[Wikimedia-l] Re: Should I do to get Commons fixed?

[Yann Forget]

And I am not alone:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#%40_Server-kitties_-_again_groundhog-day-problem
Yann

Le ven. 10 mars 2023 à 12:44, Yann Forget  a écrit :

> Among other issues,
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lotta_Sv%C3%A4rd_badge.svg can't
> be deleted.
> Yann
>
> Le jeu. 9 mars 2023 à 21:41, Yann Forget  a écrit :
>
>> Hi,
>> With this bug https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T328872
>> I can't upload any big PDF files any more.
>> This needs an urgent fix.
>> BTW uploading to Wikisource produces the same error.
>> What I do to get this fixed?
>> Thanks,
>> Yann
>> --
>> Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordination Team
>> https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
>> +33-780 60 90 42
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordination Team
> https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
> +33-780 60 90 42
>
>
>

-- 
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+33-780 60 90 42
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Should I do to get Commons fixed?

[Yann Forget]

Among other issues,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lotta_Sv%C3%A4rd_badge.svg can't be
deleted.
Yann

Le jeu. 9 mars 2023 à 21:41, Yann Forget  a écrit :

> Hi,
> With this bug https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T328872
> I can't upload any big PDF files any more.
> This needs an urgent fix.
> BTW uploading to Wikisource produces the same error.
> What I do to get this fixed?
> Thanks,
> Yann
> --
> Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordination Team
> https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
> +33-780 60 90 42
>
>
>

-- 
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordination Team
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+33-780 60 90 42
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[Wikimedia-l] Should I do to get Commons fixed?

[Yann Forget]

Hi,
With this bug https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T328872
I can't upload any big PDF files any more.
This needs an urgent fix.
BTW uploading to Wikisource produces the same error.
What I do to get this fixed?
Thanks,
Yann
-- 
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordination Team
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+33-780 60 90 42
___
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[Wikimedia-l] Upload for large files is broken

[Yann Forget]

Hi,
Since several weeks or months, upload for large files is essentially broken.
It is now nearly impossible to upload a file larger than 100 MB. All file
formats are affected (PDF, TIFF, videos, etc.). Upload even failed for a 77
MB TIFF file from Internet Archive.
See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T292954 for details.
There has not been much feedback from developers.
However this is a serious issue and needs an urgent fix.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Maximum_file_size#Maximum_upload_size
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Maximum_file_size#%3E_100_MB

As consequence, a Server side upload was requested:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T292769
The task is waiting for 3 weeks without action for a routine task which
should take only a very short time. I wonder if there are still developers
alive...

Instead of fancy features development, WMF budget should be used on
priority for maintaining the existing functionalities. Uploading large
files used to work very well, so why has no effort been done to fix this
bug?

Regards,
Yann Forget
-- 
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https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
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+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright workflows - research (Was: Re: Foundation management of volunteers)

[Yann Forget]

Yes, that would be very welcome by all contributors reviewing images.

Regards,
Yann

On Tue, 18 Jun 2019, 22:29 James Heilman,  wrote:

> So Yann should we as a community just build something as a proof of
> concept? If we are talking less than 250 USD per month, I am sure we can
> scrounge up the money for a trial 6 month trial.
>
> James
>
> On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 2:59 AM Yann Forget  wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Yes, James' pricing doesn't match the actual cost.
> > We do not need to check all images uploaded to Commons, only the
> suspicious
> > ones (small images without EXIF data).
> > If we check 2,000 images a day (more than enough IMO), that would cost
> $7 a
> > day, so $210 a month.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Yann
> >
> >
> > Le mar. 18 juin 2019 à 01:11, James Salsman  a
> écrit :
> >
> > > Google has been offering reverse image search as part of their vision
> > API:
> > >
> > > https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/internet-detection
> > >
> > > The pricing is $3.50 per 1,000 queries for up to 5,000,000 queries per
> > > month:
> > >
> > > https://cloud.google.com/vision/pricing
> > >
> > > Above that quantity "Contact Google for more information":
> > >
> > > https://cloud.google.com/contact/
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:23 AM James Forrester
> > >  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, 17 Jun 2019 at 06:28, Yann Forget  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > It has been suggested many times to ask Google for an access to
> their
> > > API
> > > > > for searching images,
> > > > > so that we could have a bot tagging copyright violations (no free
> > > access
> > > > > for automated search).
> > > > > That would the single best improvement in Wikimedia Commons
> workflow
> > > for
> > > > > years.
> > > > > And it would benefit all Wikipedia projects, big or small.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Yann,
> > > >
> > > > As you should remember, we asked Google for API access to their
> reverse
> > > > image search system, years ago (maybe 2013?). They said that there
> > isn't
> > > > such an API any more (they killed it off in ~2012, I think), and that
> > > they
> > > > wouldn't make a custom one for us. The only commercial alternative we
> > > found
> > > > at the time would have cost us approximately US$3m a month at upload
> > > > frequency for Commons then, and when contacted said they wouldn't do
> > any
> > > > discounts for Wikimedia. Obviously, this is far too much for the
> > > > Foundation's budget (it would be even more now), and an inappropriate
> > way
> > > > to spend donor funds. Providing the service in-house would involve
> > > building
> > > > a search index of the entire Internet's (generally non-free) images
> and
> > > > media, which would cost a fortune and is totally incompatible with
> the
> > > > mission of the movement. This was relayed out to Commons volunteers
> at
> > > the
> > > > time, I'm pretty sure.
> > > >
> > > > Obviously Google might have changed their mind, though it seems
> > > unlikely. I
> > > > imagine that Google engineers and product owners don't follow this
> > list,
> > > so
> > > > it's unlikely that they will re-create the API without being asked
> > > directly.
> > > >
> > > > J.
> > > > --
> > > > *James D. Forrester* (he/him <http://pronoun.is/he> or they/themself
> > > > <http://pronoun.is/they/.../themself>)
> > > > Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
> > > > ___
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> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright workflows - research (Was: Re: Foundation management of volunteers)

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Yes, James' pricing doesn't match the actual cost.
We do not need to check all images uploaded to Commons, only the suspicious
ones (small images without EXIF data).
If we check 2,000 images a day (more than enough IMO), that would cost $7 a
day, so $210 a month.

Regards,
Yann


Le mar. 18 juin 2019 à 01:11, James Salsman  a écrit :

> Google has been offering reverse image search as part of their vision API:
>
> https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/internet-detection
>
> The pricing is $3.50 per 1,000 queries for up to 5,000,000 queries per
> month:
>
> https://cloud.google.com/vision/pricing
>
> Above that quantity "Contact Google for more information":
>
> https://cloud.google.com/contact/
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:23 AM James Forrester
>  wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 17 Jun 2019 at 06:28, Yann Forget  wrote:
> >
> > > It has been suggested many times to ask Google for an access to their
> API
> > > for searching images,
> > > so that we could have a bot tagging copyright violations (no free
> access
> > > for automated search).
> > > That would the single best improvement in Wikimedia Commons workflow
> for
> > > years.
> > > And it would benefit all Wikipedia projects, big or small.
> > >
> >
> > Yann,
> >
> > As you should remember, we asked Google for API access to their reverse
> > image search system, years ago (maybe 2013?). They said that there isn't
> > such an API any more (they killed it off in ~2012, I think), and that
> they
> > wouldn't make a custom one for us. The only commercial alternative we
> found
> > at the time would have cost us approximately US$3m a month at upload
> > frequency for Commons then, and when contacted said they wouldn't do any
> > discounts for Wikimedia. Obviously, this is far too much for the
> > Foundation's budget (it would be even more now), and an inappropriate way
> > to spend donor funds. Providing the service in-house would involve
> building
> > a search index of the entire Internet's (generally non-free) images and
> > media, which would cost a fortune and is totally incompatible with the
> > mission of the movement. This was relayed out to Commons volunteers at
> the
> > time, I'm pretty sure.
> >
> > Obviously Google might have changed their mind, though it seems
> unlikely. I
> > imagine that Google engineers and product owners don't follow this list,
> so
> > it's unlikely that they will re-create the API without being asked
> directly.
> >
> > J.
> > --
> > *James D. Forrester* (he/him <http://pronoun.is/he> or they/themself
> > <http://pronoun.is/they/.../themself>)
> > Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
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-- 
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+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright workflows - research (Was: Re: Foundation management of volunteers)

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

It has been suggested many times to ask Google for an access to their API
for searching images,
so that we could have a bot tagging copyright violations (no free access
for automated search).
That would the single best improvement in Wikimedia Commons workflow for
years.
And it would benefit all Wikipedia projects, big or small.

Regards,
Yann

Le lun. 17 juin 2019 à 17:54, Leila Zia  a écrit :

> Hi Benjamin,
>
> My name is Leila and I'm in the Research team in Wikimedia Foundation.
> Please see below.
>
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 12:59 AM Benjamin Lees 
> wrote:
> >
> > The community has been working on copyright violation issues for a long
> > time.[2]  There are probably ways the WMF could support improvements in
> > this area.  Maybe the WMF could even design some system that would
> > magically solve the problem.  But it's certainly not the community
> standing
> > in the way.
>
> While I understand that you brought this up as one example within a
> broader context and set of challenges, now that you have brought it
> up, I'd like to ask you for a specific guidance. Can you help me
> understand, in your view, what are some of the most pressing issues on
> this front from the perspective of those who work to detect and
> address copyright violations? (Not knowing a lot about this space, my
> first thought is to have better algorithms to detect copyright
> violations in Wikipedia (?) text (?) across many languages. Is this
> the most pressing issue?)
>
> Some more info about how we work at the end of this email.[4]
>
> Best,
> Leila
>
> > [1]
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed_article_creation_trial
> > [2]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_violations#Resources
> > Also consider
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-November/128777.html
> > back in 2013.
> [3]
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Formal_collaborations
> [4]
> To give you some more information about the context I operate in:
>
> * Part of the work of our team is to listen to community conversations
> in lists such as wikimedia-l to find research questions/directions to
> work on. If we can understand the problem space clearly and define
> research questions bsaed on, we can work on priorities with the
> corresponding communities and start the research on these questions
> ourselves or through our Formal Collaborations program [3].
>
> * The types of problems that we can work (relatively) more quickly on
> are those for which the output can be an API, data-set, or knowledge.
>
> * We won't start the research based on hearing the most pressing
> issues from you. If we see that based on your response there is a
> promising direction for further research, we will follow up (with the
> corresponding parts of the community involved in this space) to learn
> more about the general and specific problems.
>

-- 
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordination Team
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

Le mar. 14 mai 2019 à 15:32, Andy Mabbett  a
écrit :

> On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 04:50, Yann Forget  wrote:
>
> > Currently, we require a confirmation via OTRS if an image was previously
> > published elsewhere before being uploaded to Commons.
>
> Really? can you provide a link to a policy age proving that assertion?
>
> Your claim rather makes a mockery of the suggestion that people should
> publish to, for example, Flickr before importing to commons
>

Unless the external publication is done with a free license, of course.
AFAIK, there is no "official" suggestion that people should publish to
Flickr before importing to Commons.
This is the primary evidence when images are deleted as copyright violation.
Others may be watermarks, copyright mentions in EXIF data, etc.

> I think professional photographers should have their account confirmed by
> > OTRS.
>
> Feel free to raise an RfC to make that policy if you think it would
> gather support.


This is simply a consequence of the above.
If images of professional quality are imported to Commons after being
published elsewhere, their copyright status will be questioned,
and rightly so. Now if these images are only published on Commons, fine,
but the objective of a professional is to sell his images, not to give them
away for free.
In addition, many professionals use stock image agencies (Getty, etc.),
which often requires exclusivity, and therefore prevent publication under a
free license.

Regards, Yann
PS: I am probably one of the most inclusive admins on Commons (or less
strict regarding copyright issues), so if you think yelling at me would
solve the issue, you are mistaken. I really want Commons to improve, and I
am open to critics, that's why I come here to discuss, but do not shoot the
messenger.

-- 
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk


 Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

The issue is not in that way.
If you published an image exclusively on Commons, then no problem.
If you first publish an image outside Commons, how do we know that you are
the author?
OK, there may be some factors to prove that (consistency of EXIF data,
etc.), but in the absence of EXIF data, we the issue remain.

Regards,
Yann
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)



Le mar. 14 mai 2019 à 10:00, John Erling Blad  a écrit :

> Again; what is different between me as a photographer taking pictures for a
> newspaper and me as a photograper taking pictures for Commons? Is it the
> name written om the lens? The shoes I'm wearing?
>
> There are no difference, this is a fallacy.
>
> John Erling Blad
> /jeblad
>
>
> tir. 14. mai 2019, 05.50 skrev Yann Forget :
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Currently, we require a confirmation via OTRS if an image was previously
> > published elsewhere before being uploaded to Commons.
> > I think professional photographers should have their account confirmed by
> > OTRS.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Yann Forget
> > Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
> > https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
> > +91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)
> >
> >
> >
> > Le lun. 13 mai 2019 à 16:56, John Erling Blad  a
> écrit :
> >
> > > I can imagine a bot comparing photos found by Google (ie. comparing
> > > hashes) but not a system extracting some kind of unique feature that
> > > says an image is a copyright violation. So how do you imagine ORES
> > > being used for copyright violations? I can't see how a copyright
> > > violation would have any kind of feature that is exclusive? The
> > > argument is quite simple; I as a photographer for a newspaper could
> > > take the exact same pictures as I as an amateur photographer. (I have
> > > photographed a lot for various newspapers.) Using the same equipment,
> > > and me being me, what is different?
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:21 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support
> > for
> > > > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> > > >
> > > > Best
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> > > amount of
> > > > > material it has to deal with.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers
> > > > > Yaroslav
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> > > benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or
> > capable
> > > to
> > > > > do
> > > > > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz 
> > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> > > > > GLAM-related
> > > > > > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing
> > > what it
> > > > > > is
> > > > > > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can
> > > create a
> > > > > > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with
> > > Common's
> > > > > > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote
> you
> > > > > project
> > > > > > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do
> > something
> > > > > > similar.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but
> on
> > &

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Currently, we require a confirmation via OTRS if an image was previously
published elsewhere before being uploaded to Commons.
I think professional photographers should have their account confirmed by
OTRS.

