from:"Russavia"

Steven,

Quite seriously, if you can't understand the concept of copyright and
derivative works, then perhaps this is not the project for you.

There's nothing more to say.

Russavia


On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:40 AM, Steven Walling
steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote:
 I just noticed a disturbing trend on Commons that highlights a general
 issue with its use as the media repository for our projects.

 I recently had an image nominated for deletion under Commons policy against
 photos of packaging: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:PACKAGING.
 It was of some Japanese candy that someone brought back.

 The first issue here is one of demotivating contributors. I took a photo of
 an object I owned, and gave it away to be used in Wikipedia. The only
 interaction I ever get on Commons about my photos is a notification of when
 some fussy neckbeard wants to delete them. No thanks for thousands of
 uploads. No notification of how many views they produce for our projects.
 No message about downloads for free reuse.

 The second issue is what this policy implicates for the scope of Commons. A
 huge part of modern life includes things that have logos, artwork, jingles,
 etc. This policy seems to imply to me that not just food packaging, but any
 photo of a physical or digital product cannot be freely licensed even if
 you own it. This covers a huge swath of knowledge to share which by
 definition can't be on Commons anymore because we decided to take a very
 conservative position on licensing. We are taking away useful photos from
 our readers, which basically every other media repository that allows
 CC/public domain licensing would allow.

 We currently push users to upload to Commons when they want to give photos
 to Wikipedia, and I have long done the same. I also used to be a Commons
 admin. But this makes me think twice about ever uploading anything to
 Commons, since even what seems like photos I own get subjected to an
 extremely hardline copyright regime that no other site (say like Flickr)
 would ever reasonably enforce on contributors. I'm also not going to bother
 uploading to Wikipedia a simple photo of food products if I have to fill
 out a form for fair use rationales.

 In the long run, I think this kind of thing is yet more evidence that it
 was a huge mistake to create a sub-community within Wikimedia that cares
 more about strict free licensing than it does about utility to people who
 need knowledge. Commons should really just have stayed a database shared
 among projects, not been made into a wiki where all our more important
 projects are subject to the rules mongering of a tiny broken community.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

Steven,

No Stephen, this is toxic -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU

My response was a hard truth unfortunately. As is my comments at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Green_tea_Kit-Kat.jpeg
about your long, whiny post.

Thanks for reading

Russavia



On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:49 AM, Steven Walling
steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote:
 This kind of response is case in point on why people find Commons toxic.
 On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 8:44 AM Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Steven,

 Quite seriously, if you can't understand the concept of copyright and
 derivative works, then perhaps this is not the project for you.

 There's nothing more to say.

 Russavia


 On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:40 AM, Steven Walling
 steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote:
  I just noticed a disturbing trend on Commons that highlights a general
  issue with its use as the media repository for our projects.
 
  I recently had an image nominated for deletion under Commons policy
 against
  photos of packaging: https://commons.wikimedia.org/
 wiki/Commons:PACKAGING.
  It was of some Japanese candy that someone brought back.
 
  The first issue here is one of demotivating contributors. I took a photo
 of
  an object I owned, and gave it away to be used in Wikipedia. The only
  interaction I ever get on Commons about my photos is a notification of
 when
  some fussy neckbeard wants to delete them. No thanks for thousands of
  uploads. No notification of how many views they produce for our projects.
  No message about downloads for free reuse.
 
  The second issue is what this policy implicates for the scope of
 Commons. A
  huge part of modern life includes things that have logos, artwork,
 jingles,
  etc. This policy seems to imply to me that not just food packaging, but
 any
  photo of a physical or digital product cannot be freely licensed even if
  you own it. This covers a huge swath of knowledge to share which by
  definition can't be on Commons anymore because we decided to take a very
  conservative position on licensing. We are taking away useful photos from
  our readers, which basically every other media repository that allows
  CC/public domain licensing would allow.
 
  We currently push users to upload to Commons when they want to give
 photos
  to Wikipedia, and I have long done the same. I also used to be a Commons
  admin. But this makes me think twice about ever uploading anything to
  Commons, since even what seems like photos I own get subjected to an
  extremely hardline copyright regime that no other site (say like Flickr)
  would ever reasonably enforce on contributors. I'm also not going to
 bother
  uploading to Wikipedia a simple photo of food products if I have to fill
  out a form for fair use rationales.
 
  In the long run, I think this kind of thing is yet more evidence that it
  was a huge mistake to create a sub-community within Wikimedia that cares
  more about strict free licensing than it does about utility to people who
  need knowledge. Commons should really just have stayed a database shared
  among projects, not been made into a wiki where all our more important
  projects are subject to the rules mongering of a tiny broken community.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

Luis,

I know all about that applause Jimmy received.

http://i.imgur.com/SKX3P8J.gif

Steven, is that you in the middle? :

Russavia

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:55 AM, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 8:44 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Steven,

 Quite seriously, if you can't understand the concept of copyright and
 derivative works, then perhaps this is not the project for you.


 I understand the concept of copyright and derivative works, and I think
 Stephen has a lot of valid points (even if I don't agree with all of them).
 If you want to argue with the substance of what Stephen has to say, please
 do.

 In the meantime, your email is just an example of the kind of toxic
 behavior Jimmy spoke out against at Wikimania this year — and correctly
 received loud, sustained applause for.

 Luis

 --
 Luis Villa
 Deputy General Counsel
 Wikimedia Foundation
 415.839.6885 ext. 6810

 *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have
 received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
 mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical
 reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
 members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
 on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

Oh cry me a river Nathan.

What is inappropriate is that we have Steven ranting and raving about
a project on which me and others bust our humps on developing.

If people can't understand
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SCOPE,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:L and
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:DW then I am actually wondering
how in hell they were an admin on that project anyway.

If he wants to change these core policies whinging about them on
wikimedia-l isn't gonna do anything. Start an RfC on Commons and
change it.

Thanks

Russavia

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:49 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Steven,

 Quite seriously, if you can't understand the concept of copyright and
 derivative works, then perhaps this is not the project for you.

 There's nothing more to say.

 Russavia


 That comment is unhelpful and inappropriate.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

I'm not having a bad day Nathan. It shits me to tears when we
continually hear of Commons being broken; when in fact it works very
well.

I will say that the person who is doing the packaging DR's is going
thru them, with our Commons policies in mind. You are attacking that
person on a public mailing list, instead of querying it with them
first.

If you don't like Commons policies, take it to the project and start
an RfC. Nothing good is going to come out of anything which is said on
this list in relation to the issue.





On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:59 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
 Maybe Russavia is having a bad day and needs a time out.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

Nathan

To answer the tractor question first. Of course not, there is nothing
copyrightable in this image.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Trademarked is never a
reason for deletion. The logo is clearly PD-textlogo and is de minimis
in that situation -- i.e. it's inclusion is incidental

In relation to the car in Tunisia, it could be trickier. It would
depend a lot on Tunisian law. It could be de minimis, it might not be.
It would depend.

Mario

If copyright holders are happy to have their materials on Commons it
is the copyright holder who needs to speak up for this, and there are
ways to go about this. Otherwise
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:PRP is the policy that is drawn
upon here.

Cheers

Russavia






On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 1:11 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
 What about this file?

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2007-11-21_Hammamet-VW-2.JPG

 The image is of a car, and the car has a logo and design motif on it that
 is surely eligible for copyright. COM:PACKAGING doesn't seem to refer to
 any packaging specific jurisprudence, so presumably the restrictions on the
 use of copyrighted logos and design elements apply to any photographs in
 which they are featured? That would seem to be the case based on the
 Trademark policy.

 is it a correct logical extension of the rule to say that any photograph
 which features a copyrighted element, where the owner of the copyrighted
 element is not the uploader or has not otherwise released the element under
 a compatible license, must be deleted?

 Another example -
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2012-12-14_Provinzial-Demo.JPG

 In that photo, the logo of Fendt, a farm equipment manufacturer, appears.
 Based on the trademark policy, should this be deleted?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

Geni

You wouldn't be talking about the Skyy Spirits case would you?
http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/225_f3d_1068.htm

This case is not akin to that case in any way, shape or form. That
issue was referring to the copyright on the 3D bottle. Refer to
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_subject_matter#Product_packaging

But in Steven's case, it is also complicated by Japanese law having to
be considered.

Jane

FoP may or may not cover it.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama#Tunisia
states the work has to be permanently located in a public place. It
could also depend on the purpose of the photo.

Nathan

I'm sorry, but I can't believe you were seriously talking about a logo
on the tractor which isn't basically visible in the original photo you
showed. It's call de minimis in the photo on Commons. To crop the
logo out to appear as it does in your linked to image, it would be a
copyvio. There is another aspect of de minimis that needs to be
considered. You can't walk into a bookshop and take photos of a rack
of magazine covers (which would be copyrighted) and upload those to
Commons, as in that context of that photo each individual part can not
be separated from the overall motif of the photograph.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:DM might be nice reading for
you.

Steven

There's seriously so many aspects that we have to consider on Commons,
and the entire VOLUNTEER community does it's best. It's not good to
attack the entire community as you did in your opening post, when the
editor who nominated the image for deletion did so in good faith, and
in fact the issue of COM:PACKAGING deletions was being discussed in
#wikimedia-commons for some hours. You make it sound that we love
deleting people's uploads just to piss them off, and I guarantee you
that is not the case. If you ever want to have a civilised discussion
on the issues, go on project and start that discussion. Just don't
approach the issue by calling us all extremists, because you'll simply
be ignored, not only by myself, but by others too I would imagine.

I've got nothing more to say here I think.

Russavia

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 1:25 AM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote:
On 11 December 2014 at 16:54, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote:

Steven,

No Stephen, this is toxic -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU

My response was a hard truth unfortunately. As is my comments at

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Green_tea_Kit-Kat.jpeg
about your long, whiny post.

Thanks for reading

Russavia

Really? The relevant caselaw isn't as clear as you appear to suggest. In
particular the judges in the Ninth Circuit ruling (WMF is based in
California so Ninth Circuit) have explicit rejected the idea that labels on
useful articles (which packaging generally is) creative derivative when
dealing with product photography. I am admittedly unaware of any case-law
considering labels vs stuff directly printed onto packing but the general
principles seem to hold.

--
geni
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising in the UK

2014-12-08 Thread Russavia

Lisa,

I posted a link to the WMF Board discussion to this list on 6 December,
it's no problem if you missed it, here it is again:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Fundraising

I quote from that:

The [UK Fund for Charities channels gifts to validated non-UK based
charities. We were able to use their service this year for large
Wikimania-related donations. They charge 1% for large gifts, making this an
effective way to receive gift aid. However this is not a great solution for
individual donors: for gifts under £100, they charge up to 20%, consuming
most of the gift aid. –SJ talk  00:28, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Given the nature of fundraising drives by the WMF (e.g banners) most of the
donations from the UK would surely come from the under £100 category, and
many of these donations would likely be made because of the gift aid that
is no longer able to be collected by WMUK or the WMF.

Hopefully you can give us some clear answers to the issues which have been
raised on both the Board noticeboard and this list; myself and others feel
we are still none the wiser as to the reality.

Cheers

Russavia



On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi Russavia-

 I haven't seen the specific comment from SJ that you are referencing, but
 I am guessing that he is referring to the Gift Aid percentage match, which
 used to be 20% and is now 25%.  The 1% I mentioned is the processing fee
 WMF pays to the U.K. Fund for Charities for processing our donations.  We
 most often see large donors asking about Gift Aid and that is why we set up
 the account, but it is not exclusively for large donations.  We refer
 anyone who is wishing to add Gift Aid to their donation to our account with
 the U.K. Fund for Charities.

 When I said in country, I meant anyone wishing to give to the chapter,
 instead of WMF.  Those donations stay with the chapter and do not come back
 to WMF.  We should be able to provide some numbers around this when our
 donor services team comes up for air in January.

 Thank you,
 Lisa

 On Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 12:33 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Lisa

 On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 2:56 AM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:
 
  2)  When a U.K. donor is looking to add Gift Aid to their donation, we
  process the donation through our account with the U.K. Fund for
 Charities,
  which charges 1% for this service and returns the donor data to WMF.
 When
  a donor is looking to donate in country, we direct them to the chapter.

 Can you please confirm whether you are talking about large donors, or
 the every day type donors who keep Wikipedia free by clicking on the
 banners. The reason this is needed is that it contradicts what Sj has
 stated on the Board noticeboard, where a figure of 20% was mentioned
 for the nickel and dime donors (which come about by way of the
 banners, etc).

 Can you also give some further information on how many of these in
 country donors the WMF has sent WMUK's way? And what $/£ amount would
 we be talking about here? And are funds from these in country donors
 funnelled back to the WMF?

 Apologies if this is covered elsewhere.

 Russavia



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising in the UK

2014-12-08 Thread Russavia

Lisa,

Thanks for your reply and clarification.

When one clicks on the fundraising banner from the UK, they get taken
to this site.[1] As you can see there is no prominent link about gift
aid on that page. There is, however, a link at the bottom under Tax
deductibility information which takes you here.[2]

It will certainly be interesting to see the figures in February which
you said you'd provide, so that we can see for ourselves just how the
figures from the UK compare to previous years when the gift aid was
obviously more prominent (from what I am lead to understand).

Another interesting thing I noticed. When you go the landing page for
Australia,[3] I see the option there to pay via BPay.[4] And sure
enough, the Wikimedia Foundation has a BPay biller code.[5] Most
Australians would be familiar with BPay, so it's a great feature to
have. But, upon looking at their FAQs[6] it states:

Can an overseas business become a BPAY biller?

Unfortunately, if your business is based overseas you can’t become a
BPAY biller. BPAY is only available for businesses in Australia.

How exactly is the WMF utilising BPay here in Australia? It's not
registered in Australia.[7]

More info on that would be awesome. Sorry if it's been answered before.

Cheers,

Russavia

[1] 
https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPagecountry=GBuselang=enutm_medium=sidebarutm_source=donateutm_campaign=C13_en.wikipedia.org
[2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Tax_Deductibility/en#United_Kingdom
[3] 
https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPagecountry=AUuselang=enutm_medium=sidebarutm_source=donateutm_campaign=C13_en.wikipedia.org
[4] http://www.bpay.com.au/
[5] 
http://www.bpay.com.au/Personal/Find-Biller-Codes-or-Financial-Institutions.aspx?find=373456
[6] 
http://www.bpay.com.au/Business/Small-Medium-Business/Help/BPAY-Services-FAQs.aspx#faq-question-790
[7] http://abr.business.gov.au/SearchByNameAll.aspx?SearchText=wikimedia


On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 5:08 AM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi Russavia-

 Thanks for clarification. There is a lot of room for confusion here and I 
 sure I have not been as clear when talking about this as I needed to be.  
 Here are the details: The pricing structure is based on cumulative donations. 
  We paid 20% on the first £100 in donations (which was covered with our very 
 first donation), 10% on the next £9899, and 1% on every donation after that – 
 which is the fee assessed on any donation made during this December campaign 
 that requests Gift Aid.  We will share the totals after we receive our 
 quarterly statement toward the end of February.  Sorry for the confusion.

 Thank you,
 Lisa

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising in the UK

Lisa

On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 2:56 AM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 2)  When a U.K. donor is looking to add Gift Aid to their donation, we
 process the donation through our account with the U.K. Fund for Charities,
 which charges 1% for this service and returns the donor data to WMF.  When
 a donor is looking to donate in country, we direct them to the chapter.

Can you please confirm whether you are talking about large donors, or
the every day type donors who keep Wikipedia free by clicking on the
banners. The reason this is needed is that it contradicts what Sj has
stated on the Board noticeboard, where a figure of 20% was mentioned
for the nickel and dime donors (which come about by way of the
banners, etc).

Can you also give some further information on how many of these in
country donors the WMF has sent WMUK's way? And what $/£ amount would
we be talking about here? And are funds from these in country donors
funnelled back to the WMF?

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere.

Russavia

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[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner interfering with Google results

Hi all,

If you do a Google search and look at the Wikipedia results, e.g.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Malvinas+Argentinas+International+Airportrlz=1C1NOOH_enAU555AU555oq=Malvinas+Argentinas+International+Airportaqs=chrome..69i57sourceid=chromees_sm=93ie=UTF-8
you will see that the results state:

DEAR WIKIPEDIA READERS: You're probably busy, so we'll get right to it.
This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence from
corporate

Instead of the article information.

It doesn't sit right with me that fundraising is interfering with Google
results, and even moreso due to it stating to protect our independence
from corporate

Is there some way that this can be prevented, short of not using Google?

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner interfering with Google results

Thanks John for the link.

I've made an edit to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushuaia_%E2%80%93_Malvinas_Argentinas_International_Airport
as I've been told that Google will update text in their search results when
articles are created and edited. Is that correct? If so, how long will the
fundraising text potentially be appearing in Google results for you think?

