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

[Risker]

On 3 August 2012 22:00, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> 
>

Andreas, I'm sorry, but you've been involved in Wikimedia projects for
quite a while now.  What in heaven's name would ever give you the idea that
the WMF could possibly get itself organized enough to co-ordinate something
like this with Google?

Now, could you please get back to the subject, which is how the WMF should
handle third party requests to participate in advocacy, and drop this whole
Google/SOPA thing, or at least take it off this list?

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

[Nathan]

Andreas makes a really important point below. Now that I read it from his
perspective, it seems like what we're dealing with here is a surreptitious
attempt by the General Counsel to hijack the Wikimedia Foundation and its
projects to serve their covert corporate masters. Obviously the Bilderberg
Group, using Google as its tool, has subverted the movement for its own aim
of global domination.

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 10:00 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
> I'd suggest what you're struggling with may be the impression that someone
> very much *wants* Wikimedia or Wikipedia to lobby for political causes. I
> wouldn't even be surprised if the idea that Wikimedia should have a
> community advocacy department was suggested by some of Wikimedia's partners
> and sponsors.
>
> Basically, Wikipedia has enough traffic to be a top-ten website. So if
> Wikipedia says or does something, it's noticed by a heck of a lot of
> people. The job of the Advocacy Advisory Group seems to be to make sure
> that "the community" says the right thing.
>
> Several of the six decision types listed on the proposed policy page, e.g.
> "Collaborative Advocacy" (collaborating with another organization to take
> action on a particular policy or political question) and "Limited Trademark
> Endorsement" (permitting another organization to use the Wikimedia name and
> trademark to promote a policy or political cause), require neither board
> input nor wider community input, just consultation of the AAG.
>
> As I said on the proposed policy's talk page, that Advocacy Advisory Group
> is an odd thing. On the one hand, the proposed policy insists the AAG is a
> community organ, implying it is not under the Foundation's control. On the
> other hand, though, the proposed policy says the group is "managed by the
> Legal and Community Advocacy Department", which is part of the Foundation.
> So what does that mean? And who is in this group? Its name is hyperlinked
> to yet another mailing list:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 11:12 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:

> Why are there so many various levels and steps if it's not a determination
> about principles and about whether a particular cause meets Wikimedia's
> mission? This is what's confusing me.
>
> People on the talk page at Meta-Wiki have seemed to suggest that you would
> _want_ this type of policy to cover administrator actions as administrators
> are often unelected and hold lifetime appointments.
>
> It's completely possible that it's just me, but something still isn't
> adding
> up in my head when I consider this policy and what exactly it covers and
> does not cover.
>



I'd suggest what you're struggling with may be the impression that someone
very much *wants* Wikimedia or Wikipedia to lobby for political causes. I
wouldn't even be surprised if the idea that Wikimedia should have a
community advocacy department was suggested by some of Wikimedia's partners
and sponsors.

Basically, Wikipedia has enough traffic to be a top-ten website. So if
Wikipedia says or does something, it's noticed by a heck of a lot of
people. The job of the Advocacy Advisory Group seems to be to make sure
that "the community" says the right thing.

Several of the six decision types listed on the proposed policy page, e.g.
"Collaborative Advocacy" (collaborating with another organization to take
action on a particular policy or political question) and "Limited Trademark
Endorsement" (permitting another organization to use the Wikimedia name and
trademark to promote a policy or political cause), require neither board
input nor wider community input, just consultation of the AAG.

As I said on the proposed policy's talk page, that Advocacy Advisory Group
is an odd thing. On the one hand, the proposed policy insists the AAG is a
community organ, implying it is not under the Foundation's control. On the
other hand, though, the proposed policy says the group is "managed by the
Legal and Community Advocacy Department", which is part of the Foundation.
So what does that mean? And who is in this group? Its name is hyperlinked
to yet another mailing list:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[Mike Linksvayer]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 3:38 PM, ???  wrote:
> On 03/08/2012 16:24, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 5:14 AM,  
>> wrote:
>>> The proposal was floated by Jimmy Wales on the 10th of december, 1
>>> day after a Creative Commons Board meeting, on which he sits
>>> alongside the mother-in-law of Sergy Brin (Google), and on which
>>> sit other representatives of other internet mega-corporations that
>>> derive profit from user uploaded contents much of which is pirated,
>>> or who make money from advertising on pirate sites.
>>
>> I don't know what "other representatives" you could be referring to.
>
> You have two board members that are closely associated with or paid by
> Google. One of which is a development manager for YouTube

I see, you mean https://creativecommons.org/board#glenn who moved on
to Twitter almost a year and a half ago. Someone will update that
listing appropriately.

Mike

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

[???]

On 03/08/2012 16:24, Mike Linksvayer wrote:

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 5:14 AM,  
wrote:

bhar...@wikimedia.org wrote:

This is inserting a conspiracy theory where one does not exist.

The English Wikipedia community voted on the blackout and
directed it into existence, not the Foundation. We merely
facilitated.


The proposal was floated by Jimmy Wales on the 10th of december, 1
day after a Creative Commons Board meeting, on which he sits
alongside the mother-in-law of Sergy Brin (Google), and on which
sit other representatives of other internet mega-corporations that
derive profit from user uploaded contents much of which is pirated,
or who make money from advertising on pirate sites.


I don't know what "other representatives" you could be referring to.




You have two board members that are closely associated with or paid by 
Google. One of which is a development manager for YouTube which we know 
from the viacom case, originally built its business from copyright 
infringing content, the scale of which was known by Google when they 
bought YouTube. You have as vice-chair the mother in law of one of 
Google's co-founders, a company that was fined $500 million for 
profiting from illegal counterfeit drug sales. A company that embarked 
on a massive scofflaw exercise in the scanning of copyright works in the 
hope that they could build a de-facto monopoly by stiffing the majority 
of copyright owners with side deal with a couple of large publishing 
companies.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/technology/23google.html

Given that SOPA attacked a part of the Google revenue stream: profiting 
from advertising on pirate and counterfeit good sites, and that SOPA had 
no effect on US websites. Criticism of Google funded US based 
organisations that worked to oppose legislation that did not affect 
themselves but their sponsors is entirely justified.




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Re: [Wikimedia-l] conversations between WMF and non-English projects

[Tilman Bayer]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Amir E. Aharoni
 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In the 2012-13 WMF plan document I saw an interesting thing:
> "We’ve hosted key community stakeholders such as English Wikipedia’s
> ArbCom and Portuguese Wikipedia’s top contributors, in an effort to
> better understand and respond to issues they're facing." (page 41).
>
> I was very happy to read this. In general, I hope that such focused
> meetings will be held with more language communities. I don't think
> that I need to explain why :)
>
> I don't know how did the meeting with the Portuguese Wikipedians go;
> I
> suppose that it was good. I don't remember that I read anything about
> it in blogs or mailing lists, but I may have missed it.
Apart from the one post linked by Steven
(https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/22/brazil-meetups-march/ ), the
Wikimedia blog has seen several other posts about other meetings of
WMF with Portuguese Wikipedia contributors in Brasil:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/02/20/brazil-campus-party/

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/11/brazil-recruiting-and-partnership-with-the-community-moves-forward/

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/10/19/brazil-trip-3/

See also the recurring Brazil Catalyst section in the monthly WMF reports.

