the ground, and indeed, learn something from whether it crashes or whether it actually takes off. The thing is (and I am somewhat of an enthusiast on the early attempts at flight :) so you picked a good metaphor) that tose early attempts were dangerous, mostly impractical and basically barking up the wrong trees. What did it take ot make successful flight? It took a couple of quiet brothers who realised that mad and dedicated vision had to be metered with scientific observation, personal sacrifice and critical thinking to succeed. So, yeh, I agree largely with your theory of lets throw resources at all those mad but clever people out there. But I think we need to learn the lesson of Chanute [1] and keep a careful watch for the many hacks, egotistical and mad individuals that such an enterprise would encourage. (of course, another school of thought might suggest we need to encourage all the mad schemes, and let someone smart and clever take the failures and turn them into reality). Tom *1. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave_Chanute ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
If you don't see the significant value in including video content, then I would suggest that you don't see the significant value in including photographic content either. I would suggest that's an outdated value system. You're simply extending my argument too far there, which is just bad rhetoric. Images and video can have significant value. If we wait a reasonable time (250 years?) these problems will naturally be solved, and our archiving systems today are so good I am unconcerned at having to wait that long. But the minimal advantages of linking to copyrighted videos on Youtube right here and now is, I feel, well outweight by the far more important values of free and properly licensed content. Of course; if you are able to provide some specific counter examples (this is fairly off-topic, so perhaps a new thread?) I'm happy to reconsider my own view! Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Links by themselves are not copyrightable, and are not unfree. So your argument, which you keep repeating is not germane to this point. The point is, the copyright police have taken a fear (of something which has never occurred in actual law), and made it a point of battle. We are arbiters of information content, should not be acting as the police and judge over what is on YouTube. We cannot know is something loaded is under copyright or not and should not be attempting to know. It's none of our business. Our business should be merely to decide what is useful for our project. The links themselves, I repeat, are free. The point of contention is whether a link by itself IS a copyright violation. And on the presumption that it MIGHT be (which is itself ridiculous) our project suffers immense harm by a handful of u persons. All that is beside the point, my point, which is that a link cannot be a copyright violation, and cannot be licensed. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
The point is, the copyright police have taken a fear (of something which has never occurred in actual law), and made it a point of battle. This is, I think, the wrong forum for our disagreement. I mostly rose to your nasty casting of copyright police, which was a mistake. Sorry to everyone else :) But my final comment is thus; you have misconstrued, I think, the point of the argument against such links. In fact; pretty much all cases I have ever seen have been unambiguous in one way or another. So while I would entertain the notion that such a policy is limiting our ability to link to legitimately licensed/hosted content I suggest you kinda need to demonstrate that with specifics. Perhaps an on-wiki discussion is the way to progress this. Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Pick a spot that you think is appropriate. But you are missing the point. The point in not to continue forward *under the current restrictions and requirements*, that is a dead horse. The glamour is off the rose. -Original Message- From: Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Jul 12, 2011 1:27 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations The point is, the copyright police have taken a fear (of something which has never occurred in actual law), and made it a point of battle. This is, I think, the wrong forum for our disagreement. I mostly rose to our nasty casting of copyright police, which was a mistake. Sorry to veryone else :) But my final comment is thus; you have misconstrued, I think, the point of he argument against such links. In fact; pretty much all cases I have ever een have been unambiguous in one way or another. So while I would entertain he notion that such a policy is limiting our ability to link to egitimately licensed/hosted content I suggest you kinda need to demonstrate hat with specifics. Perhaps an on-wiki discussion is the way to progress this. Tom __ oundation-l mailing list oundatio...@lists.wikimedia.org nsubscribe: 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] They do make or break reputations
