[Foundation-l] PediaPress
Hi. Can someone explain the Wikimedia / PediaPress relationship to me? They just got spammed on the Wikimedia blog[1] yesterday, which reminded me that I've never really understood the nature of this relationship. I don't understand why this specific company/organization has been given special status (when there are surely thousands of companies looking to partner with Wikimedia). They had a custom MediaWiki extension installed[2] that has a very prominent place in the sidebar of one of the most popular sites in the world. Why? I also don't understand who would want a printed copy of a Wikipedia article. It seems antithetical to the point of the Internet and the creation of an online encyclopedia. Maybe I'm just missing something. The whole thing has always felt very odd to me, though. MZMcBride [1] http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/11/10/wikipedia-hard-cover-editions-now- available/ [2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 09:55, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: I also don't understand who would want a printed copy of a Wikipedia article. Me neither, but if some people want it, why not. Like: - to show non-internet people that that wikipedia thing is not another stupid homepage but look, it could produce a real, serious, reliable (no, really!) book - to use it as demo material - give it as an award - books look real and serious, phychologically have more value than a webpage - using a book means more focused attention and less possible deviations from the topic by clicking unrelated links It's just another media for the information to be shared. We should be happy to have the possibility, helps our goal. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Looking for stories of readers affected by Wikipedia
On 11/11/2010 08:50 AM, John Vandenberg wrote: On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote: On 11/11/2010 07:31 AM, Sue Gardner wrote: * Ideally, they would be stories of people who pre-exposure-to-Wikipedia would have had circumscribed access to information. Because they grew up in a small town with no library, because their school didn't stock certain kinds of books, because materials in their language are of limited availability, because their government limits access to certain types of information -- in general, because their economic/political/socio-cultural circumstances somehow impede(d) easy access to information. I have an anti-story, about a critically useful information that was available in a home library, yet would not be allowed on Wikipedia per its policies. Anyone interested? I am. Back when we were under sanctions, it was impossible to buy antifreeze (or it was prohibitively expensive). So, my father remembered that in one of the books in our home library he once read that it it is possible to make antifreeze by mixing glycerine, alcohol and water in appropriate amount. It took him weeks to search through the home library, but he eventually did find the book and made his own antifreeze. Now, I have actually found a bit of the needed information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerol : The minimum freezing point temperature is at about -36 °F / -37.8 °C corresponding to 60-70 % glycerol in water.[11]. But the problem is, I would not feel comfortable with making my own antifreeze from a single sentence (for example, does it matter if you pour water in glycerine or glycerine in water?) but if more detailed instructions would be added to Wikipedia, they would be removed per WP:NOTHOWTO. The book also included a table with the freezing points of various ratios of glycerine, alcohol and water (the point was to make the cheapest mixture that would not freeze at the lowest temperature we could expect) and for this too I don't see where in Wikipedia it could be added. It sounds like it would be allowed on Wikisource. It probably would be allowed on Wikibooks. But for one reason or another, people simply aren't interested enough in working on Wikibooks; Wikibooks don't show high enough in Google because the articles are not highly interlinked; and the Wikibooks howto in the opposite fashion could not have encyclopedic information in it (for example the very important section Historical cases of contamination with diethylene glycol that is present in the Wikipedia article and that would obviously be very important to someone who needs to make his own antifreeze). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Looking for stories of readers affected by Wikipedia
Hello, Megan might want to contact Valérie75 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Val%C3%A9rie75, who ended up writing books about the topics she contributed to on Wikipédia. The books are not under a free license (I don't think), but have received good press in their domain (ornitohology, history of naturalism and such). Her mini bio does mention Wikipedia, and my take is that Wikipédia (and the amazing contribution she made to it) was a breakthrough in her career as an author. She has more than 5 edits on fr wp. Not sure if you're looking for that kind of stories, but it's a nice editor/volunteer/amateur becomes professional story. http://valerie-chansigaud.fr/index.php/accueil/mini-bio Cheers, Delphine On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 7:31 AM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks, Megan Hernandez on the staff is looking out for me, for stories of readers whose lives have been impacted by Wikipedia or the other projects. (Donors often send us stories like that, and I am often looking for stories to tell people about the projects. So I've asked her to send good ones to me.) I was writing her a set of criteria for the kinds of stories I want, and it occurred to me that you might yourselves have some good stories of exactly this kind. So I am sending along the criteria here too :-) If you have stories that fit many/all of these criteria, please send them to me, onlist or off. And please forgive my cross-posting to several lists at once. Thanks, Sue * Ideally, they'd be along the theme of how Wikipedia made my life better. This might be an anecdote, or bigger-picture (ie, 'how Wikipedia makes my life better every day'). * Ideally, they would be stories of people who pre-exposure-to-Wikipedia would have had circumscribed access to information. Because they grew up in a small town with no library, because their school didn't stock certain kinds of books, because materials in their language are of limited availability, because their government limits access to certain types of information -- in general, because their economic/political/socio-cultural circumstances somehow impede(d) easy access to information. * Ideally, the information that Wikipedia gives them is important, and directly, immediately useful. Like, it helped them better understand a health issue they were having, or it equipped them to do some important task better; it helped them understand a new situation or some aspect of themselves, or enabled them to solve an important problem. Maybe it helped them get a job they otherwise couldn't have gotten, or enabled them to avoid some specific danger or risk. * And/or, the information fed a general curiosity and desire to understand the world better. It got them interested in going to college which nobody in their family had done before, it helped them develop a more thoughtful position on a public policy issue, it stimulated them to travel or read more widely, or to question assumptions they had been making. * Ideally, their lives are better today because of the information they are exposed to via Wikipedia. Maybe this would be better in some really specific way -- like, Three months later I persuaded my doctor to let me try the new treatment, and it worked. Or, it might be much more general. * It is fine if the information they found on Wikipedia might otherwise have been kept from them, either deliberately or through lack of easy opportunity. It is fine if the information is considered risky or controversial in some way. -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- @notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Glycerol information
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote:
On 11/11/2010 08:50 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote:
On 11/11/2010 07:31 AM, Sue Gardner wrote:
* Ideally, they would be stories of people who
pre-exposure-to-Wikipedia would have had circumscribed access to
information. Because they grew up in a small town with no library,
because their school didn't stock certain kinds of books, because
materials in their language are of limited availability, because their
government limits access to certain types of information -- in
general, because their economic/political/socio-cultural circumstances
somehow impede(d) easy access to information.
I have an anti-story, about a critically useful information that was
available in a home library, yet would not be allowed on Wikipedia per
its policies. Anyone interested?
I am.