> Maybe what I'm
> about to write is known already, but I'll say it anyway.
>
> An important thing in such meetings is to have a community member who
> contributes to the Wikipedia in that language AND to the English
> Wikipedia. This is needed because the Foundation people are probably
> familiar with policies, customs and jargon in the English Wikipedia.
> Even simple terms, like "Village Pump", are not necessarily familiar
> to people who primarily edit in other languages; not all Wikipedias
> have ArbComs; not all Wikipedias prohibit voting; etc. Such a person
> will be able to "translate" between the English Wikipedia terms and
> the local Wikipedia terms. Without such a person misunderstandings
> will definitely happen, even if everybody knows the English language
> well.
You are of course right that it is important to be aware of the
differences between the many language versions of Wikipedia. But it
might be worth knowing that the WMF's Brazil Catalyst project
(https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil ) has
been run out of Brazil by a native speaker of Portuguese for quite
some time now, with a WMF contractor who has been editing on the
Portuguese Wikipedia and (less frequently) the English Wikipedia since
2006. I'm not sure about the validity of your conjectures with regard
to them.

And even before that, there had been in-depth efforts by WMF to
understand the local community, see e.g.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project/Community_Interviews

-- 
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB

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

[MZMcBride]

Stephen LaPorte wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:07 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>> My question, more directly, is: if the SOPA action from January 2012
>> were held in August 2012 (following the implementation of this new statement
>> from the General Counsel's office), would it be considered a "community
>> initiative" or not?
> 
> The community's decision to blackout a project would not be within
> this guideline, but any additional WMF resources would require legal
> and financial review. There are strict laws in the U.S. that limit
> when a non-profit organization may engage in political and legislative
> activity, and it is the General Counsel and CFA's duty to ensure that
> the WMF complies with those laws. The community has procedures for
> determining consensus for action, and most of the time the community
> can implement that action without any additional resources from the
> WMF.

Thank you for this reply. It was helpful.

There's still a disconnect for me between what's being said on this mailing
list and on the Meta-Wiki talk page and what's being written in this new
statement. What I'm hearing being said is that this _internal_ policy is
mostly a guide for legal reasons to avoid trouble for the Wikimedia
Foundation, its employees, and its non-profit status under U.S. law. If so,
wouldn't the policy mostly be a matter of "ask the General Counsel's office
whether involvement in a particular action would be legally problematic"?

This policy seems to extend far beyond "what _can_ the Wikimedia Foundation
legally involve itself in?" and by requiring Board approval and community
approval (sometimes), seems to be a policy about what _should_ the Wikimedia
Foundation be involving itself in. Is this accurate?

This is where I see the disconnect. If it's simply a matter of keeping
Wikimedia out of trouble with the IRS, there are simple legal tests that
have no relevance as to whether there's Board approval or community approval
or the approval of the Head of Communications or anything of that nature,
right?

Why are there so many various levels and steps if it's not a determination
about principles and about whether a particular cause meets Wikimedia's
mission? This is what's confusing me.

People on the talk page at Meta-Wiki have seemed to suggest that you would
_want_ this type of policy to cover administrator actions as administrators
are often unelected and hold lifetime appointments.

It's completely possible that it's just me, but something still isn't adding
up in my head when I consider this policy and what exactly it covers and
does not cover.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Tilman Bayer]

On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 8:07 PM, aude  wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 5:58 AM, Tilman Bayer 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > the Wikimedia Foundation's 2012-13 Annual Plan has just been published at
> >
> >
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf
> >
> > accompanied by a Q&A:
> >
> >
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers
> >
> > The plan was approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting in
> > Washington, DC, at Wikimania, and previously outlined to the
> > Foundation staff and interested community members at the monthly staff
> > meeting on July 5, 2012. We were planning to publish the video
> > recording of that meeting at this point, but encountered technical
> > difficulties; the video will hopefully become available soon.
> >
> >
> Just a small point
>
> I'm curious how the proposed $255,000 for Wikimania travel for staff,
> board, advisory board and volunteers compares with what was actually spent
> this year?
>

> In the 2011-2012 plan, I see that $96,000 was proposed.  While the travel
> costs for SF staff to DC are much less, I find this too low and hard to
> believe. Some more details and breakdown by scholarships vs.
> staff/board/advisory board would be nice.
>
> I'm curious if we are planning a higher number of scholarships for
> volunteers for next year? (as the overall WMF budget increases) and how
> many staff are we planning to send next year?
>
> Cheers,
> Katie
>
> Note that some (or most) of these questions have now been addressed at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget .

-- 
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Tilman Bayer]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 11:18 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
 wrote:
> Tilman Bayer, 29/07/2012 18:28:
>
>> Regarding the "normal levels", I suppose you haven't yet had a chance
>> to look at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors ?
>
>
> Yes and it shows that there's still an increase over the pre-WLM situation.
Given the size of the normal monthly fluctuations (e.g. July-August
2011: +0.3K, August-October 2011: +0.2K), and the overall upwards
trend during 2011-12, I find it hard to understand the objections to
the interpretation "returning to normal levels".

> Actually I was reading
>  which
> shows the numbers better but still doesn't have the total number of
> uploaders/ussers with at least one edit in a given month.
It does show the number of users with at least one upload, and those
with at least one mainspace edit (look further down). As an aside, it
also contains numbers for uploads made using UploadWizard, strongly
supporting the statement that much of the 2011-12 growth was due to
this usability improvement, cf. the statement on slide 25 you already
cited below.
>
>
>> Also, recently Lodewijk, with the help of WMF data analyst Erik
>> Zachte, posted this interesting analysis:
>>
>> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/new-editors-thanks-to-wiki-loves-monuments/
>>
>> If I read it correctly, from the newbies among the WLM participants,
>> 61 were still active in May 2012. This compares to altogether 7053
>> active editors on Commons during that month (the latter number is from
>> http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikispecial/EN/TablesWikipediaCOMMONS.htm ;
>> note that a user who makes just one edit or one upload during a month
>> falls below the threshold for the currently used active editors
>> metric). But as the blog post notes, there are efforts underway to
>> improve retention of new contributors in this year's WLM.
>
>
> Thanks, I had indeed missed this post for some reason. 231 or 6,6 % with
> some activity after the end and 61 very active editors
That's not quite what the blog post said. 61 was the number of all
*active* editors left during the latest month examined (May), and it
doesn't say how the average number of edits is distributed among
these. That being said, it's of course absolutely great that WLM
appears to have brought in at least some very active contributors,
among them one who has already done 20,000 edits so far.
> seems to be better
> than what the university students do?
If "what the university students do" refers to the Education Program,
note that boosting the number of active editors by those students
isn't its primary goal, and neither has WLM been focused on that
metric.
> This is also acknowledged later on, at p. 25: «[...] multimedia is where
> early usability efforts (UploadWizard), especially alongside programs like
> Wiki Loves Monuments, have paid off. (Commons is one of the few areas where
> active editors are growing -- 25% year over year, with a spike to 9.37K from
> 6.97K in September 2011 due to the WLM competition.)».
Again, I'm not quite sure what "This" in "This is also acknowledged
later on" refers to. See e.g. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spike for
the meaning of "spike".



