Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Denny Vrandečić]

Scott,

The NC license clause is problematic in a number of jurisdictions. For
example, at least in Germany, as I remember from my law classes, it also
would definitively include not-for-profits, NGOs, and even say bloggers,
with or without ads on their sites. One must always be careful in the
choice of a license in order to avoid unintended consequences.

Just food for thought
Denny

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 20:51 John Erling Blad  wrote:

> My reference was to in-place discussions at WMDE, not the open meetings
> with Markus. Each week we had an open demo where Markus usually attended.
> As I remember the May-discussion, it was just a discussion in the office,
> there was a reference to an earlier meeting. It is although easy to mix up
> old memories, so what happen first and what happen next should not be taken
> to be facts. If Markus also says the same it is although a reasonable
> chance we have got it right.
>
> As to the questions about archives on open discussions with the community.
> This was in April-May 2012. There was no community, there were only
> concerned individuals. The community started to emerge in August with the
> first attempts to go public. On Wikidata_talk:Introduction there are some
> posts from 15. August 2012,[1] while first post on the subject page is from
> 30. October. The stuff from before October comes from a copy-paste from
> Meta.[3] Note that Denny writes "The data in Wikidata is published under a
> free license, allowing the reuse of the data in many different scenarios."
> but Whittylama changes this to "The data in Wikidata is published under [
> http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ a free license],
> allowing
> the reuse of the data in many different scenarios.",[4] and at that point
> there were a community on an open site and had been for a week. When
> Whittylama did his post it was the 4504th post on the site, so it was
> hardly the first! The license was initially a CC-SA.[8] I'm not quite sure
> when it was changed to CC0 in the footer,[9] but it seems to have happen
> before 31 October 2012, at 19:09. First post on Q1 is from 29. October
> 2012,[5] this is one of several items updated this evening.
>
> It is quite enlightening to start at oldid=1 [6] and stepping forward. You
> will find that our present incarnation went live 25. October 2012. So much
> for the "birthday". To ask for archived community discussions before 25th
> October does not make sense, there were no site, and the only people
> involved were mostly devs posting at Meta. Note for example that the page
> Wikidata:Introduction is from Meta.[7]
>
> [1] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:Introduction
> [2]
> https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Introduction=2677
> [3]
>
> https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata_talk:Introduction=133569705=128154617
> [4]
>
> https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Introduction=next=4504
> [5] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q1=103
> [6] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?oldid=1
> [7]
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata/Introduction=4030743
> [8]
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20121027015501/http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page
> [9]
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20121102074347/http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page
>
> On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 1:18 AM, Markus Krötzsch <
> mar...@semantic-mediawiki.org> wrote:
>
> > Dear Mathieu,
> >
> > Your post demands my response since I was there when CC0 was first chosen
> > (i.e., in the April meeting). I won't discuss your other claims here --
> the
> > discussions on the Wikidata list are already doing this, and I agree with
> > Lydia that no shouting is necessary here.
> >
> > Nevertheless, I must at least testify to what John wrote in his earlier
> > message (quote included below this email for reference): it was not
> Denny's
> > decision to go for CC0, but the outcome of a discussion among several
> > people who had worked with open data for some time before Wikidata was
> > born. I have personally supported this choice and still do. I have never
> > received any money directly or indirectly from Google, though -- full
> > disclosure -- I got several T-shirts for supervising in Summer of Code
> > projects.
> >
> > At no time did Google or any other company take part in our discussions
> in
> > the zeroth hour of Wikidata. And why should they? From what I can see on
> > their web page, Google has no problem with all kinds of different license
> > terms in the data they display. Also, I can tell you that we would have
> > reacted in a very allergic way to such attempts, so if any company had
> > approached us, this would quite likely have backfired. But, believe it or
> > not, when we started it was all but clear that this would become a
> relevant
> > project at all, and no major company even cared to lobby us. It was still
> > mostly a few hackers getting together in varying 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[John Erling Blad]

My reference was to in-place discussions at WMDE, not the open meetings
with Markus. Each week we had an open demo where Markus usually attended.
As I remember the May-discussion, it was just a discussion in the office,
there was a reference to an earlier meeting. It is although easy to mix up
old memories, so what happen first and what happen next should not be taken
to be facts. If Markus also says the same it is although a reasonable
chance we have got it right.

As to the questions about archives on open discussions with the community.
This was in April-May 2012. There was no community, there were only
concerned individuals. The community started to emerge in August with the
first attempts to go public. On Wikidata_talk:Introduction there are some
posts from 15. August 2012,[1] while first post on the subject page is from
30. October. The stuff from before October comes from a copy-paste from
Meta.[3] Note that Denny writes "The data in Wikidata is published under a
free license, allowing the reuse of the data in many different scenarios."
but Whittylama changes this to "The data in Wikidata is published under [
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ a free license], allowing
the reuse of the data in many different scenarios.",[4] and at that point
there were a community on an open site and had been for a week. When
Whittylama did his post it was the 4504th post on the site, so it was
hardly the first! The license was initially a CC-SA.[8] I'm not quite sure
when it was changed to CC0 in the footer,[9] but it seems to have happen
before 31 October 2012, at 19:09. First post on Q1 is from 29. October
2012,[5] this is one of several items updated this evening.

It is quite enlightening to start at oldid=1 [6] and stepping forward. You
will find that our present incarnation went live 25. October 2012. So much
for the "birthday". To ask for archived community discussions before 25th
October does not make sense, there were no site, and the only people
involved were mostly devs posting at Meta. Note for example that the page
Wikidata:Introduction is from Meta.[7]

[1] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:Introduction
[2]
https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Introduction=2677
[3]
https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata_talk:Introduction=133569705=128154617
[4]
https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Introduction=next=4504
[5] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q1=103
[6] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?oldid=1
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata/Introduction=4030743
[8]
https://web.archive.org/web/20121027015501/http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page
[9]
https://web.archive.org/web/20121102074347/http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 1:18 AM, Markus Krötzsch <
mar...@semantic-mediawiki.org> wrote:

> Dear Mathieu,
>
> Your post demands my response since I was there when CC0 was first chosen
> (i.e., in the April meeting). I won't discuss your other claims here -- the
> discussions on the Wikidata list are already doing this, and I agree with
> Lydia that no shouting is necessary here.
>
> Nevertheless, I must at least testify to what John wrote in his earlier
> message (quote included below this email for reference): it was not Denny's
> decision to go for CC0, but the outcome of a discussion among several
> people who had worked with open data for some time before Wikidata was
> born. I have personally supported this choice and still do. I have never
> received any money directly or indirectly from Google, though -- full
> disclosure -- I got several T-shirts for supervising in Summer of Code
> projects.
>
> At no time did Google or any other company take part in our discussions in
> the zeroth hour of Wikidata. And why should they? From what I can see on
> their web page, Google has no problem with all kinds of different license
> terms in the data they display. Also, I can tell you that we would have
> reacted in a very allergic way to such attempts, so if any company had
> approached us, this would quite likely have backfired. But, believe it or
> not, when we started it was all but clear that this would become a relevant
> project at all, and no major company even cared to lobby us. It was still
> mostly a few hackers getting together in varying locations in Berlin. There
> was a lot of fun, optimism, and excitement in this early phase of Wikidata
> (well, I guess we are still in this phase).
>
> So please do not start emails with made-up stories around past events that
> you have not even been close to (calling something "research" is no
> substitute for methodology and rigour). Putting unsourced personal attacks
> against community members before all other arguments is a reckless way of
> maximising effect, and such rhetoric can damage our movement beyond this
> thread or topic. Our main strength is not our content but our community,
> and I am glad to see that many 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Hello Markus,

First rest assured that any feedback provided will be integrated in the 
research project on the topic with proper references, including this 
email. It might not come before beginning of next week however, as I'm 
already more than fully booked until then. But once again it's on a 
wiki, be bold.


Le 01/12/2017 à 01:18, Markus Krötzsch a écrit :

Dear Mathieu,

Your post demands my response since I was there when CC0 was first 
chosen (i.e., in the April meeting). I won't discuss your other claims 
here -- the discussions on the Wikidata list are already doing this, 
and I agree with Lydia that no shouting is necessary here.