Regards,
Yann Forget
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)



Le lun. 13 mai 2019 à 16:56, John Erling Blad  a écrit :

> I can imagine a bot comparing photos found by Google (ie. comparing
> hashes) but not a system extracting some kind of unique feature that
> says an image is a copyright violation. So how do you imagine ORES
> being used for copyright violations? I can't see how a copyright
> violation would have any kind of feature that is exclusive? The
> argument is quite simple; I as a photographer for a newspaper could
> take the exact same pictures as I as an amateur photographer. (I have
> photographed a lot for various newspapers.) Using the same equipment,
> and me being me, what is different?
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:21 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
> >
> > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support for
> > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> >
> > Best
> >
> > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> wrote:
> >
> > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> amount of
> > > material it has to deal with.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > > Yaroslav
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or capable
> to
> > > do
> > > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz 
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > > > >
> > > > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> > > GLAM-related
> > > > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing
> what it
> > > > is
> > > > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can
> create a
> > > > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > > > >
> > > > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > > > >
> > > > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with
> Common's
> > > > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you
> > > project
> > > > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do something
> > > > similar.
> > > > >
> > > > > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but on
> the
> > > > other
> > > > > hand it is constantly flooded by hundreds  of copyright violating
> > > files a
> > > > > day:
> > > > >
> > > > > See the list from just one day:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2019/05/01
> > > > >
> > > > > so this hostility works both ways - Common's admins have to cope
> with
> > > > > aggressive hostile copyright violators every day, and after some
> time -
> > > > > decide to leave or became being hostile themselves... and the other
> > > issue
> > > > > is decreasing number of active admins and OTRS agents.
> > > > >
> > > > > I think - sooner or later - all this system - uploads - screening
> > > uploads
> > > > > by admins, and OTRS agreements - needs deep rethinking.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > niedz., 12 maj 2019 o 10:48 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> > > > >
> > > > >> Hello all,
> > > > >>
> > > > >> There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons
> > > > components
> > > > >> of The Community, judging by the article "Wikimedia Commons: a
> highly
> > > > >> hostile place for multimedia students contributions" at the
> Education
> > > > >> Newsletter
> > > > >>
> &

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Same as for reviewing files.
I find more rewarding to work on content that creating and mainting help
pages.
I should mention that Aymatth2
 has done an amazing work
on completely reworking the copyright help pages, creating subpages by
country.
I think this helps a lot to find the information pertaining to a giving
file.

Regards,
Yann
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)

Le lun. 13 mai 2019 à 13:11, Peter Southwood 
a écrit :

> And there is nobody who "must" improve commons help pages as they are all
> volunteers, so if someone wants better help pages, they can have a go at
> fixing them. Do be careful about how you go about it, as it must reflect
> project consensus.  Get agreement on the talk page first for any
> substantial change to minimise strife.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

My guest work is that
1. Adminship requires an extensive knowledge of copyright, that's the main
factor limiting the number of candidates.
2. Commons requires candidates to be active locally.
3. I find personally much more rewarding to work on content that reviewing
and cleaning files uploaded by others. I guess most people feel the same.

Regards,
Yann Forget
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)

Le lun. 13 mai 2019 à 11:39, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> a écrit :

> A good question to ask would be why the admin group is not growing. And
> maybe (maybe) we can find a common answer to both problems pointed here.
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

To have a clearer image of Commons admins, please see this
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:List_of_administrators_by_recent_activity
There are currently 223 admins (comparing with the English Wikipedia 1,176).
Among them 165 have done one admin action during the last month.
But only around 30 admins have done most of the work.
The content has grown exponentially, but the community has not.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Commons_Growth.svg
https://stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/commons.wikimedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal|line|All|~total


Regards,
Yann Forget
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)



Le dim. 12 mai 2019 à 19:01, James Heilman  a écrit :

> It is hard to get the admin bit there aswell. Is Commons interested in
> having more admins?
>
> James
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 5:41 AM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay for
> > access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
> > copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
> > terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to see
> > if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
> > reduced.[1]
> >
> > Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
> > image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make mass
> > housekeeping very easy.
> >
> > A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic image
> > hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a Commons hat
> > on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use than
> > mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to suck
> > up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.
> >
> > Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long, that
> > several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
> > originally interested have since retired. Without some positive short
> > term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the useful
> > experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.
> >
> > Links
> > 1.
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
> > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash
> >
> > Fae
> >
> > On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support
> for
> > > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> > amount of
> > > > material it has to deal with.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > > Yaroslav
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> > benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or
> capable
> > to
> > > > do
> > > > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz 
> > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> > > > GLAM-related
> > > > > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing
> > what it
> > > > > is
> > > > > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can
> > create a
> > > > > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with
> > Common's
> > > > > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you
> > > > project
> > > > > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do
> something
> > > > > similar.
> > &g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

Hi James,

Of course. More admins would lesser the work charge, and it would be great.
We specially appreciate admins with multi-language capabilities, as it is a
multilangual project.
Of course, comprehensive knowledge of copyright is needed.
That is complex, but it can be learnt.

Regards,
Yann
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)



Le dim. 12 mai 2019 à 19:01, James Heilman  a écrit :

> It is hard to get the admin bit there aswell. Is Commons interested in
> having more admins?
>
> James
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 5:41 AM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay for
> > access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
> > copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
> > terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to see
> > if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
> > reduced.[1]
> >
> > Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
> > image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make mass
> > housekeeping very easy.
> >
> > A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic image
> > hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a Commons hat
> > on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use than
> > mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to suck
> > up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.
> >
> > Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long, that
> > several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
> > originally interested have since retired. Without some positive short
> > term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the useful
> > experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.
> >
> > Links
> > 1.
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
> > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash
> >
> > Fae
> >
> > On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support
> for
> > > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> > amount of
> > > > material it has to deal with.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > > Yaroslav
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> > benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or
> capable
> > to
> > > > do
> > > > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz 
> > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> > > > GLAM-related
> > > > > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing
> > what it
> > > > > is
> > > > > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can
> > create a
> > > > > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with
> > Common's
> > > > > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you
> > > > project
> > > > > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do
> something
> > > > > similar.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but on
> > the
> > > > > other
> > > > > > hand it is constantly flooded by hundreds  of copyright violating
> > > > files a
> > > > > > day:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > See the list from just one day:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > >
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2019/05/01
> > > > > >
> > > > > > so this hostility works both ways - Common's admins have to cope
> > with
> > > > > > aggressive hostile copyright violators every day, and after some
> > time -
> > > > > > decide to leave or became being hostile themselves... and the
> other
> > > > issue
> > > > > > is decreasing number of active admins and OTRS agents.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I think - sooner or later - all this system - uploads - screening
> > > > uploads
> > > > > > by admins, and OTRS agreements - needs deep rethinking.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > niedz., 12 maj 2019 o 10:48 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > > > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> > > > > >
> > > > > >> Hello all,
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons
> > > > > components
> > > > > >> of The 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

This was reverted. It is a dishonest edit with a misleading summary.

Regards,
Yann
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)



Le dim. 12 mai 2019 à 19:59, Andrew Lih  a écrit :

> This episode exposes a policy of Commons that may be unknown to many folks
> - the precautionary principle.
>
> It is an explicit exception to assuming good faith, so I noted this on the
> AGF page on Commons.
>
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Assume_good_faith=prev=349650525
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 10:23 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As I am the author of the post, some remarks:
> >
> >   *   Commons is, indeed, the only [cloud] storage for file in most of
> the
> > Wikipedias. Making an accusation of using Commons as a storage place is
> > unfair and nonsense.
> >   *   Communication could be better, of course, but we don't have to
> think
> > on experienced editors and wikimedians, but on people we are trying to
> > convince to upload to the Commons and find this burden. They don't know
> how
> > to communicate and why they must do it.
> >   *   The upload system allow you to upload something if you are the
> > author. Period.
> >   *   Claiming that something is a derivative work without saying which
> is
> > the original work is not a good practice.
> >   *   Of course, commons volunteers are few, and they have a great
> > job-queue. But outreach volunteers are less, and a project like this can
> > take a whole year of volunteer work.
> >   *   After all the victim-blaming seen on this discussion no one was
> able
> > to point to a page where the procedure was clear for everyone.
> >
> > Let's hope we can follow with this project next year and we will have
> less
> > problems.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Galder
> > 
> > From: Wikimedia-l  on behalf of
> > Vi to 
> > Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2019 3:35 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach
> >
> > I wonder wheter local sysops could be allowed to delete/undelete images
> on
> > commons in order to reduce workload. Most risky commons' uploads come
> from
> > cw-upload, allow local sysops to handle them could work.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > Il giorno dom 12 mag 2019 alle ore 15:31 James Heilman  >
> > ha scritto:
> >
> > > It is hard to get the admin bit there aswell. Is Commons interested in
> > > having more admins?
> > >
> > > James
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 5:41 AM Fæ  wrote:
> > >
> > > > A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay for
> > > > access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
> > > > copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
> > > > terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to see
> > > > if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
> > > > reduced.[1]
> > > >
> > > > Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
> > > > image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make mass
> > > > housekeeping very easy.
> > > >
> > > > A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic image
> > > > hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a Commons
> hat
> > > > on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use than
> > > > mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to suck
> > > > up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.
> > > >
> > > > Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long, that
> > > > several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
> > > > originally interested have since retired. Without some positive short
> > > > term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the useful
> > > > experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.
> > > >
> > > > Links
> > > > 1.
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
> > > > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash
> > > >
> > > > Fae
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani 
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores
> support
> > > for
> > > > > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> > > > >
> > > > > Best
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter  >
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> > > > amount of
> > > > > > material it has to deal with.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Cheers
> > > > > > Yaroslav
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> > > > benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Yann Forget]

Yes,  Yaroslav is right. The active community is small compared to the
amount of work to be done.

I have advocated since long that massive training is needed to fix this.
These trainings should be sponsored by the WMF and its affiliates.

Regards,
Yann Forget
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)



Le dim. 12 mai 2019 à 16:40, Yaroslav Blanter  a écrit :

> Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the amount of
> material it has to deal with.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or capable to
> do
> > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
> >
> > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > >
> > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> GLAM-related
> > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing what it
> > is
> > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can create a
> > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > >
> > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > >
> > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with Common's
> > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you
> project
> > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do something
> > similar.
> > >
> > > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but on the
> > other
> > > hand it is constantly flooded by hundreds  of copyright violating
> files a
> > > day:
> > >
> > > See the list from just one day:
> > >
> > >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2019/05/01
> > >
> > > so this hostility works both ways - Common's admins have to cope with
> > > aggressive hostile copyright violators every day, and after some time -
> > > decide to leave or became being hostile themselves... and the other
> issue
> > > is decreasing number of active admins and OTRS agents.
> > >
> > > I think - sooner or later - all this system - uploads - screening
> uploads
> > > by admins, and OTRS agreements - needs deep rethinking.
> > >
> > >
> > > niedz., 12 maj 2019 o 10:48 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> > >
> > >> Hello all,
> > >>
> > >> There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons
> > components
> > >> of The Community, judging by the article "Wikimedia Commons: a highly
> > >> hostile place for multimedia students contributions" at the Education
> > >> Newsletter
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/April_2019/Wikimedia_Commons:_a_highly_hostile_place_for_multimedia_students_contributions
> > >>
> > >> As far as I can understand it, some students on an Outreach project
> > >> uploaded some rather well-made video material, and comeone on Commons
> > >> deleted them because they appeared to well-made to be student projects
> > and
> > >> so concluded they were copyright violations.  But some rather odd
> > remarks
> > >> were made "Commons has to fight the endless stream of uploaded
> > copyrighted
> > >> content on behalf of a headquarters in San Francisco that doesn't
> care."
> > >> and
> > >> "you have regarded Commons as little more than free cloud storage for
> > >> images you intend to use on Wikipedia ".
> > >>
> > >> Perhaps the Foundation needs to resolve this dispute?
> > >>
> > >> Thrapostibongles
> > >> ___
> > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> ,
> > >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
>

[Wikimedia-l] Hindi Wikisource waiting, developer needed

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

The Hindi Wikisource is blocked by some technical problems with no
resolution expected shortly. The last comment in the ticket is:

The issue still exists and it's impossible to make new wikis without lots
of bandage and hacks. I'm doing this in volunteer capacity and I don't have
time to do it anymore :(

The ticket was opened on March 13th.
The community is actively waiting.
Some workshops are planned, but postponed because of this issue.
So this task should be given to some developer from WMF.

Regards,
Yann Forget
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikidata] Solve legal uncertainty of Wikidata

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2018-07-04 12:50 GMT+02:00 Maarten Dammers :

> Hi Mathieu,
>


> So I see you started forum shopping (trying to get the Wikimedia-l people
> in) and making contentious trying to be funny remarks. That's usually a
> good indication a thread is going nowhere.
>
> No, Wikidata is not going to change the CC0. You seem to be the only
> person wanting that and trying to discredit Wikidata will not help you in
> your crusade. I suggest the people who are still interested in this to go
> to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193728 and make useful comments
> over there.


I concur totally with analysis.

Regards,

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

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Any CC license on Wikidata would be like puting a copyright on facts.
I obviously strongly object on that, and therefore I also strongly object
puting anything other than public domain or CC0 on Wikidata.

The whole database could have a copyright in Europe, but I am also strongly
against copyright on databases, that's why Wikidata should be under CC0.

Regards,

Yann


2017-12-03 23:59 GMT+01:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:

> Dear Leila
>
>
> Le 02/12/2017 à 21:48, Leila Zia a écrit :
>
>> [I apologize for the longish response, and I will do what I can to take
>> the rest of this offlist as needed. I just see a couple of places where I
>> need to add more explanation.]
>>
> Then I feel somewhat bond to respond too. But too make it shorts, I don't
> think I add in this email says anything that wasn't already said before. So
> anyone already fed up with this thread can just skip this message with no
> fear to miss any revelation. And to make it clear, I don't expect any
> answer to this message on the list, but will diligently reply in private if
> you are looking for more information from my part.
>
>>
>> ​(​Side-note. We should take this part offline but for the record: I
>> couldn't find a place where transparency was listed as an agreed upon and
>> shared value of our movement as a whole. There are subgroups that consider
>> it a core value or one of the guiding principles, and it's of course built
>> in in many of the things we do in Wikimedia, but I'm hesitant to call it /a
>> core value of our movement/ given that it's not listed somewhere as such.
>> btw, for the record, it's high on my personal and professional list of
>> values.)
>>
> Here is an official Wikimedia Foundation presentation support of 2017
> related to leadership where /being transparent/ is explicitely stated in a
> silde titled "Staying true to our values": https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/i
> ndex.php?title=File%3AWhat_is_Leadership%3F.pdf=25
>
>>
>> ​While I agree that transparency is a value for many of us, it is not
>> very clear, to at least me, how we as a whole define transparency to the
>> level that can be used in practice. In the absence of a shared practical
>> definition for transparency, each of us (or groups of us) define a process
>> as transparent as a function of how big/impactful the result of a process
>> is at each point in time, our backgrounds/cultures/countries-we're-from,
>> how much personal trust we have in the process or the people involved in
>> the process, etc. If this is correct, this means that in practice we as
>> individuals or groups define what transparency means for us and we will
>> demand specific things based on our own definition. So, while in theory you
>> are requesting/demanding something that is likely a shared value for many
>> of us, in practice, you are entering your own checklist (that may be shared
>> with some other people's view on transparency in a specific case) that once
>> met, you will call the process transparent. That's why I interpreted what I
>> heard from you as "I" demand transparency, versus "we, as a movement"
>> demand transparency in this case.
>>
> I completely agree with you with the lake of clear definition of some
> crucial core notions we use all the time. This is also a feedback I red in
> several comments in the 2017 strategy consultation. Staying vague brings
> both pros and cons of flexibility. An other example is "free license",
> which is for example used in the foundation bylaws <
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws>, but not defined it it. One
> might argue that "free license" has a clear cultural meaning in the
> free/libre culture movement, with the four famous freedom inherited from
> free software. But this is a legal document, what is not clearly explicitly
> stated is subject to large interpretation variations. But at list the
> foundation has "free license" in its bylaws, I know that the equivalent is
> not even mentioned in the French chapter similar document <
> https://www.wikimedia.fr/documents-officiels/statuts-de-lassociation/>.
>
>
>> To give you a more specific example: as an Iranian involved in Wikimedia
>> movement who knows Markus through his contributions to Wikidata and at a
>> professional/work level, I trusted Markus' words when he said that those in
>> early stages of the project didn't think of Wikidata as a project that one
>> day becomes as big as it is today. I believe it that this was a fun project
>> that they wanted to see succeed, but they were not sure at all if it gets
>> somewhere, so the natural thing to do for them was to spend time to see if
>> they can help it take off at all as opposed to spending time on documenting
>> decisions in case it takes off and they need to show to people how they
>> have done things. If trust between Markus and I were broken, however, I
>> would likely not be content with that level of response and I would
>> ask/demand for more explanation. In case 

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

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Any CC license on Wikidata would be like puting a copyright on facts.
I obviously strongly object on that, and therefore I also strongly object
puting anything other than public domain or CC0 on Wikidata.