-- 
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB

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

[Mike Godwin]

Michael Snow writes:

> Perhaps worth adding, I think it's fair to say that these reviews did
> take place with respect to the use of Wikimedia Foundation resources in
> the context of the January SOPA protest. They didn't necessarily follow
> the form of the current policy, since it didn't exist yet, but Geoff was
> actively involved and I believe the staff was generally quite conscious
> of the limitations on what they should do in their official capacity.
> There's always room for honest disagreement about whether the protest
> was desirable or necessary, but just in terms of the process, I think
> things were entirely appropriately handled.

I agree with Michael Snow's take on all this.

> I agree that the community retains the authority to reach its own
> decisions about future actions of this type. I think the policy should
> be understood primarily as something the foundation will adhere to in
> its operations, not something that regulates the community's autonomy.

And I especially agree with this. One of the greatest strengths and
protections in the Wikimedia movement, both for the community and the
Foundation, is the community's autonomy. The community has the
autonomy to make decisions that may include certain kinds of political
action from time to time, and the Foundation is able to function
within its legal constraints because community members are not (for
the most part) agents or employees of the Foundation.

I think Geoff and his team are doing an excellent job at further
developing and strengthening appropriate legal protections for the
Foundation while preserving the community's ability to act
independently, including (what I hope will mostly be unnecessary) the
ability to act and speak out politically.


--Mike

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

[Sarah Stierch]

Hi -

Actually, it looks like there are a few places where people can share 
their thoughts, etc. about SOPA/Blackoutness:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

and other things related but not:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project-wide_protests
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Advocacy_agendas
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Advocacy_Agenda (which it 
looks like you can get involved in!)


I'm sure there are other things too. Risker said it best - let's stick 
on topic instead of going off on tangents. Perhaps even having a place 
to discuss WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guidelines is ideal. Oh 
wait, there is ;)


http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Affiliations_Guideline

As you just shared! Again, this is more inclusive and it can bring your 
concerns to a broader audience who might not be on this mailing list. Ciao!


-Sarah


On 8/3/12 1:17 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:

Sarah,

Well, for one I was not aware that there was a "reflection" about the
blackout posted on Meta. A link would be appreciated. Thanks.

Secondly, four or five months ago I would not have been aware of various
events on the timeline that preceded the blackout.

Third, this is an ongoing situation, as the subject of this very thread is
the proposed policy defining when and how further action like that could be
taken.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Affiliations_Guideline

Regards,


On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 9:02 PM, Sarah Stierch wrote:


How come these concerns weren't brought up months ago when the
"reflection" about the blackout was posted to meta?

It seems that right now Andreas, you are the main opponent of something
that already happened and no one can change.

I'd just post your concerns to meta and stop this talking in circles and
finger pointing. It's tiring, reads like some conspiracy theory and seems
to be losing any traction of game changing that it could.

I appreciate hearing your thoughts, as many of us do, I just think they
are best preserved on wiki where the majority of participants in the
blackout hangout (most aren't active on mailing lists) and can participate
in this analysis with you.

Sarah



Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 3, 2012, at 12:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:


On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 6:00 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:


We do everything in our power to prevent
the problem, but it would be absolutely cost prohibitive to do it 100%
with the difference being that fine grained, and this law gives you
the right to shut us down if we can't hit 100%. We think on balance
what we do is good even if something bad occasionally slips through,
so we can't support that law. And indeed, since this strikes at the
core of what we do and could shut us down entirely, we must do
everything in our power to fight the law, including energizing those
who use our services to speak up against it."



That wasn't the situation though, was it? Just quoting Tim here:

---o0o---

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


* Geoff Brigham opined otherwise, IIRC.*

Yes, on the basis that "Wikipedia arguably falls under the definition
of an 'Internet search engine'".

<

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-web-and-wikipedia/


The definition was:

"The term ‘Internet search engine’ means a service made available via
the Internet that searches, crawls, categorizes, or indexes
information or Web sites available elsewhere on the Internet and on
the basis of a user query or selection that consists of terms,
concepts, categories, questions, or other data returns to the user a
means, such as a hyperlinked list of Uniform Resource Locators, of
locating, viewing, or downloading such information or data available
on the Internet relating to such query or selection."

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3261/text

It's hard to see how Wikipedia could fall under this definition, but
even if it did, what would be the consequences?

"A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically
feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in
any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or
within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent the
foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of
such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct
hypertext link."

Geoff argued that we would have to manually review millions of links
in order to comply with such a court order. But the definition of an
"internet site" that would be specified under such a court order is:

"[T]he collection of digital assets, including links, indexes, or
pointers to digital assets, accessible through the Internet that are
addressed relative to a common domain name or, if there is no domain
name, a 

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

[Andreas Kolbe]

Sarah,

Well, for one I was not aware that there was a "reflection" about the
blackout posted on Meta. A link would be appreciated. Thanks.

Secondly, four or five months ago I would not have been aware of various
events on the timeline that preceded the blackout.

Third, this is an ongoing situation, as the subject of this very thread is
the proposed policy defining when and how further action like that could be
taken.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Affiliations_Guideline

Regards,


On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 9:02 PM, Sarah Stierch wrote:

> How come these concerns weren't brought up months ago when the
> "reflection" about the blackout was posted to meta?
>
> It seems that right now Andreas, you are the main opponent of something
> that already happened and no one can change.
>
> I'd just post your concerns to meta and stop this talking in circles and
> finger pointing. It's tiring, reads like some conspiracy theory and seems
> to be losing any traction of game changing that it could.
>
> I appreciate hearing your thoughts, as many of us do, I just think they
> are best preserved on wiki where the majority of participants in the
> blackout hangout (most aren't active on mailing lists) and can participate
> in this analysis with you.
>
> Sarah
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Aug 3, 2012, at 12:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 6:00 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:
> >
> >> We do everything in our power to prevent
> >> the problem, but it would be absolutely cost prohibitive to do it 100%
> >> with the difference being that fine grained, and this law gives you
> >> the right to shut us down if we can't hit 100%. We think on balance
> >> what we do is good even if something bad occasionally slips through,
> >> so we can't support that law. And indeed, since this strikes at the
> >> core of what we do and could shut us down entirely, we must do
> >> everything in our power to fight the law, including energizing those
> >> who use our services to speak up against it."
> >
> >
> >
> > That wasn't the situation though, was it? Just quoting Tim here:
> >
> > ---o0o---
> >
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-July/121092.html
> >
> >> * Geoff Brigham opined otherwise, IIRC.*
> > Yes, on the basis that "Wikipedia arguably falls under the definition
> > of an 'Internet search engine'".
> >
> > <
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-web-and-wikipedia/
> >
> >
> > The definition was:
> >
> > "The term ‘Internet search engine’ means a service made available via
> > the Internet that searches, crawls, categorizes, or indexes
> > information or Web sites available elsewhere on the Internet and on
> > the basis of a user query or selection that consists of terms,
> > concepts, categories, questions, or other data returns to the user a
> > means, such as a hyperlinked list of Uniform Resource Locators, of
> > locating, viewing, or downloading such information or data available
> > on the Internet relating to such query or selection."
> >
> > http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3261/text
> >
> > It's hard to see how Wikipedia could fall under this definition, but
> > even if it did, what would be the consequences?
> >
> > "A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically
> > feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in
> > any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or
> > within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent the
> > foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of
> > such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct
> > hypertext link."
> >
> > Geoff argued that we would have to manually review millions of links
> > in order to comply with such a court order. But the definition of an
> > "internet site" that would be specified under such a court order is:
> >
> > "[T]he collection of digital assets, including links, indexes, or
> > pointers to digital assets, accessible through the Internet that are
> > addressed relative to a common domain name or, if there is no domain
> > name, a common Internet Protocol address."
> >
> > We already index external links by domain name or IP address for easy
> > searching, and we have the ability to prevent further such links from
> > being submitted, for the purposes of spam control. The compliance cost
> > would be no worse than a typical [[WP:RSPAM]] report.
> >
> > Maybe SOPA was a "serious threat to freedom of expression on the
> > Internet", and worth fighting against, but it wasn't a threat to
> > Wikipedia's existence.
> >
> > ---o0o---
> >
> > So we were talking about Wikipedia – if indeed Wikipedia could legally
> > be considered a "search engine", which seems a stretch – being given
> > five (5) days to convert any direct hyperlinks they were specifically
> > advised of by court order into just alphanumeric, non-clickable

