Re: [Wikimedia-l] Be the change you want to see (was: WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive)

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Asaf,

Perhaps there is a mismatch of expectations here.  The trustees and the
senior staff of the WMF are the leaders of the movement and we may presume
that they know how to do their job.  It is for them to decide on the way
they wish to engage with the community they lead, and they have many ways
of doing so.  Indeed, there is an elaborate strategy consultation taking
place at many levels right now.  One should not confuse a well-thought-out
process for community engagement  with one particular vehicle for
engagement, such as this mailing list.  If seniot staff find that reading,
or responding to, this mailing list does not constitute the most effective
means for them to achieve their leadership goals, then why should anyone
insist that they use it, and thereby spend their valuable time being less
effective in their leadership roles?

Thrapostibongles

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:17 AM Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> Speaking as a (very) longtime member of this mailing list, and one who is
> carefully observing it for a few years now as a volunteer list
> co-administrator:
>
> On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 3:56 AM Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
>
> > I, like many others, wish to see this list become a crucible of good
> > suggestions, healthy and critical debate about ideas and as a sound
> > mechanism for oversight and account . A huge amount of staff time and
> > movement resources is taken up by the consumption of its content. And yet
> > it remains the greatest shame that much of the best most worthwhile
> > constructive discussions have moved to platforms like Facebook because
> this
> > list is viewed as hosting such an unhealthy atmosphere when emails are
> > written with such overt passive aggression.
> >
> > I call it out because if we want people to participate on this list, the
> > unhealthy way in which this list gets treated by some of its most active
> > participants needs to be dealt with. Otherwise valid points will not get
> > acknowledged or answered.
> >
>
> I am not sure the causality here runs in the direction you describe.  It's
> true that this list had some aggressive, even vulgar participants in the
> past, and that some senior staff members, as well as board members, have
> left the list in protest.  Personally, I think that was a mistake on their
> part: to improve the list atmosphere, you model good behavior yourself, and
> you call upon the rest of the list -- the "silent majority" -- to call out
> bad behavior and enforce some participation standards (as, indeed, I and my
> co-moderators have been doing since we took over).
>
> By senior people's departing this list, and no longer requiring staff to be
> on this list, a strong signal was sent that this is not a venue crucial to
> listen to, and that, coupled with the decreasing frequency of WMF responses
> to legitimate volunteer inquiries and suggestions, had a *powerful*
> chilling effect on the willingness of most volunteers to engage here.
> Especially when, as you say, they were able to get better engagement on
> Facebook and other channels, despite the serious shortcomings of
> accountability on those channels (immutable archiving, searchability,
> access to anonymous volunteers, etc.)
>
> Yes, this list has also seen some pseudonymous critics whose questions may
> have been inconvenient or troublesome to address.  Yet I think the
> accountable thing to do would have been to respond, however briefly, to
> prevent the sealioning and sanctimonious posts that filled the list -- and,
> I am sure, greatly annoyed and demotivated many subscribers.  Even a
> response stating WMF chooses not to respond to a certain question, or not
> to dig up certain data, would have been better than the stony silence that
> has become the all-too-common stance for WMF on this list.
>
> As you know, I also work for WMF (though I am writing this in my volunteer
> capacity, and out of my care for the well-being of this list).  While I
> have never shied away from responding on this list, I have on occasion been
> scolded (internally) for attempting to answer volunteer queries to the best
> of my knowledge, for "outstepping my remit" or interfering in someone
> else's remit.  I have taken this to heart, and accordingly no longer try to
> respond to queries such as Fae's (which in this case I find a perfectly
> reasonable question, meriting an answer).  Several past attempts by me to
> ping appropriate senior staff on questions on this list (or on talk pages)
> have also met with rebuke, so I have ceased those as well.
>
> For these reasons I do not accept this wholesale blaming of this list's
> subscribers on the difficulty having meaningful conversations here:
>
> But if we want to see staff members more actively
> > participating here then those long standing individuals need to really
> > thing about the tone in which they engage here, particularly those who do
> > so most often. If that does not change, this list will continue to
> languish
> > and those few 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Be the change you want to see (was: WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive)

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

James

This seems inside-out.  Rather than WMF staff trying to guess which of the
tens of thousands of existing discussions might be of relevance, why not
simply tell the community the locations of the pages or other channels
which you propose to use to engage them.