I can confirm that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_and_MacFarlane_Monument is displaying
correctly in Google results.

Cheers,

Russavia

On Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 7:08 PM, John Mark Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com
wrote:

 On Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Nick Birse w...@nbir.se wrote:
  Russavia asked me to check this to confirm it wasn't just him or his
  regional Google setup, and it's both correct and looking into it further
  it's hitting every single page on Wikipedia that Google has indexed.
 
  If you search for DEAR WIKIPEDIA READERS: You're probably busy, so we'll
  get right to it. This week we ask our readers to help us. This week we
 ask
  our readers to protect our site:en.wikipedia.org we're both getting
  6,100,000 results.
 
  If you take, at random, some pages for that search result, and then try
 to
  find those pages through a fairly typical, sensible search result using
 the
  page title or keywords in the article, some search text results show the
  fundraising banner text, and other pages show a relevant text excerpt
 from
  the page.
 
  I'll pass this on to the developers too, but hopefully this helps here
 too.

 The devs have been aware since December 4, based on the date
 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T76743 was opened.

 --
 John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner interfering with Google results

Thanks for the update Erik

I can confirm that my edit to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushuaia_%E2%80%93_Malvinas_Argentinas_International_Airport
has now fixed the issue in Google search as it relates to that article, but
the issue still remains on 8,600,000 articles (up from 8,540,000 articles
yesterday).

Cheers

Russavia



On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 3:12 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi all,

 For the record, we've been able to confirm that our fixes, which were
 already deployed Thursday, immediately addressed the issue on our end.
 Google also picked up the updated robots.txt already on December 4,
 according to Google Webmaster Tools. GoogleBot, for better or for
 worse, nowadays executes JavaScript, which caused it to index the
 banner text since the JS was not blacklisted prior to December 4.
 We've pinged our Google contacts about faster re-crawling of impacted
 pages; will follow up further on that front.

 Erik
 --
 Erik Möller
 VP of Product  Strategy, Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

2014-12-06 Thread Russavia

It could be worse. Internet archive is running their banners at moment. Quote:

Internet Archive is a non-profit. We don’t run ads, but still need to
pay for servers and staff. If everyone reading this gave $75, we could
end our fundraiser right now. For the cost of buying a book, you can
make a book permanently available for the next generation. It’s is a
small amount to inform millions. Help us do more. Thank you.

Sorry, $75? :)

They also give a shoutout to WMF for making the fundraising banner
open source. Thanks for nothing WMF for making this intrusive begging
the future of online fundraising. ;)

Russavia


On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 2:11 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello all,

 I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the
 themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk
 of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.

 Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].

 ==communication re: fundraising season==
 * develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team
 already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too]
 * if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you
 communicate it to the stakeholders
 * fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged
 that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week]
 * Also many thanks for the acknowledged very efficient, remarkable job
 at fundraising to the team; The fundraising team is amazing at their
 jobs

 ==message content==
 * don't mislead about ads: potential implication that if we don't get
 the money we'll run ads is not ok [agreed.]
 * don't mislead about WMF finances: potential implication that we'll
 go off the air immediately if you don't donate is not ok [note, I'm
 not seeing this in the current message, but I may not be seeing it
 because every fundraising appeal I've ever gotten is crouched in
 crisis terms.]
 * message sounds like an obituary/doesn't sound like an obituary/is
 clear/is too American [the latter is a problem esp. with English
 Wikipedia messaging, I suspect]
 * comments about emails, too [note, previous donors get 1 email a year]
 * comment that 1/fundraiser a year is not true for those unlucky souls
 who get a/b tested
 * as contributors, we want to be proud of Wikimedia, and not
 demotivated by the banners. some find the fundraising demotivating
 because of above points.

 ==banner size==
 * pop-ups are no good [pretty clear consensus]
 * sticky banners no good [I'm not sure if there's consensus on this point]
 * banners that obscure content are no good [note, though we agree on
 the principle, I am personally skeptical about the claim of this
 banner interfering with our mission; the content is still right there]
  * mobile banners too big, x to dismiss too small

 ==brand image==
 * current messages are seen as harming brand image because of above
 content points
 * harming brand image is not ok [I think we're all agreed on this]
 * messages should encourage people to contribute content as well [def.
 worth exploring]
 * user sentiment analysis is important [possible action point: maybe
 user sentiment re: brand should be more highly weighted in the banner
 tests?]
 * what would happen if donors were shown financials alongside banners?
 [note this seems very impractical to me. The majority of donors do not
 have experience with big nonprofit finances or a scope of comparison.
 Yes, I look at the 990s of charities I give to, but I suspect I'm
 unusual in that way].

 ==data==
 * we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians
 * especially .. user sentiment methodology  raw data
 * social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than
 past??/how much is there/should we worry about it?
 * how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've
 been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence
 the shorter fundraiser]

 ---

 Other questions for me:
 Nemo asks about minutes. I suspect they'll be out in a couple of
 weeks, and then there will be a week of delay or so as the board
 approves them. All delays are on the trustee end, not on the
 secretary's end. Note though that I already summarized probably the
 most exciting discussion.

 Andreas asks about the editor survey report. I looked through my
 papers the last time you asked, and I don't think I have it. I'd send
 it to you if I did.

 best,
 Phoebe

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising in the UK

All

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 5:10 AM, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:

 How much money do we expect to raise (or did we last year), from the
 UK? How much of the money raised from the UK will attract Gift
 Aid[*] tax releif?

I've seen figures of $500,000 being mentioned in relation to lost gift
aid. And also consider that with gift aid being taken out of the
equation this will likely result in a drop in donations.

It's not chump change that has been lost, so there has to be some
serious issues within WMUK that need fixing. Let's hope that chapter
can get its act together in the future.

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising in the UK

Michael,

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 11:36 PM, Michael Maggs mich...@maggs.name wrote:

 I regret that Fae has thought it necessary to bring his personal grievance
 against the UK chapter and one specific individual over to the Wikimedia-l
 mailing list now that he is unable to make such comments on the
 Wikimedia-UK list or the WMUK website.   I would hope that the moderators
 will consider whether providing a platform for this type of attack is
 conducive to the health of the Wikimedia movement.

 Best regards

 Michael


I don't really see any sort of attack in what Fae has written; but is
posting his opinion and information gained from his own time as trustee of
Wikimedia UK. If you want to refute what he has to say, then do so. But
what you are essentially asking for is an echo chamber.

A question has been raised on this list as it relates to WMUK, so all and
sundry should be able to provide information relating to it.

Perhaps, you as Chairman of WMUK, could explain to us all publicly why the
WMF is willing to forego approx $500,000 in gift aid and has pulled WMUK's
ability to accept donations, and therefore still be eligible for that gift
aid. Fae was essentially blamed, at least in the public eye, for all the
failings of WMUK in the past, however the decision by the WMF is only a
recent one, so there are still obvious failings at WMUK, and it can't be
attributed to Fae. It is absolutely right that questions be asked; but your
solution is to ban those who are asking the questions. That is not on.

I'd appreciate some sort of response from you Michael that does include ad
hominem attacks. Refer to
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg
for where we should be (the top) and where we're at.

Regards,

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising in the UK

Sorry, that of course should have read:

I'd appreciate some sort of response from you Michael that does NOT
include ad hominem attacks.

I guess I've been a Wikimedian so long that ad hominem attacks are often
the norm, rather than the exception. Or it could have just been a
brainfart. I'll let the reader decide.

Russavia

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 11:52 PM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Michael,

 On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 11:36 PM, Michael Maggs mich...@maggs.name wrote:

 I regret that Fae has thought it necessary to bring his personal
 grievance against the UK chapter and one specific individual over to the
 Wikimedia-l mailing list now that he is unable to make such comments on the
 Wikimedia-UK list or the WMUK website.   I would hope that the moderators
 will consider whether providing a platform for this type of attack is
 conducive to the health of the Wikimedia movement.

 Best regards

 Michael


 I don't really see any sort of attack in what Fae has written; but is
 posting his opinion and information gained from his own time as trustee of
 Wikimedia UK. If you want to refute what he has to say, then do so. But
 what you are essentially asking for is an echo chamber.

 A question has been raised on this list as it relates to WMUK, so all and
 sundry should be able to provide information relating to it.

 Perhaps, you as Chairman of WMUK, could explain to us all publicly why the
 WMF is willing to forego approx $500,000 in gift aid and has pulled WMUK's
 ability to accept donations, and therefore still be eligible for that gift
 aid. Fae was essentially blamed, at least in the public eye, for all the
 failings of WMUK in the past, however the decision by the WMF is only a
 recent one, so there are still obvious failings at WMUK, and it can't be
 attributed to Fae. It is absolutely right that questions be asked; but your
 solution is to ban those who are asking the questions. That is not on.

 I'd appreciate some sort of response from you Michael that does include ad
 hominem attacks. Refer to
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg
 for where we should be (the top) and where we're at.

 Regards,

 Russavia

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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Google Groups: You've been added to Gender Gap

Hi all

Below is an email I've just received inviting me to join the Gender Gap
mailing list. It's sent from russiaviat...@gmail.com and has been passing
off as me.

I mentioned on the Gender Gap mailing list the other day that this was not
me, but now it would appear that email addresses on this mailing list are
being scraped.

If you receive an email purporting to be from myself and it's not from this
email addy (and with an IINET IP), you can be assured it is not myself. If
I wanted to troll you all, you all know that I have more elaborate ways of
doing this if I really wanted to do that. :)

It could appear from the message they sent it is our Indian friend who is
doing this; but of course it could be someone joe jobbing them too. Who
knows, who cares, it's not me all the same.

Cheers

Russavia

-- Forwarded message --
From: Russavia (Google Groups) gender-gap+nore...@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 1:08 AM
Subject: Google Groups: You've been added to Gender Gap
To: russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com


Gender-Gap International spreading Transparency and WikiLove
--
I regret that XYZ has thought it necessary to bring his/her personal
grievance to the Wikimedia-l mailing list now that s/he is unable to make
such comments on the Wikimedia-XYZ list or the WM-XYZ website. I would hope
that the moderators will consider whether providing a platform for this
type of attack is conducive to the health of the Wikimedia movement.
___
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Chair, Wikimedia UK

About this group:

Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation
of women within Wikimedia projects. We want to encourage you to engage with
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The owner of the group has set your subscription type as Email,
meaning that you'll receive a copy of every message posted to the group as
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Start your own group http://groups.google.com/d/creategroup?hl=en,
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising in the UK

Michael

On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 2:22 AM, Michael Maggs mich...@maggs.name wrote:

 Over the last few years the Foundation has decisively moved away from
 allowing local chapters to take part in the on-screen fundraiser, preferring
 to centralise the work in spite of the loss of the available local tax
 reliefs (such as Gift Aid in the UK).  Many chapters, including the UK,
 would have liked to have been part of the fundraiser, but the previous ED,
 Sue Gardner, determined that that would not be permitted.  WMUK regretted
 that decision, and we responded to it here:
 https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Open_letter_to_Sue_Gardner.

The question was raised by Nick over at the WMF Board noticeboard.[1]
There Sj states:

The [UK Fund for Charities channels gifts to validated non-UK based
charities. We were able to use their service this year for large
Wikimania-related donations. They charge 1% for large gifts, making
this an effective way to receive gift aid. However this is not a great
solution for individual donors: for gifts under £100, they charge up
to 20%, consuming most of the gift aid.

$500,000 is quite a lot of coin to be missing out on; and the WMF is
obviously looking at ways to get this gift aid (whilst bypassing
WMUK), just without registering themselves in the UK, which would see
it having to comply with European directives on numerous issues.

There's more to this story me thinks ;)

Russavia

[1] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Fundraising

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Funding a new gear for WM photographer Poco a poco

2014-12-02 Thread Russavia

(Sorry for crossposting)

This is indeed a cause that the entire community should get behind.

I know that normally people could apply for grants but is there anyway
that the WMF as an organisation could bypass that often long, drawn
out process and pitch in with this as well?

I have sent out a few appeals to avgeeks, seeing as he has taken
aviation photos, via twitter and other avenues. Perhaps we can get a
tweet from @wikicommons on this as well.

It's in all of our best interests to get Poco a Poco taking photos
again as soon as is possible. And I hope that insurance will be taken
out on the equipment when replaced :)

Cheers

Russavia


On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 7:18 AM, Santi Navarro
santiagonava...@wikimedia.org.es wrote:
 Sorry for crossposting:

 Help one of the best volunteer photographers in Wikimedia Commons restore
 his stolen equipment.


 Diego Delso is known as Poco a poco in Wikimedia Commons. In case you don't
 know, Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository where anyone can share
 freely-licensed content with everyone. Wikipedia uses Wikimedia Commons as
 it's image repository, so, in fact, most of the times you view an image in
 Wikipedia, you are actually viewing a Wikimedia Commons image.

 While Diego is just one of the thousands of Wikimedia Commons volunteers, he
 is a very special one: he's one of the main Commons contributors ever,
 having some amazing records, such as being the user with the highest amount
 of Featured Pictures ever (153 images) and also the one with the highest
 amount of quality images ever, with 5,777 Quality Images. That's an awesome
 amount of very high quality material, that Diego has given to every living
 person for free.

 Never heard about Wikimedia Commons? It's the repository that hosts
 allmultimedia files that you can see (and download) in Wikipedia and all
 other Wikimedia projects. Diego's files are used in those projects and are
 also available for everybody else with a free license.

 Furthermore, Diego has contributed in Wikimedia Commons in other ways. One
 of them is by supporting (by being an organizer or a jury) two of the most
 importantphotographic contests in the Wikimedia movement (and in the
 world!): Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth.

 Sadly, while Diego was in Buenos Aires after participating in a Wikimedia
 Iberoamerican Encounter with other Wikimedia volunteers, he got his
 equipment stolen. In this unfortunate event, he didn't only lost his camera,
 zoom lenses and laptop, but also every single picture he took during his 2
 weeks trip in South America, which he was going to upload to Wikimedia
 Commons so they could be used by everyone, everywhere.

 As Wikimedia volunteers and Diego's friends, we could not stand aside of
 this, so we decided to help him to restore his equipment. You can help, too,
 by contributing to this campaign!

 Our goal is simple: to collect enough money to help Diego to buy exactly the
 same equipment he lost.

 All the gear he lost in Argentina is described below, with a reference to
 the price from Amazon for the same equipment.
 TipoModelo  Preço
 Camera body Canon EOS 5D Mark II$ 2,694.00
 Objective fisheye f/4.0 Canon EF 8-15mm L USM   $ 1,349.00
 Objective wide-angle f/4.0  Canon EF 17-40mm L USM  $ 839.00
 Objective wide-angle to telephoto f/4.0 Canon EF 24-105mm L IS UVM  $
 1,149.00
 Laptop  Acer Aspire 1810T   $ 600.00
 Total   $ 6,631.00

 Converted to Euro (since Diego is based in Europe) that goes to 5,300 Euro +
 200 euro of Indiegogo fee, which is our target to collect.

 This campaign is runned on indiegogo.com and the link is
 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/funding-a-new-gear-for-wm-photographer-poco-a-poco#home

 You can use the short link  http://igg.me/at/pocoapoco in social networks

 Thank you

 --
 Santiago Navarro Sanz
 Wikimedia España
 http://www.wikimedia.org.es/

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[Wikimedia-l] Issue on Dutch Wikipedia in relation to BLP violating images

2014-11-28 Thread Russavia

It is with some degree of sadness that I have to bring this to
wikimedia-l, but it's something that has to be done I am afraid

In December 2011, I dealt with an OTRS complaint by an individual
relating to a photograph of her which was being used in her articles
on Wikipedia. She was not happy with the image.

Inline with the WMF Resolution dealing with images of living
people,[1] I followed: Treat any person who has a complaint about
images of themselves hosted on our projects with patience, kindness,
and respect, and encourage others to do the same.

The image[2] was removed from the article and replaced with another
suitable image. The subject also provided another image via OTRS.[3]

Fast forward to November 2014, and on Dutch Wikipedia an editor known
as EvilFreD performed what is known as BTNI reverts over numerous of
my edits going back several years. It's one of the most pathetic
policies on any project, which basically says that with no thought on
how poor an image is, it should never be replaced without two months
of mindless discussion.[4]

EvilFreD has left a message on my talk page and I responded to him
informing him of the complaint about this image.[5] After my revert
noting BLP, another admin, MoiraMoira has left a message on my talk
page.[6] Given the timeframe (2 minutes) it is possible she didn't see
it, so I asked her to please look at the above note to EvilFreD. Her
response: Hello, I'm very clear here: this is the Dutch wikipedia.
And there is no space to troll or challenge other people. If you
continue this behaviour, a timeout will follow. You should know
better. 

My removal, because Moira refused to do so, is met with one of the
most pathetic, trollish comments I have seen;[7] an insistence that I
speak in Dutch, not English. MoiraMoira then immediately protects the
article.