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

[Risker]

Could we please get back to the subject here?

That would be discussing the proposed guideline[1] instead of dissecting a
historical event.

I note that there is quite a bit of commentary on the talk page, and
perhaps it would be best if further discussion continues in that central
location.


Risker/Anne

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Affiliations_Guideline
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[Sarah Stierch]

How come these concerns weren't brought up months ago when the "reflection" 
about the blackout was posted to meta?

It seems that right now Andreas, you are the main opponent of something that 
already happened and no one can change.

I'd just post your concerns to meta and stop this talking in circles and finger 
pointing. It's tiring, reads like some conspiracy theory and seems to be losing 
any traction of game changing that it could.

I appreciate hearing your thoughts, as many of us do, I just think they are 
best preserved on wiki where the majority of participants in the blackout 
hangout (most aren't active on mailing lists) and can participate in this 
analysis with you. 

Sarah



Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 3, 2012, at 12:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 6:00 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:
> 
>> We do everything in our power to prevent
>> the problem, but it would be absolutely cost prohibitive to do it 100%
>> with the difference being that fine grained, and this law gives you
>> the right to shut us down if we can't hit 100%. We think on balance
>> what we do is good even if something bad occasionally slips through,
>> so we can't support that law. And indeed, since this strikes at the
>> core of what we do and could shut us down entirely, we must do
>> everything in our power to fight the law, including energizing those
>> who use our services to speak up against it."
> 
> 
> 
> That wasn't the situation though, was it? Just quoting Tim here:
> 
> ---o0o---
> 
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-July/121092.html
> 
>> * Geoff Brigham opined otherwise, IIRC.*
> Yes, on the basis that "Wikipedia arguably falls under the definition
> of an 'Internet search engine'".
> 
> 
> 
> The definition was:
> 
> "The term ‘Internet search engine’ means a service made available via
> the Internet that searches, crawls, categorizes, or indexes
> information or Web sites available elsewhere on the Internet and on
> the basis of a user query or selection that consists of terms,
> concepts, categories, questions, or other data returns to the user a
> means, such as a hyperlinked list of Uniform Resource Locators, of
> locating, viewing, or downloading such information or data available
> on the Internet relating to such query or selection."
> 
> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3261/text
> 
> It's hard to see how Wikipedia could fall under this definition, but
> even if it did, what would be the consequences?
> 
> "A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically
> feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in
> any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or
> within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent the
> foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of
> such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct
> hypertext link."
> 
> Geoff argued that we would have to manually review millions of links
> in order to comply with such a court order. But the definition of an
> "internet site" that would be specified under such a court order is:
> 
> "[T]he collection of digital assets, including links, indexes, or
> pointers to digital assets, accessible through the Internet that are
> addressed relative to a common domain name or, if there is no domain
> name, a common Internet Protocol address."
> 
> We already index external links by domain name or IP address for easy
> searching, and we have the ability to prevent further such links from
> being submitted, for the purposes of spam control. The compliance cost
> would be no worse than a typical [[WP:RSPAM]] report.
> 
> Maybe SOPA was a "serious threat to freedom of expression on the
> Internet", and worth fighting against, but it wasn't a threat to
> Wikipedia's existence.
> 
> ---o0o---
> 
> So we were talking about Wikipedia – if indeed Wikipedia could legally
> be considered a "search engine", which seems a stretch – being given
> five (5) days to convert any direct hyperlinks they were specifically
> advised of by court order into just alphanumeric, non-clickable links.
> No?
> 
> So all the talk about "If Wikipedia had had just one infringing link
> on it, they could have shut us down entirely" looks like a bunch of
> scaremongering nonsense you bought.
> 
> Now, who *does* operate a search engine, and would have incurred some
> extra costs here?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there an agreement between GoldenMap and the Wikipedia for the use of Wikipedia content?

[Johan Jönsson]

2012/8/3 Rui Correia :
> Dear All
>
> I came across a site called Golden Map, which has an encyclopaedic
> collection of articles that are the same as in the Wikipedia, but I don't
> see anywhere any information expalining what the association/ permission
> is. Is there an agreement in place for this?

It could also be pointed out that neither WMF nor consensus on any
particular Wikipedia version can grant anyone permission to use
content from Wikipedia without proper attribution. We who write agree
to make our texts available under certain terms, but we still retain
copyright. And some text, if it has been made available under CC-BY-SA
somewhere else and later incorporated into Wikipedia, might not even
be written by Wikipedians.

If it's not properly licensed and attributed, you'd have had to ask
every single (major) contributor to agree privately.

//Johan Jönsson
--
http://johanjonsson.net/wikipedia

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

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 6:00 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:

> We do everything in our power to prevent
> the problem, but it would be absolutely cost prohibitive to do it 100%
> with the difference being that fine grained, and this law gives you
> the right to shut us down if we can't hit 100%. We think on balance
> what we do is good even if something bad occasionally slips through,
> so we can't support that law. And indeed, since this strikes at the
> core of what we do and could shut us down entirely, we must do
> everything in our power to fight the law, including energizing those
> who use our services to speak up against it."



That wasn't the situation though, was it? Just quoting Tim here:

---o0o---

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

>* Geoff Brigham opined otherwise, IIRC.*
Yes, on the basis that "Wikipedia arguably falls under the definition
of an 'Internet search engine'".



The definition was:

"The term ‘Internet search engine’ means a service made available via
the Internet that searches, crawls, categorizes, or indexes
information or Web sites available elsewhere on the Internet and on
the basis of a user query or selection that consists of terms,
concepts, categories, questions, or other data returns to the user a
means, such as a hyperlinked list of Uniform Resource Locators, of
locating, viewing, or downloading such information or data available
on the Internet relating to such query or selection."

