Re: [Wikimedia-l] +28K images freed from Israel archives and uploaded to commons

2018-11-14 Thread Steinsplitter Wiki 
Hello,

WOW! Thank you for your work!

Best
Steinsplitter

Von: Wikimedia-l  im Auftrag von 
mata...@foss.co.il 
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. November 2018 07:15
An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] +28K images freed from Israel archives and uploaded to 
commons

Hello,

It is a great pleasure for me to let you all know that wikimedia Israel had 
developed a web scraper that crawled in various archives in Israel and uploaded 
more than 28K free images to commons.

The tool (https://github.com/wmil-1946/wikiscraper) was developed to crawl the 
web site (list below) and clean them, remove water marks, etc.

Only images taken before 1946 were uploaded, as per the law in Israel and 
United states.

Many volunteers had joined the effort by categorizing, linking and using the 
images once uploaded.

It even got coverage on Israeli media (here 
(https://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3749654,00.html))

Commons categories containing the files:
[1 
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_JNF_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
 2 
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_ISA_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
 3 
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Moshe_Sharett_Archive_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
 4 
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Palmah_Archive_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
 5 
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_GPO_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)]

Thanks to all the people involved in this gigantic effort and enjoy using 
historical images from the holy land! :)

Matanya
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] +28K images freed from Israel archives and uploaded to commons

2018-11-14 Thread Itzik - Wikimedia Israel 
Hi,

I would like to add more information to what Matanya shared with you. We
are working on a blog post for the international blog, but meanwhile here
is the summary:

If you know this, it means that you are around for (too) many years, but 6
years ago Wikimedia Israel managed
[1]
to get the government to make a decision to allow the public to freely use
images taken by government officials. Since then we have been working to
release more and more photos owned by the government and government
organizations.

In recent years we have contacted organizations that hold pictures before
the establishment of the State of Israel, in order to convince them to
upload the photos they have to Commons. Many of them claim on their website
that they owned the pictures and that they have copyright, although it
isn't true and those pictures are PD according to the Israeli law. Some of
them also added a watermark on this pictures to prevent using them without
paying to the archive.

After many of them denied to change the copyright warnings, nor to give us
the pictures we decide two years ago to do something bold.
*We decided that if they don't want to "give" the photos, we will take them
without asking. *
We had discussions within our board about it and what we want to do, and we
have commissioned a detailed legal opinion to understand what we can do
under the Israeli law, what to avoid and what we must be careful about.

With that, we moved to a project which we kept secret and only a few knew
about it and we mapped all the organization which holds such pictures and
reviewed which of the sites can be technically crawled. We built serval
tools to crawl, remove watermarks (where we can) and upload them to
commons. To avoid overloading the sites that could expose us legally to
problems with other laws and also avoid unnecessary attention, we ran and
used these tools slowly and carefully. We review the content and then
started to upload it to commons.

As Matanya mentioned until now we managed to download and upload photos
from the* Israel State Archives, Jewish National Fund Archive,  Moshe
Sharett Archive, Palmah Archive, and the Government Press Office*.

When it was revealed yesterday in one of the largest newspapers in Israel
[2], some of these organizations responded that they welcomed the operation
(even though they refused to transfer the pictures when we turned to them)
and some objected or did not respond.

I hope that this (short and incomplete) summary gives more information
about this unique project.

[1]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/19/wikimedia-chapter-wins-victory-for-free-licenses-in-israel/
[2] https://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3749654,00.html



*Itzik Edri*
Chairperson
it...@wikimedia.org.il
+972-54-5878078




On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 8:16 AM  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> It is a great pleasure for me to let you all know that wikimedia Israel
> had developed a web scraper that crawled in various archives in Israel and
> uploaded more than 28K free images to commons.
>
> The tool (https://github.com/wmil-1946/wikiscraper) was developed to
> crawl the web site (list below) and clean them, remove water marks, etc.
>
> Only images taken before 1946 were uploaded, as per the law in Israel and
> United states.
>
> Many volunteers had joined the effort by categorizing, linking and using
> the images once uploaded.
>
> It even got coverage on Israeli media (here (
> https://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3749654,00.html))
>
> Commons categories containing the files:
> [1 (
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_JNF_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
> 2 (
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_ISA_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
> 3 (
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Moshe_Sharett_Archive_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
> 4 (
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Palmah_Archive_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel)
> 5 (
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_GPO_uploaded_by_Wikimedia_Israel
> )]
>
> Thanks to all the people involved in this gigantic effort and enjoy using
> historical images from the holy land! :)
>
> Matanya
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Subject lines for WMF fundraising emails

2018-11-14 Thread Pine W 
 Hi Seddon,

While the fundraising appeal may be successful, the problem that I have
with this subject line is that it can mislead readers into thinking that
someone with the ability to do so is seriously considering, or making an
effort to, delete Wikipedia in entirety. I think that a subject line of
"Block Wikipedia?" might be okay, and I am supportive of encouraging people
not to take Wikipedia for granted. But regarding "Delete Wikipedia?", as
far as I know that generally misrepresents the current situation. I believe
that using "Delete Wikipedia?" as a subject line is inconsistent with
Wikipedia's goals of providing neutral, verifiable, and reliable
information.

I am starting to think that if WMF wants to use the Wikipedia brand name
for WMF fundraising then WMF should first publicly discuss its proposed
uses of the Wikipedia brand name with Wikipedians.

On a related issue, I don't know if it's happening this year, but in the
past another concern that I've had is the conflation of donating to
Wikipedia with donating to WMF. Wikipedia and WMF are related but there is
not a 1:1 relationship, and I hope that WMF makes that clear in its
fundraising. The use of "Delete Wikipedia?" reminds me of these concerns.

I would prefer to avoid diverting the community's limited time into
reviewing WMF's choices, but unfortunately the issues are too significant
to ignore. I don't know how many community members want to volunteer their
time to review fundraising appeals before they go into production, but I
think that it would be good for WMF to ask.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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[Wikimedia-l] Notice of Postponement of Wiki Indaba 2019

2018-11-14 Thread kayode yussuf via Wikimedia-l 
 Dear Community members,
We regret to inform you that WikiIndaba 2019 expected to take place in Abuja, 
Nigeria will be postponed till later in the year.
This decision was reached after advise from International SOS, the Wikimedia 
Foundation’s travel insurance and security advisors, who had been monitoring 
the security risk in Nigeria for the last several months. Due to the increase 
in security crackdowns, associated risk of violence to bystanders, and the 
proposed timing of the conference (January 18 - 20) being so close to the 
national elections (February 16), we have decided to delay the conference to 
later in the year for the safety of all conference attendees.
While the expected  dates for Wiki Indaba 2019 will be announced as soon as 
possible, please plan tentatively for sometime in June/July 2019, pending the 
improvement of security in Nigeria post national elections. 
The Wikimedia Foundation and the Wiki Indaba 2019 Local Organizing Committee 
regret any inconvenience this may cause as we place the safety and security of 
community members as high priority and will keep the community updated on the 
new dates.
Thank you.

Kayode Yussuffor 
Wiki Indaba 2019 Communications Team

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