Is this treating people who complaints about themselves with kindness
and respect? Or is there something else going on on Dutch Wikipedia
that I don't care to know about? It's not the first time I have met
such resistance for the removal of problematic images on Dutch
Wikipedia, as was demonstrated here.[8][9]

Given the trollish nature of comments directed towards myself, and the
threats of blocks by MoiraMoira if I dare to challenge them on this
issue, would someone who has the patience to deal with such behaviour
please intervene and deal with this issue. Be mindful, you will need
to speak Dutch, and will also be willing to divulge private
information from OTRS in order to satisfy the people on this project.

Also, please note, that in discussion with the subject she was fine in
having the image kept on Commons, but didn't want it used in her
article in the infobox. I think this is the least we can do for
article subjects on our projects.

Regards

Russavia

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Justine_bateman_7-10-2007.jpg
[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Justine_Bateman_NYC.jpg
[4] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BTNI
[5] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Russavia#BTNI
[6] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Russavia#Bewerkingsoorlog
[7] 
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Justine_Batemandiff=42577573oldid=42577394
[8] 
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Russavia#Image_on_Prostitutie_in_Thailand
[9] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:9.000919_Pattaya_streetscene5.jpg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Issue on Dutch Wikipedia in relation to BLP violating images

2014-11-28 Thread Russavia

Michel,

I agree the atmosphere there is extremely toxic.

For the record, I have now been indefinitely blocked on Dutch Wikipedia for
raising serious concerns on Commons about one of their clique. Concerns
which involved incontrovertible evidence that they have been accessing
materials on Commons which was deleted due to privacy concerns and then
passed around to others who wouldn't otherwise have that access.

The unfunny part about it all, is that this only came to light after I
publicly told MoiraMoira that given it was me who deleted privacy related
images on Commons as they related to her, she should have more
understanding on issues when subjects of articles have complaints about
images of themselves. It then lead to that evidence being provided to me
within minutes. The person who provided me the evidence has also been
indefinitely blocked on Dutch Wikipedia, ostensibly for providing me with
the evidence which included the person's first name -- a first name that
was well known to me by way of discussion many years ago when we
introduced ourselves privately on IRC.

So, I agree wholeheartedly about their abusive and toxic environment, and
don't really take any notice to those on there who call me a troll, for it
is those people on Dutch Wikipedia who are playing unacceptable games in
outright violation of the WMF Board resolution. They think they are
punishing me, they are not; they are punishing the subject of the article.

Regards,

Russavia


On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 4:46 AM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org
wrote:

 Quick and easy: don't bother with the Dutch Wikipedia. It is one of the
 more toxic environments on the internet. :)


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[Wikimedia-l] 50 million Flickr images

2014-11-20 Thread Russavia

Just thought this might be of interest to people on list:

http://blog.flickr.net/en/2014/11/20/50-million-creative-commons-images-flickr-wall-art/

Kinda makes Commons pale in comparison.

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Superprotect user right, Comming to a wiki near you

2014-08-14 Thread Russavia

Erik

On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 5:32 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:


 This is why on all major sites, you see a gradual ramp-up of a new
 feature, and continued improvement once it's widely used. Often
 there's an opt-in and then an opt-out to ease users into the change.
 But once a change is launched, it very rarely gets rolled back unless
 it's just clearly not doing what it's supposed to.


Are you are familiar with the Flickr experience in the last 12 months by
any chance? I think that is a very pertinent and prominent example of what
goes against what you say. The Flickr attitude was much the same as the
WMF's. That ended up in a revolt, much like the WMF is seeing against it.
In the end, they ended up doing what Erik?

Also, the other day I received a Flickr email from someone wishing to use
an image which I had not taken, but which I had uploaded to Commons. They
mentioned that they saw the photo on Commons.

When I told them that I am not the author, and that they would need to
contact Joe Bloggs, their response: I'm sorry, this is SO confusing to me.

I put that down to MediaViewer and its adding irrelevant information, and
also the fact that file information is more difficult to find.

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Options for the German Wikipedia

2014-08-11 Thread Russavia

Brad

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 1:43 PM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) bjor...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:

 *Note these are entirely my own personal opinions as a community member and
 in no way at all represent anything official.*

 On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 3:12 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 
  I'm interested to read others' views about options and ways forward here.
 

 People could realize that demagoguery and warring is going to make
 everything much harder that it needs to be, and decide to block the people
 trying to escalate the issue so that more rational people can work out a
 rational solution.

 On the enwiki VPT thread about this, User:Fluffernutter suggested that we
 could eliminate 90% of the drama over software deployments by topic-banning
 a small number of people from the discussions. That'd probably be a much
 more productive topic than trying to brainstorm ways to make the situation
 worse.


Can you please confirm that you are one of the people who did Erik's
bidding on this issue.

On a personal level or not, I find it disturbing that you would suggest
topic banning people because they have a dissenting opinion from the WMF.
This will not lead to rational discussion, but an echo chamberis that
what people want?

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Unacceptable -- CheckUser abuse gone uninvestigated

2014-08-02 Thread Russavia

Thogo, et al

On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 3:58 PM, Thomas Goldammer tho...@gmail.com wrote:

1) There was indeed a leak of my CU data. An unknown Commons CU had
indeed leaked my CU data to another person who was NOT a CU on
Commons. The information given to this non-CU person included the very
name of the person who ran the CU on me; information which was so
sensitive to keep from me, but not sensitive enough that it was able
to be shared with every Tom, Dick and Harry that wasn't me.

I wonder why the OC never got any information about this from you. So
would
you please write us where that information comes from and what exactly
happened? Thanks.

I'm not sure I understand you Thogo. A steward contacted the OC about the
leaking of my CU data to a non-CU, not me. The nature of Points 1 and 2
from my initial email were relayed to me by a member of the OC in a private
conversation and that individual shall forever remain nameless, of course.
I'm not sure how the OC, or anyone, expects me to give any information on
an issue that I am not totally aware of, and never would have been aware of
if it weren't for me being provided with full #wikimedia-steward-internal
logs. I am happy to publicly replicate these unaltered and unedited logs if
actually required.

It had, on the basis of the information we got from you. We can obviously
not base our decision on information that is not relayed to us, like that
mentioned one section above.

This is not what was told to me on email by the member of the OC who was
liaising with me on email as a result of the complaint. Perhaps permission
to release that email from the individual concerned will show others that
the investigation was not over, but had instead been referred for
investigation to the WMF based upon the CU in question having left all
Wikimedia projects. Not sure if permission will be forthcoming given the
person is no longer on the OC.[1]

Given this, I am asking very publicly the following questions:

* (1) on what grounds a CheckUser action was performed on my account
on Wikimedia Commons?
* (2) who requested that it be performed on Commons?
* (3) who fulfilled the request?
* (4) why is it acceptable for CUs to share actions related to my
account with non-CUs whilst at the same time actively keeping this
information from me?
* (5) why are complaints such as this actively ignored by the WMF Board?

(1) through (3) can only be answered by the Commons community. It is
completely outside the OC's remit to answer this. @ (4): You might want to
discuss this with the OC non-publicly. We are very interested in getting
any available information about this. In general, you are right that it is
not acceptable to share non-public information with non-CUs. However, it
is
acceptable to give CU information to stewards (who might not be CU on
Commons), for example, under certain circumstances.

Sorry, but I beg to differ here. It is within the remit of the OC to
investigate issues of the abuse of the CU tool.[2]

The tool is to be used to fight vandalism, to check for sockpuppet abuse,
and to limit disruption of the project. It must be used only to prevent
damage to any of Wikimedia projects.

There is zero evidence that the check was done for any of these reasons,
and hence it is a violation of the privacy policy and is absolutely within
the remit of the OC.

Furthermore, at this time it might be pertinent to add that in May 2014
when the issue was being quite openly discussed on IRC in
#wikimedia-commons, a Commons CU at that stage stated that they had no idea
why the CU was run. In July 2014, when the issue was again being openly
discussed in the same IRC channel, the same Commons CU publicly stated that
they were in possession of the full story (I know everything and I also
know what's true and what's not, but I won't share with you and I know
the whole story). This CU, given they are in possession of the whole
story should be able to tell us publicly what vandalism, sockpuppet abuse
or disruption I was involved in on Commons in April 2013 which necessitated
the uber-secretive use of the CU tool on my Commons account; but NOT on
other accounts on other projects.

Given that at least one Commons CU has been able to get the full story in
the short space of 2 months, I fail to see why the OC has been unable to
get the same fully story and instead has publicly thrown its hands up in
the air and claimed one thing, whilst privately I am being told something
else completely different.

Russavia

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:List_of_administratorsdiff=prevoldid=9055834
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_policy#Use_of_the_tool
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Effective censorship of Wikipedia by Google

2014-08-02 Thread Russavia

What's the article on Wikipedia in question?
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[Wikimedia-l] SatuSuro, stop stalking the home of my parents

2014-08-02 Thread Russavia

In mid-July I was advised by an editor that on 5 July 2014 they had
received via the Wikimedia mailing system an email from SatuSuro.[1] The
editor in question, who stated that they ordinarily would not share private
communications but felt compelled to on this occasion, forwarded me the
email, along with all headers. In this email SatuSuro made the
following statement:

I am not 100% sure where you contextualise your comments from, but he is a
local, and I know his parents house quite well

Upon reading it, I was absolutely gobsmacked. Firstly, the comment was
wildly out of place in the context of the email, and secondly, this is how
the email ended.

One will note that he states that he doesn't say that he knows me nor knows
my family, but that he knows my parents' house quite well. This obviously
made me quite squeamish, because it's not my home that he states he knows
well, but the home of my parents.

I have never met SatuSuro (T.H.) in real life, and have had no reason nor
great desire to meet him. So he is not known to me on a personal level in
any way, shape or form.

With this in mind, I sent an email to my folks asking them if they knew
T.H. or if they recognised him from his photo.[2] I told them that the guy
had stated I know his parents house quite well.

They were concerned. My old lady, especially so, who looked at his comment
the same way I did. I won't divulge what sort of search terms I found in
her Google search history, even after I showed them the email which was
sent by T.H.. Both my old man and old lady confirmed that they do not know
T.H. by name nor by photo, and have no idea how he could know their house
well.

I informed them that if they should see him near their home that they
should contact the police. My folks, who are enjoying their retirement and
have their four young grandkids at their house every other day, also took
the grandkids aside and showed them T.H.'s photo and said that if they see
this man that they should tell them or their parents straight away - a much
needed lesson in stranger danger I guess.

It doesn't stop there, but I was informed the other day at a family get
together, that they had shelled out a fair amount of money for multiple
infrared cameras which are situated around their residence (in the open and
hidden), recording equipment, added security monitoring and installation.

This is so not cool. Absolutely not cool. One may expect to deal with
creepy stalker cunts as a result of participating in sites such as 4chan (I
dunno, never participated, but it has that rep perhaps), but one should
absolutely not expect to have to deal with such things from their
participation in Wikimedia projects. And especially not from someone who is
a member of a WM Chapter (WMAU) and the recipient of a scholarship from the
WMF to travel to Wikimania next week.[3]

There is no reason at all that would have required T.H. to attempt to stalk
me in real life, and there is absolutely zero reason or excuse for him to
be stalking, not my home, but the home of my parents, which has resulted in
them upgrading security, as great cost, to their castle.

A message to SatuSuro -- stop stalking the home of my parents you creepy
fuck.

Russavia

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SatuSuro
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SatuSuro_at_Wikimania_2013.jpg
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2014_WMF_Scholarship_Recipients
(#83)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] $20 donation to WMF for vandalism edit from US House of Representatives

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 12:23 AM, Newyorkbrad newyorkb...@gmail.com wrote:
 The activity you describe is obviously unacceptable.  However, the amount
 of time and effort that out associated with tracking down and returning a
 particular $20 contribution would not be worth it.

 Newyorkbrad

Newyorkbrad, it wouldn't be all that difficult, given that the
person's name is known, it was clearly done with Paypal, we have the
date the donation was made, etc, etc.

Furthermore, as the WMF have publicly spoken on these edits,[1] it
would be amiss to condemn the edits but not disavow donations made as
part of those edits.

The WMF should be refunding the donation.

 Even more worse, the Kremlin is using the English Wikipedia to support a
 misinformation campaign around the shoot down of MH17 by Russian
 separatists in Ukraine.[1] Thankfully we have these new watchdog Twitter
 bots to spot interference by unsophisticated government actors, of both the
 playfully harmless and the dangerously harmful varieties.

Nathan, it is fantastic that Jen Psaki wishes to engage with the
Wikimedia community, but could you please in future ask her to send
her brainfarts from her own account. :)

Cheers

Scotty


[1] 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/24/wikipedia-blocks-anonymous-edits-and-trolling-from-a-congressional-ip-address/

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] $20 donation to WMF for vandalism edit from US House of Representatives

Hi Richard, et al

On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 2:49 AM, Richard Symonds
richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
 He may have donated under a pseudonym, or by cheque, or to a chapter, or
 through a friend. Very tricky to track down.

True, people can and do donate via such methods. I did so myself when
I donated the half proceeds from the sale of Pricasso's painting of
Jimmy Wales to the WMF.[1] I had a friend in the US donate by way of
cheque sent to the WMF offices so that it wouldn't be eaten up in
credit card and Paypal fees.

 Jeez guys - stop beating the horse.  It's never was alive to begin with.

Rjd0060, I'm not sure here, but are you saying that the guy didn't
actually donate the $20? If so, he publicly said he did, so it's best
not to say such things which could be misconstrued as you saying the
guy lied. Perhaps contact with him via Twitter might get an answer as
to how he actually donated.

Cheers

Russavia

[1] http://archive.today/L6OVn

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[Wikimedia-l] Unacceptable -- CheckUser abuse gone uninvestigated

that it was their understanding that the Ombudsman Commission has
finished its investigation into this matter and has already
communicated its decision to you.

On 5 July 2014, I wrote back informing the person within Legal that
they were mistaken in their belief and that the issue is not resolved
at all. I also asked them to give this issue some priority given the
length of time that it has dragged out for.

To date, I have yet to hear another word from Legal, the Ombudsman
Commission, nor the WMF Board.

Given this, I am asking very publicly the following questions:

* (1) on what grounds a CheckUser action was performed on my account
on Wikimedia Commons?
* (2) who requested that it be performed on Commons?
* (3) who fulfilled the request?
* (4) why is it acceptable for CUs to share actions related to my
account with non-CUs whilst at the same time actively keeping this
information from me?
* (5) why are complaints such as this actively ignored by the WMF Board?

Thanks for your attention and reply.

Russavia

[1] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Checkusers/Statisticsoldid=9555

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing the new Wikimedia blog: a place for movement news

Hi Tilman et al

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 Hi all,

 Please find below the text of an announcement that was just posted at
 https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/07/31/introducing-the-new-blog/ ;)

I notice at the bottom that the privacy policy link goes to
http://automattic.com/privacy/ rather than the WMF's privacy policy.

Is this an oversight or deliberate?

Curiously yours,

Russavia

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[Wikimedia-l] $20 donation to WMF for vandalism edit from US House of Representatives

2014-07-31 Thread Russavia

On 23 July John Resig tweeted a challenge,[1]

I will donate $20 to a charity if someone can land an edit to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians  or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_(conspiracy_theory) … in
@congressedits

Sure enough, someone took up Resig's challenge with this edit.[2]
Keeping with his challenge, Resig announced that $20 had been donated
to the WMF for the edit.[3]

The IP used for the edit, sure enough, resolves to the US House of
Representative.[4]

To make matters a little worse, the US House of Representatives IP has
taken to vandalising the Russian Wikipedia article for the Russian
national anthem,[5] replacing sheet music for the anthem with the
sheet music for Putin -- khuilo (Putin is a dickhead).[6]

Question to the masses, should the WMF refund the $20 donation made to it?

Russavia

[1] http://www.webcitation.org/6RTt5jM9U
[2] https://twitter.com/congressedits/status/492027099499462657
[3] http://www.webcitation.org/6RTtO0JMP
[4] http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/143.231.249.138
[5] 
https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D0%93%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%BD_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8diff=64532570oldid=63573625
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin_khuilo!

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lsjbot i Wall street jpournal and BBC world

2014-07-16 Thread Russavia

Anders,

On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 7:08 PM, Anders Wennersten
m...@anderswennersten.se wrote:

Whilst you are doing some good things with these bot-created articles,
I do have some concerns.

Mainly, the fact that there is no human intervention in the creation process.

I have found myself having to remove, frankly speaking, useless
galleries on some of the articles created by your bot.

Take Mexico on Cebuano WP[1] which had a gallery made up of images
from [[Category:Mexico]] (the country) on Commons. The Commonscat link
on that article also links to the Commons category for the country. Or
the Cebuano article for Astraeus[2] which had a gallery made up of
images relating to Astraeus Airlines. The Commonscat link is also the
airline, and the images were pulled from that article.