Back when we were under sanctions, it was impossible to buy antifreeze
(or it was prohibitively expensive). So, my father remembered that in
one of the books in our home library he once read that it it is possible
to make antifreeze by mixing glycerine, alcohol and water in appropriate
amount. It took him weeks to search through the home library, but he
eventually did find the book and made his own antifreeze.
What is the year of publications of this book in your library?
It might be out of copyright, or out of print and the author (or their
estate) willing to release it into the PD early.
Now, I have actually found a bit of the needed information at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerol : The minimum freezing point
temperature is at about -36 °F / -37.8 °C corresponding to 60-70 %
glycerol in water.[11].
When was this first discovered? Glycerol was well known before 1923,
so it is quite likely that there are PD sources which cover this in
detail, and they can be added to Wikisource.
But the problem is, I would not feel
comfortable with making my own antifreeze from a single sentence (for
example, does it matter if you pour water in glycerine or glycerine in
water?) but if more detailed instructions would be added to Wikipedia,
they would be removed per WP:NOTHOWTO. The book also included a table
with the freezing points of various ratios of glycerine, alcohol and
water (the point was to make the cheapest mixture that would not freeze
at the lowest temperature we could expect) and for this too I don't see
where in Wikipedia it could be added.
It sounds like it would be allowed on Wikisource.
It probably would be allowed on Wikibooks. But for one reason or
another, people simply aren't interested enough in working on Wikibooks;
Wikibooks don't show high enough in Google because the articles are not
highly interlinked; and the Wikibooks howto in the opposite fashion
could not have encyclopedic information in it (for example the very
important section Historical cases of contamination with diethylene
glycol that is present in the Wikipedia article and that would
obviously be very important to someone who needs to make his own
antifreeze).
Wikibooks is also an option. I don't see why Wikibooks can not
include this historical information. Once the Wikibook pages are
reasonable quality, you can add {{wikibooks}} to the Wikipedia page,
allowing readers to easily find this information.
--
John Vandenberg
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Re: [Foundation-l] Glycerol information
On 11/11/2010 11:16 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote:
Back when we were under sanctions, it was impossible to buy antifreeze
(or it was prohibitively expensive). So, my father remembered that in
one of the books in our home library he once read that it it is possible
to make antifreeze by mixing glycerine, alcohol and water in appropriate
amount. It took him weeks to search through the home library, but he
eventually did find the book and made his own antifreeze.
What is the year of publications of this book in your library?
It might be out of copyright, or out of print and the author (or their
estate) willing to release it into the PD early.
It would take me weeks to find it again :) Anyway, it's most likely not
out of copyright and not in English.
When was this first discovered? Glycerol was well known before 1923,
so it is quite likely that there are PD sources which cover this in
detail, and they can be added to Wikisource.
Wikisource texts could not be updated with new information and will not
be as well linked with Wikipedia articles as the articles are among
themselves.
It probably would be allowed on Wikibooks. But for one reason or
another, people simply aren't interested enough in working on Wikibooks;
Wikibooks don't show high enough in Google because the articles are not
highly interlinked; and the Wikibooks howto in the opposite fashion
could not have encyclopedic information in it (for example the very
important section Historical cases of contamination with diethylene
glycol that is present in the Wikipedia article and that would
obviously be very important to someone who needs to make his own
antifreeze).
Wikibooks is also an option. I don't see why Wikibooks can not
include this historical information. Once the Wikibook pages are
Because of WB:NOTWP.
reasonable quality, you can add {{wikibooks}} to the Wikipedia page,
allowing readers to easily find this information.
If by easily you mean at the very last place they would ever look,
hidden behind a link with a meaningless name.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Glycerol information
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 9:51 PM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote:
On 11/11/2010 11:16 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote:
Back when we were under sanctions, it was impossible to buy antifreeze
(or it was prohibitively expensive). So, my father remembered that in
one of the books in our home library he once read that it it is possible
to make antifreeze by mixing glycerine, alcohol and water in appropriate
amount. It took him weeks to search through the home library, but he
eventually did find the book and made his own antifreeze.
What is the year of publications of this book in your library?
It might be out of copyright, or out of print and the author (or their
estate) willing to release it into the PD early.
It would take me weeks to find it again :) Anyway, it's most likely not
out of copyright and not in English.
If it is released under a free license, after you have transcribed it,
you can create an English translation on English Wikisource.
When was this first discovered? Glycerol was well known before 1923,
so it is quite likely that there are PD sources which cover this in
detail, and they can be added to Wikisource.
Wikisource texts could not be updated with new information and will not
be as well linked with Wikipedia articles as the articles are among
themselves.
English Wikisource permits annotations, but hasnt developed any
guidelines around this. Providing corrections to old scientific
information sounds like a good use of annotations.
It probably would be allowed on Wikibooks. But for one reason or
another, people simply aren't interested enough in working on Wikibooks;
Wikibooks don't show high enough in Google because the articles are not
highly interlinked; and the Wikibooks howto in the opposite fashion
could not have encyclopedic information in it (for example the very
important section Historical cases of contamination with diethylene
glycol that is present in the Wikipedia article and that would
obviously be very important to someone who needs to make his own
antifreeze).
Wikibooks is also an option. I don't see why Wikibooks can not
include this historical information. Once the Wikibook pages are
Because of WB:NOTWP.
They dont like encyclopedia articles, but they do like instructional material.
I think that if you have a good Howto on the topic, Wikibooks will not
have a problem if you also include a chapter about historical
information where it is useful.
Maybe a Wikibooks admin can answer this?
reasonable quality, you can add {{wikibooks}} to the Wikipedia page,
allowing readers to easily find this information.
If by easily you mean at the very last place they would ever look,
hidden behind a link with a meaningless name.