The whole database could have
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Update on Wikimédia France

[Yann Forget]

2017-08-03 13:47 GMT+02:00 Rémi Mathis :

> > To be honest, 25-30% of WMFR members is quite a lot. And, don't
> > forget, include roughly half of the Wikimedia France Board elected at
> > the last General Assembly.
> >
> > This isn't the first governance crisis in the Wikimedia movement (WMF
> > and other chapters have certainly had them) but it is probably the
> > biggest and most long-drawn-out.
>
> Of course, it's quite a lot: that's why a special meeting is scheduled to
> discuss of all that and the biggest part of the discussion will be driven
> by the people who are not happy.
> But still, 70-75% of the members are happy with the organisation and never

ask them anything, nobody tries to listen to them. We should try to include
> everyone, even the shy ones, even those who just work and don't consider
> themselves as potentiol bosses... not only the few who knows who to talk
> to, where to write, to have their personal wills fulfilled
>
> No, that's plain wrong.
70-75% of members are silent, or not interested. So far, Rémi, you are the
only one outside the board who supports the board.

The people complaining are ALL the active volunteers of the French
Wikimedia community.

Please get things right.

Regards,

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Réponse à Samuel Legoff, président de Wikimédia France / Answer to Samuel Legoff, president of Wikimedia France

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Thanks Thierry for your detailed mail.
I was also thinking to write the board of Wikimedia France regarding the
ongoing crisis.
But your mail expresses my opinion quite well.

The blindness of board members facing the critics is stunning.
The vain and counterproductive attempts of censorship by moderating the
mailing list and then deleting it seem to be from an old past.
The unjustified removal of certain critical members is also unacceptable.
I still hope that the Board will come back on these decisions before it is
too late.

Regards,

Yann Forget

===
Bonjour,

Merci Thierry pour ce mail long et détaillé.

Je m'apprêtais justement à écrire au CA concernant la crise actuelle que
traverse Wikimédia France.
Mais ton mail remplace avantageusement celui que j'aurais pu faire.

L'aveuglement des membres du CA devant les critiques est sidérant.
Les tentatives vaines et contre-productives de censure en modérant la liste
de discussion, puis en la supprimant semblent d'un autre temps.
La radiation sans motif valable de certains adhérents critiques est aussi
inacceptables.
J'espère encore que le CA reviendra sur ces décisions avant qu'il ne soit
trop tard.

Cordialement,

Yann Forget


Le 18 juillet 2017 à 04:32, Thierry Coudray <tcoud...@gmail.com> a écrit :

> Hello folks,
>
> It has been a long time since I have written on this list. More than for 4
> years. And I thought I would never write again especially about Wikimedia
> France.
>
> For those who do not know me, I'm a former board member, treasurer
> (2010-2011) and executive director (2012) of Wikimedia France, a current HR
> consultant and a quite long time Wikipedian (2005, user:TCY), a project I'm
> still involved and which I care.
>
> During those last weeks former WMFr employees,  WMFr members, even some I
> do not know, have contacted me to know if I'm aware of the current WMFr
> situation, to find out what I think about it and to find out what to do as
> well. If it's gratifying to be recognised, both for my skills and the work
> I have done for WMFr  in the light of my  hasty departure of Wikimedia
> France in december 2012, I stayed deliberately away. First because I have a
> duty of reserve and, for my part, I've strictly followed it. But especially
> because I've turned the page of Wikimedia France even if I had to
> restrain myself
> when I saw what had happened to the great salaried team I had managed.
>
> But a number of things made me think:
> - the latest developments of what could unfortunately be called the WMFr
> affair or WMFrGate with the revolt of many members  facing Wikimedia France
> adrift,
> - the risk of a divorce between French wikipedian community and Wikimedia
> France with the resentment of some WP editors (for example, a call for a
> boycott, fortunatly not yet significant, for the next fundraising which a
> part funds Wikimedia France) and while a national chapter is useful to
> support Wikimedia subjetcs.
> - but above all, the risk that the Wikipedia in French will be damaged when
> this affair will be released to the media. And it will be, I've already
> been contacted by two journalists  (I did not speak with any of them : one
> I really trusted but we did not find the time between our busy schedules
> for sharing, and the other one, I did not trust her and I ignored her phone
> call).
>
> The recent and staggering Samuell Legoff's e-mail convinced me to break my
> four year silence.
>
> I will answer  the e-mail in a kind of "open answer" . I would have
> prefered to post to Wikimedia France mailing list but this list is closed
> for the next 10 days and the WMFr member which has accepted to forward it,
> told me, even with the list opened again, my e-mail would have been
> censored. As Samuel's e-mail has been forwarded, translated and subjected
> to a great deal of comments on this list and many WMFr members are on it, I
> have chosen to publish it here, the only Wikimedia list I'm still on. As
> Florence Devouard, Christophe Henner, Chris Keating, Mike Peel and Itzik
> Edri are also mentionned in my e-mail, it seems correct they are informed.
>
> Sorry answer below to Samuel is in French. I am not fluent enough in
> English for a quick translation and my answer is quite long. But I wanted
> it to be exhaustive and accurate face to all Samuel's statements. I am
> correcting many errors Samuel has made when he speaks about French labor
> law, non profit associations law, HR and management to support the WMFr
> board decisions. I am pointing out what I considered not ethical or wrong
> past board or ED decisions. I am giving  some specific ways in which the HR
> management, governance and ethics could be improved regarding my HR and
> Wikimedia background and last but not least I am trying to explain to
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikisource type of site for sheet music at kickstarter

[Yann Forget]

And the French Wikisource too. ;)

Yann


2017-06-23 10:26 GMT+02:00 Andrea Zanni :

> The English Wikisource already has the Lilypond extension to host Sheet
> music:
> https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Special:
> PagesWithProp/score=500
>
> AFAIK, though, Lilypond notation is not easy and I'm not sure how
> widespread is the use of transcribing music notation in Wikisource
> communities.
>
> Aubrey
>
> On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 7:04 AM, Tim Starling 
> wrote:
>
> > On 23/06/17 12:48, Romaine Wiki wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I came across the following Kickstarter project about sheet music. The
> > > project aims for making public domain sheet musuc available and keeping
> > > them open. The project is a sort of Wikisource, but then for sheet
> music,
> > > and I think as Wikimedia movement we should support this somehow.
> >
> > Seems like a duplicate of Mutopia, except funded via Kickstarter. You
> > give them money on Kickstarter and they download the score from IMSLP
> > and transcribe it for you. This doesn't appear to be a business model
> > that would benefit from our help.
> >
> > -- Tim Starling
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] a second commons, prevent cease and desist business

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

No, I didn't ask any help from the WMF.
I don't know if it would have changed anything.

Regards,

Yann

2017-03-05 21:07 GMT+01:00 Rogol Domedonfors <domedonf...@gmail.com>:

> Yann
>
> Did you ask for, or receive, any help from the WMF?  If so, was it
> effective?  If not, do you think you should have done?
>
> "Rogol"
>
> On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 7:45 PM, Yann Forget <yan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a personal experience which is worth considering.
> > One of my picture uploaded on Commons under CC-BY-SA was used without
> > attribution by a political party on their website and 2 of their leaflets
> > (printed to more than 10,000 copies each).
> > I contacted them, and they immediately acknowledged that the license was
> > not respected. Their excuse was "We didn't know", which is quite
> difficult
> > to accept.
> > But then they stopped answering to my mails.
> > So I contacted a lawyer, who told me that I should ask "at least 5,000
> > euros".
> > Then the politician said to my lawyer than "I have agreed to a
> compensation
> > of a few euros", which is completely false.
> > Consequence: My lawyer could not negotiate more than a few hundreds
> euros.
> > Morality: It would have been much better for me to contact a lawyer
> > directly rather than trying to negotiate an amicable agreement. :(
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Yann
> >
> >
> > 2017-03-05 15:30 GMT+01:00 James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com>:
> >
> > > Am looking into options. Am going to be discussing things with a
> lawyer.
> > > Might be good to have a number of Wikipedians involved and will ask
> him.
> > >
> > > James
> > >
> > > On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 11:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors <
> > domedonf...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > James, that's very helpful and I see at least one book on that list
> > that
> > > > violates the licence, and hence breaches my copyright, in content
> that
> > I
> > > > wrote.  What's the best way forward?  Should  the WMF represent the
> > > > community by engaging directly with the company responsible?  Or
> should
> > > it
> > > > coordinate and advise individual contributors making numerous
> > individual
> > > > approaches?  Or should it do nothing?  What's best?
> > > >
> > > > "Rogol"
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 2:39 AM, James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Rupert here is a list of 213,000 books that are based on Wikipedia
> > > > without
> > > > > proper attribution.
> > > > >
> > > > > https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=bks=en=%22CTI+Reviews%22
> > > > >
> > > > > James
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:47 AM, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > This thread is notably long on hypothetical and meta-level
> > > discussions
> > > > > > and very short on concrete examples of the supposedly problematic
> > > > > > uploads under discussion. What are the generally accepted
> examples
> > of
> > > > > > what we're actually talking about here?
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > - d.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > ___
> > > > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > > > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > > > > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
> > > mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > > > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=
> > unsubscribe>
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > James Heilman
> > > > > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > > > >
> > > > > The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> > > > > ___
> > > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta

Re: [Wikimedia-l] a second commons, prevent cease and desist business

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

I have a personal experience which is worth considering.
One of my picture uploaded on Commons under CC-BY-SA was used without
attribution by a political party on their website and 2 of their leaflets
(printed to more than 10,000 copies each).
I contacted them, and they immediately acknowledged that the license was
not respected. Their excuse was "We didn't know", which is quite difficult
to accept.
But then they stopped answering to my mails.
So I contacted a lawyer, who told me that I should ask "at least 5,000
euros".
Then the politician said to my lawyer than "I have agreed to a compensation
of a few euros", which is completely false.
Consequence: My lawyer could not negotiate more than a few hundreds euros.
Morality: It would have been much better for me to contact a lawyer
directly rather than trying to negotiate an amicable agreement. :(

Regards,

Yann


2017-03-05 15:30 GMT+01:00 James Heilman :

> Am looking into options. Am going to be discussing things with a lawyer.
> Might be good to have a number of Wikipedians involved and will ask him.
>
> James
>
> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 11:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
> wrote:
>
> > James, that's very helpful and I see at least one book on that list that
> > violates the licence, and hence breaches my copyright, in content that I
> > wrote.  What's the best way forward?  Should  the WMF represent the
> > community by engaging directly with the company responsible?  Or should
> it
> > coordinate and advise individual contributors making numerous individual
> > approaches?  Or should it do nothing?  What's best?
> >
> > "Rogol"
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 2:39 AM, James Heilman  wrote:
> >
> > > Rupert here is a list of 213,000 books that are based on Wikipedia
> > without
> > > proper attribution.
> > >
> > > https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=bks=en=%22CTI+Reviews%22
> > >
> > > James
> > >
> > > On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:47 AM, David Gerard 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > This thread is notably long on hypothetical and meta-level
> discussions
> > > > and very short on concrete examples of the supposedly problematic
> > > > uploads under discussion. What are the generally accepted examples of
> > > > what we're actually talking about here?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > - d.
> > > >
> > > > ___
> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
> mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > > 
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > James Heilman
> > > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > >
> > > The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > >
> > ___
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> > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
>
>
>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Keeping historical documents related to Wikimedia

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2017-01-12 1:41 GMT+01:00 Newyorkbrad <newyorkb...@gmail.com>:

> If it is decided not to host these materials on a wiki, whether for
> copyright or any other reasons, then someone (either in the Office or
> a volunteer) should be designated to retain a copy privately.  That
> way, he or she will be able to upload it later if the copyright status
> or policy changes in the future, or to make it available offline for
> research use or consultation by historians or other researchers who
> could make good use of it.
>

That completely defeats the point.
Anyone can keep a copy locally, but 1. the file isn't available publicly,
2. nobody really knows where it is available (Google won't say X has a
copy), 3. if the local storage is damaged, the file is lost.

So I am asking the WMF to have a place to keep such files publicly.

Regards,

Yann

>
> Newyorkbrad/IBM
>
> On 1/11/17, Pete Forsyth <petefors...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thank you for bringing this up, Yann. Some relevant context is that Meta
> > Wiki users considered permitting such files on Meta Wiki a year and a
> half
> > ago, and decided not to. The electorate was not very big (14 votes,
> total),
> > but it was carefully considered, with compelling arguments made on both
> > sides.[1]
> >
> > In my opinion, the best outcome would be that Meta Wiki should have an
> > Exemption Doctrine Policy (the board's name for a project's local policy
> > that would permit copyrighted files under specific circumstances)[2] I
> > think the Meta Wiki decision should be revisited and considered in more
> > depth, with more participation, and probably reversed (with some careful
> > work on defining the proper circumstances for an exemption).
> >
> > But of course, that's not an easy task. I have no ready answer, but am
> > interested to see what ideas others have.
> > -Pete
> > [[User:Peteforsyth]]
> >
> > [1]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta:Babel;
> diff=prev=13362698#General_discussion_on_allowing_or_rejecting_fair_
> use_at_Meta
> > [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 3:04 PM, Yann Forget <yan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I would like to get more opinions about what to do with files such as
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Education_and_WGIG.pdf
> >>
> >> This is a draft from a United Nations conference which mentions
> Wikipedia
> >> (the first and only AFAIK), and as such, an important historical
> document.
> >>
> >> It doesn't have a formal license, but there is no real copyright issue.
> >>
> >> Where and how should we keep such files?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Yann Forget
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[Wikimedia-l] Keeping historical documents related to Wikimedia

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

I would like to get more opinions about what to do with files such as
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Education_and_WGIG.pdf

This is a draft from a United Nations conference which mentions Wikipedia
(the first and only AFAIK), and as such, an important historical document.

It doesn't have a formal license, but there is no real copyright issue.

Where and how should we keep such files?

Regards,

Yann Forget
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2015 round 2 voting has started

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

The FB page owners are Ricky Setiawan and Jens Liebenau.