Nevertheless, I must at least testify to what John wrote in his 
earlier message (quote included below this email for reference): it 
was not Denny's decision to go for CC0, but the outcome of a 
discussion among several people who had worked with open data for some 
time before Wikidata was born. I have personally supported this choice 
and still do. I have never received any money directly or indirectly 
from Google, though -- full disclosure -- I got several T-shirts for 
supervising in Summer of Code projects.


Maybe I wasn't clear enough on that too, but to my mind the problem is 
not money but governance. Anyone with too much cash can throw it 
wherever wanted, and if some fall into Wikimedia pocket, that's fine.


But the moment a decision that impact so deeply Wikimedia governance and 
future happen, then maximum transparency must be present, communication 
must be extensive, and taking into account community feedback is 
extremely preferable. No one is perfect, myself included, so its all the 
more important to listen to external feedback. I said earlier that I 
found the knowledge engine was a good idea, but for what I red it seems 
that transparency didn't reach expectation of the community.


So, I was wrong my inferences around Denny, good news. Of course I would 
prefer to have other archived sources to confirm that. No mistrust 
intended, I think most of us are accustomed to put claims in perspective 
with sources and think critically.


For completeness, was this discussion online or – to bring bag the 
earlier stated testimony – around a pizza? If possible, could you 
provide a list of involved people? Did a single person took the final 
decision, or was it a show of hands, or some consensus emerged from 
discussion? Or maybe the community was consulted with a vote, and if 
yes, where can I find the archive?


Also archives show that lawyers were consulted on the topic, could we 
have a copy of their report?


At no time did Google or any other company take part in our 
discussions in the zeroth hour of Wikidata. And why should they? From 
what I can see on their web page, Google has no problem with all kinds 
of different license terms in the data they display.
Because they are more and more moving to a business model of providing 
themselves what people are looking for to keep users in their sphere of 
tracking and influence, probably with the sole idea of generating more 
revenue I guess.
Also, I can tell you that we would have reacted in a very allergic way 
to such attempts, so if any company had approached us, this would 
quite likely have backfired. But, believe it or not, when we started 
it was all but clear that this would become a relevant project at all, 
and no major company even cared to lobby us. It was still mostly a few 
hackers getting together in varying locations in Berlin. There was a 
lot of fun, optimism, and excitement in this early phase of Wikidata 
(well, I guess we are still in this phase).
Please situate that in time so we can place that in a timeline. In March 
2012 Wikimedia DE announced the initial funding of 1.3 million Euros by 
Google, Paul Allen's Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Gordon 
and Betty Moore Foundation.


So please do not start emails with made-up stories around past events 
that you have not even been close to (calling something "research" is 
no substitute for methodology and rigour). 
But that's all the problem here, no one should have to carry the pain of 
trying to reconstruct what happened through such a research. Process of 
this kind of decision should have been documented and should be easily 
be found in archives. If you have suggestion in methods, please provide 
them. Just denigrating the work don't help in any way to improve it. If 
there are additional sources that I missed, please provide them. If 
there are methodologies that would help improve the work, references are 
welcome.


Putting unsourced personal attacks against community members before 
all other arguments is a reckless way of maximising effect, and such 
rhetoric can damage our movement beyond this thread or topic. 
All this is built on references. If the analyze is wrong, for example 
because it missed crucial undocumented information this must be 
corrected with additional sources. Wikidata team, as far as I 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimania-l] Call for Scholarship Committee, Help wanted for new applicants and African community

[DerHexer]

Some links are broken but should forward now to the right places. However, 
please send us mails to wikimania-scholarsh...@wikimedia.org and not to 
whatever is linked there. Sorry about that.
Please help us spread the word, thank you!
Best,Martin

  Von: Martin Rulsch 
 An: Wikimania general list (open subscription) 
; Wikimedia Mailing List 
 
 Gesendet: 1:12 Freitag, 1.Dezember 2017
 Betreff: [Wikimania-l] Call for Scholarship Committee, Help wanted for new 
applicants and African community
   
Dear Wikimaniacs,

we are now calling for the Scholarship Committee.

The Scholarship Committee is an important and diverse group of volunteers who 
help to run the scholarship program. We encourage people from all Wikimedia 
wikis to apply for this position so that the committee can handle applications 
in many different languages.

The main duties of the committee members prior to Wikimania 2018 are:
* Participation in periodic online meetings with scholarships program manager 
and other committee members.
* Review and edit communications material (e.g. application questions).
* Assistance in determination of scholarship applicant requirements.
* Assurance of due consideration and speedy response time to Wikimania 
scholarship applications in multiple languages.

For further information please visit 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Handbook#Scholarships and 
https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships.

We are looking for Wikimedians from all over the world, who are:
* fluent in written English and have good communication skills, or can name 
local community member(s) who help them with English translations.
* discreet and able to handle confidential applicant information, and 
objectively assess candidates.
* willing to review scholarship applications remotely in early 2018, estimated 
time is 30 hours. A review guide can be found on 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars/Reviewer%27s_guide.
* having either or both:
** previously attended Wikimania,
** strong knowledge of the cross-project Wikimedia community.

Scholarship Committee members may not apply for a scholarship themselves but 
there is a small budget for supporting committee members to attend Wikimania. 
Please tell us if you need financial support in case you’ll be selected.

If you're interested in serving on the Scholarship Committee, please send us an 
email to  wikimania-scholarsh...@wikimedia.org. If you have any questions, 
please don't hesitate to contact us there as well.

Deadline to apply is Sunday, December 10, 2017. The organizers will contact all 
candidates and publish the list of scholarship committee members right 
afterwards.

Proposed timeline
* Nov 30–Dec 10: Call for Scholarship Committee
* mid-December: Selection of the Scholarship Committee and start of the 
submission time
* 5–26 February (estimated time frame): main review time

Before the start of the submission time, we are adapting the application 
process to take recent activities more into account than the years before, as 
proposed on wikimania-l. On the one hand we want to encourage returning 
Wikimania participants to share their knowledge, on the other newcomers to 
Wikimania to apply for a scholarship at all. Former scholarship recipients can 
help us with the latter by sharing their successful applications on MetaWiki: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships.
 In case you don’t have your text at hand, you can send us a confirmation mail 
to wikimania-scholarsh...@wikimedia.org where you allow us to publish it for 
you.

Above all, we want to support African community members with applying for 
scholarships. To achieve that, we are especially looking for volunteers who 
want help us with encouraging people, assisting with the application form, 
finding the right level of presenting one’s activities, etc. Please reach out 
to us if you'd like to help.

Many thanks,
David Richfield and Martin Rulsch
Wikimania 2018 Scholarship Committee 
co-organizers___
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wikimani...@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l


   
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[Wikimedia-l] Call for Scholarship Committee, Help wanted for new applicants and African community

[Martin Rulsch]

Dear Wikimaniacs,

we are now calling for the Scholarship Committee.

The Scholarship Committee is an important and diverse group of volunteers
who help to run the scholarship program. We encourage people from all
Wikimedia wikis to apply for this position so that the committee can handle
applications in many different languages.

The main duties of the committee members prior to Wikimania 2018 are:
* Participation in periodic online meetings with scholarships program
manager and other committee members.
* Review and edit communications material (e.g. application questions).
* Assistance in determination of scholarship applicant requirements.
* Assurance of due consideration and speedy response time to Wikimania
scholarship applications in multiple languages.

For further information please visit
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Handbook#Scholarships and
https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships.

We are looking for Wikimedians from all over the world, who are:
* fluent in written English and have good communication skills, or can name
local community member(s) who help them with English translations.
* discreet and able to handle confidential applicant information, and
objectively assess candidates.
* willing to review scholarship applications remotely in early 2018,
estimated time is 30 hours. A review guide can be found on
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars/Reviewer%27s_guide
.
* having either or both:
** previously attended Wikimania,
** strong knowledge of the cross-project Wikimedia community.

Scholarship Committee members may not apply for a scholarship themselves
but there is a small budget for supporting committee members to attend
Wikimania. Please tell us if you need financial support in case you’ll be
selected.

If you're interested in serving on the Scholarship Committee, please send
us an email to  wikimania-scholarsh...@wikimedia.org. If you have any
questions, please don't hesitate to contact us there as well.

Deadline to apply is Sunday, December 10, 2017. The organizers will contact
all candidates and publish the list of scholarship committee members right
afterwards.