You can use {{wikibooks|Page name|How to make antifreeze, or blow up
your house}}
;-)
--
John Vandenberg
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Re: [Foundation-l] Glycerol information
I will try to address several points brought up by Nikola Smolenski. Regarding the lack of interlinking between books at Wikibooks, you have to understand that each book is usually designed to stand alone, without having to link to other books or even Wikipedia. While some might wonder why anyone would want to use PediaPress to print articles/create books for Wikipedia, at Wikibooks of course people would want to create books. There's a big difference between Wikipedia books[1] and Wikibooks books in terms of their design for offline use. Wikibooks can have information that might be found in an encyclopedia, but they will present the information in a different way. Topics will be covered in comprehensive detail and not just through an overview, with prerequisite information (up to the scope of the book) provided so that the reader will not need to go anywhere else. Why aren't people interested enough in working on Wikibooks? The following could be possible reasons. * People don't like the fact that each book can have its own unique style, making it harder to contribute across the entire wiki. * Contributors to individual books don't usually communicate with contributors to similar books or even with the tiny project-wide community. * The project is not working on one large whole such as an encyclopedia or dictionary, so the community is fragmented and few contribute with any big picture in mind. * Reliance on references is not required to the extent seen at Wikipedia, so maybe some see Wikibooks as unreliable. * As mentioned before, the project doesn't get the same ranking in search results so people feel contributions will be ignored. * Sister links from Wikipedia are relegated to the absolute bottom of articles so people stop reading by that point. * The project is not as mature as Wikipedia, so people feel it's a risk to contribute. See the below quotes. The vast majority of our users are using Wikipedia and not the other projects, which means even a small improvement to Wikipedia is likely to have more impact than even a large improvement to one of the other projects. -Thomas Dalton [2] It's absolutely not clear to me (and I don't think anyone) that a focused investment in, say, textbook development is actually going to result in predictable payoff in a transformatively larger number of sustainable content contributors. -Erik Moeller [3] Regarding the making of antifreeze, there would be no problem with it at Wikibooks, but it would likely need to be integrated into a larger textbook. I would suggest adding it to Automobile Repair [4] which is already linked from auto mechanic at Wikipedia [5]. If your topic is developed enough, it will garner readers on its own. Wikibooks provides a valuable place for in-depth books on topics. Jimmy Wales was excited about the project in 2005 but noted that it will take 20 years to come to fruition because it is a much bigger project [6]. The time and effort will pay off. I hope to see you there soon and will be happy to assist you in getting started. Aaron Adrignola User:Adrignola [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Books [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-October/061533.html [3] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-October/061608.html [4] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Automobile_Repair [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_mechanic#External_links [6] http://www.ted.com/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia.html(19:15) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] naming of things in kosovo
Hi there, I have seen a big problem in getting people to contribute in kosovo to wikipedia except the Kosovo article, there they dont call in *Kosovo and Metohija*i, so I think there is a president for the english and albanian names in wikipedia. most of the names are in serbian, with strange characters that I cannot even type. this offends most contributors and prevents locals from contributing. also the serbs erase all albanian names from the referring links so I cannot even find what I am looking for. I would like to start to rename the articles to the albanian english spellings with normal typiable characters. Ideally we would use the albanian names and encourage the locals to edit. Right now there is a minority serb group that is making life unpleasant for the local contributors. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gjeravica can someone guide me on this. thanks, mike -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova and Albania flossk.org flossal.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] naming of things in kosovo
On 11/11/2010 03:26 PM, Mike Dupont wrote: so I think there is a president for the english and albanian names in wikipedia. most of the names are in serbian, with strange characters that I cannot even type. this offends most contributors and prevents locals from contributing. also the serbs erase all albanian names from the referring links so I cannot even find what I am looking for. I would like to start to rename the articles to the albanian english spellings with normal typiable characters. Ideally we would use the albanian names and encourage the locals to edit. Right now there is a minority serb group that is making life unpleasant for the local contributors. You don't think that this would offend Serbian contributors? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] naming of things in kosovo
I think that at least a consistent listing of both names is needed, expecially on the links. I have had to fight with simple unwillingness to list both names in serbian and albanian on all things. On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Hi there, I have seen a big problem in getting people to contribute in kosovo to wikipedia except the Kosovo article, there they dont call in *Kosovo and Metohija*i, so I think there is a president for the english and albanian names in wikipedia. most of the names are in serbian, with strange characters that I cannot even type. this offends most contributors and prevents locals from contributing. also the serbs erase all albanian names from the referring links so I cannot even find what I am looking for. I would like to start to rename the articles to the albanian english spellings with normal typiable characters. Ideally we would use the albanian names and encourage the locals to edit. Right now there is a minority serb group that is making life unpleasant for the local contributors. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gjeravica can someone guide me on this. thanks, mike -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova and Albania flossk.org flossal.org My advice is to take it easy. We have had this dispute in other areas of the world, notably in the case of place names in Poland, most of which was under German control at some point and has a German name for nearly every possible location. Gdansk, Danzig, was a particular problem. I don't remember exactly how that was resolved, but I do remember all the fireworks. Start by creating redirects from all Albanian names to the existing articles if they are in Serbian, and vice-versa. Here's a tip, even if you can't type something, you can always copy and paste it, for example: #272;eravica (Albanian: Gjeravica; Serbian Cyrillic: #1026;#1077;#1088;#1072;#1074;#1080;#1094;#1072;). I don't know that a redirect from #1026;#1077;#1088;#1072;#1074;#1080;#1094;#1072; would be necessary. That way every one can find their way around. I see an unsigned note on the talk page of #272;eravica: Main reason to change, authors Listen, let me present you with the biggest reason to change the name, the local people are offended with the serbian names. They live there, and they feel that wikipedia is biased to serbia. This is a major reason not to contribute to wikipedia. It has been a big problem all the time. The few vocal serbs who are pushing to keep the old name dont even live there and cannot contribute much. the people who do live there and can write are being excluded. 12:45, 9 November 2010 (UTC) This is a familiar story to me, a lot of new people have moved to where I live and find even the name of a prominent mountain offensive, see http://www.14ers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1t=27964 I, of course, find them offensive. That said, Wikipedia, while a bit safer than armed combat, is not a battleground and there is little patience for edit warring. As far as prejudice, I'm pretty sure some Serbians feel Wikipedia is biased against them, and there may be a little truth in that. They have a poor public image. Wikipedia administrators will not put up with sustained ethnically-based edit warring. However, any one place will have one name under our conventions. How to decide? My intuitive idea is to tolerate Serbian names for places that figure prominently in Serbian history, for example the names of Serbian monasteries, palaces, forts, or battlefields, but use Albanian for place names that now are predominately Albanian. There is no Kosovo section at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) but that is where to set some guidelines after discussion with involved editors. In the case of Poland the discussion was extensive and guidelines are at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Poland-related articles) That is the sort of resolution to work towards. So, talk, as you are, on talk pages; be patient; realize the other side also feels put upon and ask for help when you hit rough spots. Imposing a rule from above would be paternalistic and oppressive and it would be good if it could be avoided. Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova and Albania flossk.org flossal.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Looking for stories of readers affected by Wikipedia
