[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] #switch limits
Template authors on any and every wiki, this one's for you. ;)
-- Forwarded message --
From: Tim Starling
Date: Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 9:07 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] #switch limits
To: wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org
Over the last week, we have noticed very heavy apache memory usage on
the main Wikimedia cluster. In some cases, high memory usage resulted
in heavy swapping and site-wide performance issues.
After some analysis, we've identified the main cause of this high
memory usage to be geographical data ("données") templates on the
French Wikipedia, and to a lesser extent, the same data templates
copied to other wikis for use on articles about places in Europe.
Here is an example of a problematic template:
<
https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mod%C3%A8le:Donn%C3%A9es_PyrF1-2009&action=edit
>
That template alone uses 47MB for 37000 #switch cases, and one article
used about 15 similarly sized templates.
The simplest solution to this problem is for the few Wikipedians
involved to stop doing what they are doing, and to remove the template
invocations which have already been introduced. Antoine Musso has
raised the issue on the French Wikipedia's "Bistro" and some of the
worst cases have already been fixed.
To protect site stability, I've introduced a new preprocessor
complexity limit called the "preprocessor generated node count", which
is incremented by about 6 for each #switch case. When the limit is
exceeded, an exception is thrown, preventing the page from being saved
or viewed.
The limit is currently 4 million (~667,000 #switch cases), and it will
soon be reduced to 1.5 million (~250,000 #switch cases). That's a
compromise which allows most of the existing geographical pages to
keep working, but still allows a memory usage of about 230MB.
At some point, we would like to patch PHP upstream to cause memory for
DOM XML trees to be allocated from the PHP request pool, instead of
with malloc(). But to deploy that, we would need to reduce the limit
to the point where the template DOM cache can easily fit in the PHP
memory limit of 128MB.
In the short term, we will be working with the template editors to
ensure that all articles can be viewed with a limit of 1.5 million.
That's not a very viable solution in the long term, so I'd also like
to introduce save-time warnings and tracking categories for pages
which use more than, say, 50% of the limit, to encourage authors to
fix articles without being directly prompted by WMF staff members.
At some point in the future, you may be able to put this kind of
geographical data in Wikidata. Please, template authors, wait
patiently, don't implement your own version of Wikidata using wikitext
templates.
-- Tim Starling
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: WLM Android app v1.2.4 Daigo-ji
FYI -- Forwarded message -- From: Philip Chang Date: Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 8:53 PM Subject: WLM Android app v1.2.4 Daigo-ji To: Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition < wikilovesmonume...@lists.wikimedia.org> Dear WLM Members, The WLM Android app has been updated to v1.2.4, named Daigo-ji. Release notes: * Dynamically loads localization updates * Clears large image previews before taking another photo - may help with "out of memory" errors * Stops "Mobile to desktop upload" category from being added to uploads from the app - this category should be limited to desktop uploads from a mobile upload Please note: there are issues with the Cordova interface to the camera that are outside of our control (Cordova is the app framework used to build our mobile apps). There are a significant number of users experiencing crashes and we are limited in our ability to debug these problems, for several reasons: * We are not able to reproduce these problems on the same devices that seems to be experiencing the problems * Google Play captures a part of the error which does not include the Cordova aspects * Google Play does not allow us to contact reviewers or people reporting crashes Therefore, if you hear of any users having such problems, please have them contact us by email at: mobile-feedbac...@lists.wikimedia.org. Thanks for your support. Phil -- Phil Inje Chang Product Manager, Mobile Wikimedia Foundation 415-812-0854 m 415-882-7982 x 6810 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] OT / Fwd: [STS-L] FINAL TERMINATION OF THE NBII on September 30, 2012
At this late date, collaborating with/supporting the Archive (who's already picked up a lot of it) or similar would probably be the most efficient solution. If it wasn't clear below, a lot of this particular project involved pointing out towards other sources hosted elsewhere, (which may or may not still be online) as well as hosting some data locally; not sure how we'd help preserve that curation value. -- phoebe On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: > That is certainly appropriate. We should consider how we could help. Could > someone with government contacts find out what that would entail and what > their primary maintenance expenses were? > On Sep 20, 2012 4:24 PM, "George Herbert" wrote: > >> Query - would making this on-topic for the Foundation be appropriate? >> >> I.e., is the Foundation perhaps hosting and curating these apps and >> data a reasonable project for us to take on? Even if it took some >> time to return some of the apps to usable, bringing over the data sets >> and software to an archival location and offering to host turning it >> back on again if the prior researchers or another subject matter >> expert stepped up to help with that seems possible. >> >> >> -george william herbert >> george.herb...