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3261/text

It's hard to see how Wikipedia could fall under this definition, but
even if it did, what would be the consequences?

"A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically
feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in
any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or
within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent the
foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of
such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct
hypertext link."

Geoff argued that we would have to manually review millions of links
in order to comply with such a court order. But the definition of an
"internet site" that would be specified under such a court order is:

"[T]he collection of digital assets, including links, indexes, or
pointers to digital assets, accessible through the Internet that are
addressed relative to a common domain name or, if there is no domain
name, a common Internet Protocol address."

We already index external links by domain name or IP address for easy
searching, and we have the ability to prevent further such links from
being submitted, for the purposes of spam control. The compliance cost
would be no worse than a typical [[WP:RSPAM]] report.

Maybe SOPA was a "serious threat to freedom of expression on the
Internet", and worth fighting against, but it wasn't a threat to
Wikipedia's existence.

---o0o---

So we were talking about Wikipedia – if indeed Wikipedia could legally
be considered a "search engine", which seems a stretch – being given
five (5) days to convert any direct hyperlinks they were specifically
advised of by court order into just alphanumeric, non-clickable links.
No?

So all the talk about "If Wikipedia had had just one infringing link
on it, they could have shut us down entirely" looks like a bunch of
scaremongering nonsense you bought.

Now, who *does* operate a search engine, and would have incurred some
extra costs here?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there an agreement between GoldenMap and the Wikipedia for the use of Wikipedia content?

[James Alexander]

You might want to add it to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks so that it's kept
track of and I know some users have done some great work at getting mirrors
taken down through the process there. I also passed it along to our legal
team who's looking into it.

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 5:30 AM, Rui Correia  wrote:

> Thanks Mark and Mike
>
> Mike, well done on finding the "About"! I looked for it and could not find
> it.
>
> But surely saying that "Most of the contents are licensed under
> CC-BY-SA"
> is not a licence to copy the entire Wikipedia wholesale, without as much as
> a mention thereof?
>
> Is there a mechanism to deal with this sort of thing? Where can I refer it
> to for action?
>
> Regards,
>
> Rui
>
> On 3 August 2012 14:23, Mike Dupont 
> wrote:
>
> > on the copyright page they say that the content is mostly cc-by-sa
> > http://en.goldenmap.com/stylesheets/terms.php
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Delirium  wrote:
> > > It looks like a direct scrape, even to the extent of having some
> internal
> > > links being broken because they didn't update them (e.g. the link to
> > > Wikimedia Commons at the end of the article). I believe it's just one
> of
> > the
> > > (many) unauthorized mirrors that don't properly credit the source of
> > their
> > > content.
> > >
> > > The English Wikipedia keeps track of such sites here:
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA_Compliance
> > >
> > > -Mark
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 8/3/12 1:44 PM, Rui Correia wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Dear All
> > >>
> > >> I came across a site called Golden Map, which has an encyclopaedic
> > >> collection of articles that are the same as in the Wikipedia, but I
> > don't
> > >> see anywhere any information expalining what the association/
> permission
> > >> is. Is there an agreement in place for this?
> > >>
> > >> Look - for example - at this page on the Wildebeest
> > >> http://en.goldenmap.com/Wildebeest
> > >>
> > >> Best regards,
> > >>
> > >> Rui
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > James Michael DuPont
> > Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
> > Saving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion
> > http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com
> > Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
> > Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
> >
> > ___
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> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> _
> Rui Correia
> Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant
> Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant
>
> Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186
> Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186
> "Quando a verdade é substituída pelo silêncio, o silêncio é uma mentira" -
> Yevgeny Yevtushenko
> "When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie" - Yevgeny
> Yevtushenko
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-- 
James Alexander
Manager, Merchandise
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[David Gerard]

On 3 August 2012 19:12, Michael Snow  wrote:

> I agree that the community retains the authority to reach its own decisions
> about future actions of this type. I think the policy should be understood
> primarily as something the foundation will adhere to in its operations, not
> something that regulates the community's autonomy.


And, arguably: disabling Italian or Russian Wikipedia (which are very
sizable and popular sites) did not require as much WMF coordination as
disabling English Wikipedia, which remains around a third, IIRC, of
our size, load and readership - that took much more serious technical
consideration, and the Foundation is the relevant body.


- d.

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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Wikimedia UK appoints new Chair

[Michael Peel]

Forwarding for info.

Thanks,
Mike

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Richard Symonds 
> Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK appoints new Chair
> Date: 2 August 2012 14:01:17 PDT
> To: Wikimedia UK mailing list 
> Reply-To: UK Wikimedia mailing list 
> 
> All,
> 
> I've been asked by the board to send out the following statement on their 
> behalf. This will be passed on to the full membership shortly, but it was 
> though prudent to get it out to the mailing list tonight.
> 
> The Board of Wikimedia UK today announced the appointment of Chris Keating as 
> its new Chair. This appointment is effective immediately.
> 
> Doug Taylor, another leading Wikimedian with thirty years experience of the 
> non-profit and charity sectors was appointed Vice Chair in support.
> 
> Chris has a background in fundraising and campaigning, and he is a 
> long-standing Wikipedia editor and administrator. Elected to the Board of 
> Wikimedia UK in April 2011, his main priority is making sure Wikimedia UK 
> communicates well with the Wikimedia community and with our other supporters. 
> His skills and experience will be invaluable as he leads us through a busy, 
> productive and important period.
> 
> The Board wishes to thank Ashley Van Haeften for his excellent contributions 
> as Chair of our charity. There is no doubt that he will continue to perform 
> well as a Trustee and volunteer, particularly in his GLAM (Galleries, 
> Libraries, Archives and Museums) work, where he is a leader in the field. He 
> continues as Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association
> 
> This change in leadership will not affect the day to day operations of 
> Wikimedia UK as a functioning charity. The Board looks forward to supporting 
> the Wikimedia community as we continue to work towards our objectives.  
> 
> On behalf of the Board of Wikimedia UK,
> 
> Richard Symonds
> Wikimedia UK
> 0207 065 0992
> Disclaimer viewable at 
> http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer 
> Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
> 
> ___
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> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org


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

[Michael Snow]

On 8/3/2012 10:47 AM, Stephen LaPorte wrote:

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:07 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:

My question, more directly, is: if the SOPA action from January 2012
were held in August 2012 (following the implementation of this new statement
from the General Counsel's office), would it be considered a "community
initiative" or not?

The community's decision to blackout a project would not be within
this guideline, but any additional WMF resources would require legal
and financial review. There are strict laws in the U.S. that limit
when a non-profit organization may engage in political and legislative
activity, and it is the General Counsel and CFA's duty to ensure that
the WMF complies with those laws. The community has procedures for
determining consensus for action, and most of the time the community
can implement that action without any additional resources from the
WMF.
Perhaps worth adding, I think it's fair to say that these reviews did 
take place with respect to the use of Wikimedia Foundation resources in 
the context of the January SOPA protest. They didn't necessarily follow 
the form of the current policy, since it didn't exist yet, but Geoff was 
actively involved and I believe the staff was generally quite conscious 
of the limitations on what they should do in their official capacity. 
There's always room for honest disagreement about whether the protest 
was desirable or necessary, but just in terms of the process, I think 
things were entirely appropriately handled.