Proposed timeline
* Nov 30–Dec 10: Call for Scholarship Committee
* mid-December: Selection of the Scholarship Committee and start of the
submission time
* 5–26 February (estimated time frame): main review time

Before the start of the submission time, we are adapting the application
process to take recent activities more into account than the years before,
as proposed on wikimania-l. On the one hand we want to encourage returning
Wikimania participants to share their knowledge, on the other newcomers to
Wikimania to apply for a scholarship at all. Former scholarship recipients
can help us with the latter by sharing their successful applications on
MetaWiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships.
In case you don’t have your text at hand, you can send us a confirmation
mail to wikimania-scholarsh...@wikimedia.org where you allow us to publish
it for you.

Above all, we want to support African community members with applying for
scholarships. To achieve that, we are especially looking for volunteers who
want help us with encouraging people, assisting with the application form,
finding the right level of presenting one’s activities, etc. Please reach
out to us if you'd like to help.

Many thanks,
David Richfield
 and Martin
Rulsch 
Wikimania 2018 Scholarship Committee co-organizers
___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Le 30/11/2017 à 12:14, Andrea Zanni a écrit :

Maybe, instead of thinking about CC0 vs CC-BY-SA,
we should try to think at the goal: how can we, as a movement,
"fight" the exploitation from over-the-top players of community-generated
content?
Thank you for enlightening this surely far better way to investigate the 
topic.
Stand back is often very helpful, but also often difficult when you have 
your nose in the data.

Of course, license is the primary tool every one of us thinks about.
But (and please correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think that things changed
much from when Wikidata was not here and Google just scraped/crawled
Wikipedia for their own knowledge base. Players like Google have resources
and skill to basically do what they want, and if I recall correctly they
didn't really stop with CC-BY-SA content. So license is not an obstacle for
them. As much as I don't personally like this, my question is: Is this a real
problem?
I miss clear data on that, but I came across some documents making a 
parallel between a shrink of audience in Wikipedia and the arrival of 
Google Knowledg Graph. So the basic argument was, less traffic, less 
people know our movement, less potential contributors and less donors. 
But I didn't deepen this topic yet. Any reference which confirm/infirm 
or simply speak about this corollary is welcome.

I don't like the idea of Wikimedia communities giving content for free to
players so big that can actually profit hugely from this,
(huge profits always translates to huge power), but I really don't know
what we could do about this.
Well, I'm far less concerned with other actors making little, medium or 
huge profit by using work of our community. Per se, I don't see it as a 
threat for our community, and even this actors might give back in some 
way if they wish. And in fact, some do. Google does provide to our 
community some useful resources, not only money but they also organize 
events like summer of code which benefits our community.


What raises my concern is that this actors can have a negative effect on 
our community liveliness, even if it's not their goal at all and that 
they are fine with the idea of helping us where it doesn't directly 
conflict with their business model.


I say Google, but other prominent actors which makes the sun shine or 
make it rain as regards of web audience are equally replaceable in 
previous sentences.


So to my point of view, despite all the controversies it raised 
"knowledge engine" as a general search open engine would be an 
interesting idea to explore. That could avoid being left without 
visibility due to main actors of the field moving to a new paradigm 
where our community is no longer useful for them, or even in direct 
competition with what they are targeting but under a closed garden paradigm.




Aubrey



On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:


2017-11-30 11:46 GMT+02:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:

Nobody suggest in no way to do license laundering nor to violates

Wiktionaries licence,

It's not suggestion, it's what Wikidata is already doing with Wikipedia,

despite the initial statement of Wikidata team[1] that it wouldn't do that
because it's illegal :

/"Alexrk2, it is true that Wikidata under CC0 would not be allowed
to import content from a Share-Alike data source. Wikidata does not
plan to extract content out of Wikipedia at all. Wikidata will
provide data that can be reused in the Wikipedias./"
– Denny Vrandečić


https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata#Is_CC_the_
right_license_for_data.3F

I think that the extent to which massive import without respecting

license of the source  should be investigated properly by the Wikimedia
legal team, or some qualified consultants.

In the mid time, based on its previous practises, it's clear that

promises of Wikidata team regarding respect of licenses can not be trusted.
So even if they suggested that that kind of massive import won't be done,
it wouldn't be enough.

This is another personal attack, and it's unnecessary and incorrect.

The imports from Wikipedia were done by the Wikidata community, not by
Wikidata team.

It's too easy to speak in retrospect, but there were these plausible
scenarios:

1. Editors who strongly care about reliable sourcing, in the style of
English Wikipedia verifiability policies, are strongly opposed to importing
data from Wikipedia, because by itself it's a self-reference and not a
reliable source. If it would succeed, data would not be imported from
Wikipedia, not because of licensing, but because of content quality. I
remember attempts to do this, but evidently this is not what happened.

2. Editors who strongly care about the prevention of license whitewashing
object to importing data from Wikipedia and prevent it. This also could
happen, but it didn't.

3. Editors who are good at writing bots or making a lot of manual edits and
love 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[John Erling Blad]

Just to make it clear; the discussions at the dev-project was in April-May
2012, linking of wd-items on site late in 29 October 2012 (actually 29.
October), Danny told us about his new Google job in January 2013.

I believe someone must have gotten this backwards.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Le 30/11/2017 à 11:04, Amir E. Aharoni a écrit :

2017-11-30 11:46 GMT+02:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
promises of Wikidata team regarding respect of licenses can not be trusted.
So even if they suggested that that kind of massive import won't be done,
it wouldn't be enough.

This is another personal attack, and it's unnecessary and incorrect.
Well, I don't know on this one, I'm talking about "Wikidata team". Maybe 
the statement might be considered incorrect, but is it personal attack 
to mention who said what with a precise source? Or is it the way I 
formulated that was needlessly aggressive? What would be a more proper 
way to formulate that there was a stated promise which wasn't hold?


Once again, my goal is not to offence anyone, be it an individual or a 
group of people. On the other hand, when there are decisions which are 
taken by some entity which clearly identify itself as responsible for 
the decision, then isn't it fair to consider this entity as also 
responsible for consequences of this decision. At least to some extent 
which don't include reasonably unpredictable consequences.

The imports from Wikipedia were done by the Wikidata community, not by
Wikidata team.
Sure, and I think that here the responsibility is shared between the 
Wikidata community and the team which promised it would not happen. 
Hopefully, Wikisource community would no allow anyone to publish a work 
like Harry Potter in it's repository. Or even less legally problematic 
some works available under a CC-by-sa-nc license or some equivalent. And 
would the Wikisource community be lenient enough for allowing that, I 
would expect the foundation to remove this works, especially if authors 
of this works would complain about this license laundering.


Also I wonder why Wikipedia community didn't react to this massive 
extraction, if indeed it didn't, so maybe there are also some convincing 
arguments that was presented to him that I'm not aware of. Once again, 
references are welcome.


So, maybe I'll proven completely wrong here too, with some point I'm not 
aware of, which would be fine. Otherwise Wikidata team did indeed let 
the community go in too lenient behaviours.


By the way, arguments proposed here will be used in further evolution of 
the project research on this topic. Plus it's on Wikiversity, so if you 
speak French, your contributions are welcome.



It's too easy to speak in retrospect, but there were these plausible scenarios:
Well, the easiest way to go is to blindly follow anywhere the majority 
goes. Anything else is more difficult. Building scenarios is good, and 
trying to falsify them with available data is even better.



1. Editors who strongly care about reliable sourcing, in the style of
English Wikipedia verifiability policies, are strongly opposed to importing
data from Wikipedia, because by itself it's a self-reference and not a
reliable source. If it would succeed, data would not be imported from
Wikipedia, not because of licensing, but because of content quality. I
remember attempts to do this, but evidently this is not what happened.
Yes, I came across some document on that matter, which fed my thoughts 
on traceability. Actually, from document I went through it's probably 
the most recurring concern that I found expressed by the community. And 
the most usual answer is (in spirit) that "it will improve in the 
future, this is a useful transition state, later more external sources 
will supersed Wikipedia for the same statements". Apart from the 
usefulness from a Wikipedia perspective, that are arguments that all 
sound rather consistent to my mind.


I'm not sure of the current state of use of Wikidata within the 
miscellaneous Wikipedia projects, and what community discussions 
occurred in each. References are welcome here too.