@gmail.com >> >> On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 1:01 PM, phoebe ayers >> wrote: >> > (off-topic for Wikimedia, on-topic for access to knowledge in general) >> > >> > The below news is sad, but not unusual, and increasingly common as >> > government budgets shrink. The NBII was a multi-year effort to >> > collect, curate and make accessible sources of biological data, >> > especially about the US. The site is archived here, among other >> > places; I don't know what happened to the data files that were hosted. >> > >> http://wayback.archive-it.org/2361/20120105233212/http://www.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt/community/nbii_home/236 >> > >> > Mostly, I think this is a reminder that what we do vis a vis >> > advocating for free licenses, reusable data, distributed curation etc. >> > is *important*. It's a safeguard against failure that's hard to >> > imagine in the short-term but almost inevitable in the long-term >> > (though in the world of knowledge projects, Wikimedia may -- >> > ironically and surprisingly enough! -- end up being one of the most >> > resilient long-term platforms). >> > >> > -- phoebe >> > >> > >> > >> > - Forwarded Message - >> > From: "Frederick Stoss" >> > >> > >> > Please pass this on to other library associations and their >> > appropriate science and environmental units, especially SLA. >> > >> > >> > >> > You may recall the modest clamor late last year with the shuttering of >> > the Website of the National Biological Information Infrastructure >> > (NBII) within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which was terminated >> > on October 1, 2011, as a result of a Federal budget cut and >> > re-organization within the USGS. The final elimination of the NBII >> > Website takes place at the end of this month. Here is the official >> > wording about the termination of this once important and richly >> > populated data resource on the flora and fauna of the United States, >> > and detailed inventories of resources, services, publications and >> > tools related to biodiversity, ecology and related aspects of the US >> > biomes: >> > >> > >> > >> > “In the President's budget for Fiscal Year 2012, the National >> > Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), a program under the U.S. >> > Geological Survey’s Biological Information Management and Delivery >> > Program, was terminated. As a result, the funding that facilitated the >> > NBII Node partnerships, as well as the development and maintenance of >> > databases, applications and systems, is no longer available. On >> > January 15, 2012, all NBII websites/applications with an *.nbii.gov >> > URL were removed from the internet. >> > >> > “This website currently provides the latest information on >> > communications with partners, the disposition status of NBII Web >> > sites, data and applications, and general FAQs related to the NBII >> > Program’s termination. The NBII Program close-out will be complete on >> > September 30, 2012, and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on >> > that date. The termination information provided here will be made >> > available on the USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” >> > >> > Note those last two sentences: >> > >> > >> > >> > “ The NBII Program close-out will be complete on September 30, 2012, >> > and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on that date. The >> > termination information provided here will be made available on the >> > USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” >> > >> > ___ >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list >> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l >> >> >> >> -- >> -george william herbert >> george.herb...@gmail.com >> >>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] OT / Fwd: [STS-L] FINAL TERMINATION OF THE NBII on September 30, 2012
That is certainly appropriate. We should consider how we could help. Could someone with government contacts find out what that would entail and what their primary maintenance expenses were? On Sep 20, 2012 4:24 PM, "George Herbert" wrote: > Query - would making this on-topic for the Foundation be appropriate? > > I.e., is the Foundation perhaps hosting and curating these apps and > data a reasonable project for us to take on? Even if it took some > time to return some of the apps to usable, bringing over the data sets > and software to an archival location and offering to host turning it > back on again if the prior researchers or another subject matter > expert stepped up to help with that seems possible. > > > -george william herbert > george.herb...@gmail.com > > On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 1:01 PM, phoebe ayers > wrote: > > (off-topic for Wikimedia, on-topic for access to knowledge in general) > > > > The below news is sad, but not unusual, and increasingly common as > > government budgets shrink. The NBII was a multi-year effort to > > collect, curate and make accessible sources of biological data, > > especially about the US. The site is archived here, among other > > places; I don't know what happened to the data files that were hosted. > > > http://wayback.archive-it.org/2361/20120105233212/http://www.