I agree that the community retains the authority to reach its own 
decisions about future actions of this type. I think the policy should 
be understood primarily as something the foundation will adhere to in 
its operations, not something that regulates the community's autonomy.


--Michael Snow

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

[Stephen LaPorte]

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:07 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> My question, more directly, is: if the SOPA action from January 2012
> were held in August 2012 (following the implementation of this new statement
> from the General Counsel's office), would it be considered a "community
> initiative" or not?

The community's decision to blackout a project would not be within
this guideline, but any additional WMF resources would require legal
and financial review. There are strict laws in the U.S. that limit
when a non-profit organization may engage in political and legislative
activity, and it is the General Counsel and CFA's duty to ensure that
the WMF complies with those laws. The community has procedures for
determining consensus for action, and most of the time the community
can implement that action without any additional resources from the
WMF.

-- 
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation

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

[Todd Allen]

Long as it's getting top-posted anyway...

First, copying is not and cannot be theft. That's not to say it's
always legally or ethically acceptable, mind you, but it's not theft.
In legal terms, there was a court case over that particular matter,
that ruled someone could not be charged on a "transporting stolen
goods" charge for transporting pirated records. He was still convicted
of criminal copyright infringement, of course, but it was ruled that
pirate records are not "stolen". Philosophically, if you still -have-
what you claim I "stole" from you...that doesn't make much sense, does
it?

That aside, let's go back to your hypothetical food bank. What we're
saying isn't "Oh, we really DGAF if people (stole|infringed) stuff."
Anyone who's worked on Wikipedia knows we absolutely do not tolerate
copyright infringements and nuke them on sight, and on repeat
offenses, we happily nuke the offenders right along with. So it's more
equivalent to your food bank saying "Look, when we realize the goods
are stolen, we immediately return them as soon as possible, and if
someone keeps bringing us stolen goods we don't allow them back. But
sometimes people unwrap the apple pies and donate them to disguise
what they're doing, in other cases, supermarkets happily donate some
apple pies with the wrapping still on, and in yet other cases,
someone's donating some apple pies they bought from the supermarket,
with or without the wrapping. We do everything in our power to prevent
the problem, but it would be absolutely cost prohibitive to do it 100%
with the difference being that fine grained, and this law gives you
the right to shut us down if we can't hit 100%. We think on balance
what we do is good even if something bad occasionally slips through,
so we can't support that law. And indeed, since this strikes at the
core of what we do and could shut us down entirely, we must do
everything in our power to fight the law, including energizing those
who use our services to speak up against it."

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 5:42 AM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
> 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.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 3:00 AM, FT2  wrote:
>
>> There's a fallacy going on here - ie a term with two subtly different
>> meanings.
>>
>> The community - who are the ones ultimately "making the gift" do so
>> altruistically, in the sense of not seeking *compensation*, but that's not
>> the same as not expecting *consideration*. We do expect consideration.
>> Attribution (CC-by-SA/GFDL) is one form of consideration. The offer of this
>> knowledge by editors has quite specific terms that we expect to be met in
>> return by the world at large, which is the meaning of consideration.
>>
>> The offer of that knowledge, and its gifting, also doesn't imply *
>> indifference*. This is more subtle, and arises because we aren't donating
>> our time and effort into a void. We are donating as a result of, and often
>> to benefit, things we believe in, such as hel

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

[Mike Linksvayer]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 5:14 AM,   wrote:
> bhar...@wikimedia.org wrote:
>>   This is inserting a conspiracy theory where one does not exist.
>>
>>   The English Wikipedia community voted on the blackout and directed it 
>> into existence, not the Foundation. We merely facilitated.
>
> The proposal was floated by Jimmy Wales on the 10th of december, 1 day after 
> a Creative Commons Board meeting, on which he sits alongside the 
> mother-in-law of Sergy Brin (Google), and on which sit other representatives 
> of other internet mega-corporations that derive profit from user uploaded 
> contents much of which is pirated, or who make money from advertising on 
> pirate sites.

I don't know what "other representatives" you could be referring to.

> On the 14th of December Creative Commons was also calling for a 
> blackout/action over SOPA.

I wrote the December 14 post and an earlier one on the subject
November 11, see http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/30836 and
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/30375 respectively and started
the conversation inside CC about joining other blackouts in January.
Nobody on the CC board prompted these things. They were notified and
didn't give any pushback to CC staff AFAICT.

> Whether you realize it or not you were manipulated by mega-corporations to 
> stick it to the musicians, photographers, and authors, so that said 
> corporations could better profit from the theft of their works.

It is true that I did not wear a tinfoil hat continuously throughout
the period above.

Mike

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

[Andreas Kolbe]

I am not sure that needed to be that prolix. :) But yes, let's tease out
some things:

1. Wikimedia projects have quite strongly worded policies against copyright
violations. Many volunteer editors make good-faith efforts to uphold them.
Many other editors, knowingly or unknowingly, break them, and the
Wikiproject that deals with infringing contributors has a very large
backlog. In Commons, assertions that materials are "free" are not
infrequently unreliable.

2. I am concerned that the dangers of SOPA to Wikipedia were apparently
overstated for psychological effect.

3. I am concerned that users were told to stop marking single-purpose
accounts and IP editors in the – rather rushed – SOPA poll.

4. I am concerned at the whole timeline that began with a successful and
spontaneous Italian blackout protesting proposed legislation there, then
moved, via a large Wikimedia donation from Sergey Brin and his wife, to
official Wikimedia endorsements of Google's (and other large corporations')
anti-SOPA initiative, and the equally successful English Wikipedia blackout.

Let's remember that this was an unprecedented, very public departure from a
policy of neutrality that had served Wikimedia well for many years. I don't
think that paste will ever go back in the tube.

5. I am convinced that, as you say, many Wikipedians supported the blackout
in good faith, because they thought SOPA would "hurt Wikipedia". That's
what they were told, after all. And if they believed it was necessary for
Wikipedia's survival, why wouldn't they?

6. As for "supporting theft", I am certain that there are a fair number of
Wikipedians who do support what is presently "theft", or, to put it
differently, who support copyright reform and decriminalisation of various
types of copyright infringement that are illegal today. For God's sake,
Jimbo himself has been campaigning for a dude who put "fuck the police" on
his new website when his old one was shut down by law enforcement, and
generously said that same dude reminds him "of many great Internet
entrepreneurs". Wonderful.

7. When I joined this project, political neutrality was one of its main
pillars. Internet regulation is a party-political issue today, at least in
Europe, where the Pirate Party is burgeoning. I don't see blackouts to
protest Internet legislation as any different from blackouts to support or
oppose any other type of legislation along party-political lines. In my
view, Wikimedians who want to campaign should do so in their own names, and
take pains to disassociate Wikimedia (or Wikipedia) from their stance if
their association with Wikimedia is well known.

8. We've had this talk in the past about how Wikipedia is a "temple for the
mind", unsullied by political and commercial interests. It doesn't look
that way any more, if it ever did.