Thrapostibongles

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 9:31 PM James Hare  wrote:

> On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 6:26 AM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > This is of course fine, and everybody is free to participate or not to
> participate on this mailing list, but, generally speaking, does WMF have
> any channels to listen to the volunteers working on the project?
>
> I am a product manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. What this means, in the
> broadest of terms, is that I need to know what people want/need in order to
> do my job “correctly,” for some definition of “correct.” Of course, what
> constitutes a “correct” decision on my part is something not everyone will
> agree on and that’s fine. But I need to gather information as part of this
> work.
>
> The problem is that there is no “one” place to go. To give you an idea of
> the magnitude of the problem, there are over 900 wikis.  Hundreds of those
> wikis comprise Wikipedia, a project with a cumulative total of 50,000,000
> articles. Each one of those articles either has a talk page or could
> theoretically get one as soon as someone makes the first post. So, just
> starting with Wikipedia articles, we have over 50,000,000 potential or
> existing discussion venues, with very little coordination or
> cross-organization between these venues, and this doesn’t even include
> individual user talk pages or really, really specific talk pages like
> “Wikipedia talk:Administrators’ noticeboard/Incidents” which is... very
> precisely, a venue to discuss the administration of that specific
> noticeboard (but not to, itself, host noticeboard-like posts).[0]
>
> It is very convenient and easy to create a talk page because talk pages are
> a very central paradigm to the MediaWiki software (going back to 2002?
> 2003?) and so they are built into the overall website experience in a way
> that things that were tacked on way later, simply are not. But it is a poor
> interface that doesn’t scale across more than several people or a few
> concurrent conversations. But if Wikipedia’s fundamental sidebar chat
> system fails to support more than occasional chatter, how exactly is any of
> this supposed to work?
>
> There are two ways to go from here: (a) fix the original problem or (b)
> develop workarounds. If you were around back in 2013 or so you may recall a
> project called “Flow” that is now called “Structured Discussions.” I can’t
> speak officially to any of it because it was before my time and many of the
> staff involved no longer work here. And I am actually very hesitant to
> bring it up at all, much less by name, because of the taboo that developed
> around it. A retrospective on this project is out-of-scope for this post,
> but if you need a short and convenient answer: it didn’t work, and it
> generally made it impossible for the Wikimedia Foundation to even broach
> the subject for the following several years. (There is starting to be work
> on this again, and this time, it seems to be going at a more deliberate
> pace, but I will defer to the staff working on this.)
>
> Let’s talk about workarounds. We have workarounds that make the talk pages
> themselves more useful (talk page archiving comes to mind[1]), and we also
> have workarounds that consist of outsourcing the issue entirely, whether it
> be solutions we host ourselves (mailing lists, Discourse) or proprietary
> platforms that happen to be convenient for large segments of our
> communities. There are different advantages and disadvantages to each
> solution, which has only resulted in the proliferation of solutions.
>
> Let’s back up. On the wikis themselves there are millions of discussion
> venues; there are different software interventions that work or don’t work,
> depending on the situation; and we are now in a position where we have so
> many places to hold conversations it becomes an extraordinary use of time
> (and several people’s full time jobs) to try to understand the
> extraordinarily complex social interactions that take place in the hundreds
> of languages we speak.
>
> Having introduced all that context, the short answer to your question is
> there are some channels we are better at paying attention to than others,
> but we don’t know what we don’t know. And this is frustrating for everyone
> involved. It makes projects take longer, it makes it harder to onboard
> staff, and I can imagine it’s *even more* frustrating for the many users of
> our many wikis who have to deal with the software being broken and not
> really knowing what to do. I think we manage,  but I think we deserve
> better than just “managing” it.
>
>
> My best regards,
> James Hare
>
>
>
> [0] This brings up another topic that not all discussions that take place
> on 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiJournals: A proposal to become a new sister project

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

James

It already is Plan-S compliant :-)


Unfortunately Plan-S requires rather more than a conformant licence.  It
also imposes strict conditions on business models and editorial practices,
not all of which have yet been completely finalised: see
https://www.coalition-s.org/rationale-for-the-revisions/ for example.