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt/community/nbii_home/236 > > > > Mostly, I think this is a reminder that what we do vis a vis > > advocating for free licenses, reusable data, distributed curation etc. > > is *important*. It's a safeguard against failure that's hard to > > imagine in the short-term but almost inevitable in the long-term > > (though in the world of knowledge projects, Wikimedia may -- > > ironically and surprisingly enough! -- end up being one of the most > > resilient long-term platforms). > > > > -- phoebe > > > > > > > > - Forwarded Message - > > From: "Frederick Stoss" > > > > > > Please pass this on to other library associations and their > > appropriate science and environmental units, especially SLA. > > > > > > > > You may recall the modest clamor late last year with the shuttering of > > the Website of the National Biological Information Infrastructure > > (NBII) within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which was terminated > > on October 1, 2011, as a result of a Federal budget cut and > > re-organization within the USGS. The final elimination of the NBII > > Website takes place at the end of this month. Here is the official > > wording about the termination of this once important and richly > > populated data resource on the flora and fauna of the United States, > > and detailed inventories of resources, services, publications and > > tools related to biodiversity, ecology and related aspects of the US > > biomes: > > > > > > > > “In the President's budget for Fiscal Year 2012, the National > > Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), a program under the U.S. > > Geological Survey’s Biological Information Management and Delivery > > Program, was terminated. As a result, the funding that facilitated the > > NBII Node partnerships, as well as the development and maintenance of > > databases, applications and systems, is no longer available. On > > January 15, 2012, all NBII websites/applications with an *.nbii.gov > > URL were removed from the internet. > > > > “This website currently provides the latest information on > > communications with partners, the disposition status of NBII Web > > sites, data and applications, and general FAQs related to the NBII > > Program’s termination. The NBII Program close-out will be complete on > > September 30, 2012, and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on > > that date. The termination information provided here will be made > > available on the USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” > > > > Note those last two sentences: > > > > > > > > “ The NBII Program close-out will be complete on September 30, 2012, > > and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on that date. The > > termination information provided here will be made available on the > > USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” > > > > ___ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > > > -- > -george william herbert > george.herb...@gmail.com > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] OT / Fwd: [STS-L] FINAL TERMINATION OF THE NBII on September 30, 2012
Query - would making this on-topic for the Foundation be appropriate? I.e., is the Foundation perhaps hosting and curating these apps and data a reasonable project for us to take on? Even if it took some time to return some of the apps to usable, bringing over the data sets and software to an archival location and offering to host turning it back on again if the prior researchers or another subject matter expert stepped up to help with that seems possible. -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 1:01 PM, phoebe ayers wrote: > (off-topic for Wikimedia, on-topic for access to knowledge in general) > > The below news is sad, but not unusual, and increasingly common as > government budgets shrink. The NBII was a multi-year effort to > collect, curate and make accessible sources of biological data, > especially about the US. The site is archived here, among other > places; I don't know what happened to the data files that were hosted. > http://wayback.archive-it.org/2361/20120105233212/http://www.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt/community/nbii_home/236 > > Mostly, I think this is a reminder that what we do vis a vis > advocating for free licenses, reusable data, distributed curation etc. > is *important*. It's a safeguard against failure that's hard to > imagine in the short-term but almost inevitable in the long-term > (though in the world of knowledge projects, Wikimedia may -- > ironically and surprisingly enough! -- end up being one of the most > resilient long-term platforms). > > -- phoebe > > > > - Forwarded Message - > From: "Frederick Stoss" > > > Please pass this on to other library associations and their > appropriate science and environmental units, especially SLA. > > > > You may recall the modest clamor late last year with the shuttering of > the Website of the National Biological Information Infrastructure > (NBII) within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which was terminated > on October 1, 2011, as a result of a Federal budget cut and > re-organization within the USGS. The final