In a message dated 11/10/2010 10:32:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, sgard...@wikimedia.org writes: (Donors often send us stories like that, and I am often looking for stories to tell people about the projects. So I've asked her to send good ones to me.) I would be interested in seeing someplace where you would share these stories (you imply above that so far you're sharing them only verbally, in-person), or alternatively where people could share their own stories. Would there not be a reasonable place in-world where things like this could be put up? WSJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Looking for stories of readers affected by Wikipedia
Well, I know I'm boring, but Eco said something related to this topic. He started the interview stating: I am a compulsive user of Wikipedia, also for *arthritic* reasons: the more my back hurts, the more it costs me to get up and go to check the Treccani, so if I may find someone's birthday on Wikipedia it's all the better. [...] Of course, it's a matter of time. When I write, I consult Wikipedia 30–40 times a day, because it is really helpful. When I write, I don't remember if someone was born in the 6th century or the 7th; or maybe how many *n's* are in Goldmann... Just a few years ago, for this kind of thing you could waste a lot of time. Nowadays, with Wikipedia and Babylon, which checks the spelling, you can save a lot.[1] It's not much, but one could infer that Wikipedia is useful for old famous bestseller philosphers... Aubrey [1] http://it.wikinews.org/wiki/Interview_with_Umberto_Eco 2010/11/11 wjhon...@aol.com In a message dated 11/10/2010 10:32:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, sgard...@wikimedia.org writes: (Donors often send us stories like that, and I am often looking for stories to tell people about the projects. So I've asked her to send good ones to me.) I would be interested in seeing someplace where you would share these stories (you imply above that so far you're sharing them only verbally, in-person), or alternatively where people could share their own stories. Would there not be a reasonable place in-world where things like this could be put up? WSJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] What can we do? (was: Copyright terms, again)
On 11 November 2010 18:25, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: However, this is not the full list of possibilities. Canada should be the option, too. Other countries? If WMF is not able to hold such servers, we have chapters. Chapters would be ideal bodies to build up servers for such material, that may not be free enough for Commons copyright paranoia under US law but are definitely clear under local law. I suspect there may still be problems transparently integrating such material into Wikimedia. Not that anyone is likely to sue in practice, but such a workaround really just wouldn't suit the way Wikimedia does things - bending over backwards to be absolutely sure images really are free. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] What can we do? (was: Copyright terms, again)
Milos Rancic, 11/11/2010 19:25: I know that Yann Forget moved (or started?) his project wikilivres.info to Canada exactly because of that reason. However, this is not a systemic effort, but personal one. There's also http://biblioteca.wikimedia.it which was opened by WMI for some PD-Italy books which have been deleted on Wikisource; it's now being used also for some other things. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] What can we do? (was: Copyright terms, again)
And what can we do with stuff like this?[1] [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer_Diskussion:Emijrpoldid=81381631 2010/11/11 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com Milos Rancic, 11/11/2010 19:25: I know that Yann Forget moved (or started?) his project wikilivres.info to Canada exactly because of that reason. However, this is not a systemic effort, but personal one. There's also http://biblioteca.wikimedia.it which was opened by WMI for some PD-Italy books which have been deleted on Wikisource; it's now being used also for some other things. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Looking for stories of readers affected by Wikipedia
Dear Sue, Better yet, check this out: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Vapmachado#Block Warmest regards, Virgilio At 06:31 11-11-2010, you wrote: Hi folks, Megan Hernandez on the staff is looking out for me, for stories of readers whose lives have been impacted by Wikipedia or the other projects. (Donors often send us stories like that, and I am often looking for stories to tell people about the projects. So I've asked her to send good ones to me.) I was writing her a set of criteria for the kinds of stories I want, and it occurred to me that you might yourselves have some good stories of exactly this kind. So I am sending along the criteria here too :-) If you have stories that fit many/all of these criteria, please send them to me, onlist or off. And please forgive my cross-posting to several lists at once. Thanks, Sue * Ideally, they'd be along the theme of how Wikipedia made my life better. This might be an anecdote, or bigger-picture (ie, 'how Wikipedia makes my life better every day'). * Ideally, they would be stories of people who pre-exposure-to-Wikipedia would have had circumscribed access to information. Because they grew up in a small town with no library, because their school didn't stock certain kinds of books, because materials in their language are of limited availability, because their government limits access to certain types of information -- in general, because their economic/political/socio-cultural circumstances somehow impede(d) easy access to information. * Ideally, the information that Wikipedia gives them is important, and directly, immediately useful. Like, it helped them better understand a health issue they were having, or it equipped them to do some important task better; it helped them understand a new situation or some aspect of themselves, or enabled them to solve an important problem. Maybe it helped them get a job they otherwise couldn't have gotten, or enabled them to avoid some specific danger or risk. * And/or, the information fed a general curiosity and desire to understand the world better. It got them interested in going to college which nobody in their family had done before, it helped them develop a more thoughtful position on a public policy issue, it stimulated them to travel or read more widely, or to question assumptions they had been making. * Ideally, their lives are better today because of the information they are exposed to via Wikipedia. Maybe this would be better in some really specific way -- like, Three months later I persuaded my doctor to let me try the new treatment, and it worked. Or, it might be much more general. * It is fine if the information they found on Wikipedia might otherwise have been kept from them, either deliberately or through lack of easy opportunity. It is fine if the information is considered risky or controversial in some way. -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On 11/11/10 19:47, MZMcBride wrote: I don't understand why this specific company/organization has been given special status (when there are surely thousands of companies looking to partner with Wikimedia). They had a custom MediaWiki extension installed[2] that has a very prominent place in the sidebar of one of the most popular sites in the world. Why? I also don't understand who would want a printed copy of a Wikipedia article. It seems antithetical to the point of the Internet and the creation of an online encyclopedia. These two paragraphs contradict each other. You say that there must be thousands of companies willing to do what PediaPress did, and then you say that their product is pointless and you don't see why anyone would buy it. PediaPress developed the PDF export system (Collection, mwlib) with their own money, and released them under an open source license. There was nobody else offering to do such a thing. They had no way to tell whether they would be able to recover this development cost, and their other startup costs, from book sales. But to give themselves a fighting chance, they negotiated with Wikimedia to get sidebar placement. From Wikimedia's point of view, the proposition was hard to resist. Offline copies were always part of the Foundation's mission, and the Foundation has a history of partnering with commercial organisations to do distribution. For example, there was a CD of the German Wikipedia for sale in November 2004. This distribution concept predates the Foundation, and has been consistently supported by Jimmy and others. It's not antithetical to anything. See for instance from 2001: http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_FAQ Q. What legalities must be considered in creating conventional printed snapshots of Wikipedia? Are there any plans for any? Re the second question: No specific plans on the part of Bomis yet, anyway (there has been vague talk and long-term dreams)--that doesn't mean someone else couldn't do it, even right now. This is open content, after all. From January 2003: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Paper_Wikipedia From August 2003: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Pushing_to_1.0oldid=1319379 -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