On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: I'll go further-- provided we can do so cheaply, I want new projects that are like the ridiculous early failures of flight. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OJvv4LG9M]. I want to hear about a new WMF project and it's policy, think That's crazy-- that's never gonna get off the ground, and indeed, learn something from whether it crashes or whether it actually takes off. So, yeh, I agree largely with your theory of lets throw resources at all those mad but clever people out there. The thing is-- I'm not even sure we need to throw resources as much as we just need to allow experimentation. Unless I'm missing something, actual resources like hosting costs aren't really an issue for us anymore when it comes to 'small, new projects'. Technology is growing exponentially-- Processor power and Storage double every 18 months, Bandwidth behaves similarly. A file that cost us $1 to host in 2001 may now cost us less than a penny-- and this trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. I _think_ that means we can have nearly limitless sandboxes, of every shape and size, but unless they become successful, they should use hardly any resources at. This may not be true for projects that want to work with large binaries, but for mere human generated wikitext, I think we passed infinite capacity a long time ago. But I think we need to learn the lesson of Chanute [1] and keep a careful watch for the many hacks, egotistical and mad individuals that such an enterprise would encourage. I don't necessarily expect that the best thing to come out of new projects would be the new projects. I expect the best thing to come out of new projects would be the insights gained from them, and how our best minds can incorporate new projects' lessons into our existing ones. ( Of course, if a new project itself ended up itself being the best thing, that would be fine also. ) When I say, for example, we'd find something better than wikipedia-- well of course, if WIkipedia agrees it's better in some way, then Wikipedia will just 'become' the new better thing, making a new a better Wikipedia. Alec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com wrote: Something better than Wikipedia ? I can think of something right off the bat. allow us to link to YouTube videos for example (not host them, just link to them). That makes sense. Can you point to a problematic debate against linking to YouTube videos? SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Regarding external links to videos: Perhaps an on-wiki discussion is the way to progress this. Tom Where is that policy and discussion? Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
I would love to see the new project process on Meta come back online. (much of this email is posted to [[m:talk:new project proposals]]) I could use some help in making this happen - we need to start an incubator process for ideas with support, and a separate process for proposing existing projects that have been incubated elsewhere for support or hosting. The meta page for each proposed project should track its progress, whether offsite or on the incubator... a project infobox should be designed... an interested group (if less formal than langcom) should go through and review the backlog of proposals and suggest the necessary next step for each. On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 11:48 PM, Alec Conroy alecmcon...@gmail.com wrote: You can always make Wikinfo a sister project. A space to hold POV debates would be an interesting intermediate ground between no-restraint edit wars and topic bans, for those in heated argument. Is Wikinfo designed for this? I was thinking of something more like 'Wikireason'. There have been various proposals for an 'argument wiki' over the years, but I've never seen a working implementation. I have actually been independently trying to think of other wikis that should be sister projects. Some are really obvious and non-controversial-- SNPedia, for example, an encyclopedia of single nucleotide polymorphisms and related studies Yes. Link: http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia Genealogy: WeRelate and Rodovid. Both remarkable and lovely projects. Combinable, if all parties could be brought together. Both could use support; I've touched on the possibility of becoming WMF projects with each, and they are willing to discuss it. The result would be by far the largest free collection of genealogy information, with support from one of the major libraries studyig and archiving related data in the US Children's encyclopedia: WikiKids, Vikidia, Grundschulwiki, Wikimini. These projects could be coordinated better to share ideas and lessons, and could use more visibility. Some people active in these projects are already Wikimedians. Dictionaries: OmegaWiki. This multilingual dictionary could help revamp our toolchain for Wiktionary, which remains a bit broken. Interface translation: TranslateWiki. iirc it does not want to be a WMF project per se, but could use more explicit support than we have given so far. Citations and bibliography: AcaWiki (and the budding WikiScholar). Wikified maps: Wikimapia. currently profitable and popular; probably fine on their own. However they use a non-free map stack and use an NC license; finding a way to help that project migrate to a free stack and license [now that there is a free orthorectified aerial map available http://blog.stevecoast.com/im-working-at-microsoft-and-were-donating-ima] would be of benefit to the whole world. Other projects for which there is a supply of raw materials available from content donors (which we cannot currently accept): * Annotated source materials and their translations: Part of Wikisource++ ? * Translation memory: Part of Translatewiki++ ? * Public datasets: Wikidata * Music scores: Wikimusic We're at the point where the lack of diversity of our English language project 'styles' may be a major factor dissuading new users from participation. It is certainly one of the factors. Sam. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