elimination of the NBII > Website takes place at the end of this month. Here is the official > wording about the termination of this once important and richly > populated data resource on the flora and fauna of the United States, > and detailed inventories of resources, services, publications and > tools related to biodiversity, ecology and related aspects of the US > biomes: > > > > “In the President's budget for Fiscal Year 2012, the National > Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), a program under the U.S. > Geological Survey’s Biological Information Management and Delivery > Program, was terminated. As a result, the funding that facilitated the > NBII Node partnerships, as well as the development and maintenance of > databases, applications and systems, is no longer available. On > January 15, 2012, all NBII websites/applications with an *.nbii.gov > URL were removed from the internet. > > “This website currently provides the latest information on > communications with partners, the disposition status of NBII Web > sites, data and applications, and general FAQs related to the NBII > Program’s termination. The NBII Program close-out will be complete on > September 30, 2012, and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on > that date. The termination information provided here will be made > available on the USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” > > Note those last two sentences: > > > > “ The NBII Program close-out will be complete on September 30, 2012, > and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on that date. The > termination information provided here will be made available on the > USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] OT / Fwd: [STS-L] FINAL TERMINATION OF THE NBII on September 30, 2012
(off-topic for Wikimedia, on-topic for access to knowledge in general) The below news is sad, but not unusual, and increasingly common as government budgets shrink. The NBII was a multi-year effort to collect, curate and make accessible sources of biological data, especially about the US. The site is archived here, among other places; I don't know what happened to the data files that were hosted. http://wayback.archive-it.org/2361/20120105233212/http://www.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt/community/nbii_home/236 Mostly, I think this is a reminder that what we do vis a vis advocating for free licenses, reusable data, distributed curation etc. is *important*. It's a safeguard against failure that's hard to imagine in the short-term but almost inevitable in the long-term (though in the world of knowledge projects, Wikimedia may -- ironically and surprisingly enough! -- end up being one of the most resilient long-term platforms). -- phoebe - Forwarded Message - From: "Frederick Stoss" Please pass this on to other library associations and their appropriate science and environmental units, especially SLA. You may recall the modest clamor late last year with the shuttering of the Website of the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which was terminated on October 1, 2011, as a result of a Federal budget cut and re-organization within the USGS. The final elimination of the NBII Website takes place at the end of this month. Here is the official wording about the termination of this once important and richly populated data resource on the flora and fauna of the United States, and detailed inventories of resources, services, publications and tools related to biodiversity, ecology and related aspects of the US biomes: “In the President's budget for Fiscal Year 2012, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), a program under the U.S. Geological Survey’s Biological Information Management and Delivery Program, was terminated. As a result, the funding that facilitated the NBII Node partnerships, as well as the development and maintenance of databases, applications and systems, is no longer available. On January 15, 2012, all NBII websites/applications with an *.nbii.gov URL were removed from the internet. “This website currently provides the latest information on communications with partners, the disposition status of NBII Web sites, data and applications, and general FAQs related to the NBII Program’s termination. The NBII Program close-out will be complete on September 30, 2012, and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on that date. The termination information provided here will be made available on the USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” Note those last two sentences: “ The NBII Program close-out will be complete on September 30, 2012, and the www.nbii.gov URL will be turned off on that date. The termination information provided here will be made available on the USGS FAQ site after September 30, 2012.” ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Slate article on Gibraltar