What sort of quality control is occurring to ensure that this isn't
widespreadthese are not the only examples I've had to remove
imagery totally unrelated to the subject, and makes me question
whether having a bot creating hundreds of thousands of stubbish
articles is really the best way to go about content creation.

Russavia

[1] 
https://ceb.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mexico_(mga_mananap)oldid=42452802
[2] https://ceb.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Astraeusoldid=4367459

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal: List administration policy

2014-07-11 Thread Russavia

For almost 2 years I was put under intense harassment on English Wikipedia
by one the vilest groups that Wikipedia has seen--the EEML,[1] and one of
the accusations that was often levelled against me is that I was an agent
of the Russian government. And for 2 years the Community stood by and did
absolutely nothing -- except for blocking me numerous times and eventually
indefinitely topic banning me. In fact, the suggestion was even made by a
long-standing member of the Community that an anonymous tip should be
made naming me as a Russian spy.[2]

Such accusations are never acceptable, and Trillium Corsage should be shown
the door completely with their backdoor continued accusations which are
made without a shred of proof.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EEML
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence/Russavia#Discussions_relating_to_stalking.2Fharrassing_myself_in_real_life

On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 3:51 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:

Actually, Trillium Corsage, I'd say that's a reason for banning you again.
It's a very serious allegation you're implying about a longstanding member
of our community.

Risker

On 11 July 2014 14:24, Trillium Corsage trillium2...@yandex.com wrote:

Hi Fae,

I was banned from the list by Austin Hair. I had contributed in my view a
lot of good and polite stuff that was reasonably reasoned, but he banned
me
on the basis of a 17-word parenthetical phrase regarding arbitrator
Timotheus Canens. I said that I had read it claimed that he was connected
to Chinese military intelligence. Is that a reason to ban me? I emailed
him, and then repeat emailed him to talk to me about it. I was met by
silence.

I wasn't going to get upset about it, and didn't. I figure Austin just
another type who got moderator privilege on a mailing list. It's not even
worth it to criticize him, but I guess I'll notice he banned me within
minutes, and he hasn't posted to the list anything since, and I don't
recall him ever contributing a email of substantive opinion since I
joined
the list.

I logged on here today with the aim of unsubscribing to the list, but
I'll
keep reading long enough to see if your below email asking for
transparency
on the list goes anywhere. Good luck.

Trillium Corsage

11.07.2014, 11:28, Fæ fae...@gmail.com:
Hi,

I would like to propose that this list have a published process for
post moderation, banning and appeals. Perhaps a page on meta would be
a good way to propose and discuss a policy? I would be happy to kick
off a draft.

This list has a defined scope at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l which
explains who the 3 list admins are, but no more than that. There is no
system of appeals, no expected time limits on bans or moderation, nor
an explanation of the 30 posts per month behavioural norm that
sometimes applies to this list. Neither is there any explanation of
what is expected of list admins, such as whether there is an
obligation to explain to someone who finds themselves subject to
moderation or a ban, as to why this has happened and what they ought
to do in order to become un-banned or un-moderated.

I believe this would help list users better understand what is
expected of them when they post here and it may give an opportunity to
review the transparency of list administration, such as the option of
publishing a list of active moderated accounts and possibly a list of
indefinitely banned accounts where these were for behaviour on the
list (as opposed to content-free spamming etc.)

I see no down side to explaining policy as openly as possible.
Thoughts?

Fae
--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
(P.S. I am active on the English Wikipedia where I have a GA on the
go, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fae. Sorry to disappoint,
but reports of my retirement are premature.)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lets delete everything from commons (was The tragedy of Commons)

2014-06-22 Thread Russavia

Craig, et al

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Craig Franklin
cfrank...@halonetwork.net wrote:
 Pardon me if this has already been covered, but as I understand it the
 problem is not the legal status of the files in Israel, the problem is with
 the legal status of the files in the United States, where the Israeli
 Government may still have some copyright protections.

You are misunderstanding completely the issue. There is no evidence
that Israel has a PD exemption for such government works, as we see
for say, Russia,[1] which allows for letters such as this to exist on
Commons.[2]

 It seems to me that rather than insisting that the files are permitted to
 remain, a more fruitful avenue might be to use WMIL's contacts with the
 Israeli Government to licence these images anywhere where copyright might
 still exist under a very free licence like CC-0.  That way even if URAA or
 some future copyright shenanigans places these images back under copyright,
 they're usable by anyone.  This ought to satisfy even the most dogmatic
 Commons admin that the images are indeed free.

I have told someone that what needs to occur is for the GPO to release
their claims over copyright worldwide in relation to URAA. The reason
for this, is the same reason that the Israeli Government would NEVER
CC-0 licence their materials -- because it opens them up to parody,
satire and other uses that they might not agree with -- and we need to
protect re-users who wish to use materials for such purposes. That's
the same reason that the Australian Commonwealth Parliament refuses to
CC photos of MPs, in case you weren't aware.

Cheers

Russavia

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-RU-exempt
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_letter_to_FIFA.jpg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lets delete everything from commons (was The tragedy of Commons)

2014-06-22 Thread Russavia

Itzik

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il wrote:
 The story continues.

 WMIL uploaded a letter from the Ministry of Justice, addressed to the
 Commons Community, which confirm that the government don't have interest on
 this photos. And not surprising, he was deleted from Commoms by the same
 person who deleted all the photos so far:
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ministry_of_Justice%27s_of_Israel_response_to_copyrights_issue.jpg

The file was deleted because Hanay uploaded it as a self-authored
work. This is obviously not the case, so the deletion is valid. Please
refer to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:SCOPE and
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:L

If Israeli law has an exemption for government works, then perhaps we
can look at restoring it.

It saddens me that I am having to say this to the Chairman of
Wikimedia Israel, because it truly seems to me that you don't know how
Commons operates and what our mission is.

Cheers

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lets delete everything from commons (was The tragedy of Commons)

2014-06-22 Thread Russavia

Craig, et al

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 7:08 PM, Craig Franklin cfrank...@halonetwork.net
wrote:
 Russavia,


  I'm a bit confused though about the
 parody/satire angle, my understanding is that a CC licence does not
 extinguish things such as moral rights that are not related to copyright.

Sorry, I should make myself more clear -- sometimes it's easy to forget
that people may not be thinking on the same level as oneself.

If an image is out of copyright in Israel, but still has copyright
protection in the US due to URA, lets say one was to parody/satirise that
work in the US, and let's say they sell that work for profit.

Whilst parody and satire are covered under the 1st amendment in the US, the
Israeli government could invoke the copyright protection in the US of that
work to stop its distribution. And it's an argument that would work.[1]

This is why it is required for the Israeli government to state clearly that
when an Israeli government work falls into the public domain it
relinquishes it's copyright over those works worldwide, and for this to
cover both past (required due to URAA), present and future cases
(preferable). If that doesn't occur, then Commons won't be able to host
those materials until they fall out of copyright in the US due to the
rejection of the loosening of the PRP policy, and by extension the URAA
RfC, on Commons.[2]

 But, I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that if these images *are*
 useful, a more productive course of action than arguing about it on a
 mailing list would probably be to identify what steps can be taken in good
 faith to move them from a disputed copyright situation to a situation
where
 everyone is comfortable that there are no problems with re-use.

On this point I agree entirely. WMIL now has an ally, the Ministry of
Education, I hope they use it to their advantage.

Cheers

Russavia

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Joker%22_poster
[2]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Review_of_Precautionary_principlediff=127184893oldid=126836923
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

2014-06-17 Thread Russavia

Yann,

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 4:01 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:


 The rules of the project, free license, or in the public domain in
 USA and in the source country, are fine as long as they are not used
 to game the system.


Yann I totally agree with this.

The problem is, that the URAA RFC goes against that statement entirely by
ignoring or turning a blind eye to the copyright status of files in the US.

Can you explain why there is the blaring discrepancy in your viewpoint here?

Cheers

Russvia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media

2014-06-13 Thread Russavia

Ira,

Don't lecture me about what is and isn't acceptable.

Sure, you're a member of WMNYC and you are, of course, really butthurt
over the fact that basically the only report on the conference in the
media has painted a picture you would have preferred not to be
painted, but don't take that out on me -- this is one painting I hold
no responsibility for.

If you want reports that paint a glowing picture of the Cult of
Wikipediology, hire a publicist, don't let the media in, and certainly
don't let the media talk to people who, by all accounts, shouldn't be
doing so due to incompetence -- not everyone is capable of dealing
with media.

What is interesting is that immediately after you posted this, you
raced over to en.wp and posted what you did. But you should have
stopped and thought about how ridiculous this could make you look, and
it will make you look in the future.

Firstly, Risker stated that the reporter set up Rutherford, Rutherford
said that the reporter lied, Isarra said that the reporter basically
created a tense situationhell Siko even stated on Gendergap that
New York Magazine still sucks.

Ira, you push the line that BLP applies on all WMF projects; you do
realise that this list is hosted on WMF servers, and therefore both
Risker and Rutherford have engaged in gross BLP violating accusations.
But you stayed silent on thathow quaint...how sScientologist/s
Wikipediologist-like.

It's disturbing that Rutherford stated that there were discussions
about how to deal with her report, because all of the comments
Wikipediologists so far on this list leads me to think that they would
likely deal with it the same way Wikipediologists deal with others who
dare to stray from or mock the Wikipediology doctrine -- that being
attack, attack, attack! And this is something you excel at Ira.

For the record Ira, I have been in touch with the reporter a few
times, and she has told me, that like the Avicii interview, she
recorded the entire conversation and she stands by her report. So will
New York Magazine when they review her recorded conversation, if
Wikipediologists wanted to make her report an issue. What you may not
have seen about the Avicii report is that the reporter was vindicated
in the end, simply because the conversation was recorded. I also told
her that she would probably be notable enough for a Wikipedia article,
and that she has no need to be worried if one were created -- people
generally do edit in an NPOV way. She has faith in that system.

Now on your other comments, and it's one which Pete Forsyth touched on
--- Wikipediologists do have a history of creating articles when they
have been slighted.

Take Theodore Katsanevas,[1] for example. Prior to the news of him
suing a Greek Wikipedia editor, he had a bio article on one project,
Greek Wikipedia.[2] He now has an article on 18 projects.[3] It's the
same thing with Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station,[4] which now
has articles on 33 projects.[5] On the flipside, Pine Gap,[6] has an
article on only 7 projects.[7] Interesting comparison isn't it.

So, there you have it Ira, I hope this gives you something to think
about, and if you want to comment further, then I welcome it.

Cheers

Russavia

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Katsanevas
[2] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q12877939oldid=108324487
[3] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12877939
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-sur-Haute_military_radio_station
[5] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10369016
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap
[7] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1754535

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 12:30 AM, Newyorkbrad newyorkb...@gmail.com wrote:
 Russavia, despite the smilie, your last comment suggests that someone would
 create a biography of a living person in retaliation for the fact that she
 wrote unflatteringly and made errors in a piece about the Wikiconference.

 BLPs must never be created or edited as a form of retaliation against the
 article subject or misused in connection with an off-wiki dispute, nor may
 any suggestion of doing so be made at any time..

 It is also undesirable to provide ammunition for the (sometimes,
 unfortunately, accurate) perception that being the subject of a Wikipedia
 article is something that people should fear, nor that we would, even
 jokingly, threaten to do create a BLP as a form of what came last year to
 be called revenge editing.

 Please don't make this sort of comment again.

 Thanks,
 Newyorkbrad/IBM


 On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com
 wrote:


 There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of
 the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way
 -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)

 Cheers,

 Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media

2014-06-07 Thread Russavia

Tomasz, et al

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com wrote:
 I guess we can at least contact the journalst: jpressler (@) nymag.com
 (found her E-mail on her public twitter account) asking to fix obvoius
 factual mistakes (22 000 accounts etc) + provide POV of Issara and
 others.

The 22,000 accounts is obviously meant to be 22,000,000.

New York Magazine, for what it's worth, was the winner of the 2013
Magazine of the Year Award.[1] An award which has previously been won
by Glamour, TIME, National Geographic, and in 2014 which was won by
The New Yorker. This is obviously not The National Enquirer or The
Daily Dot we are talking of here.

Jessica Pressler is published in New York, GQ, amongst others. She has
over 3,500 articles in New York Magazine alone.[2] So we are not
dealing with a fresh out of college journo here. However, she has had
her moments, such as her profile on Avicii in GQ which saw him taking
to Facebook to attack her article on him.[3]

There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of
the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way
-- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)

Cheers,

Russavia

[1] 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/national-magazine-award-winners-2013_n_3202938.html
[2] http://nymag.com/author/jessica%20pressler/
[3] https://www.facebook.com/avicii/posts/10151406809626799

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sport photo

Pyb, great stuff. It would be great if we could increase coverage of sports
which we don't cover very well, if at all, on Commons.

Can I make some suggestions where video would be great.

1. Dwarf tossing[1]
2. Bog snorkelling[2]
3. Cheese rolling[3]

and one of Australia's favourite backyard sports...

4. Goon of Fortune[4]

Cheers,

Russavia


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_tossing
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_snorkelling and
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bog_snorkelling
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese_rolling and
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cheeserolling
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goon_of_Fortune (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqFFyW01FXA)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sport photo

Pleclown,

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:36 AM, Pipo Le Clown plecl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Unfortunately, dwarf tossing is kinda prohibited in good old Europe...


Interesting, I see it has been banned in France. And there's obviously a
call for it to be banned elsewhere too.

Say, I see that footy in Europe isn't very well covered on Commons. Or
outside of Australia for that matter.[1] Whilst it may not be of the level
of sports that you guys are aiming for (i.e. not played outside of
Australia on a professional basis), AFL is played in several European
countries[2] including a competition in France.[3] Teams in France are:

Bordeaux Bombers
Paris Cockerels
Aix-Marseille Dockers
Cergy-Pontoise Coyotes
Montpellier Fire Sharks
Toulouse Hawks
Strasbourg Kangourous
Tigers de Perpignan

Could make for interesting additions for Commons, and might help to
encourage development of articles relating to Aussie Rules on numerous
projects.

Cheers,

Russavia

P.S. My team has a theme song that you Frenchies should recognise.[4]


[1]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_rules_football_by_country
[2] http://www.afleurope.org/
[3] http://www.football-australien.fr/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2OnZG6VnJk
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sport photo

Whilst going through some of the thousands of photos I managed to get
a CC release for from the Korean Culture and Information Service,[1] I
came across 200 photos from the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter
Games held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.[2] There is an article (for
want of a better word) on English Wikipedia[3] and Chinese
Wikipedia[4], where the images do not see any usage. The only usage
these images see on our projects (related to the actual sporting
event) is a single image on Spanish Wikipedia on its article for the
Special Olympics.[5] Funnily enough, the en.wp article for the Special
Olympics World Games[6] uses an NFCC image which fails the NFCC
criteria.[7]

Outside of the 2013 Pyeongchang games, Commons' coverage of Special
Olympics is basically non-existent.[8]

The next Summer games are in Los Angeles in 2015, and the next Winter
games are in Graz in 2017.

Could be good to increase coverage of this one area which I have
noticed seriously does suffer from systematic bias on our projects.

Cheers,

Russavia

[1] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Korea.net_Flickr_stream
[2] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:2013_Special_Olympics_World_Winter_Games
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Special_Olympics_World_Winter_Games
[4] 
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E5%B9%B4%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E5%86%AC%E5%AD%A3%E7%89%B9%E6%AE%8A%E5%A5%A7%E6%9E%97%E5%8C%B9%E5%85%8B%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95%E6%9C%83
[5] 
https://tools.wmflabs.org/glamtools/glamorous.php?doit=1category=2013+Special+Olympics+World+Winter+Gamesuse_globalusage=1ns0=1show_details=1projects[wikipedia]=1projects[wikimedia]=1projects[wikisource]=1projects[wikibooks]=1projects[wikiquote]=1projects[wiktionary]=1projects[wikinews]=1projects[wikivoyage]=1projects[wikispecies]=1projects[mediawiki]=1projects[wikidata]=1projects[wikiversity]=1
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Olympics_World_Games
[7] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Special_Olympics_World_Summer_Games_Opening_Ceremony_and_Parade_of_Athletes,_with_NBA_legend_Yao_Ming.jpg
[8] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Special_Olympics

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[Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media

As GerardM mentioned in the thread relating to the Berlin conference,
wikiconferences are an opportunity for wikimedians to come together to
share in knowledge.

New York Magazine published an article on the conference which gives
us great insight into everything that is wrong with the wiki
culture.[1]

Out of curiosity, what was the total cost to the movement for this
knowledge sharing opportunity, and do people consider it money well
spent given the golden sound bytes the conference generated in the
media?

Cheers

Russavia

[1] 
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/06/love-and-drama-at-the-wikipedia-conference.html

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media

MZMcBride, et al

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 9:17 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 I know for certain that there quite a few people who feel that you,
 Russavia, are actively damaging and degrading the wiki culture with your
 actions... perhaps the same would be said of me and others, though I hope
 not.