On 11 July 2011 04:26, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Most of us have agendas, and this is the only major outlet most of us have access to. As a sort of aside-- everyone comes with agendas, and sometimes people act neutrally, sometimes people act like advocates for their agenda. I've always wondered if we couldn't peel off' the people who advocate by inviting them to participate in Something Else-- some designated advocate/argument/debate project. Something by advocates for advocates of advocates. Some people genuinely like to argue, and unfortunately, one of the best venues for argument are WP article edit summaries and talk pages. Right now, we only have neutral-style projects... this gives 'advocates' no one specific place to advocate their agendas, and this invites them to just 'advocate' in what should be neutral space. If we had some roped off Advocacy and Argument zone, that _might_ peel away the good faith people who want to make sure their point of view is heard, but are willing to honestly label their point of view as biased or non-neutral. It won't stop edit wars, but it might reduce their frequency and intensity. Alec You can always make Wikinfo a sister project. Fred See also http://opinion.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. Not sure if there are other projects in a similar vein. Pete / the wub ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Most of us have agendas, and this is the only major outlet most of us have access to. As a sort of aside-- everyone comes with agendas, and sometimes people act neutrally, sometimes people act like advocates for their agenda. I've always wondered if we couldn't peel off' the people who advocate by inviting them to participate in Something Else-- some designated advocate/argument/debate project. Something by advocates for advocates of advocates. Some people genuinely like to argue, and unfortunately, one of the best venues for argument are WP article edit summaries and talk pages. Right now, we only have neutral-style projects... this gives 'advocates' no one specific place to advocate their agendas, and this invites them to just 'advocate' in what should be neutral space. If we had some roped off Advocacy and Argument zone, that _might_ peel away the good faith people who want to make sure their point of view is heard, but are willing to honestly label their point of view as biased or non-neutral. It won't stop edit wars, but it might reduce their frequency and intensity. Alec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Most of us have agendas, and this is the only major outlet most of us have access to. As a sort of aside-- everyone comes with agendas, and sometimes people act neutrally, sometimes people act like advocates for their agenda. I've always wondered if we couldn't peel off' the people who advocate by inviting them to participate in Something Else-- some designated advocate/argument/debate project. Something by advocates for advocates of advocates. Some people genuinely like to argue, and unfortunately, one of the best venues for argument are WP article edit summaries and talk pages. Right now, we only have neutral-style projects... this gives 'advocates' no one specific place to advocate their agendas, and this invites them to just 'advocate' in what should be neutral space. If we had some roped off Advocacy and Argument zone, that _might_ peel away the good faith people who want to make sure their point of view is heard, but are willing to honestly label their point of view as biased or non-neutral. It won't stop edit wars, but it might reduce their frequency and intensity. Alec You can always make Wikinfo a sister project. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
You can always make Wikinfo a sister project. Fred That would be a rather elegant solution, wouldn't it. At a minimum, recognizing Wikinfo as Part of the Wikimedia Movement and incorporating links to it into our controversial articles.And then a next nice step would be if Wikinfo could seamlesly use WMF-hosted project's useraccounts, images, templates, and interwikilinks. Or perhaps it would just make more sense technologically to just host it with WMF, with the understanding that WMF doesn't endorse Wikinfo in the same way that it might kinda 'endorse' Wikipedia but recognizes it for what it is-- yet another useful way for people to collaboratively produce educational content. -- I have actually been independently trying to think of other wikis that should be sister projects. Some are really obvious and non-controversial-- SNPedia, for example, an encyclopedia of single nucleotide polymorphisms and related studies-- 'should' be a WMF-related project, unless either party doesn't want such an association for reasons I can't fathom. We're at the point where the lack of diversity of our English language project 'styles' may be a major factor dissuading new users from participation. It may be time to begin exploring new content types, new policy sets, new cultures, and new tech. -- I would _love_ to see Wikinfo get closer ties to WMF, including direct hosting if all groups like it. Back when we could only afford to have one project, I understand why Wikipedia was that project. Times have changed, and the more ways we let people edit, the more people will feel comfortable editing. Alec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Speaking of the British tabloids, of course. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/europe/10britain.html?nl=todaysheadlinesemc=globasasa2 The lesson for us is to not take a leading position, be topical, but to report events which have occurred and on which there is some sort of considered opinion and a set of known facts, even if it takes a day or two for them to develop. In the case of these tabloids its going to take months. The power of topical media is two-edged, seemingly exceedingly powerful, king-makers, but, as anyone familiar with our limited resources knows, quite weak if under serious attack, as is being shown in the case of the principals involved in this crisis. The British government is sick of kowtowing to them and seems to have just been waiting for an opportunity. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