Link to the article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/09/20/roger_bamkin_gibraltor_s_repeated_appearance_on_did_you_know_provkes_existential_crisis_for_wikipedia_.html On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Richard Symonds < richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote: > User:Panyd, who spotted the start of this whole incident on DYK, gave an > interview with Slate magazine, which she's been very misquoted in and is a > little upset about. She just emailed the UK list explaining her thoughts on > all this, so I'm sharing them here: > * > * > *"I gave Slate an interview in the hopes of being the first non-crazy > person to talk about what Roger is actually doing - which, yes, I still > have problems with - but which isn't being Scrooge McDuck using WMUK to > grab all the money in the land whilst writing all the articles about > Gibraltar himself under the watchful gaze of the Tsar of Tourism. That is > the only reason I gave those people the time of day. They have now quoted > me as saying that Roger was writing and promoting the articles himself. > They completely contradict themselves at the end of the paragraph, which is > a hell of a lot closer to what I actually said, but...whatever, they can't > write.* > * > * > *For the record, no. No I did not say that. Yes, I have issues. You know > what? I asked the community about them and they shrugged their shoulders > and said: "Eh, you're wrong." That's that then. If there are further > discussions about what I feel are relevant issues, then I'll join them in a > manner that AGF, because that is the Wikipedian way. People can be wrong, > right or somewhere in between but thorough, open and civil discussion > from both sides is required to help address the situation. (No > Wikipediocracy, I don't just mean you, people are talking about this > on-wiki too from multiple sides) Hopefully with a view to looking forward > and adapting to these situations, whether it's to welcome or deny them.* > * > * > *I don't think this has anything to do with Wikimedia UK whatsoever, and > I'm sorry you're even having the discussion here. It should've stayed on > Wikipedia, where it belongs, and where there are appropriate channels for > people to discuss issues of paid editing, COI, impact on the project etc. > I'm also sorry to Roger, because differences of opinion regarding on-wiki > behaviour should not result in such incivility, or knee-jerk reactions. He > added much to WMUK, gave so much of his time and love to help the chapter > go forward, and to lose him is a great shame. For my part in that, I can > only apologise to Roger and the community.* > * > * > *Fiona "* > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Slate article on Gibraltar
User:Panyd, who spotted the start of this whole incident on DYK, gave an interview with Slate magazine, which she's been very misquoted in and is a little upset about. She just emailed the UK list explaining her thoughts on all this, so I'm sharing them here: * * *"I gave Slate an interview in the hopes of being the first non-crazy person to talk about what Roger is actually doing - which, yes, I still have problems with - but which isn't being Scrooge McDuck using WMUK to grab all the money in the land whilst writing all the articles about Gibraltar himself under the watchful gaze of the Tsar of Tourism. That is the only reason I gave those people the time of day. They have now quoted me as saying that Roger was writing and promoting the articles himself. They completely contradict themselves at the end of the paragraph, which is a hell of a lot closer to what I actually said, but...whatever, they can't write.* * * *For the record, no. No I did not say that. Yes, I have issues. You know what? I asked the community about them and they shrugged their shoulders and said: "Eh, you're wrong." That's that then. If there are further discussions about what I feel are relevant issues, then I'll join them in a manner that AGF, because that is the Wikipedian way. People can be wrong, right or somewhere in between but thorough, open and civil discussion from both sides is required to help address the situation. (No Wikipediocracy, I don't just mean you, people are talking about this on-wiki too from multiple sides) Hopefully with a view to looking forward and adapting to these situations, whether it's to welcome or deny them.* * * *I don't think this has anything to do with Wikimedia UK whatsoever, and I'm sorry you're even having the discussion here. It should've stayed on Wikipedia, where it belongs, and where there are appropriate channels for people to discuss issues of paid editing, COI, impact on the project etc. I'm also sorry to Roger, because differences of opinion regarding on-wiki behaviour should not result in such incivility, or knee-jerk reactions. He added much to WMUK, gave so much of his time and love to help the chapter go forward, and to lose him is a great shame. For my part in that, I can only apologise to Roger and the community.* * * *Fiona "* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] CNET News: "Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia"
In the end it sounds like Roger decided not to bother trying to rebut the accusations of Tom Dalton and Andreas Kolbe; he's resigned from the WM-UK board. Pretty sad outcome, because he is (or was) an obviously dedicated and inspired Wikimedian. It seemed like the concerns could have been cleared up with a fuller disclosure, but given the tenor of the discussion I don't blame him for choosing to wash his hands of it. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: Travel Project - Next Steps