The best the WikiJournals project can realistically do right now to is
announce an intention to conform.  So my question remains: does the project
intend to become and remain Plan-S compliant?  It seems odd that this is
not considered to be, and publicised as, a major goal of the project, as
non-conformance will be a major setback.

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of the Grupo de Usuários Wiki Movimento Brasil

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Joseph

Perhaps we could assume that your colleagues on the Affiliations Committee
are well aware of the past history and have taken it into consideration
privately, which is exactly how such issues sould be considered, rather
than on a public mailing list.  Unless you have evidence to the cotrary?

Thrapostibongles

On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 11:43 AM Joseph Seddon 
wrote:

> Asking as a volunteer with a broad interest in affiliate matters rather
> than as a staff member:
>
> What steps is the Brazilian community taking to ensure there isn't a repeat
> of past breakdowns in community cooperation?
>
> Kind regards
>
> Seddon
>
> On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 10:50 AM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > I would like to correct myself, as since October 2018 there is one more
> > Wikimedia affiliate with Portuguese as its official language, our very
> good
> > friends "Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia", who have been doing
> > quite a notable work in LATAM:
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muj(lh)eres_latinoamericanas_en_Wikimedia
> >
> > Best,
> > Paulo
> >
> > Paulo Santos Perneta  escreveu no dia quinta,
> > 30/05/2019 à(s) 15:40:
> >
> > > Wonderful news!
> > > Brazil has been for long one of the world leaders in Wikimedia
> > educational
> > > projects, with an excellent work on GLAMs, often in line with the
> > > educational projects, and generally with full Wikidata integration.
> > > It is very rewarding to see the group recognized again as a full-right
> > > Wikimedia affiliate.
> > > It also happens to be the only other Portuguese speaking affiliate,
> > > besides Wikimedia Portugal. Still a long way to go for one of the most
> > > spoken native languages in the globe, but that's a great improvement.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > > Rajeeb Dutta  escreveu no dia quinta, 30/05/2019
> > > à(s) 13:24:
> > >
> > >> Congratulations to the entire team of the Grupo de Usuários Wiki
> > >> Movimento Brasil!!
> > >>
> > >> Best Regards,
> > >> Rajeeb Dutta.
> > >> (Marajozkee).
> > >> Wikimedia India.
> > >>
> > >> > On 30-May-2019, at 5:40 PM, Shani Evenstein 
> > >> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > What excellent news!
> > >> > This group has been doing amazing and innovative work, so it's a joy
> > to
> > >> see
> > >> > this community finally re-recognized as an affiliate.
> > >> > As it should be. :)
> > >> >
> > >> > Best of luck to all of you with your future projects. I'll keep
> > >> following
> > >> > your work with excitement.
> > >> >
> > >> > Shani.
> > >> >
> > >> > ---
> > >> > *Shani Evenstein Sigalov*
> > >> > * Lecturer, Tel Aviv University.
> > >> > * EdTech Innovation Strategist, NY/American Medical Program, Sackler
> > >> School
> > >> > of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.
> > >> > * PhD Candidate, School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
> > >> > * OER & Emerging Technologies Coordinator, UNESCO Chair
> > >> >  on Technology,
> > >> Internationalization
> > >> > and Education, School of Education, Tel Aviv University
> > >> > .
> > >> > * Chairperson, WikiProject Medicine Foundation
> > >> > .
> > >> > * Chairperson, Wikipedia & Education User Group
> > >> >  >.
> > >> > * Chairperson, The Hebrew Literature Digitization Society
> > >> > .
> > >> > * Chief Editor, Project Ben-Yehuda .
> > >> > +972-525640648
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > On Thu, May 30, 2019 at 2:33 PM Kirill Lokshin <
> > >> kirill.loks...@gmail.com>
> > >> > wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> >> Hi everyone!
> > >> >>
> > >> >> I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has
> > >> recognized
> > >> >> [1] the Grupo de Usuários Wiki Movimento Brasil [2] as a Wikimedia
> > User
> > >> >> Group. The group aims to bring together the active members of the
> > >> Wikimedia
> > >> >> movement in Brazil, supporting the organization of the Brazilian
> > >> Wikimedia
> > >> >> community as well as the promotion of and participation on the
> > >> Wikimedia
> > >> >> projects.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user
> group!
> > >> >>
> > >> >> Regards,
> > >> >> Kirill Lokshin
> > >> >> Chair, Affiliations Committee
> > >> >>
> > >> >> [1]
> > >> >>
> > >> >>
> > >>
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognition_of_Grupo_de_Usuários_Wiki_Movimento_Brasil
> > >> >> [2]
> > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Brasil
> > >> >> ___
> > >> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > >> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > >> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > >> >> New messages to: 