I would appreciate it that if you are going to have a pot shot at me,
that you expand on it, and explain exactly what actions you are
talking about. However, this isn't about me, so feel free to start a
new thread on that if you so wish.

The article in question is obviously an issue, because gendergappers
are already saying that the unnamed female is owed an apology for the
comments which were directed towards her.[1][2]

The comments from Kevin Rutherford were entirely inappropriate, and
whilst others may not want to publicly say anything because they know
the editor in question,[3] I am willing to go on the record and say
that comments that come across as totally clueless have no place in a
chapter-organised and WMF sponsored event.

If Kevin Rutherford thinks that his comments were acceptable, then he
is sorely mistaken and he has shown clear misjudgment through his
comments at this public event, because they are not supported by the
wider community (if they are, then shame on the community).

I'm seriously not doubting that Frank Schulenberg is reported to have
shaken his head at the comments, because I know others who have read
the article have *facepalmed* and lolwut.

Having this in the media is just another cost that communities have to
face (it's not always about money), and unfortunately it seems to have
overshadowed anything actually useful that might have come of the
conference.

Cheers,

Russavia


[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004310.html
[2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004311.html
[3] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004312.html

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cost of Wikimedia Conference 2014

2014-06-02 Thread Russavia

Jon,

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 9:38 PM, Jon Davies jon.dav...@wikimedia.org.uk
wrote:

 £2600, our current estimate, seems good value. Some bloke is charging me
 £120 to come and tell me my dishwasher is broken


And I can tell you that the conference hasn't resulted in a single new
long-term editor on our projects, did nothing to address the gender gap on
our projects in any way that can be seen in metrics, did nothing to create
heaps of content, did nothing to address issues relating to our
infrastructure/software, etc.

Unlike the dishwasher guy who charged you £120 to tell you the bleeding
obvious that something is broken, I am willing to give you the above
comments for free.

Regards,

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cost of Wikimedia Conference 2014

2014-06-01 Thread Russavia

Fae,

On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 1:05 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 2 April 2014 16:12, Jon Davies jon.dav...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
 ...
  This could help reduce costs and avoid any duplication?

 I can now confirm that Wikimedia UK is not going to make a public
 report of the total costs of sending 8 people to the Wikimedia
 Conference 2014. I doubt that Jon Davies' wish to reduce costs can be
 considered a commitment if as the Chief Executive, he has chosen to
 not report on them.


I have read the links that you have provided and I find it totally
unacceptable that an organisation can not provide costs for sending 8
people on a junket to New York.

When I have operated businesses in the real world, I have been able to pull
up any financial information (expenses, revenue, etc) within a matter of
seconds and with a click of a mouse. It is astounding that WMUK is not able
to do the same thing.

That Richard Symonds is saying that it is not a good use of resources, and
basically putting it in the too hard basket, to supply the amount of donor
dollars which have been spent on this controversial junket is, to use a
great British colloquialism, total bollocks.

WMUK is an organisation which blows its own trumpet on how transparent it
has become in the last 2 years, so it seriously should not be too difficult
to do this in a timely fashion.

Cheers

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.

2014-05-28 Thread Russavia

Wil,

On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:24 AM, Wil Sinclair w...@wllm.com wrote:

As you can see there is a lot of consternation being directed your
way, and at some stage, and this will teach you well for the future as
well, you have to learn to walk away from the keyboard. If you can't
do this, and I have a feeling you might have difficulty doing so, try
to at least delay hitting the send button, but this is something else
you may have trouble doing. This is especially important on this list,
as there is a sending limit per month that people are able send, and
this is obviously done to prevent the drowning out of other
participants by any single personyou would likely be well on your
way to this limit by now.

Wil, if you truly wanted to see how the projects work, usually the
best way is to get involved at the ground level. Some people may want
to make some edits on Wikipedia to an article on a subject that
interest them. Others might add some information on one of their
favourite holiday spots on Wikivoyage. Others might prefer to take a
photo of their penis and upload it to Commons. There are literally
plenty of ways for a n00b get involved on our projects.

You have missed an opportunity here to be able to help Lila with her new job.

Firstly, this is Lila's moment to shine and an opportunity for the
community to get to know her and vice versa. It's a bit difficult for
a sense of trust to be built when you have an overbearing partner
essentially publicly pushing her aside and taking all of our
attention. For example, I really don't know much about Lila, but I
know more about you. And that presents a massive problem, and believe
you me, others are thinking it, I'm willing to say it publicly.

Secondly, as a n00b, you would have been a great person for Lila to
use as a sounding board as to how it is for new editors on our
projects to be able to edit and understand how to navigate our
projects. You may not be aware but our projects have a dire editor
retention rate, and your experiences, given that it is evident you are
green to our projects, may have been able to help Lila understand that
particular issue.

Getting involved as you have done has only gone to serve
Wikipediocracy by handing them the best PSA they could hope for on a
silver platter.

Having said that, if you want to get involved on Commons,
#wikimedia-commons is full of helpful editors who might be able to
give you some further ideas on how to contribute to that project.

Learn the ropes first; there's plenty of time for wikipolitics and the
like later on.

Cheers

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.

2014-05-28 Thread Russavia

Wil,

Have you been introduced to Jimmy Wales yet?

I'd be most interested for you to take your quote about Greg Kohs to
Jimmy on his talk page
(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesaction=editsection=new)
and ask him if he would agree with you.

Also, please note that here on wikimedia-l you are reaching only a
small audience, you will likely get a wider audience at Jimmy's talk
page, and therefore a wider variety of opinion.

We'd then be most interested in hearing about your findings.

Cheers,

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Participating on Wikipediocracy

2014-05-24 Thread Russavia

Andreas

 And he's not the only Wikimedia admin to participate on WO incognito. That
 in itself is food for thought.

And therein lies the problem.

In 28byte's case he actively attacked myself and another editor on WO
forums on an issue in which I wasn't involved, and then proceded to
close an AfD as if he was an uninvolved admin/bureaucrat.

28bytes is as a dishonest person who you will ever come across, and he
outed himself only after seeing the secret subforum where he saw
he was going to be outed by you guys.

And you want to hold him as an example of a shining example of WO
membership, seriously?

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Non-renewal of Wikimedia UK fundraiser agreement

2014-05-21 Thread Russavia

Hi all,

A couple of things popped into my head that I am unsure of, but hope
someone might be able to answer.

1) I understand that processing of UK donations in the US has significant
tax implications on the funds collected. I would imagine that the WMF
couldn't claim anywhere near the same tax relief on this income in the USA?
2) If there are tax implications, wouldn't it make more sense for the WMF
to register its own charity in the UK, thereby it could essentially take
WMUK out of the equation completely?
3) Could the fact that WMUK is currently spending approximately 50% of its
income on non-project costs[1] be partly the reason for this decision by
Sue? I understand that 3 years ago there was no staff in the UK and
something like 90% of income was spent directly on projects, and now there
are 12 staff with at the very least 50% of income being spent on
non-project activities based on reports presented for the last FDC
proposal. This could be a message that WMUK needs to trim the fat,
especially if there are more overheads that are hidden within programme
activity funding.

Not really sure what's going on here with the WMF, but the likelihood that
what Nemo and Mircu state is possible, but we shouldn't discount other
things as well.

But I would like to thank WMUK for sponsoring the Airliners project on
Commons,[2] which will see over 200,000+ aviation images being made
available via Fae's great work, and the chapters generosity. It's something
that I don't think sponsorship would have come as easily from other sources.

Cheers

Russavia


[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/WMUK/Proposal_form#Programme_5.E2.80.94Finance
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Batch_uploading/Airliners
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Non-renewal of Wikimedia UK fundraiser agreement

2014-05-21 Thread Russavia

Richard,

To answer 1 and 2 together, and thanks for your response

As you noted, under Gift Aid charities receive a 25% premium on donations
(I hope that's correct just going on your figures), and I can't see the WMF
really wanting to lose what is essentially, well, a gift.

As Fae mentioned in his response, the WMF could set up a trust in the UK
for the sole purpose of fundraising, to ensure that the 25% gift aid is
retained. They could then distribute these funds to whichever countries
they like.

This is apparently how Greenpeace operates with the Greenpeace
Environmental Trust[1] used to fundraise for the organisation, and
Greenpeace Limited doing the stuff that wouldnt be legal for the charitable
trust to do. With the fundraising the GET receives they can use these funds
to support the upkeep of their foreign ships, or to protest Russian goings
ons in the Arctic.

I sincerely can't see WMF wanting to lose the premium on donations which I
am sure they are aware of, and they don't want WMUK collecting donations,
so the logical conclusion to this is that they are bypassing WMUK to do
this themselves (which they have already stated, except for the how).

So that we have some idea could we please get some figures on how WMUK
collected for the WMF, and how much of the 25% premium (if that it was it
is) the WMUK received.

Cheers

Russavia

[1]
http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=284934SubsidiaryNumber=0

On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 8:19 PM, Richard Symonds
richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:

Hi Russavia,

Just a quick response to your points:

1. Yes. Gift Aid isn't quite the same as tax deductibility. To take
Wikipedia's example, when Mr Smith donates £100 to a charity, the
charity
gets £100 from him, plus an extra £25 from the government. It's more
complex than this - not everyone is eligible - but broadly this is the
case.
2. Probably not. See

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/frequently-asked-questions/faqs-about-registering-a-charity/can-i-register-the-uk-branch-of-an-overseas-charity/
.
3. I'm not sure where the 50% figure came from, but it is incorrect. The
correct figure for that year is 69%. For this past quarter, the correct
figure is even better, at 80.24%. In addition, our fundraising costs as
a
percentage of total spend have dropped from 22% to 10%. If anyone wants
more information on this, our treasurer is happy to discuss it with
them by
email.
4. As for the planes - it is indeed fantastic and a good example of how,
even where we may disagree, we can still all pull together to do great
work
for the movement. Speaking personally, it's a shame we don't have
something
similar for ships!

Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992

Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).

*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

On 21 May 2014 12:22, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi all,

A couple of things popped into my head that I am unsure of, but hope
someone might be able to answer.

1) I understand that processing of UK donations in the US has significant
tax implications on the funds collected. I would imagine that the WMF
couldn't claim anywhere near the same tax relief on this income in the
USA?
2) If there are tax implications, wouldn't it make more sense for the WMF
to register its own charity in the UK, thereby it could essentially take
WMUK out of the equation completely?
3) Could the fact that WMUK is currently spending approximately 50% of
its
income on non-project costs[1] be partly the reason for this decision by
Sue? I understand that 3 years ago there was no staff in the UK and
something like 90% of income was spent directly on projects, and now
there
are 12 staff with at the very least 50% of income being spent on
non-project activities based on reports presented for the last FDC
proposal. This could be a message that WMUK needs to trim the fat,
especially if there are more overheads that are hidden within programme
activity funding.

Not really sure what's going on here with the WMF, but the likelihood
that
what Nemo and Mircu state is possible, but we shouldn't discount other
things as well.

But I would like to thank WMUK for sponsoring the Airliners project on
Commons,[2] which will see over 200,000+ aviation images being made
available via Fae's great work, and the chapters generosity. It's

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons' frontpage probably shouldn't prominently feature a decontextualised stack of corpses.

2014-05-16 Thread Russavia

Kevin,

Let me know when you have recovered from the concussion you have
incurred, which I hope is soon and I hope you are getting better, and
then I would urge you to re-look at the issues and re-present them,
and I would be more than happy to discuss publicly right here.

It would be unfair of you to expect me to be able to comment frankly
(which is my preferred way) right now, when what you are writing here,
on Commons, and in the comments section of Pete's blog post may not be
Kevin Gorman, Wikipedian-in-Residence at UC Berkeley, but Kevin
Gorman, the guy who has received a nasty knock to the head.

Until then, I would prefer not to comment further.

Cheers,

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons' frontpage probably shouldn't prominently feature a decontextualised stack of corpses.

2014-05-16 Thread Russavia

Kevin,

Feel free to have one of the people who don't have a nasty head injury
ask me the question. That would be fine, and I would actually prefer
it. Given your head injury, I'm actually a little surprised that your
friends did think of asking me themselves under the circumstances.

Cheers

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons' frontpage probably shouldn't prominently feature a decontextualised stack of corpses.

2014-05-15 Thread Russavia

Pete,

I am sure that I speak on behalf of all of the Commons community when
I say that it is disheartening to continually hear the mantra commons
is broken, when that could not be further from the truth. Your blog
post, helps to present some of that reality, so I thank you, both on
my behalf and on behalf of the Commons community. I will have some
comments later on a couple of issues.

Risker,

Of course the image still shows up on search for electric toothbrush.
If you read the closure on that DR, which I wrote in conjunction with
3 other admins, the issue is very clear. It's not a Commons problem,
but a WMF problem.

Cheers

Russavia

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons' frontpage probably shouldn't prominently feature a decontextualised stack of corpses.

2014-05-15 Thread Russavia

with Commons to give the WMF a firm kick up the behind, and help us to
help you.

Cheers

Russavia


[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Copyright_violations
[2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2013-May/subject.html
(search for thread [Gendergap] Category:Nude portrayals of computer
technology)
[3] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:EVula/Archive-2013#Speedy_deletions
[4] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems/Archive_36#Why_does_EVula_still_have_admin_privileges.3F
[5] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:EVula/Archive-2013#COM:AN.2FU
[6] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Russavia/userboxes/bullshit
[7] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Independent_Report_from_Tory_Read#Students_Begin_to_Post_Copyvios
[8] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Independent_Report_from_Tory_Read#Global_Editors_Have_Extended_Difficulty_Getting_Information_from_the_Foundation
[9] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/improving_search#A_little_bit_of_intelligence

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons' frontpage probably shouldn't prominently feature a decontextualised stack of corpses.

2014-05-12 Thread Russavia

Geni,

On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 2:42 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 12 May 2014 07:29, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote:

   individual to promote hooks, and that it should be
  taken up with them. I remember getting a response that it would be
  inappropriate to have foul language (or a photo thereof) visible like
  that on the front page, even though it certainly wasn't foul language at
  allit's simply the name of the town.
 

 No it isn't and you know that.

Of course it is, because it was clearly given context. If it was just a
photo of that sign and nothing more, then one could rightly say it is what
one would likely think.

But when given context: that the Austrian town of Fucking installed
theft-resistant road signs in 2005 because the signs were frequently stolen
by tourists? it is indeed just a sign for the town, and nothing more than
that.

Like the Fucking police chief said on the issue of theft of the signs: [w]hat
they are, I am not at liberty to disclose, but we will not stand for the
Fucking signs being removed. It may be very amusing for you British, but
Fucking is simply Fucking to us. What is this big Fucking joke? It is
puerile.

That others read more into than this shows that the issue clearly lays with
themjust like the non-issue on Commons.

Cheers,

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cracking Wikipedia

2014-05-09 Thread Russavia

Cometstyles, et al

On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 4:31 PM, Comet styles cometsty...@gmail.com wrote:

 Well done Russ, hopefully we can get more government sites to release
 their images on a fully free licence...product placements aside, the
 goal for wikimedia Commons is to provide the best possible image
 available for use freely online and we should just focus on that..a
 good cropping can sometimes remove unwanted adverts from the
 background ;)v


Indeed, whilst we on our projects should concentrate on getting the best
possible photographs, we shouldn't be ignorant to the fact that often the
best photographs are taken by those who have a professional interest in
those subjects, and they have the budgets to be able to spend top dollar on
getting those photos.

We also shouldn't be ignorant of the fact that these companies obviously
have an interest that may not correspond to our own, but there is no reason
that we can't, and shouldn't, use that to the advantage of both us and
them. We just shouldn't make promises to them (i.e guaranteed placement)
that would be unethical for us to make. As you can see from the examples
I've provided, all we need to do is make the photographs available on
Commons, and natural editing will inevitably take place and the photos will
be put into use in the best places possible.

Having said that, I have now made contact with Pirelli, and am already
discussing with them the possibility of getting a large image release.

Cheers,

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cracking Wikipedia

2014-05-07 Thread Russavia

I have been quite succesful in getting media relicenced for our
projects. My first major success was the Kremlin[1], and in my letter
to them[2] I made it very clear that media in articles would help to
better articulate and present the points of view that should be
present in relevant articles. Today, we have over 11,000 Kremlin
images on Commons, of which over 1/3 are in use across our
projects.[3]

Governmental media, be it the Kremlin or the White House, is somewhat
promoting a brand. This is especially evident by another government
department which made available its media under a free licence after
my request -- Korea.net.[4] Korea.net is operated by the Korean
Culture and Information Service whose mission it is to introduce
Korean culture to the world and to uplift the national image of
South Korea.[5] Their images are now widely in use on Korean
Wikipedia, and, disappointingly, only to a limited extent on English
Wikipedia and other projects.[6]

Whilst it is often unspoken/unwritten that media can have obvious
benefits, the New Zealand government is different and clearly
states:[7]

It is widely recognised that re-use of this material by individuals
and organisations may have significant creative and economic benefit
for New Zealand.