Tim Starling wrote: On 11/11/10 19:47, MZMcBride wrote: I don't understand why this specific company/organization has been given special status (when there are surely thousands of companies looking to partner with Wikimedia). They had a custom MediaWiki extension installed[2] that has a very prominent place in the sidebar of one of the most popular sites in the world. Why? I also don't understand who would want a printed copy of a Wikipedia article. It seems antithetical to the point of the Internet and the creation of an online encyclopedia. These two paragraphs contradict each other. You say that there must be thousands of companies willing to do what PediaPress did, and then you say that their product is pointless and you don't see why anyone would buy it. Not really. The first point was that thousands of companies (whether print-related or not) are trying to partner with Wikimedia, if for no other reason than Wikipedia is a really popular website. PediaPress broke through and now has really prominent placement on, among other sites, the English Wikipedia. The second point is that this particular venture that Wikimedia entered into (inexplicably, in my view) is rather silly. PediaPress developed the PDF export system (Collection, mwlib) with their own money, and released them under an open source license. There was nobody else offering to do such a thing. They had no way to tell whether they would be able to recover this development cost, and their other startup costs, from book sales. But to give themselves a fighting chance, they negotiated with Wikimedia to get sidebar placement. They negotiated with Wikimedia? Where and when? How many thousands of companies would like their links in the sidebar of the fifth most-visited website in the world? Are they really that good at negotiating? On the English Wikipedia, there's a Book namespace and the sidebar has a completely separate print/export section that comes from the Collection extension. That's worth a percentage of the book sales? This distribution concept predates the Foundation, and has been consistently supported by Jimmy and others. It's not antithetical to anything. I think focusing energy and efforts on creating print versions of Wikipedia articles is antithetical to the idea of creating an online encyclopedia. The benefits of the Internet (and more specifically Wikipedia) include the ability to centralize information in one place and the ability to update information in a quicker manner. The idea that it's a good idea to distribute hard copies of these articles, negating two huge benefits of the Internet and of Wikipedia, is baffling to me. The business model seems to mostly consist of hey, look, we've reverted to the printing press! The people living in places without readily available Internet access don't seem like the same people who would want to order a printed copy of List of The Simpsons episodes. I've read Wikimedia's PediaPress press release[1] a few times now and I still can't figure out if PediaPress is a non-profit organization or a for-profit company. I think there's a large distinction between the Wikimedia Foundation taking a community project and encouraging a for-profit company to make money off of it (through sidebar links and installing a custom extension) and working with a non-profit organization to distribute free content. MZMcBride [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikis_Go_Printable ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] naming of things in kosovo
On 11 November 2010 14:26, Mike Dupont jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote: Ideally we would use the albanian names and encourage the locals to edit. No ideally we would use the English names. As we have established with say Germany and Norway what the locals happen to call something is of secondary significance. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I've read Wikimedia's PediaPress press release[1] a few times now and I still can't figure out if PediaPress is a non-profit organization or a for-profit company. I think there's a large distinction between the Wikimedia Foundation taking a community project and encouraging a for-profit company to make money off of it (through sidebar links and installing a custom extension) and working with a non-profit organization to distribute free content. MZMcBride [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikis_Go_Printable I agree with you. It's funny how this topic echoes the way the recent thread about advertising on wikipedia ended: On 08/11/2010 22:04, Fred Bauder wrote: An interesting idea would be a standalone static copy of wikipedia that really tried their utmost to make the product visually appealing, and used the generated money from the advertisements purely to fund ever more timely database dumps It would be interesting to see how frequent database dumping could be financed by advertisement on such a site; the synergy should be obvious -- the more money they generate from adverts, the more resources they can devote to making ever more frequent dumps, so the more timely is the content, which will again make therir product more attractive, and so on -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] Whether this is great idea or not I don't know, but this is the kind of out of the box thinking that is potentially productive. We could produce periodic polished editions. Fred -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJM3KjEAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LI/YH+QFjDatXS0A78wi5rfF6wWkk NdEth2bFS/X/mXUUUE4xz7uhfZfi7U7V5D1DTtlA8PavcY3hgvtHCNeFip1mMsaK a/YXhzuHqyOR3X8qOvC64zBNHNUsSd5CnEWN0CT98IJmcy49zk+6yk0+QVoy1McX cqPXoq47CvYzo8YH6NoYlWNjOLI/iFOpUAB6QPvsr0sPhJ4mTHVA/OVCCi7LPaSu BDKqZTl1Jxu+Y9bsQqAZ118M1A1atVNUsQ5VGCWeScGxrSR3kJQf/OTDWqyqZD8z 9+JEr15WudoeeH4Xl2DyVtZ/STpbQnRlXH/CczS9FKM7JlBAWuXoXk7Fm5EhWNg= =Op94 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
In a message dated 11/11/2010 6:23:45 PM Pacific Standard Time, z...@mzmcbride.com writes: I think focusing energy and efforts on creating print versions of Wikipedia articles is antithetical to the idea of creating an online encyclopedia. The benefits of the Internet (and more specifically Wikipedia) include the ability to centralize information in one place and the ability to update information in a quicker manner. The idea that it's a good idea to distribute hard copies of these articles, negating two huge benefits of the Internet and of Wikipedia, is baffling to me. The business model seems to mostly consist of hey, look, we've reverted to the printing press! The people living in places without readily available Internet access don't seem like the same people who would want to order a printed copy of List of The Simpsons episodes. While I agree with part of your aim, that PediaPress's prominent placement (alliterative aren't I?) is an issue going forward, I think this part of your argument is a no-starter. Why should any of us care, if someone else has an extra ability to print a copy? Why they want to, is really secondary. *That* they want to, or alternatively that it doesn't harm us at all to *let* them, is the issue from where I sit. What if I really really want to read that enormous list of who might ascend to the British throne and the next 500 claimaints... in order... which we have. What if I really want to study that list, but I have to go catch a train and I don't have a wireless laptop or the train doesn't? I could print it out and read it in the john if I want. I don't think we should waste effort on *why* someone wants to print it out. The main issue is whether or not we are profiting a company. W ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 1:23 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Tim Starling wrote: .. This distribution concept predates the Foundation, and has been consistently supported by Jimmy and others. It's not antithetical to anything. I think focusing energy and efforts on creating print versions of Wikipedia articles is antithetical to the idea of creating an online encyclopedia. The benefits of the Internet (and more specifically Wikipedia) include the ability to centralize information in one place and the ability to update information in a quicker manner. The idea that it's a good idea to distribute hard copies of these articles, negating two huge benefits of the Internet and of Wikipedia, is baffling to me. The business model seems to mostly consist of hey, look, we've reverted to the printing press! I dont understand how it is antithetical. The act of creating an 'online' encyclopedia is about how we build it, and how we publish it. How others distribute and use it is limited by the needs which we don't fulfill. That said, I don't like the idea of print editions of Wikipedia ending up in libraries without having gone through appropriate levels of editing by real editors, as is reportly being done by Books Llc and VDM Publishing. I hope WMF is sufficiently in control of this partnership to ensure that they are not in bed with a company which stoops to that level. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 20:23, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I've read Wikimedia's PediaPress press release[1] a few times now and I still can't figure out if PediaPress is a non-profit organization or a for-profit company. PediaPress is a limited company (GmbH) and seems to be part of Brainbot Technologies AG. http://brainbot.com/technologien/ http://brainbot.com/services/wikis/ Brainbot appears to be a spin-off of DFKI (German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence). http://www.dfki.de/web/ueber/spin-offs DFKI's major shareholders include Microsoft, Daimler, Deutsche Telecom. http://www.dfki.de/web/ueber/gesellschafter This is just from a quick Google search; can't guarantee accuracy or whether it's up to date. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 2:12 PM, SlimVirgin slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 20:23, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I've read Wikimedia's PediaPress press release[1] a few times now and I still can't figure out if PediaPress is a non-profit organization or a for-profit company. PediaPress is a limited company (GmbH) and seems to be part of Brainbot Technologies AG. http://brainbot.com/technologien/ http://brainbot.com/services/wikis/ Brainbot appears to be a spin-off of DFKI (German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence). http://www.dfki.de/web/ueber/spin-offs DFKI's major shareholders include Microsoft, Daimler, Deutsche Telecom. http://www.dfki.de/web/ueber/gesellschafter We are calling it a non-profit .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Research_Centre_for_Artificial_Intelligence I think de.wp gets it right, calling it a public-private partnership http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Forschungszentrum_f%C3%BCr_K%C3%BCnstliche_Intelligenz -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 21:20, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 2:12 PM, SlimVirgin slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 20:23, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I've read Wikimedia's PediaPress press release[1] a few times now and I still can't figure out if PediaPress is a non-profit organization or a for-profit company. PediaPress is a limited company (GmbH) and seems to be part of Brainbot Technologies AG. http://brainbot.com/technologien/ http://brainbot.com/services/wikis/ Brainbot appears to be a spin-off of DFKI (German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence). http://www.dfki.de/web/ueber/spin-offs DFKI's major shareholders include Microsoft, Daimler, Deutsche Telecom. http://www.dfki.de/web/ueber/gesellschafter We are calling it a non-profit .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Research_Centre_for_Artificial_Intelligence I think de.wp gets it right, calling it a public-private partnership http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Forschungszentrum_f%C3%BCr_K%C3%BCnstliche_Intelligenz That wouldn't mean that Brainbot or PediaPress were non-profit. They look like for-profit companies. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 11/11/2010 6:23:45 PM Pacific Standard Time, z...@mzmcbride.com writes: I think focusing energy and efforts on creating print versions of Wikipedia articles is antithetical to the idea of creating an online encyclopedia. The benefits of the Internet (and more specifically Wikipedia) include the ability to centralize information in one place and the ability to update information in a quicker manner. The idea that it's a good idea to distribute hard copies of these articles, negating two huge benefits of the Internet and of Wikipedia, is baffling to me. The business model seems to mostly consist of hey, look, we've reverted to the printing press! The people living in places without readily available Internet access don't seem like the same people who would want to order a printed copy of List of The Simpsons episodes. While I agree with part of your aim, that PediaPress's prominent placement (alliterative aren't I?) is an issue going forward, I think this part of your argument is a no-starter. Why should any of us care, if someone else has an extra ability to print a copy? Why they want to, is really secondary. *That* they want to, or alternatively that it doesn't harm us at all to *let* them, is the issue from where I sit. What if I really really want to read that enormous list of who might ascend to the British throne and the next 500 claimaints... in order... which we have. What if I really want to study that list, but I have to go catch a train and I don't have a wireless laptop or the train doesn't? I could print it out and read it in the john if I want. I don't think we should waste effort on *why* someone wants to print it out. The main issue is whether or not we are profiting a company. I think there's some conflation here. Nobody is arguing that you shouldn't be able to print out a Wikipedia article (at your home computer, at the library, wherever). But you're not going to be ordering a bound book of heirs to the throne if you want to read it on the next train. There are a limited amount of resources available. In this case, as Tim said, the resources (namely the extension development) were essentially donated, but nothing in life is free. They were donated seemingly because this company wanted to turn a profit. There's nothing wrong with that and PediaPress certainly isn't unique in wanting to monetize off of Wikipedia. What does appear to be unique is that this particular company gets what I'd describe as star treatment. This includes having their custom code enabled, a prominent section in the sidebar, and even blog posts on the Wikimedia blog shilling for their products. Again, I still can't readily determine if this is a non-profit organization or a for-profit company. I think there's definitely a difference between the two. My gut feeling is that this is a for-profit company (I don't see any reason why a non-profit would try to mask their non-profit status), which begs the question of why this particular for-profit company is exceptional. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
A bit of general background: The Collection/Book creator feature allows managing, organizing and exporting content in PDF and in OpenDocument (the latter is still very buggy). We're planning to work with PediaPress to add OpenZIM support (useful for offline readers like Kiwix); EPUB is a possibility. The feature supports pulling specific article revisions, or the current revision, and it has some nice features like automatic suggestion of articles, easy addition of articles to collections while browsing, etc. Although PediaPress are the developers behind the feature, it's completely separate from their services (providing printed books). If PediaPress were to disappear tomorrow, we'd continue providing the remaining functionality. In fact, at this point in time, uses of the feature for digital offline distributions are more interesting to us from a strategic point of view than print distribution. Because images and other media quickly inflate any offline export, content selections may often be the more viable method to create digital offline distributions of WP content. The 1,400 selections already compiled using the Collection extension provide a great starting point for this. It's also conceivable to work with validation partners to create trusted selections of content for schools etc. We have a non-exclusive business partnership with PediaPress (a small for-profit company) with regard to their provision of print services, which is commission-based. From a mission standpoint, it's nice for both our audience and our contributors to have the print options available, which is supported by demand (about 2,000 per quarter -- we'll soon have a WikiStats report on book sales) and user feedback. It can also be great outreach tool. In fact, as Tim pointed out, the idea of printed selections is a very old idea that very many Wikipedians have worked on over the years. The goal of the relationship with PediaPress was to have an open toolset that any and all efforts towards print or other export formats could build upon. PediaPress has been a model partner -- they're super-responsive, and interact directly with the community to service all aspects of the technology. I'm personally very pleased that the hardcover and color options are now available. There are so many fantastic photos and illustrations in Wikimedia projects that the black/white books really didn't do them justice. It's certainly not for everyone, but for those of us who like to show our family and friends what this whole Wikipedia thing we spend so much time on is all about, it can be pretty awesome. Kindle or not, a printed book gives a very tangible reality to our efforts. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