[Wikimedia-l] Form 990

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

I don't think it was announced on this list, so let me point out that the
Founation recently published its IRS Form 990 for 2017/18: see
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRS_tax_related_information/2017_Wikimedia_Foundation_Form_990_Frequently_Asked_Questions
for
the FAQ and
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/31/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2017-2018_Form_990.pdf
for
the form itself.

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Feedback requested for draft code of conduct for user group

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Thomas

An excellent idea, no doubt, but is multiplying codes of conduct really the
best way forward?  Would it not be better if the Foundation were to
promulgate a single code of conduct covering all its projects and spaces,
and then supplement that with individual guidelines in specific cases?

Thrapostibongles

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 7:34 AM Thomas Shafee 
wrote:

> Hello Wikimedia-l,
>
> This is a quick request for comment for those interested in codes of
> conduct (relevant to user groups and possibly projects as well).
>
> In collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation’s trust and safety team, a
> code of conduct has been drafted over the last few months for the
> WikiJournal
> User Group . We
> have drawn inspiration from CoCs used in different Wikimedia areas and open
> projects (listed below the draft).
>
> *Draft code of conduct available here*
> <
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Code_of_conduct/Draft
> >
>
> Everyone is welcome to provide suggestions over the next week on how to
> improve it: please join the discussion here
> <
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:WikiJournal_User_Group/Code_of_conduct/Draft
> >
> !
>
> It has been written to be adaptable to other user groups, affiliates and
> projects if they want to adapt & adopt something (generalised version
> <
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Code_of_conduct/General
> >
> ).
>
> The user group was We were initially aiming to vote on it in May, however
> in order to give a bit more time for feedback, that's being extended to
> early June.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Thomas Shafee
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Feedback requested for draft code of conduct for user group

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Paulo

>
> I'm curious if non discriminating anyone politically could imply a group or
> community being forced to accept people from the extreme right or the likes
> of it, with public (but not onwiki) views against migration, promoting
> racial discrimination, and revisionism, for instance?
>

Surely if a participant in a project is known to be an adherent of a
murderous ideology, with a history of genocide, that takes the view that a
certain class of person should be discriminated against, treated as
inferior or subject to violence or extermination -- then any member of the
class discriminated against would have reasonable, eve strong, grounds for
feeling threatened by that participation?

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiJournals: A proposal to become a new sister project

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Thomas

Is it intended that the journals should be Plan-S compliant?

Thrapostibongles

On Sun, Jun 2, 2019 at 9:01 AM Thomas Shafee 
wrote:

> Hello Wikipedians,
>
> Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group
>  has been building
> and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki
> platform. The main types of articles are:
>
>- Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback
>(example )
>- From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (
>example )
>- Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example
><
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Acute_gastrointestinal_bleeding_from_a_chronic_cause:_a_teaching_case_report
> >
>)
>
> *Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project
> *
>
> From a Wikipedian point of view, this is a complementary system to Featured
> article review, but bridging the gap with external experts
> ,
> implementing established scholarly practices
> ,
> and generating citable, doi-linked publications
> .
>
> Please take a look and support/oppose/comment!
> All the best,
> Thomas Shafee
>
> ps, We are attempting to improve awareness within the existing wikimedia
> community, so feel free to share with others.
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Fæ

[...] the pre-existing understanding that the WMF do not replace
> existing and perfectly adequate community agreed procedures for
> banning bad behaviour on our projects.


Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that the existing English Wikipedia
community processes are not "perfectly adequate" for that purpose.


> If the English
> Wikipedia's policies are not fit for purpose, or implementation of
> policy is incompetent, we need a much bigger discussion


Indeed.  Unfortunately the tone of the discussion here and at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram
suggests
that the requisite discussion is now less, not more, likely to happen or be
productive.

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Peter

On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 6:45 AM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Check your facts.
> P
>

Well, the Wikipedia trademark is owned by the Foundation, along with a
variety of related marks, see
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_trademarks  The servers on
which the content of Wikipedia resides are rented and paid for by the
Foundation, see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers  The
intellectual property in that  content is very largely owned by the very
disparate individuals who contributed, each of whom owns the IPR in their
own individual contributons, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights  These are the facts, --
do you wish to dispute them?

Thrapostibongles

>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Mister Thrapostibongles
> Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2019 5:48 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
>
> Peter
>
> You say that Wikipedia belongs to "us".  You are mistaken.  In so far as it
> belongs to anyone, it belongs to the Foundation.
>
> Thrapostibongles
>
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 3:35 PM Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > "We" are a subset of everyone. If Wikipedia belongs to everyone, it
> > belongs to "us" as well.  It seems that Fram who was one of us has just
> > been excluded from our community by questionable process. I agree that
> this
> > should not happen, but suggest that it is sometimes necessary to exclude
> > people from our community when they are shown in fair process to be
> unable
> > to cooperate in furthering the purposes of the project. Some of us try to
> > make it reasonably easy and pleasant to join the community and help build
> > the project, but it is not compulsory, either to make it pleasant, or to
> > join. However credibility and respect beyond that which should be
> afforded
> > to anyone by virtue of being human are earned.
> > Cheers,
> > P
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of Robert Fernandez
> > Sent: 12 June 2019 16:08
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
> >
> > > I am not familiar with your name on enwiki, so I looked you up, and
> find
> > that you have a grand total of 11 edits on all projects since 2015.
> >
> > This is part of the problem right here.  This isn't our project and we
> > shouldn't be trying to exclude people from our community.  Wikipedia
> > belongs to everyone.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 9:53 AM Peter Southwood
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > Thrapostibongles,
> > > I am not familiar with your name on enwiki, so I looked you up, and
> find
> > that you have a grand total of 11 edits on all projects since 2015.
> > > While it is possible that you have a long and distinguished edit
> history
> > under a previous name or as an IP editor, it leads me to wonder just how
> > familiar you are with the customs and culture of enwiki, which I freely
> > agree are non-optimal, but have evolved to sort of work in an environment
> > which was predicted to be impossible. Yet here we are, dysfunctionally
> > surviving when we are theoretically long extinct. Our dysfunctional mores
> > function as they do and evolve through surviving and occasional
> > modification by consensus of those who care enough to take part in the
> > process, within the environment in which we work. We are somewhere
> between
> > an anarchy and a community, and we do not generally appreciate
> > pontification from outsiders, which is what you appear to be, and to a
> > large extent, what we consider WMF to be. It is a problem. If WMF chooses
> > to rule by fiat it will have interesting consequences. So far they have
> > mostly avoided that, and when they have it has not ended well. If you
> > consider yourself an expert in something relevant I invite you to show
> > evidence of your credentials. Otherwise we will take your comments as we
> do
> > those of any other unproven internet commentator.
> > > This is just my personal take, I do not presume to represent anyone
> > else. You are as free to ignore me as I am to ignore you, but engaging in
> > this discussion has its consequences, and one of them is to be
> questioned.
> > > Cheers,
> > > Peter Southwood
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > &g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

George,

There are five things that I claimed the Foundation has and the volunteers
do not:  responsibility to support the community, and the time, the
expertise, the money and the people to do so.  So that's ten assertions.
You claim that some of those are unwarranted.  There are over a thousand
possible interpretations of your claim.  In the interests of a productive
discussion, would you like to be more precise about which assertions you
think might be incorrect, please?