2. Editors who strongly care about the prevention of license whitewashing
object to importing data from Wikipedia and prevent it. This also could
happen, but it didn't.

3. Editors who are good at writing bots or making a lot of manual edits and
love seeing Wikidata getting filled with data, import a lot of data. Like
it or not, this happened.

Could anybody know in 2012 what would actually happen? I don't know. If you
would have asked me then, I'd possibly guess that scenarios 1 and 2 are
likelier, but now we know that that would be very naïve.
The problem is not so much predictions, which is always difficult, 
especially about future.


The problem is the will of Wikidata team to intervene when the community 
is crossing the line that they themselves previously identified as not 
legally negotiable.

Judging by what happened in the past, I can suspect that data from
Wiktionary will be imported anyway. Public domain or not, the bots people
will find a way around licenses. It's a certain eventuality. The bigger
questions are under what license will it be eventually stored, under what
licenses will it be reused, and will this 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Liam Wyatt]

Thanks Cornelius!
Why am I not surprised that you would have the precise documentation
already prepared :-)

p.s. Sandra: understood. this is what I mean by the legal contexts being
different for how boards are formed but the desire being [approximately]
the same.

wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata

On 30 November 2017 at 15:05, Cornelius Kibelka <
cornelius.kibe...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> For those who are interested in cooption (appointing) of (volunteer) board
> members, I can recommend you to read the documentation of the Wikimedia
> Conference 2017 session "Cooption in Wikimedia boards":
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017/Program/45.
> Itzik
> Edri (WMIL), Michael Maggs (WMUK) and Nataliia Tymkiv (WMF) explained how
> their organizations' appointing processes, structures and experiences are.
>
> Best regards
> Cornelius
>
> On 30 November 2017 at 14:53, Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland <
> rient...@wikimedia.nl> wrote:
>
> > Hi Liam,
> >
> > Just a small point of clarification:  in Wikimedia Nederland the Board
> does
> > not have the possibility to appoint new Board Members. The General
> Assembly
> > 'appoints' (i.e. elects) all members of the Board.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> >
> > Sandra Rientjes
> > Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
> >
> > tel.(+31) (0)30 3200238 <+31%2030%20320%200238>
> > mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379 <+31%206%2031786379>
> >
> > www.wikimedia.nl
> >
> >
> > Mariaplaats 3
> > 3511 LH  Utrecht
> >
> > 2017-11-30 14:35 GMT+01:00 Liam Wyatt :
> >
> > > Thank you for this information Tim, and welcome Peter, and Gabriele!
> > >
> > > I know that the boards of Wikimedia- Germany, France, UK and
> Netherlands
> > > have "appointed" seats (also known as "external" or "expert" seats),
> and
> > so
> > > too does the WMF. I assume that the formal legal process for these are
> > all
> > > different according to local laws, but I also assume that the purpose
> is
> > > roughly the same: to ensure there is diversity of expertise and
> opinions,
> > > to fill specifically identified skill gaps, and to guard against a mere
> > > 'popularity contest' election.
> > >
> > > Do any other Chapters have "appointed" seats on their boards? Have some
> > > Chapters tried, but rejected the concept?
> > >
> > >
> > > wittylama.com
> > > Peace, love & metadata
> > >
> > > On 30 November 2017 at 14:08, Tim Moritz Hector <
> > > tim-moritz.hec...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi all,
> > > >
> > > > just a short rectification: We have up to 2 (not 3) appointed seats
> in
> > > the
> > > > board. So in total our board consists of 9 members: 7 elected by the
> > > > general assembly and 2 appointed.
> > > >
> > > > I am happy that now, with the appointment of Gabriele and Peter, we
> > have
> > > > all seats on our board filled.
> > > >
> > > > Best regards,
> > > > Tim
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 2017-11-30 13:47 GMT+01:00 Tim Moritz Hector
> > >  > > > de
> > > > >:
> > > >
> > > > > Dear all,
> > > > >
> > > > > I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has
> > taken
> > > > > the opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr.
> > > > Gabriele
> > > > > Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
> > > > >
> > > > > After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3
> appointed
> > > > > seats, we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the
> > > board.
> > > > We
> > > > > focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> > > > > financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed
> > > > impressive
> > > > > profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
> > > > >
> > > > > We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and
> serves
> > > as
> > > > > department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the
> > > > German
> > > > > federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35
> > years
> > > of
> > > > > expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group
> Sage,
> > > was
> > > > > member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and
> has a
> > > lot
> > > > > of experience in volunteer work.
> > > > >
> > > > > Both will be members of the board until the next election by the
> > > general
> > > > > assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele
> and
> > > > Peter
> > > > > to the Wikiverse.
> > > > >
> > > > > Best regards,
> > > > > Tim Moritz Hector
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Tim Moritz Hector
> > > > > Chair of the Board
> > > > > Wikimedia Deutschland
> > > > >
> > > > ___
> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Eileen Hershenov]

These sound like amazing choices for the board. Congratulations and welcome!
On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 7:47 AM Tim Moritz Hector <
tim-moritz.hec...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has taken the
> opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr. Gabriele
> Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
>
> After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3 appointed seats,
> we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the board. We
> focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed impressive
> profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
>
> We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and serves as
> department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the German
> federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35 years of
> expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group Sage, was
> member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and has a lot
> of experience in volunteer work.
>
> Both will be members of the board until the next election by the general
> assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele and Peter
> to the Wikiverse.
>
> Best regards,
> Tim Moritz Hector
>
>
> --
> Tim Moritz Hector
> Chair of the Board
> Wikimedia Deutschland
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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> 

-- 
Eileen B. Hershenov
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600

San Francisco, CA 94104

(Licensed in New York; applying for California Registered In-House Counsel
status)
ehershe...@wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Asaf Bartov]

Congratulations, Peter and Gabriele, and WMDE.

Liam, to your question, at least one other chapter has appointed board
members: Wikimedia Israel.

   A.

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 5:36 AM Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> Thank you for this information Tim, and welcome Peter, and Gabriele!
>
> I know that the boards of Wikimedia- Germany, France, UK and Netherlands
> have "appointed" seats (also known as "external" or "expert" seats), and so
> too does the WMF. I assume that the formal legal process for these are all
> different according to local laws, but I also assume that the purpose is
> roughly the same: to ensure there is diversity of expertise and opinions,
> to fill specifically identified skill gaps, and to guard against a mere
> 'popularity contest' election.
>
> Do any other Chapters have "appointed" seats on their boards? Have some
> Chapters tried, but rejected the concept?
>
>
> wittylama.com
> Peace, love & metadata
>
> On 30 November 2017 at 14:08, Tim Moritz Hector <
> tim-moritz.hec...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > just a short rectification: We have up to 2 (not 3) appointed seats in
> the
> > board. So in total our board consists of 9 members: 7 elected by the
> > general assembly and 2 appointed.
> >
> > I am happy that now, with the appointment of Gabriele and Peter, we have
> > all seats on our board filled.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Tim
> >
> >
> >
> > 2017-11-30 13:47 GMT+01:00 Tim Moritz Hector
>  > de
> > >:
> >
> > > Dear all,
> > >
> > > I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has taken
> > > the opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr.
> > Gabriele
> > > Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
> > >
> > > After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3 appointed
> > > seats, we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the
> board.
> > We
> > > focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> > > financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed
> > impressive
> > > profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
> > >
> > > We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and serves
> as
> > > department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the
> > German
> > > federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35 years
> of
> > > expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group Sage,
> was
> > > member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and has a
> lot
> > > of experience in volunteer work.
> > >
> > > Both will be members of the board until the next election by the
> general
> > > assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele and
> > Peter
> > > to the Wikiverse.
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > > Tim Moritz Hector
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Tim Moritz Hector
> > > Chair of the Board
> > > Wikimedia Deutschland
> > >
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Liam Wyatt]

Thank you for this information Tim, and welcome Peter, and Gabriele!

I know that the boards of Wikimedia- Germany, France, UK and Netherlands
have "appointed" seats (also known as "external" or "expert" seats), and so
too does the WMF. I assume that the formal legal process for these are all
different according to local laws, but I also assume that the purpose is
roughly the same: to ensure there is diversity of expertise and opinions,
to fill specifically identified skill gaps, and to guard against a mere
'popularity contest' election.