 Ricky Setiawan is Member of the Board of Trustees at Wikimedia Indonesia.

https://www.facebook.com/Wikimedia.Commons/info/?tab=page_owners

Regards,

Yann

2016-05-16 10:18 GMT+02:00 Yann Forget <yan...@gmail.com>:

> Hi,
>
> Actually I don't control the FB page.
> I was just interested to spread awareness of Wikimedia Commons on Facebook.
>
> Regards,
>
> Yann
>
> 2016-05-16 9:07 GMT+02:00 Steinsplitter Wiki <steinsplitter-w...@live.com>
> :
>
>> As far i can see there are two volunteers listed at
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Social_media/Facebook  , i
>> talked with Yann - it wasn't him.
>>
>> The second volunteer is Rodrigo.Argenton, and i am wondering who granted
>> him access - looking at his block log i don't feel comfortable at all [1].
>>
>> Opinion: A page on meta schould be created and who operates which account.
>>
>> --Steinsplitter
>>
>> [1]
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block=User%3ARodrigo.Argenton
>>
>> > From: jameso...@gmail.com
>> > Date: Sun, 15 May 2016 14:31:52 -0700
>> > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2015 round 2
>> votinghas started
>> >
>> > Actually those uploading images on the Wikimedia Commons FB page are
>> > volunteers
>> > <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Social_media/Facebook> (I
>> don't
>> > think they're all listed there but probably the right place to start),
>> I'd
>> > encourage you to talk to them directly if you think there is a problem
>> with
>> > their uploads instead of jumping to conclusions and assuming it must be
>> the
>> > "evil WMF" doing it and using a great thread like this to try and score
>> > some points against them.
>> >
>> > For those interested:
>> >
>> > I know that the verified channels which the Communication team posts on
>> > frequently (Especially the Wikimedia <https://twitter.com/wikipedia> &
>> > Wikipedia <https://twitter.com/wikipedia> twitter and the Wikipedia FB
>> page
>> > <https://www.facebook.com/wikipedia>) purposely follow a set of Best
>> > Practices
>> > <
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Social_media/Best_practices#On_Wikimedia_Foundation_and_Wikipedia_branded_accounts
>> >
>> > that include very explictly "Do not post media that is not either owned
>> or
>> > co-owned by the Wikimedia Foundation (such as photos we take), in the
>> > public domain or licensed under CC0". They do occasionally post other CC
>> > images but only after getting explicit approval/permission from the
>> > copyright holder including how to attribute etc.
>> >
>> > On a personal basis I think the inability to post most CC images on SM
>> > sites is a massive problem for the licenses as a whole (and for many
>> free
>> > licenses). This is not only because SM sites are such a large part of
>> > modern life right now (and so we are cutting off an important audience
>> who
>> > we WANT using free images rather then repeatedly using more closed
>> > copyrighted material, though they are still doing that now ALSO against
>> the
>> > SM Terms of Use) but it's also because it's so befuddling to people that
>> > they generally ignore it encouraging people to ignore the licenses in
>> > general. Not only the general public but those who know the licences
>> well
>> > think of them as designed to ALLOW sharing so the idea that they can't
>> > share them is shocking to them (so they DO share them). In fact,
>> contrary
>> > to your accusation, I don't know of ANY other organizations that ensure
>> > they are following the SM site Terms of Use and the CC licenses when
>> > posting. I've even seen Creative Commons itself, on it's official
>> Twitter
>> > and Facebook accounts, posting CC images against the terms.
>> >
>> > James Alexander
>> > User:Jamesofur [Personal capacity, Staff account: Jalexander-WMF]
>> >
>> > On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 1:55 PM, Toby Dollmann <toby.dollm...@gmail.com
>> >
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > Peter,
>> > >
>> > > You are right.and truly we are spoiled for choice
>> > >
>> > > It is very satisfying to observe that some entries from professional
>> >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2015 round 2 voting has started

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Actually I don't control the FB page.
I was just interested to spread awareness of Wikimedia Commons on Facebook.

Regards,

Yann

2016-05-16 9:07 GMT+02:00 Steinsplitter Wiki :

> As far i can see there are two volunteers listed at
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Social_media/Facebook  , i
> talked with Yann - it wasn't him.
>
> The second volunteer is Rodrigo.Argenton, and i am wondering who granted
> him access - looking at his block log i don't feel comfortable at all [1].
>
> Opinion: A page on meta schould be created and who operates which account.
>
> --Steinsplitter
>
> [1]
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block=User%3ARodrigo.Argenton
>
> > From: jameso...@gmail.com
> > Date: Sun, 15 May 2016 14:31:52 -0700
> > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2015 round 2
> votinghas started
> >
> > Actually those uploading images on the Wikimedia Commons FB page are
> > volunteers
> >  (I
> don't
> > think they're all listed there but probably the right place to start),
> I'd
> > encourage you to talk to them directly if you think there is a problem
> with
> > their uploads instead of jumping to conclusions and assuming it must be
> the
> > "evil WMF" doing it and using a great thread like this to try and score
> > some points against them.
> >
> > For those interested:
> >
> > I know that the verified channels which the Communication team posts on
> > frequently (Especially the Wikimedia  &
> > Wikipedia  twitter and the Wikipedia FB
> page
> > ) purposely follow a set of Best
> > Practices
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Social_media/Best_practices#On_Wikimedia_Foundation_and_Wikipedia_branded_accounts
> >
> > that include very explictly "Do not post media that is not either owned
> or
> > co-owned by the Wikimedia Foundation (such as photos we take), in the
> > public domain or licensed under CC0". They do occasionally post other CC
> > images but only after getting explicit approval/permission from the
> > copyright holder including how to attribute etc.
> >
> > On a personal basis I think the inability to post most CC images on SM
> > sites is a massive problem for the licenses as a whole (and for many free
> > licenses). This is not only because SM sites are such a large part of
> > modern life right now (and so we are cutting off an important audience
> who
> > we WANT using free images rather then repeatedly using more closed
> > copyrighted material, though they are still doing that now ALSO against
> the
> > SM Terms of Use) but it's also because it's so befuddling to people that
> > they generally ignore it encouraging people to ignore the licenses in
> > general. Not only the general public but those who know the licences well
> > think of them as designed to ALLOW sharing so the idea that they can't
> > share them is shocking to them (so they DO share them). In fact, contrary
> > to your accusation, I don't know of ANY other organizations that ensure
> > they are following the SM site Terms of Use and the CC licenses when
> > posting. I've even seen Creative Commons itself, on it's official Twitter
> > and Facebook accounts, posting CC images against the terms.
> >
> > James Alexander
> > User:Jamesofur [Personal capacity, Staff account: Jalexander-WMF]
> >
> > On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 1:55 PM, Toby Dollmann 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Peter,
> > >
> > > You are right.and truly we are spoiled for choice
> > >
> > > It is very satisfying to observe that some entries from professional
> > > photographers are nowadays explicitly stating their CC-BY-SA licences
> fo
> > > rCommons do not enable their copyrighted works to be uploaded to
> Facebook
> > > (and by implication to similar sites).
> > >
> > > eg: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cccefalon/fb
> > >
> > > And yet, I see that the Wikimedia volunteers on Facebook blissfully
> > > uploading "Pictures of the day" ignorant of all the legalese
> > >
> > > eg:
> > > https://www.facebook.com/Wikimedia.Commons/posts/1127382660617355:0
> > > https://www.facebook.com/Wikimedia.Commons/posts/1120943991261222:0
> > >
> > > Toby
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 12:52 AM, Peter Southwood <
> > > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > How can one choose amongst those photos? They are all excellent.
> > > > Peter
> > > >
> > > > -Original Message-
> > > > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org]
> On
> > > > Behalf Of Pine W
> > > > Sent: Sunday, 15 May 2016 7:21 PM
> > > > To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List; Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > > Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2015 round 2
> voting
> > > has
> > > > started
> > > >
> > > > Commons Picture of the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

I second everything said below. Yann

2016-05-08 5:20 GMT+02:00 Todd Allen :

> Denny,
>
> I appreciate that you've put forth this account. That's in no way facetious
> or just a pretext, I am actually very glad to see someone speak to this.
>
> I'd like, however, to suggest what would actually begin the process of
> healing, since that's your intent. Most of us knew at least more or less
> what James was accused of.
>
> First, James needs to be restored to the Board, or at very least, his
> restoration needs to be passed as a referendum to the community. Since
> you've now posted your side, there's no reason that the community, rather
> than the Board, shouldn't decide on James' trusteeship. That needs to
> happen now, not at the next election, and it should have happened to start
> with.
>
> Second, the Board needs to resolve never to remove a community trustee
> except by a successful recall referendum to the community. The Board should
> never, under any circumstances, remove a community trustee without consent
> of the community that elected them. That was unacceptable and must never
> happen again. There will be no "healing" without a promise that it will
> not.
>
> Third, the "founder" seat needs to be eliminated. Jimmy would be, of
> course, eligible to run for a community seat or be appointed to an expert
> seat, but he shouldn't be a "member for life". Alternatively, the "founder"
> seat could be made into an advisory, non-voting position.
>
> And finally, while this part is optional, it wouldn't hurt for the Board to
> increase the number of community elected ( and not "recommended", elected)
> seats to a majority. While there's room for "expert" appointed seats and
> chapter selected seats (and no, chapter selected seats are NOT community
> selected seats), the community should be in control and have a majority,
> and the others should be an advisory minority. The community has always
> been in charge of WMF projects, and this should continue to be the case.
>
> If you want to actually start the healing process, rather than deflect, at
> the very least the first three things need to be done. If you want to
> regain trust, all of them need to be. The community needs to be in charge.
>
> Todd
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement: WMF to file suit against the NSA

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2015-03-13 5:54 GMT+01:00 MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com:
 phoebe ayers wrote:
(...)

 Education is apolitical.

Education is certainly not apolitical.
People with different political opinions support education, but free
education like the one promoted by the WMF is certainly more a
political issue than social networks.
That's why the WMF involvement is more logical than social networks
and commercial entities.

Regards,

Yann

 I don't see making the leap from being an
 educational non-profit with an unusually heavy focus on engineering to
 doing all of this and also engaging in political advocacy as being a very
 good idea. If anything, we should play to our strengths and use technology
 to mitigate surveillance as much as is reasonable, if this is a real
 concern to our users. The extent to which Wikimedia users are concerned
 still seems arguable, as people have noted that other sites such as
 Facebook and Google contain far more private and personal information.[*]

I trust our legal team to make decisions about what legal actions to
participate in.

 It's been noted that there are a lot of legal issues around the world that
 the Wikimedia Foundation legal team could attempt to resolve. In fact, in
 probably any case, helping out in some small country would be a lot more
 likely to have a positive result over trying to fight the U.S. government.
 Mass surveillance is an abomination, but I think the role of the Wikimedia
 Foundation is to develop, support, and grow Wikimedia projects and I'm not
 sure this lawsuit is really doing that.

 Whether the Wikimedia Foundation should be engaged in political advocacy,
 and if so, who decides when and to what extent, seem like issues where
 there should be Wikimedia community, Board, and staff involvement.

 I'm wary of the precedent that we're setting here in terms of this being
 cited in the future as a reason to join other legal actions around the
 world. I'm also wary of of the potentially dangerous and unbalanced power
 it gives staff members to use Wikimedia as a political tool. I happen to
 sympathize with the position being taken today, but what about the future?

 Thank you for the thoughtful and informative reply. :-)

 MZMcBride

 [*] Just as a side note, tracking users also comes up in the context of
 trying to determine the number of unique page views for Wikimedia wikis.
 There are values and principles questions at play, on a global scale.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement: WMF to file suit against the NSA

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Wow! I am proud to be a volunteer working with an organisation daring
to take such steps.

I hope that this will bring concrete results.

Best regards,

Yann

2015-03-10 8:53 GMT+01:00 Michelle Paulson mpaul...@wikimedia.org:
 Hi All,

 I’m writing to let you know that today the Wikimedia Foundation[1] is
 filing suit against the National Security Agency
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency, the Department of
 Justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice,
 and the U.S. Attorney General
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney_General[2] in order
 to challenge certain mass surveillance practices carried out by the U.S.
 government. We believe these practices are impinging the freedom to learn,
 inquire, and explore on Wikimedia sites.

 Since the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures, we’ve heard concerns from the
 community about privacy on Wikipedia. This lawsuit is a step towards
 addressing the community's justified concerns. We believe that the
 surveillance methods being employed by the NSA under the authority of the FISA
 Amendments Act
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_Amendments_Act_of_2008
 negatively impact our users' ability and willingness to participate in our
 projects. Today, we fight back.

 An op-ed
 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/opinion/stop-spying-on-wikipedia-users.html?_r=0
 by Lila and Jimmy about the lawsuit, and Wikimedia's stance on government
 surveillance, appeared in The New York Times this morning. Additionally, we
 just published a blog post
 https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/10/wikimedia-v-nsa/ with more
 information about the suit. (The post will also up on Meta for translation).

 Best,


 Michelle Paulson

 Senior Legal Counsel

 Wikimedia Foundation

 mpaul...@wikimedia.org

 [1] We are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union (ACLU).
 Other plaintiffs include The National Association of Criminal Defense
 Lawyers http://www.nacdl.org/, Human Rights Watch
 http://www.hrw.org/, Amnesty
 International USA http://www.amnestyusa.org/, Pen American Center
 https://www.pen.org/, Global Fund for Women
 http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/, The Nation Magazine
 http://www.thenation.com/, The Rutherford Institute
 https://www.rutherford.org/, and Washington Office on Latin America
 http://www.wola.org/.

 [2] Other named defendants include: Michael Rogers
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Rogers, in his official capacity
 as Director of the National Security Agency
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_the_National_Security_Agency
 and Chief of the Central Security Service; Office of the Director of
 National Intelligence
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_National_Intelligence; James
 Clapper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper, in his official
 capacity as Director of National Intelligence; and Eric Holder
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder, in his official capacity
 as Attorney
 General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney_General of
 the United States.


 *NOTICE: 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 and 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] How to fix Commons

[Yann Forget]

You need to precise that you created a whole farm of sockpuppets,
which are all blocked on the English Wikipedia and Commons.
For what I know, these socks mostly are pursuing a political agenda
about a power game.

Yann

2014-12-14 6:49 GMT+01:00 Bruentrup claus.bruent...@gmail.com:
 Hi

 One of those 6 successful DMCA's of 2014 was filed by us.
 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/DMCA_India_Against_Corruption_logo

 Yet recently when my client, in good faith, reports further
 infringement of their same logo at Commons village pump, we have a
 Commons administrator agitating the community against my client. This
 administrator is self declared on-wiki, on his user page, as an
 employee of an NGO whose CEO is an infringer of my client's works and
 has regularly impersonated my client. This administrator is also the
 Commons OTRS administrator.

 Not surprisingly my client's OTRS emails have gone unacknowledged with
 no action taken, and my client's spokesperson was repeatedly insulted
 and abused on-line at the highly toxic Commons which has become a
 haven for pirates and infringers.

 The WMF must urgently install a professional take down system at
 Commons which is autonomous, ticketed, and with DMCAs as an appellate
 mechanism. Till then the WMF must also immediately cease advising
 affected non-users to resolve their infringements with their
 communities.