If only I could be so sanguine; I cannot disagree with Fred's first paragraph, but as regards his second I must take issue. For a start, current events should be covered by Wikinews, and subsequent *encyclopedic treatment of those events be dealt with in analytic terms and in retrospect, by Wikipedia. That is why we have two projects, and not one. As regards the stance of the British government towards the media in this case, and in previous cases, it's clear to me that there is a dislocation between the two- and in my experience, the government has long since lost the support of the media, except in most general terms, and that is why we have the term spin-doctor. It's a two-way process, and not a new one, and where I am, I cannot see any way in which the division of reponsibility to the citizen is to be resolved. TBH, the relationship between politicians and the media, and both of them have their suspect agendas, is always going to be problematic, and all we should do as documenters of what happens is to perhaps stand back for a while, and when the dust has settled, WRITE A FUCKING ENCYCLOPEDIA! Why is that a problem? Fred Bauder wrote: Speaking of the British tabloids, of course. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/europe/10britain.html?nl=todaysheadlinesemc=globasasa2 The lesson for us is to not take a leading position, be topical, but to report events which have occurred and on which there is some sort of considered opinion and a set of known facts, even if it takes a day or two for them to develop. In the case of these tabloids its going to take months. The power of topical media is two-edged, seemingly exceedingly powerful, king-makers, but, as anyone familiar with our limited resources knows, quite weak if under serious attack, as is being shown in the case of the principals involved in this crisis. The British government is sick of kowtowing to them and seems to have just been waiting for an opportunity. Fred ___ 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] They do make or break reputations
If only I could be so sanguine; I cannot disagree with Fred's first paragraph, but as regards his second I must take issue. For a start, current events should be covered by Wikinews, and subsequent *encyclopedic treatment of those events be dealt with in analytic terms and in retrospect, by Wikipedia. That is why we have two projects, and not one. As regards the stance of the British government towards the media in this case, and in previous cases, it's clear to me that there is a dislocation between the two- and in my experience, the government has long since lost the support of the media, except in most general terms, and that is why we have the term spin-doctor. It's a two-way process, and not a new one, and where I am, I cannot see any way in which the division of reponsibility to the citizen is to be resolved. TBH, the relationship between politicians and the media, and both of them have their suspect agendas, is always going to be problematic, and all we should do as documenters of what happens is to perhaps stand back for a while, and when the dust has settled, WRITE A FUCKING ENCYCLOPEDIA! Why is that a problem? Most of us have agendas, and this is the only major outlet most of us have access to. Fred Fred Bauder wrote: Speaking of the British tabloids, of course. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/europe/10britain.html?nl=todaysheadlinesemc=globasasa2 The lesson for us is to not take a leading position, be topical, but to report events which have occurred and on which there is some sort of considered opinion and a set of known facts, even if it takes a day or two for them to develop. In the case of these tabloids its going to take months. The power of topical media is two-edged, seemingly exceedingly powerful, king-makers, but, as anyone familiar with our limited resources knows, quite weak if under serious attack, as is being shown in the case of the principals involved in this crisis. The British government is sick of kowtowing to them and seems to have just been waiting for an opportunity. Fred ___ 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] They do make or break reputations
Fred Bauder wrote: If only I could be so sanguine; I cannot disagree with Fred's first paragraph, but as regards his second I must take issue. For a start, current events should be covered by Wikinews, and subsequent *encyclopedic treatment of those events be dealt with in analytic terms and in retrospect, by Wikipedia. That is why we have two projects, and not one. As regards the stance of the British government towards the media in this case, and in previous cases, it's clear to me that there is a dislocation between the two- and in my experience, the government has long since lost the support of the media, except in most general terms, and that is why we have the term spin-doctor. It's a two-way process, and not a new one, and where I am, I cannot see any way in which the division of reponsibility to the citizen is to be resolved. TBH, the relationship between politicians and the media, and both of them have their suspect agendas, is always going to be problematic, and all we should do as documenters of what happens is to perhaps stand back for a while, and when the dust has settled, WRITE A FUCKING ENCYCLOPEDIA! Why is that a problem? Most of us have agendas, and this is the only major outlet most of us have access to. Fred And in what way is that an excuse to ignore the rules, or if you don't like them, seek to change them? Agenda-pushers will fall foul of OR, and other policies; those of us who merely wish Wikipedia to reflect the balance of current academic opinion, and are able to be objective about disputed points of view, should be empowered (and that is perhaps correct), to reject fringe theories, although it has to be said that such theories have traditionally been rejected out of hand on Wikpedia. I need sleep; if it matters, I'll come back. If it doesn't, I won't. Chuh! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