Do any other Chapters have "appointed" seats on their boards? Have some
Chapters tried, but rejected the concept?


wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata

On 30 November 2017 at 14:08, Tim Moritz Hector <
tim-moritz.hec...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> just a short rectification: We have up to 2 (not 3) appointed seats in the
> board. So in total our board consists of 9 members: 7 elected by the
> general assembly and 2 appointed.
>
> I am happy that now, with the appointment of Gabriele and Peter, we have
> all seats on our board filled.
>
> Best regards,
> Tim
>
>
>
> 2017-11-30 13:47 GMT+01:00 Tim Moritz Hector  de
> >:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has taken
> > the opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr.
> Gabriele
> > Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
> >
> > After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3 appointed
> > seats, we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the board.
> We
> > focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> > financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed
> impressive
> > profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
> >
> > We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and serves as
> > department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the
> German
> > federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35 years of
> > expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group Sage, was
> > member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and has a lot
> > of experience in volunteer work.
> >
> > Both will be members of the board until the next election by the general
> > assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele and
> Peter
> > to the Wikiverse.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Tim Moritz Hector
> >
> >
> > --
> > Tim Moritz Hector
> > Chair of the Board
> > Wikimedia Deutschland
> >
> ___
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>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Nataliia Tymkiv]

Dear Gabriele and Peter,
Welcome!

Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv

*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!*


On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 2:47 PM, Tim Moritz Hector <
tim-moritz.hec...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has taken the
> opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr. Gabriele
> Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
>
> After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3 appointed seats,
> we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the board. We
> focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed impressive
> profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
>
> We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and serves as
> department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the German
> federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35 years of
> expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group Sage, was
> member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and has a lot
> of experience in volunteer work.
>
> Both will be members of the board until the next election by the general
> assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele and Peter
> to the Wikiverse.
>
> Best regards,
> Tim Moritz Hector
>
>
> --
> Tim Moritz Hector
> Chair of the Board
> Wikimedia Deutschland
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
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> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Le 30/11/2017 à 10:13, Egon Willighagen a écrit :

Dear Mathieu,

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 10:45 PM, Mathieu Stumpf Guntz 
> 
wrote:


I forward here the message I initially posted on the Meta
Tremendous Wiktionary User Group talk page

,
because I'm interested to have a wider feedback of the community
on this point. Whether you think that my view is completely
misguided or that I might have a few relevant points, I'm
extremely interested to know it, so please be bold.

As having contributed to many open database and as user of many open 
database, the CCZero is my default choice for making data open. 
Adoption of this license is, IMHO, the prime reason Wikidata is 
growing so fast, and integrated so fast in many use cases.
Well, that would indeed be a huge point in favor of CC0 then. 
Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any way to turn that into a measurable 
analyze, as too many factors might come coincidentally to this. However, 
since you are contributor of many open database, maybe you are aware of 
some studies on the subject which can back your opinion.


License incompatibilities have been a major concern in open source 
development and academic research. Yes, there too, there is a 
continuous almost-religious and unsolved discussion about copylefting, 
but the plain experience there is that the closer to the idea of 
public domain, the easier it is to use. The advantages of CCZero have 
been widely discussed in the life sciences, and while not everyone 
choice, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages for many.
Well, surely my message don't help to make it obvious, but I'm not 
radically against CC0, and don't deny it does have huge advantages in 
reuse. As an example I already gave the CC0/public domain for works 
publishd by State institutions. This is something that I am completely 
favorable to and will defend and promote anytime I can.


I also note that public domain (which CCZero formalizes across 
jurisdictions) is still the "ideal" license when uploading images to 
Wikimedia, suggesting more of Wikimedia actually finds the CCZero idea 
very welcome.
I'm not sure what you mean here. If you are talking about things like 
pictures that the NASA release, I think it falls in the case exposed 
above. If you are speaking of the most used license on Wikimedia by 
benevolent contributors, I'm not aware of the statistics on this topic, 
but would be interested to have some.


Also stress that in no way I recognize myself in your comments about 
Denny and Google.

I guess it's all  in your honour.
And your comment that "freedom of one is murder and slavery of others" 
needs some refinement, IMHO; my definition of "freedom" is quite 
different and I experience your definition as abusive and offensive.
If you mean "freedom of one begins where it confirms freedom of others", 
it's not "my" definition, however I could not give proper credit to it. 
Maybe Joseph Déjacque was among the first to publish this with some 
variation in the exact formulation. But really this not "mine 
definition". Also it is of course not the ultimate definition of freedom 
that everybody have to agree with.


If you are talking about the more dramatic example of "freedom abuse" I 
provided next to this definition, as far as I'm aware it's more or less 
my forgery. Although it probably was somewhat influenced by a comment of 
Teofilo[1].


Suggestion of less dramatic examples which enlighten the point just as 
well are welcome.


[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata#Teofilo



The CCZero license of Wikidata is essential to my contributions and 
use of Wikimedia products. The chemistry knowledge in Wikidata is 100x 
more useful (to me) than that in Wikipedia etc. That is in part 
because of the machine readability, but also to a large part by the 
choice of CCZero.


I hope this helps,

with kind regards,

Egon

--
E.L. Willighagen
Department of Bioinformatics - BiGCaT
Maastricht University (http://www.bigcat.unimaas.nl/)
Homepage: http://egonw.github.com/
LinkedIn: http://se.linkedin.com/in/egonw
Blog: http://chem-bla-ics.blogspot.com/
PubList: http://www.citeulike.org/user/egonw/tag/papers
ORCID: -0001-7542-0286
ImpactStory: https://impactstory.org/u/egonwillighagen


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Tim Moritz Hector]

Hi all,

just a short rectification: We have up to 2 (not 3) appointed seats in the
board. So in total our board consists of 9 members: 7 elected by the
general assembly and 2 appointed.

I am happy that now, with the appointment of Gabriele and Peter, we have
all seats on our board filled.

Best regards,
Tim



2017-11-30 13:47 GMT+01:00 Tim Moritz Hector :

> Dear all,
>
> I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has taken
> the opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr. Gabriele
> Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
>
> After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3 appointed
> seats, we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the board. We
> focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed impressive
> profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
>
> We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and serves as
> department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the German
> federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35 years of
> expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group Sage, was
> member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and has a lot
> of experience in volunteer work.
>
> Both will be members of the board until the next election by the general
> assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele and Peter
> to the Wikiverse.
>
> Best regards,
> Tim Moritz Hector
>
>
> --
> Tim Moritz Hector
> Chair of the Board
> Wikimedia Deutschland
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[John Erling Blad]

You can copyright an expression about facts, but you can't copyright the
facts. In some jurisdictions a collection of facts can be given a special
protection, but still the individual facts are not protected.

>>A single property licensing scheme would allow storage of data,
>>it might or might not allow reuse of the licensed data together with
>>other data. Remember that all entries in the servers might be part
>of an mashup with all other entries.

>That's a very interesting point. Does anyone know a clear extensive report
of what is legal or not regarding massive import of data >extracted from
some source?