 BRUENTRUP

 On 12/14/14, pajz pajzm...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi,

 On 13 December 2014 at 19:46, Bruentrup claus.bruent...@gmail.com wrote:

 WMF must implement a professional ticketed system for media takedowns,
 and DMCAs must be the exception rather than the norm.


 hmm, do you have evidence of this? There are often delays when it comes to
 acknowledging the receipt of permission statements (due to the high amount
 of such emails), but frankly I have never heard of copyright infringement
 notices not being processed. From my impression this is one area where we
 are particularly swift to react, and respecting third-party copyrights is
 one of the cornerstones of the project (incidentally, the original thread
 here was started precisely because, supposedly, Commons users take
 copyright law too seriously). That doesn't mean there might not be an
 outlier occasionally, but almost all of these copyright-related complaints
 that I see are dealt with within a few days at the most. (That doesn't, and
 shouldn't, mean that everything is acted on just because someone claims
 their rights were violated without providing any proof of that claim. In
 this case it might be necessary to resort to the DMCA's notice process
 since it's the only way to at least expose the claimant to some danger
 should his assertion prove untrue.)

 Also, the extremely low number of DMCA take-down requests (see 
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Transparency_Report/DMCA_Takedown_Notices)
 seems to contradict your claim that they are the norm. It would be highly
 implausible that you can run a platform like the Wikimedia projects at 58
 DMCA requests in two years (apparently less than 10/year related to
 Commons) unless you have a pretty efficient mechanism apart from that in
 place to address such issues.

 Patrik
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] How to fix Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hahaha.

Taking the Church of Scientology has an example shows your true face...

Yann

2014-12-14 14:30 GMT+01:00 Bruentrup claus.bruent...@gmail.com:
 And you assert that I personally did all those things ?

 And you do not acknowledge then IAC is an actual public movement /
 organisation, with tens of thousands of subscribers all connected by
 internet and with similar ideologies, all upset with Wikipedia. eg.
 like Eastern European mailing list,  Church of Scientology etc.

 Unlike them, my client is only concerned with a single article India
 Against Corruption from which the chief author, Sitush, backed out
 during the agreed mediation and could not defend his malicious edits,
 leading to this surge of indignation being expressed against Wikipedia
 and off it.

 We await a reply from OTRS or Ms.Tretikov's office to our client's
 emails reporting the IP infringements.

 BRUENTRUP

 On 12/14/14, Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ru wrote:
 On 2014-12-14 14:05, Bruentrup wrote:
 And that will magically make all the infringements of IAC's IP at
 Commons somehow acceptable and usable ?

 If you have reliable hard evidence of disruption and socking by /
 against IAC, carried out from India, please share it with us so that
 my clients can report it to the law enforcement agencies, as they
 regularly do, to identify and prosecute the culprits.

 Please report yourself to the law enforcement agency first for spooling
 this mailing list last week and adding people to a google group without
 their consent (and for acting so using the name of a different list
 contributor).

 In the English Wikipedia, I personally blocked from editing several
 accounts from your sockfarm.

 I do not see why I should be wasting more time for IAC.

 Thank you for your attention.

 Cheers
 Yaroslav

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re-licensing Wikimedia logos on Commons to CC BY-SA 3.0

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Just a note: we can update the license on Commons, but I noticed that
the files were copied locally on https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Someone with the right priviledges will have to do it there.

Regards,

Yann

2014-10-30 17:30 GMT+01:00 Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org:
 Still traveling, but let me see if I can briefly dispel some of the
 confusion.

 CC BY-SA 3.0 grants users the right to use an image under copyright law. It
 does not cover trademark rights. The goal of trademark rights is to protect
 the logo from being used in a way that confuses the public. Trademark
 protection only covers certain types of uses, which are not the same as use
 covered with a copyright license like CC BY-SA 3.0. The Wikimedia trademark
 policy provides how the logos can be used as trademarks and here is some
 discussion about why it does that:
 https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_policy-purpose#trademark-purpose
 .

 So are the logos free under the Free Culture Definition? Yes, because the
 definition only talks about freedom under copyright law and lists CC BY-SA
 3.0 as a free license. The definition does not mean that users have
 freedom to violate other types of rights.

 Hope this clarifies!

 Yana

 On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 11:54 PM, Allan J. Aguilar ral...@vmail.me wrote:

 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA512

 On Wed, 29 Oct 2014 08:15:17 -0500
 Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org wrote:
  To address Allan's question, this does not affect the trademark
  status of the logos as governed by the new trademark policy:
  https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_policy.
 

 Thank you, Yana.

 However, as someone who understand little about copyright and
 trademarks, for me it is difficult to understand how can a logo be used
 commercially and not at the same time, and how can a logo be edited in
 any but at the same time it only can be published according to specific
 visual guidelines.

 Are the logos Free Cultural Works (as defined by Erik Möller on
 http://freedomdefined.org) or not?
 - --
 Allan J. Aguilar
 ral...@vmail.me - ralgis@freenode - al...@jabber.ccc.de
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 userralgis@Twitter - User:Ralgis@Wikimedia
 https://editandowikimedia.wordpress.com
 https://libredebian.wordpress.com
 https://revistasifra.wordpress.com/
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 Wikimedia Foundation
 415.839.6885 ext. 6867
 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets

 NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Feedback with Android on Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-09-08 10:45 GMT+05:30 Wil Sinclair w...@wllm.com:
 I don't know what you mean by entering an email, but when you add

I mean that the application asks how and where do I want to send my report.
And could I know that?

It seems obvious to me that, once I agree to send a report, the
application should gather whatever information is needed from my phone
(model, operating system, etc.), and send it without asking me where
and how.

Once that is fixed, we can discuss about serious reporting: what
should I test, etc.

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Feedback with Android on Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

The first thing to fix is the reporting: if the user accepts
reporting, you should really report the issue without asking to enter
a mail or some information the user does not know. I am fine playing a
guinea pig if it is useful, but here I can't even report anything.

Regards,

Yann

2014-09-07 11:15 GMT+05:30 Wil Sinclair w...@wllm.com:
 Hi Yann, most of the issues you're describing sound like straight-up bugs.

 When it comes to Android, it helps to know about issues that affect
 some models but may not come up on the model/version that the
 developer is using for testing. I think it's safe to say that the S4
 is a '''must work''' Android platform. Some of the open bugs already
 filed might apply; if there are closed bugs that aren't fixed on S4,
 they may need to be reopened with a comment. And some of the issues
 you've mentioned don't seem to be captured at all:

 https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?component=Androidlist_id=342313product=Commons%20App

 IMO, we should be as diligent as possible when it comes to filing bugs
 in the bug tracker. There are lots of concerns about the quality of
 software that have been expressed here. Whether you happen to be
 technical or not, this is one of the best ways each and every one of
 us can do our part to build better software for our community.

 Now that I've preached it, it's off to practice for me. I'm
 downloading the commons app on both of my Nexus devices now and will
 file any bugs I see. If anyone would like to join me and Yann, you can
 install the app on your Android device here:

 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikimedia.commonshl=en

 ,Wil

 On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 11:54 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi,

 I am not a mobile user. So for the first time, I used the Mobile App
 on a Samsung S4 to upload a few pictures. I am quite disappointed, to
 say the least. I stopped counting how many times the application
 crashed while uploading just a few pictures. Then in reviewing my
 uploads, I can't see the description or the license, the field is
 blank. Then I discovered that the Application does not check if the
 name already exists, and uploads over the old file without warning.
 Luckily I didn't upload over someone else files. Then the categories I
 choose were not included, and also no warning there. It is a bit less
 bad on a tablet, where I can read the description and the license, but
 I can't add any category. I wonder how a software in such a bad
 condition gets deployed... Now it is much easier than on the desktop,
 and I understand why we get so many useless pictures from mobile
 uploads.

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Mobile_app#Feedback_on_Android

 Regards,

 Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] To Flow or not to Flow

[Yann Forget]

Hi Erik,

While I have a lot of reservations about the usefulness of the Media
Viewer, I agree with you that talk pages are now inefficient for all
and complex for new users. Personally I am willing to try any system
which offers the features missing in the current talk pages, specially
removing the need for manual signatures.

Regards,

Yann


2014-09-06 10:19 GMT+05:30 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org:
 Hi all,

 I'm breaking out this discussion about Flow/talk pages (apologies for
 repeatedly breaking the megathread, but this is a well-scoped subject
 which deserves its own thread).

 Fundamentally, there's one key question to answer for talk pages in
 Wikimedia projects: Do we want discussions to occur in document mode,
 or in a structured comment mode? All else flows from there (pun
 intended).

 == Document mode ==

 There are not many examples of document mode discussion systems beyond
 wikis. You sometimes see people use collaborative realtime editors as
 such, because people want to talk in the same space where they work,
 but Google Docs provided alternatives (a pretty powerful
 comments/margin system and built-in chat) early on, for example.

 The current talk page system is a document mode system. Individual
 comments have unclear boundaries (a single transaction can result in
 multiple comments, signed or unsigned; indentation levels are
 unpredictable and often inconsistent). All the joys and pain points of
 working on the same document are present (a heavily trafficked talk
 page will see many edit conflicts). You can't easily show comments in
 multiple contexts (cross-wiki, via email, as a notification, etc.)
 because of the boundary problem.

 You could try to make a document mode system work better. On the basis
 of wikitext, you can do some very basic things, like the new section
 link I added to MediaWiki back in July 2003 [1], when I wrote: This
 feature could also be the first stage of a more sophisticated
 discussion system, where the next stage would be auto-appending
 signatures and providing a 'Reply to this' link after each comment.

 But due to the aforementioned unpredictability, even making a reply
 link work consistently (and do the right thing) is non-trivial. You
 can get some of the way there, and the Wikipedia Teahouse actually has
 a gadget, written by Andrew Garrett (more on him below) that does
 precisely that.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions

 Note the Join this discussion link. It does give you a pop-up, and
 posts the comment for you in the right place, with indentation (it
 does not auto-sign, but instead tries to teach users the signature
 habit which they'll need to use on other talk pages).

 It may be worth doing more research and development on this, to see
 just how far we can get without changing the fundamentals, since a
 wholly new system may still be years out for wide use. However, there
 are inherent limitations due to the lack of a predictable and
 consistent structure.

 You could go further down the road of a document mode or hybrid
 system, but IMO not without introducing fully predictable comment
 markers (think comment id=234234Bla ~~~/comment) -- which would
 pollute the wikitext, be fragile (e.g. accidental or deliberate
 corruption of identifiers), and probably be considered unacceptable in
 a system that still supports unlimited wikitext editing for those
 reasons.

 == Structured ==

 I personally gave up on patchwork on top of talk pages about 10 years
 ago. The advantages of having comments clearly identified as such are
 many:

 - Display comments in arbitrary order, arbitrary threading style
 - Search comments across date ranges
 - Search comments by author
 - Track comments as comments, not as diffs
 - Monitor changes at any part of a comment thread
 - Display comments independent of a given document (e.g. email,
 cross-wiki, etc.)
 - Display comment metadata in different formats easily (e.g. timestamps)
 - Update author names after a username change without having to update 
 documents
 - Enables third parties to build new UIs (think Wikiwand for comments)
 more easily
 - Ability to tag/categorize individual comments/threads
 - and more.

 I identified some of these reasons when I wrote the proposal for
 LiquidThreads in October 2004 [2]. At that point, the Wikimedia
 Foundation had 0 employees, and this was too large an effort to likely
 get traction just from ad hoc volunteering. So after some time, I
 managed to persuade third parties to fund development, including
 Wikicities and WikiEducator, and found a developer to do the initial
 work, David McCabe. David did a good initial job but the system had
 many known issues and was only deployed at a small scale.

 At the same time, I think there were many things about even the
 original design that were good (and aren't found in most other forum
 systems):

 - It preserved headers on top of the threaded conversation as
 community-editable wiki-like spaces
 - 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Upload Wizard work (was Re: Next steps regarding WMF-community disputes about deployments)

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-09-04 12:34 GMT+05:30 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org:
 On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:
 the most urgent and important thing is to fix the
 UploadWizard.

 This is indeed underway, and has been for some time, with focus on bug
 fixes and code quality improvements.

 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/UploadWizard,n,z

 Recent work on Media Viewer has been primarily UX prototyping and

I suppose you mean the UploadWizard?

 validation of the prototype. Based on user research and feedback,
 we'll implement only very tightly scoped improvements that have been
 validated in the prototype or that require no UX validation (e.g.
 attribution and performance improvements).

 The best place to follow all the work the team is doing is the
 multimedia mailing list:
 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/multimedia

 Erik

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

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] To Flow or not to Flow

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

That seems a sensible plan. I am thinking of the help desk on Commons
(in English or in another language) as a good testbed.

Regards,

Yann

2014-09-06 17:09 GMT+05:30 Quim Gil q...@wikimedia.org:
 On Saturday, September 6, 2014, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 So we think a
 support forum like the Teahouse, and its equivalent in other languages
 may be a good place to start -- provided the hosts agree that there
 are no dealbreaker issues for them.


 What about setting up some kind of Flow self-service for projects? Let play
 to those wiling to play, in the way they think it's best for their projects.

 Potential requirements to join the Flow self-service:

 * At least one tech ambassador volunteering to act as contact between the
 project and the Flow team, summarizing community feedback in the channels
 agreed (mw:Talk:Flow, etc).
 * Community agreement after a public discussion in the project.
 * Selection of a first page to try Flow.

 When the requirements are met, Flow is enabled in that project and
 activated in that page. A month of trial follows, and after that the
 community must evaluate whether it is worth activating Flow in more pages
 or wait. Maybe at some point the admins of the project can control in which
 pages Flow is deployed?

 While we (Wikimedia movement) dedicate so much time to negotiate
 incremental deployments of Flow in some sensitive and tough arenas, maybe
 there are huge regions in our communities where editors would welcome a
 test of this feature. The feedback of these early adopters would help
 fine-tuning Flow and to better define the development priorities, since
 longer term use of regular editors provides a more complete perspective
 than power users in mediawiki.org alone.


 --
 Quim Gil
 Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
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[Wikimedia-l] Feedback with Android on Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

I am not a mobile user. So for the first time, I used the Mobile App
on a Samsung S4 to upload a few pictures. I am quite disappointed, to
say the least. I stopped counting how many times the application
crashed while uploading just a few pictures. Then in reviewing my
uploads, I can't see the description or the license, the field is
blank. Then I discovered that the Application does not check if the
name already exists, and uploads over the old file without warning.
Luckily I didn't upload over someone else files. Then the categories I
choose were not included, and also no warning there. It is a bit less
bad on a tablet, where I can read the description and the license, but
I can't add any category. I wonder how a software in such a bad
condition gets deployed... Now it is much easier than on the desktop,
and I understand why we get so many useless pictures from mobile
uploads.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Mobile_app#Feedback_on_Android

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps regarding WMF-community disputes about deployments

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Thanks for your message. I think it is honest and useful.

2014-09-01 20:40 GMT+05:30 Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org:
...

 MV is a perfect example.  99% of the problems it objectively has (we
 ignore here matters of taste) derive from the difficulty of parsing the
 multitude overcomplicated templates living on File: pages to work around
 the fact that a wikitext page is complete and utter crap at storing
 metadata.  It's not an argument against MV, it's an argument for getting
 rid of the horrid way we handle File: pages with ad-hoc workarounds.
 The *correct* solution is to fix the damn image pages, not to remove MV.

OK, I could buy that. But then why not fixing that *first*, so that
any MV implementation coming afterwards would be smooth?

 How is it that the old saying goes?  'We've always done things this
 way' is the most dangerous statement in any language?