If we're concerned about the WMF referring in its blog to a for-profit organisation that happens to be working with us in a way that is open-source, offline and furthering our mission to distribute our content widely, why did no one complain about the OpenMoko Wikireader being in the WMF blog: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2009/10/13/openmoko-launches-wikireader/ There are several examples of commercial services being used in Wikimedia projects that are integrated in a way that is acceptable because they further our mission of sharing free-cultural resources effectively: - The Geohack tool that you see when clicking on any geocode link in an article (e.g. Eiffel Tower: http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Eiffel_Towerparams=48.8583_N_2.2945_E_type:landmark_region:FR-75) This brings up a list of for-profit and non-profit mapping services notably Google Maps and OpenStreetMap respectively. - The ISBN lookup tool (e.g. Anna Karenina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-84749-059-9 ) brings up an extensive list of commercial book services and public/university libraries. - The template:social bookmarks that appears at the bottom of every Wikinews article http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Template:Social_bookmarks (and briefly appeared recently next to every commons file recently) refers our users to several commercial organisations to share/like/fan/digg/tweet/stumble/dent a Wikinews article. All three of those systems are community-developed and no one is reasonably complaining that we are sending our readers to those commercial services because they are integrated in a way that is relevant/appropriate for the kind of re-use that is A Good Thing™. I suspect that the issue lies not with the fact that you are only a couple of clicks away from the PediaPress bookprinting service from every Wikipedia article, but more the fact that the PediaPress system is the *only *service listed on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Book As Erik mentioned in the previous email, the relationship with PediaPress is non-exclusive and entirely independent from the Book Creator code. If there is another organisation out there that offers a printing-and-binding service that is comparable to what PediaPress offers then we could/should add it to the list but I don't believe there is. -Liam wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On 12/11/10 13:23, MZMcBride wrote: They negotiated with Wikimedia? Where and when? How many thousands of companies would like their links in the sidebar of the fifth most-visited website in the world? Are they really that good at negotiating? On the English Wikipedia, there's a Book namespace and the sidebar has a completely separate print/export section that comes from the Collection extension. That's worth a percentage of the book sales? Potential parternships are assessed by mission-relevance, not just revenue potential. Offline distribution is part of the Foundation's mission, as is open source software development. PediaPress were offering to do those two things. Note that PediaPress's software is useful even if you don't want to buy a book. It offers free PDF downloads, generated by mwlib. It would have been a useful thing to have in the sidebar, even without the print-on-demand feature. If PediaPress goes out of business, the sidebar link will stay there. So I think it would be more accurate to say that PediaPress are getting a box on [[Special:Book]], not a sidebar link. I think focusing energy and efforts on creating print versions of Wikipedia articles is antithetical to the idea of creating an online encyclopedia. You're entitled to your opinion, but this is not the Foundation's position. Print versions have always been supported by both the community and the Foundation. I've read Wikimedia's PediaPress press release[1] a few times now and I still can't figure out if PediaPress is a non-profit organization or a for-profit company. It says it's a startup, which means a startup company, i.e. for-profit. I think there's a large distinction between the Wikimedia Foundation taking a community project and encouraging a for-profit company to make money off of it (through sidebar links and installing a custom extension) and working with a non-profit organization to distribute free content. Yes, it is an important distinction. The reason our content licenses are friendly to commercial use is to allow companies to make money by distributing Wikipedia's content. The theory is that commercial activity can help to further our mission, more effectively than the non-profit sector working alone. The Foundation's mission is to educate, not to educate as much as is possible without anyone making any money. From another post: There are a limited amount of resources available. In this case, as Tim said, the resources (namely the extension development) were essentially donated, but nothing in life is free. They were donated seemingly because this company wanted to turn a profit. I don't think it's accurate to call it a donation. It was an investment. There's nothing wrong with that and PediaPress certainly isn't unique in wanting to monetize off of Wikipedia. What does appear to be unique is that this particular company gets what I'd describe as star treatment. This includes having their custom code enabled, a prominent section in the sidebar, and even blog posts on the Wikimedia blog shilling for their products. The reason they are treated differently is that their activities further our mission. I understand that you don't agree with that part of our mission. -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
Liam Wyatt wrote: I suspect that the issue lies not with the fact that you are only a couple of clicks away from the PediaPress bookprinting service from every Wikipedia article, but more the fact that the PediaPress system is the *only *service listed on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Book As Erik mentioned in the previous email, the relationship with PediaPress is non-exclusive and entirely independent from the Book Creator code. I enjoyed your examples of for-profit companies' products being integrated with Wikimedia. I wonder, if a company like CafePress wanted to sell Wikimedia apparel and would donate a percentage of their revenue to Wikimedia, would they get a sidebar link (or section) as well? The response from Erik seems to be well, having printed copies of our work makes us feel good, which is perfectly fine, but so does a fitted T-shirt with the Wikipedia logo on the front. Would a company like CafePress be allowed to have a link in the sidebar to their Wikimedia-related products? What are the exact criteria for getting to be only a couple of clicks away for millions of visitors? The larger context of this thread (for me, at least) is that, given that (a) Wikipedia is about to turn ten, (b) Wikipedia gets millions of views per day, and (c) people are always looking for ways to make money, why is it that so few companies have partnered with Wikimedia in the way that PediaPress has? Tim mentioned the Wikipedia DVD, which I'd forgotten about and don't quite remember the details of. There was also a Virgin (Mobile?) ad in the fundraising banners at some point. However, these examples seem rather limited and sparse. I'm not arguing that that's a bad thing, but it still feels rather odd to me, especially when I look at a company at PediaPress and try to figure out what made them seemingly special. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 00:07, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: There are several examples of commercial services being used in Wikimedia projects that are integrated in a way that is acceptable because they further our mission of sharing free-cultural resources effectively: Liam, none of the examples you give has a presence on every article. The issue is that this private company has a button at the side of every page on one of the most popular sites on the Web. If I were to set up Virgin Ventures to write high-quality, policy-compliant articles for companies and people that needed them -- benefiting the subjects, the readers, and Wikipedia -- might I be given a button in the toolbox too? Red link? Click here for the Virgin! I would promise to give Wikimedia 50 percent of the profits. I hope you'll consider this generous offer. Sarah -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SlimVirgin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