And sure enough, the New Zealand Defence Force has put into place
NZGOAL recommendations, and we happily accept their media,[8] put them
into use on our projects.[9]

In the last 12 months or so, I have also started to target companies
to relicence their media. I began to do this after seeing that LG
Electronics have for a long time made available their extensive
photograph library under a Creative Commons licence.[10] And, of
course, we happily accept their media on our projects[11], and put
them into use.[12] Some of their photos are in use on projects, and
the product placement is clear.[13]

I have so far managed to get Maersk Line,[14] SuperJet
International,[15] Austrian Airlines,[16] Jetstar Airways,[17] amongst
others to provide their media under a free licence. And I am
discussing with a range of other companies in getting them to provide
media under a free licence. Many of these images are in use on
projects, and some of them have been recognised on our projects at
featured photos.[18] And some commercial providers of content are such
that we might not have media otherwise.[19]

The Pirelli video[20] obviously does not demonstrate that Pirelli
has done anything on Wikipedia, or even that it intends to. For all we
know, it is an initial pitch to Pirelli on how an advertising company
could help to promote Pirelli on Wikipedia -- they have are on point
on some things, but way off on others. But already we have editors
being silly and calling for regulation on how images should be used,
and suggesting that editors who upload images promoting brands should
be shown the door and the images deleted.[21] Luckily, there are some
cooler, and more reasonable, heads in such discussions.[22]

Regardless of what is going on with Pirelli, if this is an avenue that
they wish to pursue, then I would welcome their media contributions,
and I would also welcome the opportunity to consult, for a reasonable
fee, on how best to provide media to our projects and enter into a
win-win relationship for both us and them.

Russavia


[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Kremlin.ru
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Russavia/letter
[3] http://bit.ly/1jbZDNv
[4] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Korea.net_Flickr_stream
[5] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Culture_and_Information_Service#Overview
[6] http://bit.ly/Od0lx6
[7] http://www.nzdf.mil.nz/news/image-galleries/creative-commons/default.htm
[8] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_New_Zealand_Defence_Force_Flickr_stream
[9] http://bit.ly/RquHOu
[10] https://www.flickr.com/photos/lge
[11] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_LGEPR
[12] http://bit.ly/1nnxinR
[13] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eva_Longoria_Parker_and_Victoria_Beckham.jpg
and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eva_Longoria_Parker_crop.jpg
for example
[14] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Maersk_Line_Flickr_stream
[15] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_SuperJet_International_Flickr_stream
[16] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Austrian_Airlines
[17] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Jetstar_Airways
[18] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Air-to-air_photo_of_a_Sukhoi_Superjet_100_%28RA-97004%29_over_Italy.jpg
and 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Computer_generated_image_of_the_M%C3%A6rsk_Triple_E_Class_(1).jpg
[19] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Uri_Tours
- 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Participants_in_the_2012_Pyongyang_Marathon_running_past_the_Arch_of_Triumph.jpg
for example
[20] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NfbtsoIk2U
[21

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Assessing this round of FDC proposals, including the WMF's proposal

2014-04-30 Thread Russavia

Marc,

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 11:15 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org
 wrote:

 On 04/28/2014 10:29 PM, Russavia wrote:
  because the
  WMF Executive Director's words are pretty clear, and the movement
 should
  not be putting one cent into such positions.

 That's an interessing conclusion you reach, because the Executive
 Director's words *are* indeed clear - as you quoted:

  In the future, *the Wikimedia Foundation* will not support or
  endorse the creation of paid roles that have article writing as
  a core focus [...]
 (emph. mine)

 I'm pretty sure I don't see the movement mentionned anywhere in there.

 Whether the chapters intend to take such a position themselves is indeed
 an interesting question, but that they are obligated to do so or that
 the FDC is obligated to ensure that they do does not follow from what
 Sue has been saying.


My native language is English, and understanding the sentence:

In the future, the Wikimedia Foundation will not support or endorse the
creation of paid roles that have article writing as a core focus,
regardless of who is initiating or managing the process.

is a case of simple comprehension.

Let's use another way of putting across what this sentence is saying.

Timmy's parents are noted anti-drug activists, speaking out against the
horrors of drugs. But, Timmy is a drug addict, and whilst his parents
publicly speak out against drugs, they had been quietly paying for Timmy's
habit. When this was brought to the attention of the public, Timmy's
parents put out a statement that read:

In the future, we (Timmy's parents) will not support or endorse Timmy's
drug addiction, regardless of who buys or enables the supply of drugs.

Now, Timmy continues to do drugs, and it later comes out that his continued
habit was as a result of Timmy getting money from his uncle, who in turn
was given money by Timmy's parents, with Timmy's parents knowing full well
that a percentage of the money which was being given to Timmy's uncle was
continuing to feed Timmy's habit.

Wouldn't Timmy's parents be totally hypocritical in this instance? Wouldn't
anyone who pointed out that the statement only said we (Timmy's parents)
be avoiding the issue that Timmy's parents are in fact continuing to
support Timmy's habit, when they have explicitly said that they would not?

I know that the chapters have a reason for not asking, but unlike the
chapters (and over parties), I don't have a financial and vested interest
in WMF funds.

So, Marc, perhaps, movement was the incorrect word to use, but other than
that the obvious intent of the comments and questions I've raised stay the
same. So, I will rephrase to allow for zero semantics.

Can chapters please advise what paid editing positions are planned, and
whether those positions will be covered as part of WMF allocated funds, or
whether outside organisations will be covering funding of such positions,
because the WMF Executive Director's words are pretty clear, and the WMF
will not be putting one cent into (supporting) such positions.

I await an official response from the WMF on this issue.

Regards,

Russavia
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[Wikimedia-l] The upcoming TOU amendment

2014-04-21 Thread Russavia

I came across Pete Forsyth's blog on the upcoming TOU amendment at:

http://wikistrategies.net/terms-of-use-amendment

and it raises quite a few interesting talking points.

Thought you all might like to take a peek and discuss.

Cheers

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] I'm back

2014-04-18 Thread Russavia

Andy

On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 10:23 PM, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.ukwrote:

 On 18 April 2014 14:20, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote:

  Rakija is the right Serbian product. Do you remember drinking it
  in Pristina? Or not? :P

 Unfortunately, I remember both drinking the lovely Rakija, and the
 morning after...


Was the morning after something like this?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balkanball_shenanigans.png

Cheers

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff

2014-04-17 Thread Russavia

Sue,

Thank you for your response, it is appreciated.

Indeed we are all n00bs at some stage, and we all make COI mistakes, and I
can admit to making this mistake myself twice early on. But we all learn
pretty quickly that COI editing is frowned upon, and can cause problems
later on.

I would like to echo pretty much what Pete Forsyth has stated, and
wholeheartedly agree that the WMF should go above and beyond what we would
expect other organisations to adhere to on our projects. Whilst, Pete's
suggestions on possibly policies certainly do go above and beyond what is
expected in the community, they would be quite difficult to implement. So
how about a simple WMF policy that states something along the lines of:

Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit
articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at
rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected
articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism,
removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials.

Such a directive for WMF people would be easy to make, easy to implement,
easy to enforce, and would demonstrate that the Wikimedia Foundation itself
is at the forefront, and setting an example for other organisations and
leading by example.

Comments welcome Sue.

Cheers

Russavia
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[Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff

2014-04-16 Thread Russavia

Hi all,

I just wanted to find out what the stance of the WMF is on the issue
of WMF employees and contractors editing articles on themselves, or
fellow employees, in direct contravention of COI guidelines? Is this a
practice that is officially frowned upon?

Whilst researching the Belfer fiasco I came across User:Wikitedium.
The contributions[1] lead me to believe that isn't just a normal
editor but one who has an ingrained conflict of interest, and it is
pretty clear that the editor is Zack Exley, who is the former WMF
Chief Financial Officer.

In April 2006, Exley added links to rootsprimary.org to the 2008 US
Presidential election article.[2] Whilst rootsprimary.org no longer
exists, it's archived version states: Who's doing this?: Just me,
Zack Exley, and a couple of friends.[3]

In August 2006, Exley created the article on himself.[4] Over the
years, Exley made numerous edits to this article. In December 2009,
Exley created the article on Argentine Middle School[5], which is in
Argentine, a community of Kansas City, Kansas. Exley at the time (so
it appears) lived in Kansas City, Missouri.[6] In March 2010, Exley
wrote himself into the Smart mob article.[7]

In March 2013, Exley created a nice little article about a notable
Springfield coffee shop[8] -- the coffee shop being in Springfield,
Missouri, which is another place that Exley appears to have
resided.[9]

Whilst the edits relating to himself were done before he joined the
WMF, his article looks like a standard puff piece which is discouraged
-- it uses WMF press releases, articles on ThoughtWorks which only
mention him in passing[10], a self-authored article on
motherjones.com[11]. Exley's only real claim to fame is that George W.
Bush once called him a garbage man.[12]

I had a look at Exley's Linkedin profile[13] which appears to begin in
1987-1988 when he was at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and is
current up to the present time, and correlated these to Wikitedium's
other edits, and couldn't see anything else of major concern.

What does concern me, however, is that there was a steady stream of
WMF staffers/contractors who have edited Exley's wikibio. Although,
the edits themselves may not seem to be worrisome, the fact that the
puff nature of the article was not picked up on by these staffers is
troubling. Also, given that the WMF and the community in general is
against COI editing, these edits, as innocent as they are, should not
be done by WMF staffers, but rather by others who don't have any
perceived COI.

Could the WMF and the BoT perhaps clarify whether COI editing amongst
WMF staff/contractors is officially discouraged/forbidden, and whether
there is something official in writing which lays out guidelines for
how and when WMF staff/contractors should be editing articles relating
to their fellow WMF'ers.

Cheers

Russavia


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Wikitedium
[2] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_presidential_election,_2008diff=prevoldid=48790866
[3] http://web.archive.org/web/20060423010423/http://rootsprimary.org/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zack_Exleyaction=history
[5] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argentine_Middle_Schoolaction=history
[6] http://keywiki.org/index.php/Zack_Exley
[7] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smart_mobdiff=prevoldid=347706803
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Coffee_Ethicaction=history
[9] https://clarity.fm/zackexley
[10] http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=100029386
[11] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/12/organizing-online
[12] 
http://web.archive.org/web/20060704033659/http://www.tjcenter.org/past2000.html
[13] http://www.linkedin.com/in/zackexley

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[Wikimedia-l] Wiki Education Foundation website

2014-04-15 Thread Russavia

I came across this press release today on the Wiki Education Foundation,[1]
which announces that the WEF is getting $1.39 million from the Stanton
Foundation.

When I went to the WEF's website,[2] I must say I was disappointed that the
website isn't developed at all, although there is a link to basic
information on Meta. And going to the About page,[3] my first thought was
Ahhh Lorem ipsum, we meetum againem.

I must also say that the photos stood out; a Foundation which has
education as its mission, and the imagery that the WEF is putting its name
to is people schmoozing, drinking and gambling in a Las Vegas casino.
Probably not the sort of image you want to portray to people so early on.

It also struck me as odd that the WEF would already have a Flickr account,
and upon looking it appears the WEF has no Flickr account, but rather the
photos are from a set[4] belonging to thewhir.com, and where they are
evidently marked © All Rights Reserved.[5] Are these images used with
permission of WHIR? Even if so, it doesn't look good that the WEF is using
ARR imagery when Commons is home to almost 21 million freely licenced
images that could be used, and probably be more appropriate to illustrate
your mission.

I look forward to seeing a properly developed WEF website, with hopefully
appropriate freely licenced content, in the near future.

Cheers

Russavia


[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation/Press_Release_14_April_2014
[2] http://www.wikiedfoundation.org/
[3] http://www.wikiedfoundation.org/about
[4]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thewhir/sets/72157637847519144/with/10952943715/
[5]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thewhir/10951076296/in/set-72157637847519144
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Funding of decentralized organizational structure

2014-04-10 Thread Russavia

Ting,

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 7:23 PM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote:

 Hello dear all,


I believe you have sent this to the wrong list. I believe applications for
the Executive Director position were supposed to be sent to
j...@wikimedia.org ... but good luck with your application all the same ...
some interesting thoughts above :)

Cheers

russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fuck the community, who cares

I don't believe Tomasz said anything about hanging them and hanging them
high.

But if there are movementarians who hold this point of view, they should be
able to speak up publicly and present that point of view.

I, for one, don't disagree with paid editing, so long as it is inline with
expected community standards.

Having such a person within the chapters who does hold such views is a
great thing (perhaps not the fuck the community part though), and they
should be encouraged to come forward and make their views known.

Whether they are prepared for the tarring and feathering they will receive
at the hands of dedicated movementarians is another matter entirely.
Obviously it is an issue for some, otherwise Steffen wouldn't have blabbed
about it to The Signpost. But no-one wants a repeat of the disgraceful
public hanging that Fae suffered at their hands.

Cheers,

Russavia


On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 6:52 PM, Gerard Meijssen
gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote:

 Hoi,
 What is it that you intend to do. Hang them and, hang them high??

 You already know that it was in a very emotional moment ...

 What is your objective? What do you expect as a result and how will that be
 in everyone's benefit??
 Thanks,
  Gerard


 On 7 April 2014 12:16, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tom...@twkozlowski.net wrote:

  Ziko van Dijk wrote
 
 
   I think that a single quote by a unnamed female Wikimedian, said in
  public or in private, is a very small basis for any substantiate
  criticism...
 
 
  Thanks to Chris e-mail's, we now know that the comment was made during a
  public session (though I can't find the relevant section in the minutes
 on
  Meta).
 
  That the identity of the person is currently unknown is due to the fact
  that it has not been revealed by other participants in that workshop; I'm
  sure Chris, and Steffen, and other people know very well who that person
 is.
 
  I'm used to the secrecy, but I find it deeply disturbing that such a
  comment could have been made during a public workshop in passing;
  however, it would fit perfectly in the alleged divisions between some
  chapters and their respective communities.
 
  Where the idea that a single entity (here: a chapter) knows better what's
  best for a community than the community does itself come from, I'm not
 sure.
 
 
  Tomasz
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fuck the community, who cares

Chris

On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 7:10 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.comwrote:

 I'd certainly hope not. One of the ground rules for the workshop was that
 individual contributions were made on a confidential and non-attributable
 basis.


Sounds to me like the Wikimedian version of the Bilderberg Group. Except
Bilderberg don't generally take photos of those present.[1] Is there a list
of participants available at this workshop? Or is everyone who was present
available to see in this photo?

But seriously, Chris, who set these ground-rules? Do you think that having
Bilderberg-like secrecy in the movement is a good thing?

Cheers

Russavia


[1]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boards_workshop_2014_group_photo.jpg
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fuck the community, who cares

On the other other hand, having any sort of Chatham House Rule in an
organisation which prides itself as having openness and transparency as one
of its core tenets..think about it people..

Hell, we once had Oliver Keyes spouting on IRC how lowly he thinks of Jimmy
Wales (in addition to attacking other editors) and he was rewarded with a
promotion and a shout-out from Sue at Wikimania, so seriously, the
organisation has no need for any Chatham House Rule.

What is the issue here, isn't so much the comment that was made, but the
context in which it was made. We keep hearing about context. Well give us
context guys. Surely the context isn't a secret?

Or will you all prove true Fae's comments: corrupts the movement by
turning the higher ranks into an Old Boys Club who are more likely to
find ways to cover up for each other, rather than be seen to be
accountable.

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

Annd queue crickets.


On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 6:49 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote:

 All:

 I have added my own timeline to the page set up to debrief the Belfer
 Center Wikipedian in Residence project:

 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment#Pete_Forsyth_notes

 I also published a response to the WMF report:
 http://wikistrategies.net/belfer1/

 -Pete
 [[User:Peteforsyth]]


 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 8:23 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:

  On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
   We will update the wiki page at
  
 
 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment
   with more information and details. I encourage others to participate
   in this as a collaborative process.
 
  Thanks Erik.
 
  For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a
  postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link
  from Erik above. Suffice to say here that we implemented the Belfer
  Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the
  WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us
  not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it.
 
  I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko
  Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips
  and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction
  and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and
  the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on
  enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major
  problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the
  program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of
  problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better
  able to support our partner organizations in understanding and
  navigating community policies and best practices.
 
  Thanks,
  Sue
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-04-05 Thread Russavia

Sue,

I, as well as others, are wondering whether you will be responding to the
questions and other concerns which have been raised on this list?

Members of the BoT,

I would like to enquire as to when the Board of Trustees became aware of
this issue for the first time. Could we get some statement from individual
board members, present and past (at the time of the issue) as to when they
became aware of it.