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 10:48 AM, Xavier Combelle  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Did not read your whole argument, but as a collection of brute facts, it
> is hard to see how the content of wikidata could
> be in something else than public domain.
>
> As a whole, the database could present a Sui generis database right
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right) , but
> individual contributors
> would not have rights in this scheme as they have in wikipedia use case.
>
> Xavier Combelle
>
>
> Le 29/11/2017 à 22:45, Mathieu Stumpf Guntz a écrit :
> > Saluton ĉiuj,
> >
> > I forward here the message I initially posted on the Meta Tremendous
> > Wiktionary User Group talk page
> >  Tremendous_Wiktionary_User_Group#An_answer_to_Lydia_
> general_thinking_about_Wikidata_and_CC-0>,
> > because I'm interested to have a wider feedback of the community on this
> > point. Whether you think that my view is completely misguided or that I
> > might have a few relevant points, I'm extremely interested to know it,
> > so please be bold.
> >
> > Before you consider digging further in this reading, keep in mind that I
> > stay convinced that Wikidata is a wonderful project and I wish it a
> > bright future full of even more amazing things than what it already
> > brung so far. My sole concern is really a license issue.
> >
> > Bellow is a copy/paste of the above linked message:
> >
> > Thank you Lydia Pintscher
> >  for
> > taking the time to answer. Unfortunately this answer
> > 
> > miss too many important points to solve all concerns which have been
> raised.
> >
> > Notably, there is still no beginning of hint in it about where the
> > decision of using CC0 exclusively for Wikidata came from. But as this
> > inquiry on the topic
> >  CC-0_de_Wikidata,_origine_du_choix,_enjeux,_et_
> prospections_sur_les_aspects_de_gouvernance_communautaire_
> et_d%E2%80%99%C3%A9quit%C3%A9_contributive>
> > advance, an answer is emerging from it. It seems that Wikidata choice
> > toward CC0 was heavily influenced by Denny Vrandečić, who – to make it
> > short – is now working in the Google Knowledge Graph team. Also it worth
> > noting that Google funded a quarter of the initial development work.
> > Another quarter came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation,
> > established by Intel co-founder. And half the money came from Microsoft
> > co-founder Paul Allen's Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2)[1]
> >  Tremendous_Wiktionary_User_Group#cite_note-1>.
> > To state it shortly in a conspirational fashion, Wikidata is the puppet
> > trojan horse of big tech hegemonic companies into the realm of
> > Wikimedia. For a less tragic, more argumentative version, please see the
> > research project (work in progress, only chapter 1 is in good enough
> > shape, and it's only available in French so far). Some proofs that this
> > claim is completely wrong are welcome, as it would be great that in fact
> > that was the community that was the driving force behind this single
> > license choice and that it is the best choice for its future, not the
> > future of giant tech companies. This would be a great contribution to
> > bring such a happy light on this subject, so we can all let this issue
> > alone and go back contributing in more interesting topics.
> >
> > Now let's examine the thoughts proposed by Lydia.
> >
> > Wikidata is here to give more people more access to more knowledge.
> > So far, it makes it matches Wikimedia movement stated goal.
> > This means we want our data to be used as widely as possible.
> > Sure, as long as it rhymes with equity. As in /Our strategic
> > direction: Service and //*Equity*/
> >  movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement#Our_strategic_
> direction:_Service_and_Equity>.
> > Just like we want freedom for everybody as widely as possible. That
> > is, starting where it confirms each others freedom. Because under
> > this level, freedom of one is murder and slavery of others.
> > CC-0 is one step 

[Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Tim Moritz Hector]

Dear all,

I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has taken the
opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr. Gabriele
Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.

After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3 appointed seats,
we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the board. We
focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed impressive
profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.

We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and serves as
department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the German
federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35 years of
expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group Sage, was
member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and has a lot
of experience in volunteer work.

Both will be members of the board until the next election by the general
assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele and Peter
to the Wikiverse.

Best regards,
Tim Moritz Hector


--
Tim Moritz Hector
Chair of the Board
Wikimedia Deutschland
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Xavier Combelle]

Hi,

Did not read your whole argument, but as a collection of brute facts, it
is hard to see how the content of wikidata could
be in something else than public domain.

As a whole, the database could present a Sui generis database right
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right) , but
individual contributors
would not have rights in this scheme as they have in wikipedia use case.

Xavier Combelle


Le 29/11/2017 à 22:45, Mathieu Stumpf Guntz a écrit :
> Saluton ĉiuj,
>
> I forward here the message I initially posted on the Meta Tremendous
> Wiktionary User Group talk page
> ,
> because I'm interested to have a wider feedback of the community on this
> point. Whether you think that my view is completely misguided or that I
> might have a few relevant points, I'm extremely interested to know it,
> so please be bold.
>
> Before you consider digging further in this reading, keep in mind that I
> stay convinced that Wikidata is a wonderful project and I wish it a
> bright future full of even more amazing things than what it already
> brung so far. My sole concern is really a license issue.
>
> Bellow is a copy/paste of the above linked message:
>
> Thank you Lydia Pintscher
>  for
> taking the time to answer. Unfortunately this answer
> 
> miss too many important points to solve all concerns which have been raised.
>
> Notably, there is still no beginning of hint in it about where the
> decision of using CC0 exclusively for Wikidata came from. But as this
> inquiry on the topic
> 
> advance, an answer is emerging from it. It seems that Wikidata choice
> toward CC0 was heavily influenced by Denny Vrandečić, who – to make it
> short – is now working in the Google Knowledge Graph team. Also it worth
> noting that Google funded a quarter of the initial development work.
> Another quarter came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation,
> established by Intel co-founder. And half the money came from Microsoft
> co-founder Paul Allen's Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2)[1]
> .
> To state it shortly in a conspirational fashion, Wikidata is the puppet
> trojan horse of big tech hegemonic companies into the realm of
> Wikimedia. For a less tragic, more argumentative version, please see the
> research project (work in progress, only chapter 1 is in good enough
> shape, and it's only available in French so far). Some proofs that this
> claim is completely wrong are welcome, as it would be great that in fact
> that was the community that was the driving force behind this single
> license choice and that it is the best choice for its future, not the
> future of giant tech companies. This would be a great contribution to
> bring such a happy light on this subject, so we can all let this issue
> alone and go back contributing in more interesting topics.
>
> Now let's examine the thoughts proposed by Lydia.
>
> Wikidata is here to give more people more access to more knowledge.
> So far, it makes it matches Wikimedia movement stated goal. 
> This means we want our data to be used as widely as possible.
> Sure, as long as it rhymes with equity. As in /Our strategic
> direction: Service and //*Equity*/
> 
> .
> Just like we want freedom for everybody as widely as possible. That
> is, starting where it confirms each others freedom. Because under
> this level, freedom of one is murder and slavery of others. 
> CC-0 is one step towards that.
> That's a thesis, you can propose to defend it but no one have to
> agree without some convincing proof. 
> Data is different from many other things we produce in Wikimedia in that
> it is aggregated, combined, mashed-up, filtered, and so on much more
> extensively.
> No it's not. From a data processing point of view, everything is
> data. Whether it's stored in a wikisyntax, in a relational database
> or engraved in stone only have a commodity side effect. Whether it's
> a random stream of bit generated by a dumb chipset or some encoded
> prose of Shakespeare make no difference. So from this point of view,
> no, what Wikidata store is not different from what is produced
> anywhere else in Wikimedia projects. 
> Sure, the way it's structured does extremely ease many things. But
> this is not because it's 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Lydia Pintscher]

Hi Mathieu,

I understand you care a lot about this topic and are posting about it
in many places but I have a personal rule that a lot of the people in
Wikidata know. I am willing to discuss and explain basically anything
on a calm and rational basis. (And I did this on-wiki I believe.) The
rule is simple: The more loud, aggressive and pushy someone gets about
a topic the less likely I am to engage. This rule has a simple reason:
I don't want Wikidata to get into a spiral of shouting. If we do this
people get into the mode where only if they shout they get heard so
they shout all the time. This is toxic for a community.
So I fear I can't contribute to this thread beyond this message.


Cheers
Lydia

-- 
Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Product Manager for Wikidata

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.

Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Andrea Zanni]

Maybe, instead of thinking about CC0 vs CC-BY-SA,
we should try to think at the goal: how can we, as a movement,
"fight" the exploitation from over-the-top players of community-generated
content?

Of course, license is the primary tool every one of us thinks about.
But (and please correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think that things changed
much from when Wikidata was not here and Google just scraped/crawled
Wikipedia for their own knowledge base. Players like Google have resources
and skill to basically do what they want, and if I recall correctly they
didn't really stop with CC-BY-SA content. So license is not an obstacle for
them.

As much as I don't personally like this, my question is: Is this a real
problem?
I don't like the idea of Wikimedia communities giving content for free to
players so big that can actually profit hugely from this,
(huge profits always translates to huge power), but I really don't know
what we could do about this.