Hello Sarah, I would put it somehow differently. If Virgin Ventures has a tool with which a newbie (or also an oldbie) can in a very intuitive way construct a well formatted article from the scrap, so something like that magic editor we had talked about for long time and never realized until now, and it is open source, I would certainly consider a button in the toolbox like Use the wizard to start an article. Greetings Ting On 12.11.2010 07:44, wrote SlimVirgin: On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 00:07, Liam Wyattliamwy...@gmail.com wrote: There are several examples of commercial services being used in Wikimedia projects that are integrated in a way that is acceptable because they further our mission of sharing free-cultural resources effectively: Liam, none of the examples you give has a presence on every article. The issue is that this private company has a button at the side of every page on one of the most popular sites on the Web. If I were to set up Virgin Ventures to write high-quality, policy-compliant articles for companies and people that needed them -- benefiting the subjects, the readers, and Wikipedia -- might I be given a button in the toolbox too? Red link? Click here for the Virgin! I would promise to give Wikimedia 50 percent of the profits. I hope you'll consider this generous offer. Sarah -- Ting Ting's Blog: http://wingphilopp.blogspot.com/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
Tim Starling wrote: On 12/11/10 13:23, MZMcBride wrote: They negotiated with Wikimedia? Where and when? How many thousands of companies would like their links in the sidebar of the fifth most-visited website in the world? Are they really that good at negotiating? On the English Wikipedia, there's a Book namespace and the sidebar has a completely separate print/export section that comes from the Collection extension. That's worth a percentage of the book sales? Potential parternships are assessed by mission-relevance, not just revenue potential. Offline distribution is part of the Foundation's mission, as is open source software development. PediaPress were offering to do those two things. [...] I think there's a large distinction between the Wikimedia Foundation taking a community project and encouraging a for-profit company to make money off of it (through sidebar links and installing a custom extension) and working with a non-profit organization to distribute free content. Yes, it is an important distinction. The reason our content licenses are friendly to commercial use is to allow companies to make money by distributing Wikipedia's content. The theory is that commercial activity can help to further our mission, more effectively than the non-profit sector working alone. The Foundation's mission is to educate, not to educate as much as is possible without anyone making any money. [...] The reason they are treated differently is that their activities further our mission. I understand that you don't agree with that part of our mission. The problem I have with statements like these is that they feel disingenuous. The mission statement is as vague or as specific as the person arguing deems it to be. There are thousands of potential projects that Wikimedia could engage in that would fit perfectly within the current mission statement[1] and thousands more that would loosely fit in. It's mostly a matter of how many steps removed you choose to allow a particular venture to be. If I sell Wikimedia T-shirts, I'm building the Wikimedia brand, which leads to more donations during the fundraiser, which leads to more servers, which further enables the dissemination of educational content. Does that mean that selling T-shirts is within Wikimedia's mission? What is and isn't mission-relevant seems to be (perhaps intentionally) completely ambiguous. Ultimately, who decides whether a partnership with a company like PediaPress is mission-relevant? The Board of Trustees? The Executive Director? The Head of Business Development? And beyond who makes the decision, is there any guarantee that it will be a valid one? Given the vagueness of the mission statement, how much of a stretch is acceptable? MZMcBride [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
In a message dated 11/11/2010 10:08:33 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, liamwy...@gmail.com writes: If there is another organisation out there that offers a printing-and-binding service that is comparable to what PediaPress offers then we could/should add it to the list but I don't believe there is. I think that misses the mark a bit. It is not our mission to decide that one provider is better than others and then use them to the exclusion of anyone else. We don't pick Amazon over the American Book Exchange, we provide both links. So the real issue here shouldn't be whether any other book binder is comparable, but rather whether any other book binder *wants* to be listed. W ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 08:06, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: So the real issue here shouldn't be whether any other book binder is comparable, but rather whether any other book binder *wants* to be listed. Right on spot. Does any? Are there any others? I'm for listing them all. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
Ting Chen wrote: I would put it somehow differently. If Virgin Ventures has a tool with which a newbie (or also an oldbie) can in a very intuitive way construct a well formatted article from the scrap, so something like that magic editor we had talked about for long time and never realized until now, and it is open source, I would certainly consider a button in the toolbox like Use the wizard to start an article. I don't understand this. Why are you suggesting that an article wizard tool is comparable to the submission form/human work combination that PediaPress uses? PediaPress takes the user input and then humans create and ship a book. Sarah is suggesting taking user input and then having humans create and publish an article. There isn't a requirement that magic be involved, though I think it's reasonable to say that the form submission code should be open source. If the form submission code were open source, would it be acceptable to put a link to such an article-writing service on every page? MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On 12/11/10 17:55, MZMcBride wrote: There are thousands of potential projects that Wikimedia could engage in that would fit perfectly within the current mission statement[1] and thousands more that would loosely fit in. I use the word mission in the broad sense, i.e. what we are trying to do as an organisation. I'm not referencing any particular tagline or mission statement. Defining our mission and interpreting our mission statement is the role of the Board, the executive and the strategy process. They have produced various documents and decisions which help to guide the staff. -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Should we offer to host citizendium?
Should we offer to host citizendium? Okey get over the instinctive reaction. ==The background== Those who have read this week's signpost will be aware that citizendium is in significant financial difficulties. If not see the end of the briefly section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-11-08/News_and_notes Now I know we haven't exactly had the best of relationships with citizendium but we are if not distant allies at least interested observers. Their mission and much of their product at this time coincides with ours. ==The proposal== We should offer to host citizendium on our servers at no cost for a period of 1 (one) year offering a level of support equivalent to our smaller projects. After one year the citizendium community/Editorial Council is expected to have sorted themselves out to the point where they can arrange their own hosting. At which point we lock the database and provide them with the dumps ===The pros=== *It is inline with out mission *It wouldn't cost very much. Given their traffic levels and database size the cost to host would probably be lower than some of our more prolific image uploaders. *It would be possible to effectively give them instacommons *Citizendium is an interesting project and gives us a way to learn what the likely outcome of some alternative approaches would be *It helps with positioning the WMF as more than just wikipedia *It prevents the citizendium project from dying which since they have useful content would be unfortunate ===The cons=== *They may still be on PostgreSQL rather than mysql which could create issues with compatibility *Some of their community are people banned from wikipedia *risk of looking like triumphalism over Larry (can be addressed by making sure jimbo is in no way involved) *keeping control of the relationship between the citizendium community/Editorial Council and the various WMF communities *Handing the password database back at the end of the year would need to be done with care. All in all other than the assuming we can deal with the database issue I think it is something we should do. The citizendium community/Editorial Council may well say no but at least we will have tried. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