 -- Marc

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps regarding WMF-community disputes about deployments

[Yann Forget]

Hi all,

Thank you Erik for your mail. It shows that the WMF is willing to
discuss rather than to impose its solution.

I am really shocked that the dispute reaches that level of
confrontation, and although some community members have a hard stance,
this is largely due to WMF actions, specially the creation of the
superprotect right. This is the worst possible step the WMF could
make to find a solution for this issue.

Initially I was quite neutral about the MediaWiever, but I became
increasingly skeptical. IMO it is hardly a priority, even for readers.
Even if I am a long term contributor of Wikimedia projects, I am also
a heavy reader of Wikipedia. I think that if a feature is refused in
masse for the most active contributors, there is something wrong
either in the feature itself, or in the way it is proposed to the
projects. The WMF can certainly bring useful new additions in term of
software development, but the implementation has to be done in a
partnership with volunteer contributors. I cannot understand that the
WMF in spite of its multi-million dollars budget is not able to
convince volunteer contributors that the new feature is beneficial to
the projects, either because it is technically very good, or that even
with some shortcomings, it would improve the reading experience.

I am quite willing to test beta software, and I think there is no
urgency to impose the MediaWiever now to everybody. I could be done
after some time, when all issues have been sorted out. In term of
media management, the most urgent and important thing is to fix the
UploadWizard. Viewing images with Mediawiki may not be optimal, but it
is not broken. The UploadWizard is broken.

Regards,

Yann

2014-08-20 0:42 GMT+05:30 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org:
 Hi folks,

 This is a response to Martin's note here:
 https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-August/073936.html

 .. and also a more general update on the next steps regarding disputes
 about deployments. As you may have seen, Lila has also posted an
 update to her talk page, here:
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov#Working_Together

 I want to use this opportunity to respond to Martin's and other
 people's criticisms, and to talk about next steps from WMF’s
 perspective following discussions with Lila and the team. I’m also
 sending a copy of this note to all the stewards, to better involve
 them in the process going forward.

 I am -- genuinely -- sorry that this escalation occurred. We would
 have preferred to avoid it.

 I would like to recap how we find ourselves in this situation: As
 early as July, we stated that the Wikimedia Foundation reserves the
 right to determine the final configuration of the MediaViewer feature,
 and we explicitly included MediaWiki: namespace hacks in that
 statement. [1] When an admin implemented a hack to disable
 MediaViewer, another local admin reverted the edit. The original admin
 reinstated it. We then reverted it with a clear warning that we may
 limit editability of the page. [2] The original admin reinstated the
 hack. This is when we protected the page.

 Because all admins have equal access to the MediaWiki: namespace,
 short of desysopping, there are few mechanisms to actually prevent
 edit wars about the user experience for millions of readers.
 Desysopping actions could have gotten just as messy -- and we felt
 that waiting for a better hack to come along (the likeliest eventual
 outcome of doing nothing) or disabling the feature ourselves would not
 be any better, either from a process or outcome standpoint.

 Our processes clearly need to be improved to avoid these situations in
 the future. We recognize that simply rejecting a community request
 rather than resolving a conflict together is not the right answer.
 We’ve been listening to feedback, and we’ve come to the following
 conclusions:

 - We intend to undertake a review of our present processes immediately
 and propose a new approach that allows for feedback at more critical
 and relevant junctures in the next 90 days. This will be a transparent
 process that includes your voices.

 - As the WMF, we need to improve the process for managing changes that
 impact all users. That includes the MediaWiki: namespace. For WMF to
 fulfill its role of leading consistent improvements to the user
 experience across Wikimedia projects, we need to be able to review
 code and manage deployments. This can be done in partnership with
 trusted volunteers, but WMF needs to be able to make an ultimate
 determination after receiving community feedback regarding production
 changes that impact all users.

 - We are prepared to unprotect MediaWiki:Common.js on German Wikipedia
 and enter constructive, open-ended conversations about the way
 forward, provided we can mutually agree to do so on the basis of the
 current consistent configuration -- for now. We would like to request
 a moratorium on any attempts to disable the feature during this
 conflict 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-06-27 5:57 GMT+05:30 Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com:
 On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 11:07 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 than aggressively purging content in the fear that a single byte of
 potentially non-free content may infect the repository.


 You're attacking a straw man. I hope you do not sincerely believe anybody
 acts out of such a childish fear. Rather, we have committed volunteers at
 Commons who take seriously our commitment to the world, to provide a
 repository of files that can be (pretty) reliably reused under a free
 license, or as public domain materials. Maintaining the integrity of the
 collection, in the face of literally hundreds of problematic uploads every
 single day, is a big job, and certainly some less-than-ideal decisions will
 be made along the way.

 Apart from the moaning I see on this email list, I generally hear good
 things from those who visit Wikimedia Commons. Tragedy? Citation needed,
 for real.

 I think it's absolutely crucial to maintain that aspect of its identity.

 So what is your proposal for how to effectively curate the firehose of good
 and bad content that is uploaded to Commons day by day, hour by hour,
 minute by minute? We have a collection of processes that has been good
 enough to get us to where we are today. I don't think anybody believes it's
 perfect, but it's gotten us this far. What, pray tell, would be the better
 approach? Do you really think that if you present a better idea, it will be
 rejected? Do you think we *enjoy* sifting through the details of a zillion
 files, and comparing them to a zillion copyright laws, personality rights
 laws, FOP laws, etc.? I guess I can only speak for myself, but I'd much
 rather be creating content than curating it. But curation is the glaring,
 everyday need at Commons, so I pitch in.

 It's also absolutely crucial to keep my house from turning into a garbage
 dump...which is why I take the garbage out every week.

 But maintaining that commitment requires that we also maintain a  capacity
 for nuance in how we enforce it, or we turn into a club of zealots nobody
 wants to be part of rather than being effective advocates for our cause.

 Good God, Erik. Seriously, with the name-calling? Seriously? I don't know
 why you did it to begin with, but since you have, please share with us who
 the zealots are, and give some evidence of zealous behavior. If the
 zealotry is as obvious as you seem to assume, we should have no trouble
 running those ne'erdowells out on a rail.

 But the reality, I think, is much more straightforward: this club of
 zealots is a figment of your imagination.

 -Pete
 [[User:Peteforsyth]]

Pete, Erik is exactly right here, in this precise case.

Here LGA tagged, and Fastily deleted 50 years old images from the
Israeli government and army on the reason that as no proof of
publication were given, these images were unpublished, and therefore
still in copyright in USA. As several contributors have explained,
these famous images were given to the press for publication 50 years
ago.

At the same time, Russavia wrote a request for deletion for recent
images from the Israeli government or army, which were copied from
Flickr, on the claim that a proper CC release was not provided. A
letter from the Israeli government was uploaded to Commons, saying the
Israeli government does not claim on copyright on these images. This
letter was speedy deleted by Fastily, again.

So clearly these requests for deletion, and these deletions are spurious.

Regards,

Yann

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

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-06-22 16:00 GMT+05:30 Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com:
 It is a bit crazy :-) The use to be copyright holder of these files is
 Israeli goverment. But according to the goverment it does not claim
 any copyrights as it clearly stated that the these files are not
 copyrightable, and it is no longer copyright holder. One can have an
 assumption that next Israeli government may change its mind. But the
 government can change the mind even if it releases these pictures
 under CC-0 waiver. In most jurisdictions the licenses can be revoked
 and the non-revocable clauses in CC and GNU/FAL licenses have no any
 legal value.

 I mean the absolute attitude of Commons towards copyright  freedom of
 media hardly make any sense in most jurisdictions. It ignores many
 facts and is sticked to some others without clear reasons. This not an
 absolute as in absolute terms there is no any single media about which
 one can say it is free globally with 100% certainty, and also it is
 not any practical attitude really preventing our re-users from legal
 problems, as we mainly ignore non-copyright legal issues. This is
 rather a derivative of long discussions on Commons which are subject
 of group thinking syndrome, which made some arguments kind of dogma .

Yes, good point, and that's exactly what I am saying all the time. ;oD
Nevertheless a number of admins and non-admins on Commons still insist
that every files on Commons should be free globally with 100%
certainty.
I think this is a poor understanding of how copyright law works.

 2014-06-22 12:07 GMT+02:00 Andre Engels andreeng...@gmail.com:
 So you want them to have a letter You are allowed to use these images that
 you are allowed to use but if the letter says that the reason that they're
 allowed to use it is that they are allowed to use it, it is not valid.

 Shouldn't we be welcoming free content rather than inventing far out
 reasons to think why they maybe in some way are not free and thus delete
 them?

Yeah. I think we need to assume good faith, even from the Isreali
government. ;oD

Anyway, I think that the matter was handled very poorly by Russavia,
who started the deletion request.
As I said there, a request to the IDF could have been sent before, and
the DR open only later if a negative answer is received.

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

[Yann Forget]

Suite of the drama.

A request for a topic ban against LGA, who made these deletion
requests, was started by Hanay, a user from the Hebrew Wikipedia.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems#User:LGA

Now she is blocked for one week for canvassing, because she informed
the Hebrew Wikipedia of the request.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Blocks_and_protections#Block_of_Hanay_for_cross-wiki_canvassing

This affair is going to degenerate in a full war between Commons and
some Wikipedias, if a solution is not found.

Regards,

Yann

2014-06-17 5:04 GMT+05:30 Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com:
 Hi,

 Some Commons contributors like to ask impossible requirements, and
 threaten to delete files if these are not met. We have now a case of
 famous pictures from the government of Israel and Israel Defense
 Forces.
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Matanya#Files_and_pages_that_were_deleted_by_User:Fastily_that_I_am_aware_of_them
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Beba_Idelson_Ada_Maimon1952.jpg
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Abba_Hushi_1956.jpg
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aharon_Meskin_-_Ben_Gurion_-_Israel_Prize1960.jpg
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Avraham_Shlonsky_1952.jpg

 These are famous and valuable pictures, including two featured
 pictures on the Hebrew Wikipedia. These files have already been
 deleted and restored 3 times. When the URAA issue was not convincing
 enough, a new reson for deletion was advanced: that publication
 details were not given. Anyone with 2 bits of common sense can
 understand that these famous pictures were published soon after they
 were taken. There is no reasonable doubt about that. In addition,
 publication is not a requirement for being in the public domain in
 Israel.

 After I restored these images, I was threatem by LGA, who is a
 delete-only account:
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems#User:Yann
 There, more contributors argue on this issue.

 By asking absurb requirements about publication details, these
 contributors threaten the project as a whole. If insisting, it will
 lead people to upload pictures like these locally instead of Commons.
 Then the idea of a central repository for all Wikimedia projects is
 gone.

 Instead of looking for a reason to destroy these files, they should
 try to find a reason to keep them.

 Regards,

 Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

[Yann Forget]

2014-06-18 1:43 GMT+05:30 Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com:
 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

My point here is not about URAA, but about exaggerate requirements
from some contributors.
And gaming the system is exactly what YOU did when you speedy deleted
the 4 files I mentioned in my first message.

I several times proposed to allow only a restricted sets of files
affected by URAA, not all (e.g. only files older than 50? years,
or/and orphan/anonymous files, and/or government files). It seems
there is a wild consensus about such a compromise, but you
deliberately ignore my proposal, and choose to attack unilaterally the
whole issue.

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-06-17 15:07 GMT+05:30 Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org:
 Hi Yann,

 While we can have a different discussion about methods used and tone
 applied, if I understand correctly the core argument/discussion point here
 is the question whether US law applies to Commons or not; more
 specifically: whether a picture that is (likely?) not in the Public Domain
 in the US, but is in the public domain in its 'source country' should be
 considered 'free' or not.

No, the issue is not US law. The issue is the ridiculous requirements
coming from some contributors.

The issue is that these contributors use the US law as a pretext
asking for deletion again and again, when there is no reason to doubt
that they were published. Looking at their demands, it seems that they
would ask anything based on any law.

 This is a returning discussion, and I'm always confused what exactly the
 answer is to that. The discussion is equally valid for any content project
 actually - all being hosted in the US. It would be good to have a more
 fundamental answer to it, and then follow it.

 Whether or not the nominating account is a 'delete only' account etc. is
 less relevant to this discussion. The core question remains the same. It is
 a bit technocrat, I know.

The same user first argue for deletion because of URAA, and when it
was not successful, ask again for deletion using another reason.
Actually, this account does not produce anything useful. The only
contributions are requests for deletions on controversial cases like
this one.
Looking for real copyright violations is useful, but arguing again and
again on borderline cases is not.

 I thought this question was already put for the WMF legal team as a
 question, but I wasn't able to find so quickly whether a useful reply
 resulted from that consultation.

 Lodewijk

Regards,

Yann

 2014-06-17 1:34 GMT+02:00 Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com:

 Hi,

 Some Commons contributors like to ask impossible requirements, and
 threaten to delete files if these are not met. We have now a case of
 famous pictures from the government of Israel and Israel Defense
 Forces.

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Matanya#Files_and_pages_that_were_deleted_by_User:Fastily_that_I_am_aware_of_them

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Beba_Idelson_Ada_Maimon1952.jpg

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Abba_Hushi_1956.jpg

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aharon_Meskin_-_Ben_Gurion_-_Israel_Prize1960.jpg

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Avraham_Shlonsky_1952.jpg

 These are famous and valuable pictures, including two featured
 pictures on the Hebrew Wikipedia. These files have already been
 deleted and restored 3 times. When the URAA issue was not convincing
 enough, a new reson for deletion was advanced: that publication
 details were not given. Anyone with 2 bits of common sense can
 understand that these famous pictures were published soon after they
 were taken. There is no reasonable doubt about that. In addition,
 publication is not a requirement for being in the public domain in
 Israel.

 After I restored these images, I was threatem by LGA, who is a
 delete-only account:

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems#User:Yann
 There, more contributors argue on this issue.

 By asking absurb requirements about publication details, these
 contributors threaten the project as a whole. If insisting, it will
 lead people to upload pictures like these locally instead of Commons.
 Then the idea of a central repository for all Wikimedia projects is
 gone.

 Instead of looking for a reason to destroy these files, they should
 try to find a reason to keep them.

 Regards,

 Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-06-18 0:37 GMT+05:30 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com:
 I don't think the concept of the project is the problem. I'm skeptical that
 an Uncommons project built around fair use could be workable, considering
 that the validity of a fair use claim is context-specific and no cross-wiki
 project (like Commons) is going to have an easy time managing that
 requirement.

 The problem is the behavior of a certain core set of Commons admins; time
 and time and time again we have it reported here, we see it on Commons.
 While not lawyers, they attempt to be extraordinarily demanding when it
 comes to legal accuracy. Far more than the actual WMF lawyers have
 required, incidentally.

 It's not surprising that the locus of the dispute often revolves around
 community members who have been banned on other projects but reached
 positions of authority on Commons. Perhaps Commons social structures
 haven't evolved enough to deal with people who are both productive and
 deeply disruptive, and who are not uncivil but contribute to a toxic
 environment.

Exactly.
I don't complain about the principle, I only complain about the
copyright paranoia.

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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

[Yann Forget]

2014-06-18 0:55 GMT+05:30 Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com:
 On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 The problem is the behavior of a certain core set of Commons admins;

Yes.