You see, I *liked* some of those ideals (if not necessarily the practice).



On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 1:47 PM, FT2  wrote:

> (warning, tl;dr!)
> **
> *@Andreas - *I understand your sentiment, but in a reasoning way, I find I
> don't agree with that assessment.  For what it's worth, I edit a lot on law
> - one of my GAs is a Supreme Court case, numerous others worked on, it's an
> area I like, and I tend to read full rulings like some read science fiction
> or fanbooks.  It doesn't mean in any way I'm expert but I read draft
> legislation. So I'm not dependent on any WMF writer to assist on that.
>
> NPOV works well in articles with divided views, and suggests a good
> approach is to characterise the issue and the divisions. In that spirit, my
> attempt to fairly bridge the gap and explain where I see things diverging:
>
>
>1. Some bring stolen goods to the party, we can agree. In this case that
>means that some people breach copyright in a severe way online, which
> can
>fairly be characterised as theft if one ignores technicalities such as
> the
>minority of countries that don't make it a crime. In the vast majority
> we
>can agree it's theft in all jurisdictions. So yes, theft takes place. We
>can agree it's significant, though in the context of global trade and
>dubious "facts"there's a big dispute about the impact.
>2. *(Evidence: The UK govt review of copyright theft online, Hargreaves
>or something, I may have edited it, certainly read it, said of the
> various
>studies into online piracy that most were figures based on unproven
>assumptions, or plucked from the air, or something of that kind, and
> that
>not one study could be found that was actually reliable in the sense of
>unbiased fair and methodically rigourous conclusions)*.
>3. Theft in general web-wide was never the reason or issue for the
>protests by Wikimedians, or the WMF's involvement. It was not at any
> time a
>purported reason why *_Wikimedians_ *objected through *_this_
> *site.There
>was never a plausible claim that Wikimedian protest was even slightly
>motivated by a wish to retain the ability 

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

[FT2]

(warning, tl;dr!)
**
*@Andreas - *I understand your sentiment, but in a reasoning way, I find I
don't agree with that assessment.  For what it's worth, I edit a lot on law
- one of my GAs is a Supreme Court case, numerous others worked on, it's an
area I like, and I tend to read full rulings like some read science fiction
or fanbooks.  It doesn't mean in any way I'm expert but I read draft
legislation. So I'm not dependent on any WMF writer to assist on that.

NPOV works well in articles with divided views, and suggests a good
approach is to characterise the issue and the divisions. In that spirit, my
attempt to fairly bridge the gap and explain where I see things diverging:


   1. Some bring stolen goods to the party, we can agree. In this case that
   means that some people breach copyright in a severe way online, which can
   fairly be characterised as theft if one ignores technicalities such as the
   minority of countries that don't make it a crime. In the vast majority we
   can agree it's theft in all jurisdictions. So yes, theft takes place. We
   can agree it's significant, though in the context of global trade and
   dubious "facts"there's a big dispute about the impact.
   2. *(Evidence: The UK govt review of copyright theft online, Hargreaves
   or something, I may have edited it, certainly read it, said of the various
   studies into online piracy that most were figures based on unproven
   assumptions, or plucked from the air, or something of that kind, and that
   not one study could be found that was actually reliable in the sense of
   unbiased fair and methodically rigourous conclusions)*.
   3. Theft in general web-wide was never the reason or issue for the
   protests by Wikimedians, or the WMF's involvement. It was not at any time a
   purported reason why *_Wikimedians_ *objected through *_this_ *site.There
   was never a plausible claim that Wikimedian protest was even slightly
   motivated by a wish to retain the ability of other sites to continue crime.
   4. As regards Wikimedia itself and its community, as far as I can tell,
   both have very strong views that theft (ie copyvio) should not be allowed
   on this site. I see no evidence that parts of the
   regular/established/core/active community have an agenda to improve our
   project's use, or ability to use, copyvio material,  see no evidence anyone
   here tries to turn a blind eye to it. We already have community policies
   that set standards far higher than the law requires.
   5. Is it therefore fair to characterize the objections to SOPA/PIPA as
   "we want to do illegal things, someone wants to stop us, and we don't want
   that"? I can't see how that's sustainable.
   6. I have the impression your complaint is that Wikimedians may have
   protested on grounds that were (a) not well founded in that in your view,
   the suggested risks were inaccurate, and (b) in protesting they chose to
   overlook harm elsewhere which these laws could have improved.
   7. I think it's fair to characterize the objections of individual users
   en masse and how they felt as, "We don't want to do illegal things, but
   illegal things may be done or claimed wrongly to be done, or actions
   threatened on the assertion of illegality. If this law passes, that could
   cause some things to be shut down for bad faith reasons or mistake without
   recompense, or legal concerns to have a chilling effect, and we don't want
   that"?
   8. They could be correct or incorrect to have that concern. I'm looking
   here at what individual Wikimedians like me, supporting the protest, may
   have believed and felt. In other words, were Wikimedian community
   protesters acting from a good faith belief there was a real concern, or in
   bad faith to  gain by pretence a means to allow crime to occur? I think the
   former.
   9. As supporting evidence I also note that the objections were not to
   the basic princviple of cutting off piracy. They were to matters that would
   allow harm without good cause. It targeted DNS issues where the markup
   committee had admitted they didn't know what technical issues would arise.
   It targeted shut down without fair hearing, and immunity for bad faith or
   mistake, no matter the harm done. Those could have been fixed. In the
   alternative OPEN bill, they generally were. One can judge the protests'
   intent by the points protested about. Whether or not that concern was
   well-founded, it was a good faith concern by individual members of the
   community expressing concerns.

>From your complaints and descriptions, it's *not* that the projects offer
things "without consideration" as you suggested first. We do expect and
require consideration, such as attribution and license compliance in return
(see above). It's *not* that we give on the basis of "No strings" and later
make demands - see above, giving does not imply indifference and doesn't
exclude the right to say "we see a problem here, please don't let that

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there an agreement between GoldenMap and the Wikipedia for the use of Wikipedia content?

[Rui Correia]

Thanks Mark and Mike

Mike, well done on finding the "About"! I looked for it and could not find
it.

But surely saying that "Most of the contents are licensed under
CC-BY-SA"
is not a licence to copy the entire Wikipedia wholesale, without as much as
a mention thereof?

Is there a mechanism to deal with this sort of thing? Where can I refer it
to for action?

Regards,

Rui

On 3 August 2012 14:23, Mike Dupont  wrote:

> on the copyright page they say that the content is mostly cc-by-sa
> http://en.goldenmap.com/stylesheets/terms.php
>
> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Delirium  wrote:
> > It looks like a direct scrape, even to the extent of having some internal
> > links being broken because they didn't update them (e.g. the link to
> > Wikimedia Commons at the end of the article). I believe it's just one of
> the
> > (many) unauthorized mirrors that don't properly credit the source of
> their
> > content.
> >
> > The English Wikipedia keeps track of such sites here:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA_Compliance
> >
> > -Mark
> >
> >
> >
> > On 8/3/12 1:44 PM, Rui Correia wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear All
> >>
> >> I came across a site called Golden Map, which has an encyclopaedic
> >> collection of articles that are the same as in the Wikipedia, but I
> don't
> >> see anywhere any information expalining what the association/ permission
> >> is. Is there an agreement in place for this?
> >>
> >> Look - for example - at this page on the Wildebeest
> >> http://en.goldenmap.com/Wildebeest
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >>
> >> Rui
> >>
> >
> >
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
>
>
> --
> James Michael DuPont
> Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
> Saving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion
> http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com
> Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
> Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
>
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Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant

Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there an agreement between GoldenMap and the Wikipedia for the use of Wikipedia content?