FYI -- Forwarded message -- From: Erik Moeller Date: Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: Travel Project - Next Steps To: Wikimedia Mailing List , Wikimedia developers Hello all, As recently announced [1], WMF will move forward in creating a Wikimedia travel project based on community request and support. We’re currently in discussions with the Wikivoyage community, who’ve expressed interest in joining Wikimedia’s project family as part of this launch. We’re coordinating certain practical issues, such as content migration, account reconciliation, and attribution, with them directly. Please note that the new project will be subject to Wikimedia’s terms of use, privacy policy, and licensing policy. Like with any of our projects, the bulk of content-related policies and practices will be designed and managed by the community. Launch discussions are continuing here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Travel_Guide An additional open question is the project name. Wikivoyage has offered to contribute its name. So, we could stick with Wikivoyage, which is already established, and has a non-profit organization supporting it. We have also obtained a number of alternative domain names, as have individual community members. We’ll initially straw poll the "Wikivoyage yes/no" question as this seems like the simplest path forward if there’s wide agreement in favor; more on that in a separate note by Philippe. For the Wikivoyage content import and project launch, our current plan is to do an in-person sprint in San Francisco in late October to support the project launch (we may defer this based on everyone’s availability). There’s also plenty of work ahead of time. If you’d like to be part of the technical launch team, please sign up here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Travel_Guide/Technical_coordination We’ll also continue to monitor comments on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Travel_Guide and will engage there as the process continues. For the time being, I am coordinating the overall project launch, supported by Philippe. Questions/comments welcome. I look forward to getting this project off the ground. :-) As we’ve said before, we don’t view ourselves in competition with other providers of free knowledge, nor do we encourage anybody to leave any other site. The beautiful thing about free culture is that anyone who wishes to contribute to the corpus of freely available information about travel (or indeed any subject) can do so anywhere, and both information and people can flow freely between projects. All best, Erik [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-September/121897.html -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [FC-discuss] The Future of Creative Commons: Examining defenses of the NC and ND clauses
Read this on a web page: http://freeculture.org/blog/2012/09/19/the-future-of-creative-commons-examining-defenses-of-the-nc-and-nd-clauses/ -- Forwarded message -- From: "Students for Free Culture" Date: Sep 19, 2012 10:17 PM Subject: [FC-discuss] The Future of Creative Commons: Examining defenses of the NC and ND clauses To: _QuestionCopyright.org has just published this guest editorial by Kira, who serves on Students for Free Culture's Board of Directors. This is a follow-up to "[Stop the inclusion of proprietary licenses in Creative Commons 4.0][1]" but instead of focusing on the problems with NC and ND, the editorial draws upon defenses of NC and ND to highlight how they go against the stated mission of Creative Commons. [You can also read the original post][2]._ ![Creative Commons licenses arranged all in a row.][3] A few weeks ago, Students for Free Culture published a detailed and thoroughly cited post [calling for the retirement of proprietary license options in Creative Commons 4.0][1]. Already the story has been picked up by [Techdirt][4] and [Slashdot][5] and it has spurred lots of heated debate around the value of the NonCommercial (NC) and NoDerivatives (ND) licenses to Creative Commons and to rightsholders, but not a lot of discussion has been framed around the official mission and vision of Creative Commons. Creative Commons has [responded][6] to the post stating that adopters of NC and ND licenses "may eventually migrate to more open licenses once exposed to the benefits that accompany sharing," maintaining that these licenses have been a strategic measure to approach that goal. The name Creative Commons itself highlights the aim of enabling a network of ideas and expressions that are commonly shared and owned or, as we usually call it, the commons. To be very explicit, one need not look any further than Creative Commons' [mission statement][7] (added emphasis) to see that this is what they work for: > Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that **maximizes** digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. > > > > Our vision is nothing less than realizing the full potential of the Internet — universal access to research and education, **full participation** in culture — to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity. The NC and ND clauses are non-free/proprietary because they retain a commercial and/or creative monopoly on the work. Legally protected monopolies by any other name are still incompatible with the commons and undermine commonality. There is no question as to the purpose of Creative Commons or the definition of free cultural works. What Students for Free Culture has offered is not primarily a critique of proprietary licenses, but a critique of Creative Commons' tactics in providing them. The idea that the non-free licenses "may eventually migrate to more open licenses once exposed to the benefits that