Given that this issue was basically common knowledge at the higher echelons
of the WMF, and it was actively ignored by not only the WMF but also the
wider community, I find it improbable that the Board, or at the very least
individual board members, were in the dark on the issue

Cheers,

Russavia






On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
  We will update the wiki page at
 
 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment
  with more information and details. I encourage others to participate
  in this as a collaborative process.

 Thanks Erik.

 For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a
 postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link
 from Erik above. Suffice to say here that we implemented the Belfer
 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the
 WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us
 not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it.

 I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko
 Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips
 and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction
 and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and
 the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on
 enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major
 problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the
 program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of
 problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better
 able to support our partner organizations in understanding and
 navigating community policies and best practices.

 Thanks,
 Sue

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A decision in Commons regarding URAA affected files

2014-04-03 Thread Russavia

Yael, et al

Unfortunately, this is a case of premature congratulation.

I have let the Bureaucrats know of this issue at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#This_projects_bureaucrat.27s_are_asleep_at_the_wheel.3F_--_please_wake_upand
on their individual talk pages.

Regards,

Russavia



On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Yael Meron y...@wikimedia.org.il wrote:

 After a discussion[1] in Commons regarding this subject, a decision was
 made, stating that URAA cannot be used as the sole reason for deletion.

 We consider this a good solution for this situation, considering there is
 currently no foreseeable change in US law, for example, to accept the rule
 of the shorter term.

 Following our letter[1] and this decision, we would like to thank everyone
 who supported this, including the WMF BoT, the legal department
 (specifically Yana), WMES, WMAR, WMVE, the administrators in Commons and
 the participants in the discussion.

 Regards,

 Yael Meron
 Board of Wikimedia Israel

 [1]

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Massive_restoration_of_deleted_images_by_the_URAA
 [2]

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Israel/Letter_to_the_BoT_regarding_URAA
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[Wikimedia-l] WMF's April Fool's Joke?

2014-04-03 Thread Russavia

Hey all,

I came across
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/Wikimedia_Foundation/Proposal_formearlier,
and I noticed at the top it says:

'We ask that you please not make any changes directly to this page after
the proposal submission date (1 April), but comment on the discussion page.

Can someone please confirm that this actually was the WMF's April Fools
joke on us all?

Regards,

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-04-01 Thread Russavia

Erik

A quick question: was the legal department involved in this debacle prior
to it becoming known?

I'm just curious as to why Geoff Brigham was involved in the production of
Sue's assessment. Was it because Legal was involved, or was he simply
vetting what is already being called a candid assessment to make sure it
wasn't too candid.

Refer to Martijn Hoekstra's email and questions as to why this candid
assessment isn't really that candid at all.

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-04-01 Thread Russavia

Marc

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:45 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote:


 I have *zero* to do with Governance, no stake in that project, and I
 don't even actually interact with any of the involved departments.  I
 can tell you with absolute certainty that my comments on this thread
 would have been exactly the same 18 months ago.

This is a pretty big statement to make, so I thought it would be a good
idea to engage in a little research to see if your comment stands up to
scrutiny. I like research.[1]

We can see from your stats of postings to the mailing list[2], that 18
months ago you weren't active; you only really became active after you
landed yourself a job with the WMF.[3] So I went back just a little further
-- only by a few months, and I found this comment[4] from you to (at the
time) Board member, Phoebe Ayers[5]:

beginquote

I think that the first thing that should be learned -- and indeed that
should have been learned /before/ this farce -- is that begging the
question in a referendum is fundamentally dishonest.

I was oh so very pleased to learn that I get to give my opinion on
insignificant implementation details of a feature that stands in
opposition to everything Wikipedia stands for which is going to be
committed against us whether we like it or not.

endquote

 It is *much* easier to get the stakeholders to collaborate when they
 don't have to go on the defensive.

Really, Marc? Really?[4]

What is entirely ironic, and quite sad actually, is that we can all
remember your diva rage quit of the English Wikipedia Arbcom in 2013[6], in
which you accused the committee of being politicised. I call your attention
to this statement by you:

What I mean by 'politicized' was that decisions are not being argued
around 'what is best for the project' but 'what will make [the committee]
look good'. Add to that stonewalling, filibustering, and downright
'bullying' from those who aren't getting their way - to the point of having
arbitrators being ... creative ... with ethics in order to get the upper
hand.

I see no difference between what you accused the en.wp Arbcom of doing, and
the way that you are bullying and needlessly attacking community members
who are presenting relevant information and asking relevant questions.

To other list members, I am sorry that the above has had to be said
on-list, but the way that Fae has been treated and attacked by numerous
members of this list in this very thread is a disgrace, and I for one have
had a gutful of it.

Russavia


[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070665.html

[2] http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Marc_A._Pelletier.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Coren/disclosure

[4]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-August/067518.html

[5]
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Former_Board_of_Trustees_members#Phoebe_Ayers

[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-03-18/News_and_notes
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cost of Wikimedia Conference 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Russavia

Gerard, et al

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 9:59 PM, Gerard Meijssen
gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote:


 My point is very much that it is for the chapter to decide if they
 spend their money wisely. It is for members of a chapter to question this
 at an appropriate time and at an appropriate place.


Might I make a point here.

It is not their money, but rather the money of donors -- i.e. the general
public -- who are every year told that Wikipedia needs your help to survive.

The movement, as you all like to refer to it, has a tendency to waste
money on frivolous things such as travel and accommodation, as demonstrated
last year by http://twkozlowski.net/how-40k-dollars-turned-to-petty-cash/and
http://twkozlowski.net/saving-by-spending-according-to-affcom/

The appropriate time to question such spending is BEFORE the funds is
committed and spent. The place is unimportant, but here is as good as any.

As a member of the movement, Fae has every right to ask such questions,
and I believe he also has the right to be able to ask such questions
without snide remarks such as Really Fae, as you are no longer the chair,
why rule from the grave? being thrown at him . Unfortunately, there is a
tendency in the movement when legitimate questions are raised, for a
committed movementarian to deflect from that questioning with snide attacks.

Now, Fae has asked some legit questions of UK chapter, and it is only fair
that they answer them.

Cheers,

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-03-22 Thread Russavia

Thank you for this Erik, we look forward to receiving on Commons the other
25 weeks (half a years worth) of reports -- especially the reports from the
weeks the 3 seminars were held.

There will certainly be lots to look at, and I noted on one report:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Timothy_Sandole_Memo_April_22-26.pdf

Monday, April 22
- Researched offensive realism and the concept, 'buck passing' (3 hours).
- Wrote a draft on buck passing in MS Word. Coded/authored the stub, Buck
passing, on
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing (6 hours).

Does anyone believe for one minute that
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buck_passingdiff=551697085oldid=549480580took
6 hours to draft? And anywhere between 0 and 3 hours to research?

This would have taken one no more than 10 minutes to do -- research books
relating to buck passing and find one (5 minutes), copy and paste a quote
from the book (as was done here) (2 minutes), do wikimarkup/references (not
HTML) (2 minutes), hit save (1 minute). Voila!

Seriously, this is a disgrace, particularly given this was some 7 months
into the project.

There is no way that 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for an entire year was
spent on this full-time position, and the above is just plain evidence of
that.

Comment from anyone at the WMF welcome.

Russavia










On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 4:36 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  I have a copy of the weekly memos as well, and we've asked for his
  permission to release them.

 This is now done:

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Belfer_Center_Campus_Wikipedian_Reports

 I've not scrutinized or touched the reports except for converting docx
 to PDF (thank you, LibreOffice command line options). These are all
 the ones Sara has, I'll double-check with Timothy that there weren't
 any others.

 Erik
 --
 Erik Möller
 VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-03-22 Thread Russavia

Erik,

In Liam's email to the list he mentioned:

We did get to dilute the worst of the original job description so it
wasn't so blatant a paid editing role but our suggestions that the position
be 'paused' until the community could help was rejected because of a
deadline that had been set by Stanton/Harvard apparently.

Can you please provide the original JDF so the rest of the community has
the opportunity to look at it.

I understand this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the
community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy
with simply getting a few reports from Sandole, a heap of spin from the WMF
and then move on; as we do on Wikipedia projects, we present information
and let the readers make their own minds up.

I also had a question relating to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding_Principles#Independence
but
given you weren't involved in this (perhaps the only person in management
at the WMF who wasn't!), I will leave my question for Sue to answer when
she gets back.

Anyway, I would welcome the community being able to peruse the original
JDF, that at least Liam and LoriLee was privvy too, at the earliest
opportunity.

Cheers

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-03-22 Thread Russavia

Coren / Marc (cc'ing to your personal email as well)

Odder's blog post was posted 3 weeks ago, and my analysis was posted 24
hours ago, and many English Wikipedia admins have said they have seen
either and/or both.

Yet,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsdiff=prevoldid=524972499is
still there.

It's already been established that there is massive copyvio in there, and I
think it is absolutely unacceptable for a copyvio to still be in this
article under the circumstances.

Could you please be so kind as to:

1) Revert the article back to
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsoldid=524953814
2) Revdel all edits going back to
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsoldid=524953814to
ensure that the copyright violation is hidden from public view as is
best practice
3) Perhaps you could leave a message on the article talk page, and perhaps
also leave messages at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_International_relations-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Russia and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_United_Statesadvising
them that this article which is rated as top importance for 2 of
these projects have had to be revdelled back to November 2012 (a year and a
half) and that they may wish to work on the article given the circumstances.

I have more examples of copyvios as well, so if you like I would be happy
to send them through to you for you to action. Would that be ok with you?

Cheers

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-03-21 Thread Russavia

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 3:37 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 [3] Contributions welcome, and I hope we can avoid personalizing
 things as I'm sure Timothy worked in good faith and did his best to
 meet the expectations of the project. :)

On this I do agree, that Sandole was used as a tool by Stanton/Belfer,
and was not given any support by the WMF (his employer) should not be
held against him in any way shape or form.

It's not his fault that the WMF is a mickey mouse organisation.

Russavia

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[Wikimedia-l] Belfer report - analysis from Russavia

2014-03-21 Thread Russavia

.

As it stands now, the integrity of all involved parties (including the
innocent party -- Timothy Sandole) is shot, and the real loser in this
is the vast army of volunteer editors who have had the very principles
we believe in sold by the WMF to its biggest donor for a grand total
of $53,690.

== Where to from here ==

There will be a lot of spin from the WMF to counter the very frank,
and very logical, conclusions I have drawn in my report. The spin has
already begun on the mailing list, but if we are to progress any as a
community, we need to leave the spin at the door, and some very hard
admissions will need to be made by all of those concerned.


Russavia


==References==

[1] http://twkozlowski.net/the-pot-and-the-kettle-the-wikimedia-way/
[2] I have long edited on international relations articles and
examples of my work are
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Russia_relations and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93South_Ossetia_relations
[3] 
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view/20081204-176094/Wikipedia-grant-to-lure-new-writers
[4] http://www.webcitation.org/6MzmljPqd
[5] http://www.cfr.org/thinktank/fellowships/StantonFellowship.html
[6] http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/frank-stanton-0529.html
[7] http://www.rand.org/about/edu_op/fellowships/stanton-nuclear.html
[8] http://carnegieendowment.iapplicants.com/ViewJob-262511.html
[9] http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/fellowships/stanton.html
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stanton_(executive)
[11] 
http://web.archive.org/web/20080420151314/http://www.arlboston.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_president_home
[12] http://www.webcitation.org/6MaSjbpN3
[13] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative
[14] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_July_2011#Global_Education_Program_launched_after_successful_Wikipedia_in_Higher_Education_Summit
[15] 
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=60291746authType=nameauthToken=S8ZXlocale=en_USgoback=%2Enpv_60291746_*1_*1_name_S8ZX_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1
 (PDF snapshot at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8j_w_yHF5ymTW92WkhuRXhmalU/edit?usp=sharing)
[16] http://www.webcitation.org/6Mytse0YA (page 8)
[17] http://www.webcitation.org/6MzvEBFCK
[18] http://www.webcitation.org/6MzvGnEV6
[19] http://www.webcitation.org/6MaYXIEN9
[20] 
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/05/business/enron-s-collapse-losers-with-billion-enron-s-stock-rich-wallet-suddenly-lighter.html?src=pm
[21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal
[22] http://www.webcitation.org/6MadA5QJj
[23] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_November_2010#Public_Policy_Initiative
[24] http://archive.is/oE9Bd
[25] 
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/#comment-105728
[26] 
http://www.publicsector.wa.gov.au/publications-resources/instructions-standards-and-circulars/public-sector-standards-human-resource-management/employment-standard
[27] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Lgruwell
[28] 
http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Staff_and_contractorsdiff=68281oldid=67715
[29] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Development_Director
[30] http://www.webcitation.org/6OCMIxrZI
[31] http://archive.is/iZAlc
[32] 
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/17/wikimedia-foundation-report-august-2012/#Human_Resources
[33] http://www.webcitation.org/6OD8X99o6 - this report may be read in
a semi-readable format at http://www.webcitation.org/6MZfMAY96 - if
one searches for Sandole and looks in the supervisor column they
will see his supervisor is 4fee231002ceaa451a04, which is
Seitz-Gruwell.
[34] 
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/29/changes-wikimedia-foundation-fundraising-team/
[35] 
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedian_in_Residencediff=33265oldid=33199
- the IP used belongs to the WMF as per
http://tools.whois.net/whoisbyip/?host=216.38.130.163
[36] 
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedian_in_Residencediff=nextoldid=33265
[37] 
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/
[38] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070640.html
[39] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dennis_Sandolediff=prevoldid=501918373
[40] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_terrorismdiff=504823345oldid=501285565
[41] http://www.webcitation.org/6MZer83Lu
[42] http://archive.is/ufK0F
[43] 
http://journal.georgetown.edu/2012/09/20/president-obama-the-new-guardian-of-a-realist-based-security-policy-by-timothy-j-sandole/
(https://docs.google.com/file/d/1g0MoPbcPf6JXytbr26ys6yALCBEDJZTglujKBRdwrYe42AbNCdS4old7ox6xeuqF2j0cXZxdq6ZNtcYm/edit)
[44] http://journal.georgetown.edu/submissions/online/
[45] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81232.html?hp=r10
[46] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

2014-03-21 Thread Russavia

Thanks Erik for your email which was full of spin, and which will be
discussed later.

But for now, I need to present something that needs clarification from
Timothy.

In reference to
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Sandole_-_Belfer_Center_Report.pdf

On Page 2 of his report he states the following:

Articles I helped to create: Two Wikipedia articles, AirSea Battle and
Operation Olympic
Games, were stubs before I contributed to them. A stub is an article
containing only one or a
few sentences of text that, although providing some useful information, is
too short to provide
encyclopedic coverage of a subject. I was inspired to add content to
AirSea Battle and
Operation Olympic Games because they are popular in international
relations scholarship. The
two leading voices on these issues, Andrew Krepinevich and David E. Sanger,
happen to be
Harvard graduates and affiliates of the Belfer Center

Why is it when I look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AirSea_Battleaction=history do
I not see Sandole in the edit history.

There is an edit at
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AirSea_Battlediff=564567483oldid=399022349which
did add a lot of content.

Is it true that Sandole is in fact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hcobbwho according to his user page
divides his time
between Pacheco, Californiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacheco,_California
and Pune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune, has a website at
http://www.hcobb.com/, is into fan fiction and feedbooks.

Or is there something else to it?

Cheers

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] UC Berkeley hires Wikipedian in Residence

2014-03-19 Thread Russavia

Pine,

This isn't the first paid Wikipedian-in-Residence position you know :)

Russavia




On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 3:00 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote:

 This was covered by the Associated Press and a number of other news
 organizations. According to these stories UC Berkeley is the first US
 university to hire a WIR. I've seen WIR positions advertised at other US
 universities but this is the first paid position. Congrats to Kevin.


 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/uc-berkeley-hires-first-wikipedian-in-residence/2014/03/18/16b5a556-aea4-11e3-b8b3-44b1d1cd4c1f_story.html


 http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/03/copyright/kevin-gorman-berkeleys-wikipedian-in-residence/


 http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_25364220/uc-berkeley-hires-first-wikipedian-residence

 I hope we'll see more universities taking this path. (:

 Pine

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] UC Berkeley hires Wikipedian in Residence

2014-03-19 Thread Russavia

Kevin, I am intrigued by your comments in relation to Belfer.

Whilst your paid position at Berkeley is a great opportunity, and
congrats on that, I can't help but think that you haven't been exactly
forthcoming with the media. Or you are in denial about numerous
things.

I see at
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Kevin_Gormanoldid=595779595#My_position_on_paid_editing
you present your views on paid editing, with an interesting caveat at
the bottom:

Nothing in this section is intended to apply to Wikipedian in
Residence-type programs, and similar collaborations between Wikipedia
and cultural and educational institutions. I think that our missions
match up with cultural institutions quite well, and I think that
collaborations between us and them are likely to be quite fruitful.