Aubrey



On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

> 2017-11-30 11:46 GMT+02:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
> psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
> >> Nobody suggest in no way to do license laundering nor to violates
> Wiktionaries licence,
> >
> > It's not suggestion, it's what Wikidata is already doing with Wikipedia,
> despite the initial statement of Wikidata team[1] that it wouldn't do that
> because it's illegal :
> >
> >/"Alexrk2, it is true that Wikidata under CC0 would not be allowed
> >to import content from a Share-Alike data source. Wikidata does not
> >plan to extract content out of Wikipedia at all. Wikidata will
> >provide data that can be reused in the Wikipedias./"
> >– Denny Vrandečić
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata#Is_CC_the_
> right_license_for_data.3F
> >
> > I think that the extent to which massive import without respecting
> license of the source  should be investigated properly by the Wikimedia
> legal team, or some qualified consultants.
> >
> > In the mid time, based on its previous practises, it's clear that
> promises of Wikidata team regarding respect of licenses can not be trusted.
> So even if they suggested that that kind of massive import won't be done,
> it wouldn't be enough.
>
> This is another personal attack, and it's unnecessary and incorrect.
>
> The imports from Wikipedia were done by the Wikidata community, not by
> Wikidata team.
>
> It's too easy to speak in retrospect, but there were these plausible
> scenarios:
>
> 1. Editors who strongly care about reliable sourcing, in the style of
> English Wikipedia verifiability policies, are strongly opposed to importing
> data from Wikipedia, because by itself it's a self-reference and not a
> reliable source. If it would succeed, data would not be imported from
> Wikipedia, not because of licensing, but because of content quality. I
> remember attempts to do this, but evidently this is not what happened.
>
> 2. Editors who strongly care about the prevention of license whitewashing
> object to importing data from Wikipedia and prevent it. This also could
> happen, but it didn't.
>
> 3. Editors who are good at writing bots or making a lot of manual edits and
> love seeing Wikidata getting filled with data, import a lot of data. Like
> it or not, this happened.
>
> Could anybody know in 2012 what would actually happen? I don't know. If you
> would have asked me then, I'd possibly guess that scenarios 1 and 2 are
> likelier, but now we know that that would be very naïve.
>
> Judging by what happened in the past, I can suspect that data from
> Wiktionary will be imported anyway. Public domain or not, the bots people
> will find a way around licenses. It's a certain eventuality. The bigger
> questions are under what license will it be eventually stored, under what
> licenses will it be reused, and will this contribute to the growth of Free
> Knowledge. My intuition tells me that using more CC-BY-SA and less CC-0
> will contribute more to Free Knowledge, but what do I know.
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Natacha Rault]

> Le 30 nov. 2017 à 00:50, James Hare  a écrit :
> 
> On November 29, 2017 at 3:33:47 PM, Scott MacLeod (
> worlduniversityandsch...@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> Dear Lydia, Mathieu, Nicolas and All,
> 
> I'm seeking a clarification here to "An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding
> its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0" re the implications of CC-0
> licensing for Wikidata say in comparison with CC-4 licensing.
> 
> If CC-0 licensing allows for commercial use -
> "Once the creator or a subsequent owner of a work applies CC0 to a work,
> the work is no longer his or hers in any meaningful sense under copyright
> law. Anyone can then use the work in any way and for any purpose, including
> commercial purposes, subject to other laws and the rights others may have
> in the work or how the work is used. Think of CC0 as the "no rights
> reserved" option " (https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ ) ...
> 
> ... and, by contrast, CC-4 licensing (say by MIT OpenCourseWare in its 7
> languages, for example, - where its CC-4 licensing allows for "sharing"
> "adapting" but "non-commercially"), what would CC-0 Wikidata licensed
> databases allow for commercially? Since Wikidata, or Wikisource or Project
> Wikicite in particular, for example, are licensed CC-0 licensing option,
> could (CC) Bookstores, for example, use this CC-0 licensing, in all 295 of
> Wikipedia's languages, for the books in their (online) bookstores? (Also
> are there any data, or sister projects, affiliated with Wikidata that are
> not CC-0 re https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Lydia_Pintscher_%28WMDE%
> 29/CC-0 ? )
> 
> Thanks,
> Scott
> 
> 
> 
> CC-0 is functionally equivalent to the public domain. Anything released
> under CC-0 can be used by anyone for any reason with no conditions
> whatsoever. For more information see <
> https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/>. Since
> Wikidata’s data is released under CC-0, it can be used by anyone for any
> reason with no conditions.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> James Hare
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Le 30/11/2017 à 08:57, Luca Martinelli a écrit :

I basically stopped reading this email after the first attack to Denny.
That's sad to read, but I guess I must mostly blame my unfortunate 
formulations.


I was there since the beginning, and I do recall the *extensive* 
discussion about what license to use. CC0 was chosen, among other 
things, because of the moronic EU rule about database rights, that CC 
3.0 licenses didn't allow us to counter - please remember that 4.0 
were still under discussion, and we couldn't afford the luxury of 
waiting for 4.0 to come out before publishing Wikidata.

I welcome any reference to this discussions.


And possibly next time provide a TL;DR version of your email at the top.

Ok, thank you for this suggestion, I'll do that.



Cheers,

L.


Il 29 nov 2017 22:46, "Mathieu Stumpf Guntz" 
> 
ha scritto:


Saluton ĉiuj,

I forward here the message I initially posted on the Meta
Tremendous Wiktionary User Group talk page

,
because I'm interested to have a wider feedback of the community
on this point. Whether you think that my view is completely
misguided or that I might have a few relevant points, I'm
extremely interested to know it, so please be bold.

Before you consider digging further in this reading, keep in mind
that I stay convinced that Wikidata is a wonderful project and I
wish it a bright future full of even more amazing things than what
it already brung so far. My sole concern is really a license issue.

Bellow is a copy/paste of the above linked message:

Thank you Lydia Pintscher

for taking the time to answer. Unfortunately this answer

miss too many important points to solve all concerns which have
been raised.

Notably, there is still no beginning of hint in it about where the
decision of using CC0 exclusively for Wikidata came from. But as
this inquiry on the topic


advance, an answer is emerging from it. It seems that Wikidata
choice toward CC0 was heavily influenced by Denny Vrandečić, who –
to make it short – is now working in the Google Knowledge Graph
team. Also it worth noting that Google funded a quarter of the
initial development work. Another quarter came from the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation, established by Intel co-founder. And half
the money came from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Institute
for Artificial Intelligence (AI2)[1]

.
To state it shortly in a conspirational fashion, Wikidata is the
puppet trojan horse of big tech hegemonic companies into the realm
of Wikimedia. For a less tragic, more argumentative version,
please see the research project (work in progress, only chapter 1
is in good enough shape, and it's only available in French so
far). Some proofs that this claim is completely wrong are welcome,
as it would be great that in fact that was the community that was
the driving force behind this single license choice and that it is
the best choice for its future, not the future of giant tech
companies. This would be a great contribution to bring such a
happy light on this subject, so we can all let this issue alone
and go back contributing in more interesting topics.

Now let's examine the thoughts proposed by Lydia.

Wikidata is here to give more people more access to more knowledge.
So far, it makes it matches Wikimedia movement stated goal. 
This means we want our data to be used as widely as possible.

Sure, as long as it rhymes with equity. As in /Our strategic
direction: Service and //*Equity*/

.
Just like we want freedom for everybody as widely as possible.
That is, starting where it confirms each others freedom.
Because under this level, freedom of one is murder and slavery
of others. 
CC-0 is one step towards that.

That's a thesis, you can propose to defend it but no one have
to agree without some convincing proof. 
Data is different from many other things we produce in Wikimedia

in that it is aggregated, combined, mashed-up, filtered, and so on
much more extensively.
   

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2017-11-30 11:46 GMT+02:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
>> Nobody suggest in no way to do license laundering nor to violates
Wiktionaries licence,
>
> It's not suggestion, it's what Wikidata is already doing with Wikipedia,
despite the initial statement of Wikidata team[1] that it wouldn't do that
because it's illegal :
>
>/"Alexrk2, it is true that Wikidata under CC0 would not be allowed
>to import content from a Share-Alike data source. Wikidata does not
>plan to extract content out of Wikipedia at all. Wikidata will
>provide data that can be reused in the Wikipedias./"
>– Denny Vrandečić
>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata#Is_CC_the_right_license_for_data.3F
>
> I think that the extent to which massive import without respecting
license of the source  should be investigated properly by the Wikimedia
legal team, or some qualified consultants.
>
> In the mid time, based on its previous practises, it's clear that
promises of Wikidata team regarding respect of licenses can not be trusted.
So even if they suggested that that kind of massive import won't be done,
it wouldn't be enough.

This is another personal attack, and it's unnecessary and incorrect.

The imports from Wikipedia were done by the Wikidata community, not by
Wikidata team.