[Mike Dupont]

on the copyright page they say that the content is mostly cc-by-sa
http://en.goldenmap.com/stylesheets/terms.php

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Delirium  wrote:
> It looks like a direct scrape, even to the extent of having some internal
> links being broken because they didn't update them (e.g. the link to
> Wikimedia Commons at the end of the article). I believe it's just one of the
> (many) unauthorized mirrors that don't properly credit the source of their
> content.
>
> The English Wikipedia keeps track of such sites here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA_Compliance
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> On 8/3/12 1:44 PM, Rui Correia wrote:
>>
>> Dear All
>>
>> I came across a site called Golden Map, which has an encyclopaedic
>> collection of articles that are the same as in the Wikipedia, but I don't
>> see anywhere any information expalining what the association/ permission
>> is. Is there an agreement in place for this?
>>
>> Look - for example - at this page on the Wildebeest
>> http://en.goldenmap.com/Wildebeest
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Rui
>>
>
>
> ___
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l



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Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
Saving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com
Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3

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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 :
> 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] Is there an agreement between GoldenMap and the Wikipedia for the use of Wikipedia content?

[Delirium]

It looks like a direct scrape, even to the extent of having some 
internal links being broken because they didn't update them (e.g. the 
link to Wikimedia Commons at the end of the article). I believe it's 
just one of the (many) unauthorized mirrors that don't properly credit 
the source of their content.


The English Wikipedia keeps track of such sites here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA_Compliance

-Mark


On 8/3/12 1:44 PM, Rui Correia wrote:

Dear All

I came across a site called Golden Map, which has an encyclopaedic
collection of articles that are the same as in the Wikipedia, but I don't
see anywhere any information expalining what the association/ permission
is. Is there an agreement in place for this?

Look - for example - at this page on the Wildebeest
http://en.goldenmap.com/Wildebeest

Best regards,

Rui




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

[wiki-list]

bhar...@wikimedia.org wrote:
> 
>   This is inserting a conspiracy theory where one does not exist.  
> 
>   The English Wikipedia community voted on the blackout and directed it 
> into existence, not the Foundation. We merely facilitated.
> 
 

The proposal was floated by Jimmy Wales on the 10th of december, 1 day after a 
Creative Commons Board meeting, on which he sits alongside the mother-in-law of 
Sergy Brin (Google), and on which sit other representatives of other internet 
mega-corporations that derive profit from user uploaded contents much of which 
is pirated, or who make money from advertising on pirate sites. On the 14th of 
December Creative Commons was also calling for a blackout/action over SOPA. 
Whether you realize it or not you were manipulated by mega-corporations to 
stick it to the musicians, photographers, and authors, so that said 
corporations could better profit from the theft of their works.




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[Wikimedia-l] Is there an agreement between GoldenMap and the Wikipedia for the use of Wikipedia content?

[Rui Correia]

Dear All

I came across a site called Golden Map, which has an encyclopaedic
collection of articles that are the same as in the Wikipedia, but I don't
see anywhere any information expalining what the association/ permission
is. Is there an agreement in place for this?

Look - for example - at this page on the Wildebeest
http://en.goldenmap.com/Wildebeest

Best regards,

Rui

-- 
_
Rui Correia
Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant
Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant

Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186
Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186
"Quando a verdade é substituída pelo silêncio, o silêncio é uma mentira" -
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
"When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie" - Yevgeny
Yevtushenko
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[Andreas Kolbe]

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.



On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 3:00 AM, FT2  wrote:

> There's a fallacy going on here - ie a term with two subtly different
> meanings.
>
> The community - who are the ones ultimately "making the gift" do so
> altruistically, in the sense of not seeking *compensation*, but that's not
> the same as not expecting *consideration*. We do expect consideration.
> Attribution (CC-by-SA/GFDL) is one form of consideration. The offer of this
> knowledge by editors has quite specific terms that we expect to be met in
> return by the world at large, which is the meaning of consideration.
>
> The offer of that knowledge, and its gifting, also doesn't imply *
> indifference*. This is more subtle, and arises because we aren't donating
> our time and effort into a void. We are donating as a result of, and often
> to benefit, things we believe in, such as helping others or free
> knowledge.  There is an implied expectation (by some, perhaps not by
> others) that it will be treated with respect and used to further humanity.
>
> This kind of expectation isn't contractual, but it's there anyway. It's the
> same kind of expectation that says you would probably be upset , if you
> spend a week trying to find something as a special gift for me, and I
> respond by flushing it down the toilet and saying "well you gave it to me
> so why are you upset what I do with my property?" It might be legally true,
> perhaps technically true, but it's certainly not socially and perhaps not
> morally true.
>
> We donate time, effort and sometimes money, and we are not indifferent to
> whether those are supporting things we believe in. We donate for free
> knowledge and humanity, and do so because we care about free knowledge and
> humanity. Sometimes we say *"Look, we care about these things enough that
> we put this effort in, you care enough to support and appreciate us putting
> this effort in, so please listen when we say that something is harming the
> ecosystem within which that effort is placed"*. That is completely ethical
> and appropriate; no less than a wildlife volunteer who cares for dolphins
> pointing out things that harm dolphins or any other ecosystem that one
> might care for and try to support by nurturing it over time. Very few
> people throw sustained effort or money into a vacuum without any care
> whether it grows or dies.
>
>
> FT2
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 2:28 AM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
> > For the record, I did not endorse the SOPA blackout, and I deeply resent
> my
> > work in Wikipedia being leveraged to that political end.
> >
> > And I deeply resent Jimbo's statements to the BBC today*, about how "We
> > gave you Wikipedia and we didn't have to, and so you might want to listen
> > to what we have to tell you".
> >
> > A gift is either made altruistically, without strings attached, or it
> > isn't. To claim selfless, altruistic purpose and then demand
> consideration
> > in return for what has been given is disgusting.
> >
> >
> > * http://www.bbc.c

[Wikimedia-l] Monthly Report Wikimedia Deutschland July 2012

[Katja Ullrich]

Hi everybody,

Wikimedia Deutschland's monthly report for July 2012 in online now! In
order to find our about

   - our experiences at Wikimania
2012
   - news about the German Wikipedians in
Residence
   - the photo shooting at the Bavarian state
parliament
   - the winners of the Zedler
Prizeand
more

visit
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Deutschland/July_2012
.

Best wishes,
Katja
-- 

Öffentlichkeitsarbeit

-
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Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
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Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
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http://spenden.wikimedia.de/

 Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes digitales
Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird.
Unterzeichnen Sie die Online-Petition! http://wikipedia.de 

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
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