 George, SJ, and Nathan:

 In addition to Erik Moeller's initial proposal that Commons be used as a
 repository for *free* media files (linked previously), there has been a
 very recent referendum that speaks very directly to the Wikimedia
 community's commitment to holding the line on the principles of free
 licenses, even in the face of negative practical consequences. That
 referendum was the recent proposal to use the MP4 format. When concluded,
 more than 300 people had voted against compromising on this principle,
 while fewer then 150 voted in favor.[1] Of course there are some
 considerations that are specific to that case, but it is useful to consider
 now, because the central topic is essentially the same in both cases:

 Should we sacrifice free content principles, if that sacrifice will enable
 us to distribute more educational content?

 The answer was a resounding no.

 The people you, Nathan, are accusing of behaving badly, are the ones who
 are doing the hard, day-do-day work of enforcing the expressed consensus of
 the Wikimedia community, which values a commitment to free licenses.

Sorry, but this is a strawman argument.
No, these people are not enforcing any consensus.
Actually, they are precisely working against the silent majority in
the case of URAA.

All we need is a bit more of common sense.
I think we could have a tag for borderline cases saying probably OK,
except some uncertainities.
We already have this for some freedom of panorama issues (FOP), and for URAA.
Then reusers are clearly warned about the situation, and are free to
use the file depending on their own requirements.

Anyway, seeing that these cases are very unlikely to get into legal
trouble, the claim that these cases put our reusers into danger is a
complete bullshit, IMHO.

 -Pete
 [[User:Peteforsyth]]

 [1]
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video

Regards,

Yann

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[Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Some Commons contributors like to ask impossible requirements, and
threaten to delete files if these are not met. We have now a case of
famous pictures from the government of Israel and Israel Defense
Forces.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Matanya#Files_and_pages_that_were_deleted_by_User:Fastily_that_I_am_aware_of_them
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Beba_Idelson_Ada_Maimon1952.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Abba_Hushi_1956.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aharon_Meskin_-_Ben_Gurion_-_Israel_Prize1960.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Avraham_Shlonsky_1952.jpg

These are famous and valuable pictures, including two featured
pictures on the Hebrew Wikipedia. These files have already been
deleted and restored 3 times. When the URAA issue was not convincing
enough, a new reson for deletion was advanced: that publication
details were not given. Anyone with 2 bits of common sense can
understand that these famous pictures were published soon after they
were taken. There is no reasonable doubt about that. In addition,
publication is not a requirement for being in the public domain in
Israel.

After I restored these images, I was threatem by LGA, who is a
delete-only account:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems#User:Yann
There, more contributors argue on this issue.

By asking absurb requirements about publication details, these
contributors threaten the project as a whole. If insisting, it will
lead people to upload pictures like these locally instead of Commons.
Then the idea of a central repository for all Wikimedia projects is
gone.

Instead of looking for a reason to destroy these files, they should
try to find a reason to keep them.

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons and OCILLA

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-06-11 17:55 GMT+05:30 Charles Gregory wmau.li...@chuq.net:
 Michael, I assume it is Ray Saintonge of Wikimedia Canada
 (User:Eclecticology)

Yes, that's him.
Yann

 Regards,

 Charles (User:Chuq)
 Wikimedia Australia

 On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 11:09 PM, Michael Maggs mich...@maggs.name wrote:

 Hi Yann

 This is a really useful resource.  Who is looking after it now, and how is
 it being funded?  I don’t know who ‘Ray’ is.

 Michael


 On 8 Jun 2014, at 17:43, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:
  2014-06-08 21:56 GMT+05:30 rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com:
  Would it make sense to deploy a server in another country under a domain
  not owned by the foundation? E.g. Switzerland?
 
  I already started that in 2005. It is called Wikilivres:
 http://wikilivres.ca/
  In 2010, I could not continue to manage it and pay for the bill, and I
  looked for volunteers to take over.
  To my surprise, I found nearly noone willing to do that.
  Finally Ray accepted to take charge. I am quite sure, he would welcome
  help to manage it.
 
  Regards,
 
  Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons and OCILLA

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-06-08 21:56 GMT+05:30 rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com:
 Would it make sense to deploy a server in another country under a domain
 not owned by the foundation? E.g. Switzerland?

I already started that in 2005. It is called Wikilivres: http://wikilivres.ca/
In 2010, I could not continue to manage it and pay for the bill, and I
looked for volunteers to take over.
To my surprise, I found nearly noone willing to do that.
Finally Ray accepted to take charge. I am quite sure, he would welcome
help to manage it.

Regards,

Yann

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

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

I am puzzled than you launch such a Wikimedia-wide protest about this,
and that you are even not active on Commons.
If there is something which you don't like, come to Commons and participate!
Sending you opinion accross without doing anything won't help...

Yann


2014-05-09 7:40 GMT+05:30 Kevin Gorman kgor...@gmail.com:
 Hi all -

 This is a slightly unusual email for me, in that I'm wearing more hats than
 I usually do. I'm writing as a community member, but also as someone
 currently employed by one of the best public universities in the world in a
 department that is, at least in decent part, aimed at ensuring that
 injustices of the past do not go forgotten.  This email represents my own
 opinions alone, mostly because I don't want to go through the process of
 getting approval for any sort of formal statement, and also don't view
 doing so as necessary, but it does highlight my views as someone actively
 employed by a major university, and not just as an editor.

 Today, Common's front page highlighted a video taken shortly after the
 liberation of Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps to operate
 on German soil during the second world war, where more than 50,000 people
 lost their lives. (Since Commons apparently uses UTC, it's already changed
 to a different piece of media.)  For reasons that baffle me a bit, the
 video screenshot displayed on Commons' frontpage is that of a stack of
 corpses, taken from a five minute long video (that is primarily not stacks
 of corpses.)  To make things worse: because Commons only supports open
 video formats, an overwhelming majority of people who look at the Commons
 frontpage in any one day are not using a browser that can view the actual
 video - so they would've only been able to see a photo of stacked up
 corpses, with no accompanying video (and no accompanying explanation if
 they didn't speak english or one of four other languages.)  The caption of
 the video does hyperlink to the English Wikipedia's article about
 Buchenwald, but displays only after the graphic image and video link.

 I want to be clear: I'm not objecting in any way whatsoever to the fact
 that the Wikimedia Commons contains a video of Buchenwald.  I would be
 disturbed if we /didn't/ have a video like this on Commons.  It is of great
 historical significance, and it's a video that absolutely needs to be on
 Commons.  In fact, it's a video that I think should probably have appeared
 on Commons frontpage sooner or later... just not like this.  The same video
 is played in multiple classes at UC Berkeley, after the context behind the
 video is given and people are warned about the nature of what they're about
 to see.  Even in that setting, I've pretty regularly seen people burst into
 tears upon watching the video that Commons links today.  Such video
 evidence of the atrocities committed by Hitler's regime plays an incredibly
 important role in understanding the past, but what differentiates an effort
 to understand the past and a shock site can pretty much be summed up as
 contextualisation. A video with explanation of its context and some degree
 of warning before a pile of corpses is displayed is a large part of the
 difference between a shock site and documenting history.  Common's front
 page today leans a lot more towards the shock site aspect than the
 documenting history one.

 This isn't the first time that Commons frontpage has featured content that,
 while often appropriate material to be hosted by Commons, has been framed
 in an inappropriate way likely to cause dismay, upset, or scandal to the
 average Wikimedia Commons viewer.  It flies in the face of the WMF-board
 endorsed principle of least astonishment - [1] - no one expects to click on
 Commons homepage to see a still image of a stack of corpses at Buchenwald.
  This is not the first time that Commons administrators and bureaucrats
 have drastically abrogated the principle of least astonishment, and the
 continued tendency of those in charge of Commons to ignore such a principle
 makes me hesitate to recommend the Wikimedia Commons to my students or my
 colleagues.  In fact - if there was an easy way to completely bypass
 Commons - at this point I would suggest to my students and colleagues that
 they do so. I don't want to (and given another option will not) recommend
 using Wikimedia Commons to professional edu or GLAM colleagues knowing that
 when they show up at it's front page they may happen upon bad anime porn or
 a completely uncontextualised stack of corpses. I can think of absolutely
 no legitimate reason why anyone thought it was a good idea to highlight a
 video of Buchenwald on Common's main page by using a freezeframe of a stack
 of corpses from a broader video.

 If we want to gain truly mainstream acceptance in the education and GLAM
 world (and thus greatly improve our acceptance among the general public as
 a side effect,) Commons cannot keep doing stuff like this.  I know that
 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations

[Yann Forget]

+1

Yann

2014-04-16 2:02 GMT+05:30 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com:
 On 15 April 2014 21:08, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote:

 It's a difficult question. I'm in favour in general, and I think it's a
 good idea to support projects that we use and need the money. The problem I
 have with it (and that is absent in your points above) is in how far we
 have the moral right to spend the money donors gave us on other projects.


 In the case of CC, OSM or Freenode, we prevail upon these
 organisations' resources considerably; it's akin to outsourcing
 infrastructure. We use their stuff to a degree that I think it's an
 obviously right thing, and defensible as such, to support them
 financially.


 - d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations

[Yann Forget]

2014-04-16 2:10 GMT+05:30 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com:
(...)

 2) We need a free toolchain that we can build upon and digitize /
 gather / curate / format / publish knowledge with.  There are
 currently major gaps in this toolchain -- core projects and
 collaborations rely on non-free tools or non-free hosted service.
 Every time we use or work to interoperate with such tools and
 services, we should also support replacing them with free ones.  (That
 support can include everything from publicity and matchmaking to
 in-kind support to funds)

Free efficient OCR software is a great need for Wikisource and its contributors.
That's an important gap in the free toolchain to build a free online library.

(...)

 SJ

Regards,

Yann

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

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Sorry, sent too fast. ;o)

I think I need to explain the whole history of the issue.

1. On 22 February 2014, Alan started the Request for comment (RfC) on
whether we should host URAA-affected files, and restored previously
deleted ones (around 4,300 of them). [1]

2. On 28 February 2014, TeleComNasSprVen proposed a moratorium on
deletion of images under URAA.

3. On 18 March 2014, the initial proposal has received a huge support,
with some people opposing it, including some active admins. On that
date, I made a proposal for a compromise: only allowing a subset of
affected files. This has received only a few comments, and no
opposition. The discussion seems to be stalled around that date.

4. On 24 March 2014, I made a proposal for closuring the RfC as Yes.
This received 21 supports, and one opposition. None of the admins who
initially opposed the RfC cared to add any input. I mentioned that
closure will be done after one week.

5. On 2 April 2014, I close the RfC according to my proposal.

6. On 3 April 2014, Russavia unilaterally reverted my closure, and the
changes I made to the relevant policy pages, without any discussion.

Regards,

Yann

[1] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Massive_restoration_of_deleted_images_by_the_URAA


2014-04-04 2:02 GMT+05:30 Robinson Tryon bishop.robin...@gmail.com:
 On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi,

 Well, it doesn't go so easily. Some Commons admins refuse to accept the
 community decision, and want to maintain the status quo inspite of the huge
 majority of opinions for supporting this. They are usually the most vocal
 and bold admins.
 Some admins are supporting it, some are afraid to go against the bolder
 ones. Some admins who support it do not take part because of language issue.

 Some admins specifically said that they would go against the community, no
 matter what. One admin even says that the

 The suspense is killing me: What does the admin say?

 --R

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

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Well, it doesn't go so easily. Some Commons admins refuse to accept the
community decision, and want to maintain the status quo inspite of the huge
majority of opinions for supporting this. They are usually the most vocal
and bold admins.
Some admins are supporting it, some are afraid to go against the bolder
ones. Some admins who support it do not take part because of language issue.

Some admins specifically said that they would go against the community, no
matter what. One admin even says that the

I am open for suggestions how to go forwards.

Regards,

Yann

2014-04-03 21:07 GMT+05:30 Yael Meron y...@wikimedia.org.il:

 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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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA

[Yann Forget]

2014-02-28 7:00 GMT+05:30 geni geni...@gmail.com:

 On 27 February 2014 22:56, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:

  This is the essential point of the problem:
 
  * Commons has a long-running attitude of absolute copyright paranoia,
  so that no reuser will ever be put in legal danger. This is extremely
  unlikely to change, and particularly not with what the Commons
  community perceive as outside intruders (rather than e.g. its main
  users) coming in to question it.
 

 Not true. If anything commons copyright policy tends towards the legally

(...)

Yes, that is sadly true. David hit the nail on the head very well.


 aggressive. A lot of that involves finding and exploiting loopholes.
 However the other side of that involves obeying copyright law to the
 letter. Its far easier to defend the edge cases if we have a solid record
 of respecting the law as it stands at this present time.

 Now if someone could get the US to follow the law of the shorter term that
 would simplify things somewhat.


Yes, that's won't come any time soon.

--
 geni


Regards,

Yann
A Commons admin.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-02-26 16:01 GMT+05:30 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com:

 On 24 February 2014 20:51, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote:

  However, over the last months certain Wikimedia Commons administrators
 have
  conducted massive deletions of these contents, in many cases involving
  entire categories. The burden of proof has been inverted: instead of
 having
  to justify the deletion of a certain file, things go that volunteers have
  to devout their time trying to justify the validity of their efforts.
 This
  has caused great damage, not only by way of our readers loosing access to
  free educational contents, but also de-motivating many editors and
  volunteers by making them feel that their efforts are ultimately vain and
  that our goal of free knowledge for everyone is being replaced by a
 certain
  legal fetishism whose reason gets lost in processes and misses the
 outcome.

 This strongly suggests that URAA is a good reason to deprecate
 Commons, and have language wikis self-host images that fail the more
 unduly stringent requirements Commons is manifesting these days.


If only some Commons admins were not pursuing a political campaign to
delete all these under false pretences, everything would be much better.

Regards,

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter on open letters (Was: Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA)

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2014-02-26 22:56 GMT+05:30 Fæ fae...@gmail.com:

 On 26 February 2014 17:07, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
  On 26 February 2014 16:46, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  If anyone wants to create meaningful and lasting change to Commons,
  then please create a Request for Comment on Commons[1] rather than
  making a fuss and criticising Commons (volunteer) administrators in
  non-Commons discussion channels, which most Commons volunteers are
  unlikely to either notice or care much about.
 
  The trouble with your proposed course of action is that it seems the
  action *least* likely to resolve the problem.
 
  Commons is at a stage where the problems with its approach can only be
  worked around.

 No David. It is just the least dramatic approach. As for the mantra
 OMG Commons is broken, you wore out that record a long time ago.

 Those using channels elsewhere to create noise and heat, can hardly be
 considered to be using their time to help us reach a community
 consensus if deliberately avoiding the community they are targeting.

 Folks, dust off your Wikimedia Commons accounts, and log in. You can
 start by raising your issues at
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:VP rather than by sending
 emails or writing in other places where Commons volunteers are never
 going to read your opinion.


On this, I agree (at least partially) with David. If only some Commons
admins were not pursuing a political campaign to delete URAA-affected files
under false pretences, everything would be much better.

I am not saying (yet) that Commons cannot be fixed, but there is certainly
wrong there.

I am thankful to the board who, in its last statement, has taken a position
allowing the community to find a solution to these files.
However some admins continue to ignore that, and to oppose any kind of
proposition. This needs to change.
If these admins didn't take that position, no chapter would have felt the
need to send such letters.