accompany sharing" is a reasonable one, but one that deserves careful reflection after a decade of taking that approach. This line of reasoning is intuitive in a permission culture: that license options which _sound_ good to rightsholders will lure them into giving up some restrictions licenses and becoming more comfortable with the idea of fully liberating their works. Encouraging the use of free culture licenses then becomes a problem of education and communication of values, and the question then becomes whether or not the proprietary licenses make that task easier or more difficult. Some argue that rightsholders are not ready for free culture and that they need to be eased into it. Anecdotal arguments supporting this idea say that people switch to free licenses from the non-free ones once they learn about how problematic NC and NC are, but there is no evidence to support this claim. We have no idea how strong Creative Commons' campaign for free licenses would be if they only provided free culture licenses from the start, and Students for Free Culture suggest that in the current climate of copyright and intellectual property maximalism, what we need is to stretch what is accepted as reasonable position to take, not sit comfortably within it. It may be counter-intuitive that only offering free culture licenses would bring more rightsholders to liberate their works over time, but if we consider that this would allow Creative Commons to have a cohesive message behind the licenses they do offer, we can imagine their educational materials could be much more powerful. More importantly, they would be expanding the perceived realm of possibility. Students for Free Culture argue that the proprietary licenses are mainly used because they are misunderstood and function to reinforce those misconceptions rather than move rightsholders towards free culture. It is analogous to telling people to vote for the lesser of two evils to ease them out of supporting a two-party political system. It may seem practica
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid editing language wide
2012/9/20 Samuel Klein : > On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 3:20 PM, Risker wrote: > >> On 19 September 2012 13:17, Steven Walling >> wrote: >> > >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_editing for a >> > placeholder. >> >> Just for the record, there's a difference between paid editing and conflict >> of interest editing. One can easily have a conflict of interest without >> receiving any financial remuneration. >> > > And you could be paid to edit without having a conflict of interest. Some > wiki-friendly donor could set up an anonymous fund to pay stipends to > people to edit wikipedia for a year. funded grad students in wiki studies > are close. > Well.. English Wikipedia defines the conflict of interest on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_editing_on_Wikipedia "n the context of Wikipedia, conflict of interest editing is the editing of Wikipedia articles by people whose background means that their motives are likely to conflict with the encyclopedia's neutrality policy. Conflict of interest editing includes paid editing or paid advocacy, when employees, contractors, or those with financial connection to individuals, products, corporations, organizations, political campaigns or governments edit articles related to those subjects. Although these edits may often involve minor factual corrections and changes, significant media attention has revolved around the editing of articles which removes or downplays negative information and adds or highlights positive information by editors with a conflict of interest." "Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline states (as of 2012) that a conflict of interest (COI) is an "incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopaedia, and the aims of an individual editor," and that "COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." So, using Wikipedia for paid promoting of a city or a state by pushing placement of the links to the relevant articles on the main page of Wikipedia is or is not a conflict of interest? IMHO - at least potentially there is a conflict of interest. Bear in mind that there is quite long queue for "Did you know" section of main page. So, if you push your (paid) articles using your possition and authority in Wikipedia community, then other, less influential editors must wait longer or the articles nominated/written by them will never appear on the main page. I think the question can be fairly answered by checking how the process of selection happened in case of Gibraltar related articles - if there are proves that there was a kind of unfair advocacy - for example organizing a group of editors to bias the selection process we can say about conflict of interest and unfair behavior. I can't see the conflict of interest with providing paid QR-code based service with use of Wikipedia content - this is an external feature - and indeed anyone can organize it itself - but paid editing of Wikipedia which results in systematic bias on behalf of the contractor is quite obviously a conflict of interest. Is it possible to do paid editing without putting to Wikipedia systematic bias? Maybe in some cases yes - but IMHO there is very often such a danger even if the resulting articles as read separately are OK. -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