It's too easy to speak in retrospect, but there were these plausible
scenarios:

1. Editors who strongly care about reliable sourcing, in the style of
English Wikipedia verifiability policies, are strongly opposed to importing
data from Wikipedia, because by itself it's a self-reference and not a
reliable source. If it would succeed, data would not be imported from
Wikipedia, not because of licensing, but because of content quality. I
remember attempts to do this, but evidently this is not what happened.

2. Editors who strongly care about the prevention of license whitewashing
object to importing data from Wikipedia and prevent it. This also could
happen, but it didn't.

3. Editors who are good at writing bots or making a lot of manual edits and
love seeing Wikidata getting filled with data, import a lot of data. Like
it or not, this happened.

Could anybody know in 2012 what would actually happen? I don't know. If you
would have asked me then, I'd possibly guess that scenarios 1 and 2 are
likelier, but now we know that that would be very naïve.

Judging by what happened in the past, I can suspect that data from
Wiktionary will be imported anyway. Public domain or not, the bots people
will find a way around licenses. It's a certain eventuality. The bigger
questions are under what license will it be eventually stored, under what
licenses will it be reused, and will this contribute to the growth of Free
Knowledge. My intuition tells me that using more CC-BY-SA and less CC-0
will contribute more to Free Knowledge, but what do I know.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Saluton Nicolas,

Le 30/11/2017 à 00:23, Nicolas VIGNERON a écrit :

Mathieu,

I know you and like you personally, that why I can say that this mail 
is clearly not your best argument.


Despite saying multiple times this is not a manifesto nor against 
Wikidata, your mail seems clearly fuelled with biases and 
misjudgements (especially Wikidata can't be « discontinued quietly » 
not now that it's so widely used in Wikimedia projects, even the 
wiktionaries are *already* using Wikidata).
That's perfectly plausible that my view is fuelled with biases and 
misjudgements, and that's why I'm looking for feedback that might help 
in correcting them if needed. I prefer to expose my errors blatantly and 
seize opportunities to correct them rather than confine myself in my 
possibly misguided views.


Of course, the statement that Wikidata can't be « discontinued quietly » 
is shocking. Surely I'm a little provocative here. But one have to put 
that in perspective with the fact that my previous attempts to get 
feedback on this were far less provocative, or at least were aiming at 
being as unprovocative as I could do. So I recognize you are right to 
point this, all the more as I made my previous more cordial demands in 
less visible canals.


Dissecting each single phrase point by point is violent, borderline 
mean and definitely not constructive ; cross-posting this mail on 
multiple places doesn't help either. This is not the good way to 
debate peacefully.
First, if people felt personally assaulted by my message, I apologize. I 
wasn't aware that treating a topic point by point extensively could be 
perceived as such a violent behaviour. I don't want to harass anyone, I 
want to get constructive feedback on this topic from as many people of 
our community that I can get. If there are better way to achieve this 
through documented peaceful process, I would welcome references to this 
kind of documentation. And if we don't have that kind of documentation, 
I think it would be interesting that we build one.


For better or worse, Wikidata choose CC0 and it will be quite 
difficult to change the licence now (the example of licence change on 
OpenStreetMap illustrate it quite painfully).
Actually, with CC0 – if it appeared that all the data contained in 
Wikidata really can be published under CC0 – we could switch the whole 
database to whatever license we want. That was even explicitly stated as 
is at the start of the project that:


   So do I understand it correctly that during development and testing,
   we can can go with CC-0, and later relicense to whatever seems
   suitable, which is possible with CC-0?, Denny Vrandečić,
   https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata//2012-April/000185.html

But as far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't suggest for such a unilateral 
move. For me, just allowing a tracking of license for each item would be 
enough.


We have to get approval of the community, there was multiple lengthy 
and non-conclusive discussions, it's not something that will be done 
with a ranting mail.
I'm interested with links to this community discussions and clear 
approval of the community.


For me, the situation is quite simple, Wikidata needs lexiographical 
data and the Wikimedia projects needs Wikidata to have these data.
I agree with that, or at least that it would be very positive for our 
community to have this kind of tools.
Nobody suggest in no way to do license laundering nor to violates 
Wiktionaries licence,
It's not suggestion, it's what Wikidata is already doing with Wikipedia, 
despite the initial statement of Wikidata team[1] that it wouldn't do 
that because it's illegal :


   /"Alexrk2, it is true that Wikidata under CC0 would not be allowed
   to import content from a Share-Alike data source. Wikidata does not
   plan to extract content out of Wikipedia at all. Wikidata will
   provide data that can be reused in the Wikipedias./"
   – Denny Vrandečić
   
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata#Is_CC_the_right_license_for_data.3F

I think that the extent to which massive import without respecting 
license of the source  should be investigated properly by the Wikimedia 
legal team, or some qualified consultants.


In the mid time, based on its previous practises, it's clear that 
promises of Wikidata team regarding respect of licenses can not be 
trusted. So even if they suggested that that kind of massive import 
won't be done, it wouldn't be enough.


in fact we could simply import Public Domain sources (in the same way 
the wiktionaries did, in frwikt a big chunk of entries come from the 
/Littré/ and the /Dictionnaire de l’Académie française/, and there is 
enough dictionaries waiting in the Wikisources to keep us busy for 
years) but it would be a shame for Wikidata to not profits from 
wiktionarists expertise.
I agree with that. All the more, all this material we imported helped 
much in populating the project, but it often includes heavy biases, 
outdated 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2017-11-29 23:45 GMT+02:00 Mathieu Stumpf Guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
> Now, what would be the additional cost of storing sources in
> Wikidata? Well, zero cost. Actually, it's already here as the
> "reference" attribute is part of the Wikibase item structure. So
> attribution is not a problem, you don't have to put it in front of
> your derived work, just look at a Wikipedia article: until you go to
> history, you have zero attribution visible, and it's ok.

It's not the central point of this discussion, but I have to chime in here
a bit: It's OK for me, and I guess that it's OK for you given that you're
writing this, and I guess that it's OK for a lot of current Wikipedia
editors because otherwise they probably wouldn't be editing. But it's not
necessary OK for people who could be writing on Wikipedia and aren't
writing.

I specifically heard from several people who live in different countries
and speak different languages that the absence of easily visilbe
attribution is one reason why they don't want to contribute. Should this be
changed?—that's a big and completely separate question. I just wanted to
point out that it's not something that should be easily dismissed with
"it's OK". It's not OK for everybody.

I will also note, like some other people in this thread, that it's far
better to discuss ideas than discuss people. In particular, there are no
reasons to assume any bad intentions on Denny's part; Denny's involvement
with Wikimedia began long before his move to Google, and his current Google
affiliation is not a problem either.

Other than that, I kind of agree with Mathieu's general point: CC-0 may be
good for some things, but it's legitimate to question whether it should be
forced as the ONLY license for all of Wikidata. The whole point of licenses
is that they are enforceable and don't rely on the good will of any person,
organization, or company. It's comparable to the current discussion about
net neutrality in the U.S. (it is about U.S. law, but it's an issue that
will likely affect the rest of the web): U.S. telecom companies commit to
not use the lack of net neutrality to censor or throttle content, but
sometimes it's better to have an enforceable law than a commitment that can
be broken.

CC-0 can be abused by other entities to hurt Wikimedia's goals—by omitting
credit, by re-licensing to something restrictive and non-free, by copying
to a more accessible medium (e.g. Google search results page) and
censoring, etc. Copyleft can help prevent abuse, and it shouldn't actually
make information considerably less accessible to anybody.

(And the very necessary disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am a bit of a
Free Software and Copyleft fanboy.)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia mocks expert contributor

[Peter Southwood]

Usually a good idea to cite your source for a quotation that may be 
controversial, or where the source may not be obvious. 
(Yes, this is common sense, but common sense is not as common as it is touted 
to be. (as we all know, or do we?))
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Renée Bagslint
Sent: Wednesday, 29 November 2017 7:29 PM
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia mocks expert contributor

Robert Fernandez thinks it is "remarkably inappopriate" to put the phrase 
"*experts **are scum"* in quotation marks as if it were a quotation from the 
Signpost. No. This is a quotation, which perhaps he did not recognise, from a 
rather long-standing and well-known essay, 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Anti-elitism which discusses this very 
issue and is a convenient and common way of summarising the attitude exhibited 
in the article.

Does Robert have any views on the topic of this thread?
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