I, and many in the community, couldn't disagree more. If anything, the
ethical standards for a paid Wikipedian-in-Residence are higher than a
commercial outfit. The very reputation of the WiR program depends on
it.

Unfortunately, the Belfer Wikipedian in Residence was anything but
ethical, and since Odder's blog post I have done some research on
this, and I am gob-smacked at what I have found. Kevin, you are part
of the in-crowd of the WMF, perhaps you could ask them for their
report on the Belfer position. It is required for all grants I
believe. As someone who is so vocal on the ethics of paid editing
(http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/wikipedia-editors-locked-in-battle-with-pr-firm-delete-250-accounts/)
you will surely want to see the report. Perhaps it will answer why, in
your words, the position, and everything surrounding it, was so under
the radar.

Cheers

Russavia

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 11:32 PM, Kevin Gorman kgor...@gmail.com wrote:

Tomasz is right that Belfer was first... but Belfer was done so under
the radar that I actually had never even realized that someone had
been hired for the position until I stumbled across Tomasz's blog
about it, some time after the initial announcement of my position at
Berkeley. I had a conversation about the matter afterwards with
Berkeley's news people and with most of the journalists who have
contacted me about it since the initial NewsCenter posting, and the
general feeling has pretty much been that Belfer's practices were
different enough from the norm of what a Wikipedian-in-Residence is
that people have been comfortable running the story without a bunch of
caveats to explain Belfer. There's also Arild Vågen's previous
position at SLU, which is why most places are going with first US
university rather than first university.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid editing v. paid advocacy (editing)

2014-01-09 Thread Russavia

Tomasz,

As has been said elsewhere, No registration required, we respect your
privacy, and no paid editing are fundamentally incompatible.

The only way that it would be possible for a system as you describe to
exist, the following would need to be true :

1) No more IP editing -- most COI editing exists using IPs
2) No more anonymous editing -- having real names being used for account
names would indeed go towards putting a halt to undeclared editing
3) Compulsory to declare any COI -- this is currently the case on
some projects, but the conditions are such that this is not always followed

The very business model that Wikipedia follows makes it impossible
to enable any system where COI editing can either be eliminated or can
exist without issue. Until that model changes, this will always be an issue.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement Sarah Stierch

2014-01-09 Thread Russavia

Fae,

You raise very good points in your email, and I have posted this for
consideration by the WMF Board of Trustees

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Undeclared_conflicts_of_interest

If anyone wishes to support this please feel free to do so on the noticeboard.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

2014-01-07 Thread Russavia

If anyone is interested, since this issue was raised, there has been a
change to Sarah's profile on odesk.

The entry for Wikipedia Page for Individual is now rated 5 stars,
and has the comment Thanks, Sarah!  I really appreciate you!.

Sarah has also been active on Wikipedia. I can understand that she is
under a lot of stress right now, but she seriously needs to confirm or
deny that she is engaging in undisclosed paid editing.

She's been asked to comment at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SarahStierch#Editing_mentioned
and the issue is being discussed at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Paid_editing_by_WMF_employee_on_oDesk

As per the Odesk Terms of Service (https://www.odesk.com/info/terms/)
the company is locatred in Redwood City (San Francisco) and as per
their Privacy Policy (https://www.odesk.com/info/terms/privacy/) under
Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement. they state:

oDesk cooperates with government and law enforcement officials and
private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We will disclose
any information about you to government or law enforcement officials
or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or
appropriate to respond to claims and legal process (including but not
limited to subpoenas), to protect the property and rights of oDesk or
a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or
to prevent or stop activity we may consider to be, or to pose a risk
of being, illegal, unethical or legally actionable activity.

Whilst oDesk apparently requires people to provide methods by which
they can be paid (which would further indicate it is indeed Sarah), if
it is a joe-job account that would obviously come under the illegal,
unethical or legally actionable activity, and if someone is passing
themselves off as Sarah, and even receiving payment as her, then as a
private party (as noted in their privacy policy) she would obviously
be able to pursue the joe-job person in the courts for a whole host of
probably criminal and civil offences, and would expect her to follow
through on this, because this would obviously reflect on her as both a
private and public person.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

2014-01-06 Thread Russavia

You are right Kevin, and I think that the blog post has drawn the
wrong conclusions by failing to see one piece of telling evidence on
an unrelated posting on that site.

At the job link at https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0
(again, uploaded to
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8j_w_yHF5ymdHQzTkJkRkY5TWM/edit?usp=sharing)
one can see that the client is in the United States in the -8 GMT time
zone (Indianapolis being in the -5 GMT time zone). This obviously does
not match for the bar article.

On the right-hand side, you will see that they have posted two jobs,
but have hired only one client. At the bottom you will see Client's
Work History and Feedback (1) and only this job is available there.
When you go to Sarah's profile, and click on Wikipedia Page for
Individual it says the job is private, hence why the Client's Work
History and Feedback on the aforementioned job only shows one job. So
it would appear that Sarah has been hired by this client for both
their jobs.

At 13:15 on 7 October, Sarah posted
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leadership_Challenge. This is most
likely the article for the job at
https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0 -- and the client went
out of his way to contact Sarah to apply for this job, as you can see
from Client in the initiator column (as explained at
https://www.odesk.com/community/node/29357)

Then in December, the client who was obviously happy with her work
from October, commissioned Sarah to write
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Posner_(academic) (the author of
the book from the October article) and paid her $300. From that
article, one can see that Posner is in Santa Clara, California, which
is -8 GMT, which of course ties up with the -8 GMT column in the
October job listing on the right hand side.

My apologies in presenting the Indianapolis article; it's surprising
that the bar article which reads like an advert is legit, whilst the
articles which look legit (yet still very weak sourcewise) are likely
the problematic articles.

Sarah, when you read this, again I don't give a rats if you are
paid-editing, more power to you actually. Unfortunately in this
instance you haven't done so in what one would deem to be an ethical
way based upon what the community expects, and which has been
reinforced over and over, especially in recent months. So there will
obviously be those who want to cast you out because paid-editing is
evil and should not be tolerated. But hopefully cooler heads will
prevail all round, not only in your case. I would well advise you to
be totally upfront in any explanation, including anything that may be
done via Sarah Stierch Consulting either currently or in the past. You
obviously see a need for paid-editing, and it is a shame that you had
to, as Dariusz mentions, resort to the black market and blackhat
what you are/were doing. Open your profiles up for public view,
quickly correct anything that you should have done to begin with, and
publicly commit yourself to doing such editing the ethical way. Then
all talk of Bright Line Policy, etc can be put to rest, and not just
in your case, and then discussion on solid policies, etc as Dariusz
also mentions can occur, and you would be better placed to advocate in
that regard.

Cheers,

Russavia

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Kevin Gorman kgor...@gmail.com wrote:
 Sarah used to be a DJ in Indianapolis.  I don't find it very surprising
 that she'd write an article about a nightclub in Indianapolis. That would
 probably also explain the use of unusual sources - surely someone who used
 to DJ in Indy is more familiar with local music sources there than most
 people would be.

 
 Kevin Gorman


 On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:20 PM, Oliver Keyes ironho...@gmail.com wrote:

 As an apparent Wikimedia insider; I think that if the allegations are
 substantiated they need to be addressed. I don't mean to run interference
 on that. I mean to try and undercut any attempt to turn a subject worth
 discussing substantively into an excuse to crow. My objection is not that
 you raised this allegation, it's that you insist on posting four hundred
 word screeds about how hard-done by you are and how this demands that
 people accept you were right all along. If you actually care about the
 substance of the discussion, stop doing that. If you don't, just stop.


 On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:10 PM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Steven,
 
  Did it occur to you that the reason the account is anonymised is that
  one would likely not want it to be found out? It also beyond the
  realms of imagination that Wikipediocracy trolls would create an
  account on 6 January 2012 as a joe-job account, and sit on it all this
  time and then have Odder (who is certainly no friend of
  Wikipediocracy) find out about it, and let him beat them to the punch.
 
  But here's a little more evidence for you. From that screenshot, you
  will notice in September Sarah earned $96 from a job which

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

2014-01-06 Thread Russavia

No Geni, that would be the Wikimedia community, which from Sue's press
release 
(http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/21/sue-gardner-response-paid-advocacy-editing/)
it is pretty clear that the terms of use she has invoked apply to. It
applies to you on English Wikipedia, Dariusz on Polish Wikipedia and
me on Commons -- to all editors on all Wikimedia projects.

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 6:02 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sarah, when you read this, again I don't give a rats if you are
 paid-editing, more power to you actually. Unfortunately in this
 instance you haven't done so in what one would deem to be an ethical
 way based upon what the community expects,



 This would be the community of the project from which you are blocked
 indefinitely.



 --
 geni
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[Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

Odder has published a fantastic blog piece at
http://twkozlowski.net/paid-editing-thrives-in-the-heart-of-wikipedia/ in
which it is revealed that a WMF employee is engaged in undeclared paid
editing on English Wikipedia, and charging what it appears to be $300 per
article.

I have cc'ed both Sue and Jimmy in on this email, but also sending to this
list as I know they, and other WMF employees, do use this list, and I think
it would be pertinent that they respond publicly to the issues raised here.
It is ever so more important given that the undeclared paid editing
occurred AFTER the whole Wiki-PR debacle (Sue's press release, WMF's
cease-and-desist, and of course the resultant media attention).

What do Jimmy and Sue believe should occur given that such editing violates
Wikipedia policies and also Jimmy's so-called Bright Line Rule. In relation
to Jimmy's line, many are still clueless as to what exactly this Bright
Line is (it's not very bright), and how it should be applied in practice,
so Jimmy, if you are out there, your comment is requested on that.

Cheers,

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

No idea Craig, but http://i.imgur.com/iYBNjhH.png does say that she last
worked on 23 December, which would loosely tie in with edit timeframes on
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sally_Hogsheadaction=history

It should also be noted that the article was previously deleted as per
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Logpage=Sally+Hogsheadin
2010. Sally Hogshead (so it would seem) was subjected to a sockpuppet
case at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Sallyhogshead/Archiveon
the very day that the previous article was deleted.

So it shouldn't surprise us that Sally would turn to paying for an
experienced editor to write her promo bio. The article as it reads today
reads like a typical puff piece posing as a Wikipedia article. The sourcing
obviously leaves a lot to be desired, largely made up of interviews and the
like.

Perhaps Sarah could explain herself on list here, I believe she is on it.
If this isn't the article in question, I am sure she will explain which
article for an individual she was paid $300. Personally, I believe Sarah is
short changing herself, such work should cost more than $300, and I don't
care if she is engaging in paid editing, but given that the WMF is now
resorting to the ED putting out press releases and issuing cease-and-desist
letters, she surely knows that as an employee of the WMF she is in either a
precarious position here, or in a prime position to advocate for paid
editing and explain why it's not all that bad. I hope she takes the latter
route :)

Cheers,

Russavia






On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 7:52 AM, Craig Franklin cfrank...@halonetwork.netwrote:

 There seems to be some pretty heavy assumptions in Odder's article - it all
 just seems to be speculation based upon one very vague comment in her work
 history.  Was she contacted before the blog post was made and brought to
 this list to ask for clarification?

 Cheers,
 Craig

 On 6 January 2014 09:42, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote:

  Odder has published a fantastic blog piece at
  http://twkozlowski.net/paid-editing-thrives-in-the-heart-of-wikipedia/in
  which it is revealed that a WMF employee is engaged in undeclared paid
  editing on English Wikipedia, and charging what it appears to be $300 per
  article.
 
  I have cc'ed both Sue and Jimmy in on this email, but also sending to
 this
  list as I know they, and other WMF employees, do use this list, and I
 think
  it would be pertinent that they respond publicly to the issues raised
 here.
  It is ever so more important given that the undeclared paid editing
  occurred AFTER the whole Wiki-PR debacle (Sue's press release, WMF's
  cease-and-desist, and of course the resultant media attention).
 
  What do Jimmy and Sue believe should occur given that such editing
 violates
  Wikipedia policies and also Jimmy's so-called Bright Line Rule. In
 relation
  to Jimmy's line, many are still clueless as to what exactly this Bright
  Line is (it's not very bright), and how it should be applied in practice,
  so Jimmy, if you are out there, your comment is requested on that.
 
  Cheers,
 
  Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

David,

Myself, I like Sarah, we've had some good and entertaining discussions, and
I even nominated her for RfA on Commons (
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests/SarahStierch).
My posting here has nothing to do with bitch-slapping Sarah (
http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=75849#p75849). Odder has
presented information, which raises many questions, not necessarily of
Sarah, but of those in the Foundation hierachy who have publicly spoken out
about paid editing in general.

By all rights, if Sue's statement and Jimmy's
well-known-but-not-so-coherent position is meant to have teeth, Sarah
should also be served with a cease-and-desist notice for obvious paid
editing, and for violating the terms of use. Otherwise the cease-and-desist
notice the WMF sent to Wiki-PR (
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/11/19/wikimedia-foundation-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-wikipr/)
is basically worthless. I have, of course, taken the liberty to contact
Jordan French of Wiki-PR to advise them of Odder's blog, and of these
postings on this mailing list, so that they can follow it for their own
purposes, and see what public response comes from the powers-that-be at the
WMF.

So David, if you can stick to the topic instead of using nonsensical
personal attacks on myself, perhaps you can explain your position here. I
surely think that Sarah wouldn't appreciate your comments that people who
engage in paid editing are trying to fuck up Wikipedia for commercial
advantage. Whilst we will obviously wait for Sarah to comment publicly
here, what do you see as being the difference between Wiki-PR and Sarah?
Should she be subjected to an en.wp community ban? Should she be served
with cease-and-desist notices from WMF legal? Or is it that insiders on our
projects are treated differently by the powers-that-be to those who don't
have that privilege? (We all know the answer to that last question!)

As to motives for the blog post, take it up with Odder, it's his post. My
motive in posting here is purely to generate discussion on obvious
organizational issues of the Wikimedia Foundation; and paid editing is
one of the major organizational issues of recent months, even looking at
Wales' talk page on en.wp, it is basically full of bright line, COI and
paid editing discussions, and has been for some time now.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from Sarah on this issue, and again, she
has my support in regards to this issue.

Cheers,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

Yes, Nathan, please let us cut the bullshit, for I have a pretty low
tolerance for it, and I am happy to call you out on it.

You are right, I don't see anywhere in Odder's blog or in my posts on this
list that Sarah is being accused of sock puppetry. I don't know why you are
making this totally irrelevation correlation, or is this you simply trying
to run interference? (Very poorly I might add, but certainly a better
attempt than Gerard). I suggest that you re-read the cease and desist
letter (
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/11/19/wikimedia-foundation-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-wikipr/)
at the very top of page 2 you can see in pretty plain English that the WMF
has invoked Section 4 of the Terms of Use, in which the WMF makes veiled
legal threats of fraud, misrepresentation, etc. It is showing severe
naivety on your part if you think the Wiki-PR case was built around a farm
of sockpuppets; that was merely the catalyst for the anti-paid editing
crowd to really sink their teeth into the situation -- that should surely
be evident from Sue's press release.

I seriously don't see why you think me contacting Wiki-PR to alert them of
these posts here, so that they can follow it, as a bad thing. I thought
that the movement was built around the notion of transparency. If terms
of use are being invoked with them, don't they have the right to know of
other such cases where they will likely be ignored because it's an insider
we are talking about? That Sarah has engaged in undeclared paid editing is
of her own doing -- we are all responsible for our own editing. She chose
to engage in such editing immediately after a massive scandal knowing full
well the possible consequences if it was discovered.

It is not people like Odder who blogs or myself who dares step into the
holy inner sanctum who will tear Sarah down, it is the tendentious and
self-righteous
barnacles that adhere to the paid editing is bad mmmkay mantra that is
peddled from above on Wikipedia, and lately by the Wikimedia Foundation
itself, and adhered to blindly by the masses, who will do that.

So Nathan, where do you stand on the paid editing issue? Does Jimmy's
bright line rule, and Sue's statements, apply to insiders as well as to the
world-at-large?

But again, let's wait for Sarah's comments first on these revelations. And
then we can get those within the movement who have so publicly taken a
stance on paid editing, namely Sue and Jimmy, to clarify where they truly
stand on these issues for once and for all.

Cheers,

Russavia

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

Let's be clear, Russavia - the terms of use bar sockpuppetry, and the cease
and desist refers to concealing the identity of the author to deceive the
editing community. I don't see that you've accused Sarah of sockpuppetry,
so why not cut the bullshit? Thanks for notifying Wiki-PR, by the way, I'm
sure everyone on this list really appreciates that.

If there's one thing I love about Wikimedia, it's when tendentious and
self-righteous barnacles on the community make it a mission to tear down
good-hearted and dedicated Wikimedians at the expense of the movement.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300