Regards,

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter on open letters (Was: Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA)

[Yann Forget]

2014-02-26 23:39 GMT+05:30 Fæ fae...@gmail.com:

 On 26 February 2014 17:55, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:
 ...
  On this, I agree (at least partially) with David. If only some Commons
  admins were not pursuing a political campaign to delete URAA-affected
 files
  under false pretences, everything would be much better.

 If you have the evidence that individual troublesome Commons admins
 are disrupting Commons against the aims of the project, then desysop
 them.


Hopefully, we will not go that far. The debate is still going on.

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] extend mediawiki software to allow append a group, and COI to an edit

[Yann Forget]

2014-02-25 21:20 GMT+05:30 Laura Hale la...@fanhistory.com:

 So if you are editing an article about Serbian politics, you would be asked
 if you are a Serb nationalist, a Croatian nationalist, a right wing
 political party member, a left wing political party member, male,
 Christian, Muslim, have a PhD, work for the government, work for for a
 non-profit, if you live in Belgrade, etc.


Hopefully, this is a (bad) joke.


 (...)
 Sincerely,
 Laura Hale

 Regards,
Yann

 --
 twitter: purplepopple
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright URAA trolls on Wikimedia Commons

[Yann Forget]

2013/12/31 ??? wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk


 Isn't that the attitude that got Kim Dotcom into trouble?
 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/us-unveils-the-
 case-against-kim-dotcom-revealing-e-mails-and-financial-data/


This is a typical trolling. Comparing Megaupload with Wikimedia Commons?
Don't you have better (constructive) arguments?

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright URAA trolls on Wikimedia Commons

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

2013/12/30 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com

 On Dec 29, 2013 5:51 PM, Fæ faewik+comm...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  On 29 Dec 2013 22:43, Klaus Graf klausg...@googlemail.com wrote:
  
   I think it would be the best if _all_ URAA affected files would be kept
   until a DMCA take down notice.
 
  Your proposal would be more useful made with the Commons community

 Both excellent suggestions.

 Sam.


Are you suggesting that we can keep URAA affected data until we get a
takedown notice?
That's new AFAIK, and many people will be happy if this is accepted by the
WMF.

Regards,

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright URAA trolls on Wikimedia Commons

[Yann Forget]

2013/12/30 geni geni...@gmail.com

 On 30 December 2013 11:26, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Hoi Tomasz,
 
  You have a really strong opinion. When you read this thread, you will
  notice that it is not appreciated by many and seen as disruptive. Can you
  appreciate it in this way?
 
  You argument about re-users is valid when you turn around the argument as
  well; as long as we do NOT have a take down notice re-users are better
  served by the continuation of the presence of images.
  Thanks,
   GerardM
 
 
 No because then reusers also get hit which a bunch of takedown notices (or
 lawsuits) which is decidedly disruptive for them.


This is a falacious argument, because, although these files may not be in
the public domain, nobody really care about URAA.
Except maybe Getty and the like, who can then sell images in the public
domain for ages.

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] XOWA has released a complete copy of 2013-11-04 English Wikipedia with images -- Help wanted!

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

Good work, but could you make a list of torrent somewhere on Meta? Are
there torrent files for all projects (Wiktionary, Wikisource, etc.)?
Because IA search really sucks. Thanks, Yann



2013/11/25 gnosygnu gnosy...@gmail.com

 Hi. I am the developer for XOWA -- a free, open-source offline
 Wikipedia app. XOWA allows a user to have their own copy of a wiki on
 their hard-drive -- without any internet connection. It works with the
 latest versions of over 660 database dumps [1], including wikis like
 English Wikipedia, French Wiktionary, German Wikisource, Wikidata,
 Wikimedia Commons, etc.. If you have a moment, you can download the
 app and set up Simple Wikipedia in less than 5 minutes.

 I just finished generating a full set of thumbnail images for English
 Wikipedia. This now makes it possible to have one's own complete
 offline copy of English Wikipedia as of 2013-11-04. The total size of
 these image databases are quite large (75 GB), but archive.org was
 kind enough to host them[2].

 I've emailed offline-l, but I am emailing this group because I'd like
 to reach as wide an audience as possible. In particular, these files
 will also be distributed by torrent[3], and I'd like to attract as
 many seeders as possible, especially as torrents should relieve any
 burden on archive.org's download servers. In addition, future wikis
 will be distributed by torrent, so more seeders now will facilitate
 distribution then. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could assist with
 seeding these files, or forward this news to others who may help seed
 them.

 Thank you in advance for your time and support.

 [1]: See http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html for a full list.

 [2]: The download links are:
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_00
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_01
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_02
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_03
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_04
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_05
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_06
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_07
 http://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_08

 [3]: The torrent links are:

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_00/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_00_archive.torrent

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_02/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_02_archive.torrent

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_03/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_03_archive.torrent

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_04/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_04_archive.torrent

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_05/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_05_archive.torrent

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_06/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_06_archive.torrent

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_07/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_07_archive.torrent

 https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_08/Xowa_enwiki_2013-11-04_images_complete_08_archive.torrent

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] September 11 wiki

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

2013/11/21 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com

 I think it would be better to reformulate it into book format and make it
 available as an e-book, for free download either directly from Wikimedia or
 other outlets like iTunes or Amazon. That would be searchable, and I don't
 know that hosting it in wiki form provides any benefits. Certainly as a
 wiki it will never be rescued from permanent obscurity.


I think that would be the best. I am sure many people could easily offer a
copy that way.

Regards,

Yann
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

I agree totally with Tim's assessments of the situation, and it is
quite the same on the French WP, and that's why I stopped editing
there.
Some people like power more than anything else (well, that's not
surprising, because it is quite the same IRL), including the growth of
the project.

Happy New Year to all,

Yann

2013/1/4 Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org:
 On 03/01/13 22:46, Martijn Hoekstra wrote:
 Editor retention programmes have some data there. Check wp:wer on en.wiki.
 how the data for the other projects match up I don't know.

 Yes, that page describes the problem in detail. But the suggestions
 they offer under how you can help are along the same lines as
 policies that have been in place on Wikipedia since 2002 or earlier.
 It's been tried, it didn't work.

 The problem is, some people want to feel powerful more than they want
 Wikipedia to grow. Or even if they want Wikipedia to grow on a
 cerebral level, exercising power over another user is immediately
 pleasurable, and they don't have sufficient impulse control to stop
 themselves from doing it.

 It should be obvious that what is missing is discipline. An
 arbitration committee with expanded scope, with full-time members
 funded by the WMF (at arm's length for legal reasons), could go a long
 way towards solving the problem. Some users will be reformed when
 their technical power is threatened (be that editing or admin access),
 others will just leave as soon as their reputation is at stake.

 There is risk, because the editor population will probably be reduced
 in the short term, and it's hard to know if it will ever recover. I
 don't know if there is anyone with the power to save Wikipedia who
 also has the required courage.

 -- Tim Starling


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) partner to provide access to Wikipedia free of mobile data charges in the Middle East

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

2012/10/16 Kul Wadhwa kwad...@wikimedia.org:
 The goal in working with Intigral/STC is to remove barriers so more people
 in the world can have access to free knowledge, and in this specific case
 it's in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain. There isn't a deal here that
 involves content management, revenue (no money exchanges hands), or
 anything that affects the normal way we support the projects. You can find
 more info on our QA here:

 https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships#STC

 If we did not launch Wikipedia Zero in Saudi Arabia then that would mean
 that people in the region would still have to pay to access Wikipedia
 through their mobile phones. And that financial cost, which may be nominal
 or tolerable for some of us, it's very prohibitive to many more people. As
 other mobile operators such as Orange and Telenor have done, Intigral/STC
 graciously offered to eliminate that cost to eliminate the cost barrier.
 It's limited to that. The Wikimedia Foundation has not, and will not,
 censor or block any content whatsoever as part of its partnership with
 Intigral/STC.

 --
 Kul Wadhwa
 Head of Mobile
 Wikimedia Foundation

Thanks Kul for your message.
The suspiction came also because of a mention of improving content in
the Arabic Wikipedia. I understand now that it is separate issue.

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) partner to provide access to Wikipedia free of mobile data charges in the Middle East

[Yann Forget]

2012/10/16 Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com:
 On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:35 PM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello,

 This announcement is worrying, to say the least.
 In other words, the Wikimedia Foundation is doing a partnership with
 one of the most retrograde government, which is also a regular censor
 on Internet content.
 How could you justify that?

 Hi Yann

 It's not a partnership with the government, it's with a telecom company to

Well, this telecom company is the arm of the government to impose
censorship in KSA.
This is a poor excuse. In creating such a partnership, WMF is
implicitely supporting the censorship by providing a moral caution,
even if it is not directly involved in censorship.

Yann

 allow its subscriber in KSA (MENA region), free and easy access to
 Wikipedia. KSA is a big part of the middle-east region, the political
 reasons aside this helps the public get better access to Wikipedia. There
 is no reason why we should not increase availability for the general public.

 I'm not sure about the stance against this either, if a government is
 trying to censor and restrict access, we should do what? not help provide
 access to their citizens, not increase availability? how would that help
 the situation? This is a way of working with the current situation and
 perhaps around it, its about providing free access to people in the region,
 which is probably the best thing to do at the time.

 Regards
 Theo
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) partner to provide access to Wikipedia free of mobile data charges in the Middle East

[Yann Forget]

2012/10/16 Ciphers Wikip ciphersw...@gmail.com:
Well, this telecom company is the arm of the government to impose
 censorship in KSA.
 This is a poor excuse. In creating such a partnership, WMF is
 implicitely supporting the censorship by providing a moral caution,
 even if it is not directly involved in censorship.

 I guess I can see your point there, Yan.
 But please let me ask you this question :
 What do you think is the best way to teach people what the word freedom
 means?

That's a difficult question, and a worthwhile debate.
I would first ask people of South Arabia fighting against censorship
what would help them most. That may provide a clue in which direction
we should work.

 -- Ciphers
 Note : I have been following this list for a while, but this is the first
 time I feel like posting something here. Apologize in advance if  my
 comments are not in the scope of this list, and I wish posting using my wiki
 username won`t bother anyone.

Your message is fine, and well within the scope of this list.

Regards,

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Man, what a talent for story telling! But I don't think you story
represents anything close to WP. First comparing copying digital
content illegally with stealing cakes is a very bad analogy. That's
what the industry wants us to believe, and you falled by the trick.

Then I don't think people here are misinformed as you says. You may
question that the blackout was the best strategy, but there was a
public debate and vote about it.

Finally, I don't think there is anything unethical about fighting against SOPA.
Quite the contrary IMO.

Yann

2012/8/3 Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com:
 I am afraid that is not how it feels at all. It's more like organising a
 giant volunteer effort to provide a market stall handing out free sweets
 and cakes for anyone who wants some. The stall is very popular, and many
 people chip in, bringing in cakes they've baked and candy they've made. And
 some bring in stuff they've stolen from factories and supermarkets.

 Then someone suggests there should be a law against handing out stolen
 goods, like apple pies that still have Mr. Kipling's Exceedingly Good
 Apple Pies written on the wrapper. At that point, the popular market stall
 says, We couldn't possibly continue to hand out free sweets if you pass a
 law like that. We'd have to shut down, because some of our sweets are
 stolen. And just so you know what that would feel like, we're not opening
 the stall today.

 So now you assume that everyone who baked their own cakes and brought them
 in is against laws that forbid stealing. And you're leveraging the goodwill
 these people have created to enable theft. And you're misrepresenting what
 the law would mean to the operation of the market stall: because all that
 would be required is that if you see a Mr. Kipling label on a wrapper, you
 don't hand that over to a visitor. And later it transpires that your market
 stall has come to be funded by a very large organisation that stands to
 profit from lax laws against theft, to the tune of tens of billions of
 dollars ...

 One clincher for me was Tim Starling's e-mail the other day, about how the
 community were ... let's say misinformed, to put it politely, about what
 SOPA would have meant for Wikipedia:

 http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-July/121092.html

 Man, I wish this organisation had an annual budget of $2 million rather
 than $20 million again, like it did five or six years ago. It had ethical
 problems then, what with Essjay and Carolyn and so forth, but there was at
 least a *plausible* semblance of innocence about the effort. That has well
 and truly been lost.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI+ certification proposal

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

Conflict of Interest (CoI) is a much bigger issue than paid editing.
I have seen several serious CoI within Wikipedia where the editors are
not strictly paid because they edit WP, nevertheless they do not
respect the basic NPOV rules: allowing other opinions to be heard,
balancing sources from various organisations (medias / professional /
non profit organisations, etc.).
I have suggested some basic rules about this on the French WP, but not
only they were blankly rejected, but I was barred from mentioning the
whole subject. The first step against CoI is making the editors
conscious that, because of their profession, background, culture,
etc., they may have a bias on a subject.

Yann

2012/7/28 Ocaasi Ocaasi wikioca...@yahoo.com:
 Hi, I would love feedback about a proposal to help improve the relationship 
 between COI editors and Wikipedia.

 The idea is to guide paid/PR/Corporate participants--who follow a list of 
 ethics and best practices--to success in their editing.  I've detailed the 
 concept here:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI_certification


 Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,

 Jake Orlowitz
 Wikipedia editor: Ocaasi
 http://enwp.org/User:Ocaasi
 wikioca...@yahoo.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] photography restrictions at the Olympics

[Yann Forget]

2012/7/28 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org:
 On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 1:28 PM, Platonides platoni...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 27/07/12 09:46, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
 An excellent list :) I'd like to add: you sneak in the stadium without
 paying the ticket. IOC can do nothing.

 Seriously, if IOC decides to go after someone, don't they first have to
 prove that he bought the ticket? And how can they prove that?

 What if someone else bought the ticket and then gifted it to you?

 That would be equivalent to sneaking in, since tickets are non-transferable.

There is certainly a possibility to buy a ticket for somebody else.
I suppose there is a difference between the ticket holder and the
cash/credit card handler.
I see 100 cases where this is necessary.

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike

[Yann Forget]

2012/7/11 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com:
 On 11 July 2012 08:57, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:

 It is quite possible, as in China, political censorship is the actual
 purpose, and pornography, and whatever, is just the excuse.


 Censoring porn is *always* a stalking horse for political and
 historical censorship.

And copyright is used more and more for the same.

Yann

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who invoked principle of least surprise for the image filter?

[Yann Forget]

2012/6/21 Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com:
 Incidentally, a Commons copyright specialist is currently being banned for

copyright specialist?
Is this supposed to be a joke? A 4th degree sargasm? An alien way of
defining a specialist? Or anything else?

Yann

(cut nonsense rethoric about the PK affair).

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who invoked principle of least surprise for the image filter?

[Yann Forget]

2012/6/21 Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com:
 Incidentally, a Commons copyright specialist is currently being banned for
 nominating admins' copyright violations for deletion, even though the vast
 majority of his deletions have always turned out to be correct ... the
 administrators are feeling harassed by having their copyright violations
 nominated and say he's doing it because he doesn't like them, and that it's
 bad for community relations.

 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems/Pieter_Kuiper

 You couldn't make this stuff up. Not unless you were William Golding, that
 is.

When it goes so far even remotely connected to the reality, I
understand that it gets difficult to reach an agreement about
practical and down-to-earth issues, like nudity images.

Yann

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