Thrapostibongles

On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 10:22 AM George Herbert 
wrote:

> I think that you are making a number of assertions about the community,
> individuals, the Foundation, and the power and roles and responsibilities
> that aren't warranted.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 2:15 AM Mister Thrapostibongles <
> thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Frankly, I'm surprised by how surprised everyone is.  The Foundation has
> > the responsibility to support the community, and the time, the expertise,
> > the money and the people to do so.  Individual volunteers, however
> > well-meaning, do not.  The Foundation has determined that in this
> > particular case the community;s own processes were unable to provide the
> > support that the community needed, and so the Foundation has acted to do
> > so, as you would expect.
> >
> > Thrapostibongles
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 4:26 AM Techman224 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Forwarding to WIkimedia-l since WikiEN-l is relatively dead.
> > >
> > > Since this message, an Arbcom member (SilkTork) stated that they
> weren't
> > > consulted, nor did this action was the result of Arbcom forwarding a
> > > concern to the office. [1]
> > >
> > > The only non-response excuse from the WMF [2] was that "local
> communities
> > > consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but
> > the
> > > Terms of Use, too.” even though there were no complaints on-wiki nor to
> > > Arbcom privately.
> > >
> > > The on-wiki discussion is taking place at the Bureaucrats and the
> Arbcom
> > > noticeboards.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Request_for_ArbCom_to_comment_publicly_on_Fram's_ban
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> > > >
> > > [2]
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team
> > >
> > > Techman224
> > >
> > > > Begin forwarded message:
> > > >
> > > > From: George Herbert 
> > > > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
> > > > Date: June 10, 2019 at 8:54:34 PM CDT
> > > > To: English Wikipedia 
> > > > Reply-To: English Wikipedia 
> > > >
> > > > In case you're not following on-wiki - Office S blocked English
> > > Wikipedia
> > > > user / administrator Fram for a year and desysopped, for unspecified
> > > > reasons in the Office purview.  There was a brief statement here from
> > > > Office regarding it which gave no details other than that normal
> policy
> > > and
> > > > procedures for Office actions were followed, which under normal
> > > > circumstances preclude public comments.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > >
> > > > Several people on Arbcom and board have commented they're making
> > private
> > > > inquiries under normal reporting and communication channels, due to
> the
> > > > oddity and essentially uniqueness of the action.
> > > >
> > > > There was an initial surge of dismay which has mellowed IMHO into
> "Ok,
> > > > responsible people following up".
> > > >
> > > > I understand the s

Re: [Wikimedia-l] en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Frankly, I'm surprised by how surprised everyone is.  The Foundation has
the responsibility to support the community, and the time, the expertise,
the money and the people to do so.  Individual volunteers, however
well-meaning, do not.  The Foundation has determined that in this
particular case the community;s own processes were unable to provide the
support that the community needed, and so the Foundation has acted to do
so, as you would expect.

Thrapostibongles

On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 4:26 AM Techman224  wrote:

> Forwarding to WIkimedia-l since WikiEN-l is relatively dead.
>
> Since this message, an Arbcom member (SilkTork) stated that they weren't
> consulted, nor did this action was the result of Arbcom forwarding a
> concern to the office. [1]
>
> The only non-response excuse from the WMF [2] was that "local communities
> consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but the
> Terms of Use, too.” even though there were no complaints on-wiki nor to
> Arbcom privately.
>
> The on-wiki discussion is taking place at the Bureaucrats and the Arbcom
> noticeboards.
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> >
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Request_for_ArbCom_to_comment_publicly_on_Fram's_ban
>
> [1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> >
> [2]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team
>
> Techman224
>
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: George Herbert 
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
> > Date: June 10, 2019 at 8:54:34 PM CDT
> > To: English Wikipedia 
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia 
> >
> > In case you're not following on-wiki - Office S blocked English
> Wikipedia
> > user / administrator Fram for a year and desysopped, for unspecified
> > reasons in the Office purview.  There was a brief statement here from
> > Office regarding it which gave no details other than that normal policy
> and
> > procedures for Office actions were followed, which under normal
> > circumstances preclude public comments.
> >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> >
> > Several people on Arbcom and board have commented they're making private
> > inquiries under normal reporting and communication channels, due to the
> > oddity and essentially uniqueness of the action.
> >
> > There was an initial surge of dismay which has mellowed IMHO into "Ok,
> > responsible people following up".
> >
> > I understand the sensitivity of some of the topics under Office actions,
> > having done OTRS and other various had-to-stay-private stuff myself at
> > times in the past.  A high profile investigation target is most unusual
> but
> > not unheard of.
> >
> > I did send email to Fram earlier today asking if they had any public
> > comment, no reply as yet.
> >
> >
> > --
> > -george william herbert
> > george.herb...@gmail.com
> > ___
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Vito

This rather tends to support my point.  One (and not the most important)
pieces of evidence for Wikipedia being in a failed state is precisely that
it does not , by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
source:whereas "Reputable tertiary sources
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TERTIARY>, such as
introductory-level university textbooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias, may
be cited".  So Wikipedia fails in its aim of being an encyclopaedia on one
of the most important tests one could imagine, namely reliability.  And a
reason for that is its lack of effective content management policies and
mechanisms to put them into effect (in the old days we called that being an
editor, but that word on Wikipedia now is more or less a redundant synonym
for contributor).

Now suppose that Wikipedia had effective editorial policies and processes
that allowed it to assume the status of a reliable source, just like the
encyclopaedia it aims to be.  You say that even in that situation, it would
be easy to manipulate.  On that assumption, how much easier it must be to
"trick" it today when it has no such effective policies and processes in
place!

Thrapostibongles

On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 6:46 PM Vi to  wrote:

> Honestly I cannot imagine a functional Wikipedia citing itself.
> Such Wikipedia would be so easy to trick.
>
> Vito
>
> Il giorno dom 16 giu 2019 alle ore 16:54 Martijn Hoekstra <
> martijnhoeks...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
> > I disagree that Wikipedia not considering Wikipedia as an admissible
> source
> > is indicative of Wikipedia being a failure.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 14:18 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Dear all,
> > > The discussion triggered by recent WMF T actions has tended to focus
> on
> > > the merits or otherwise of that specific action (even though as I have
> > > pointed out elsewhere this is very much a case of those who know don;t
> > talk
> > > and those who talk don't know).  So I though it might be helpful to try
> > and
> > > abstract some more general points for discussion.
> > >
> > > The long-term future of the Community, and the relationship between the
> > > Foundation and its volunteers is under discussion in an elaborately
> > > structured consultation announced already here in September 2017.  It
> > would
> > > not be particularly helpful to try to run a parallel discussion here.
> > But
> > > in the short to medium term, it seems that it will be necessary for the
> > > Foundation to take a different stance with respect to the management of
> > the
> > > various projects, and the English Wikipedia in particular.
> > >
> > > It is often said that "The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works
> > in
> > > practice. In theory, it can never work."  Well, that's half true.  What
> > the
> > > experiment has proved is that the theory was indeed correct --
> Wikipedia,
> > > as currently constituted, does not work.  There are two inter-related
> > > aspects to its failure: content and conduct, inextricably related in a
> > > project founded on crowd-sourcing.
> > >
> > > Let's look at the content first.  Even on Wikipedia's own terms, it has
> > > failed.  It is a principle that Wikipedia is founded on reliable
> sources,
> > > and by its own admission, Wikipedia itself is not such a source.  That
> > > bears repetition -- a project aiming to be an encyclopaedia, that
> > compares
> > > itself with Britannica, explicitly is not reliable.  Foundation
> research
> > > has shown that about one fifth of Wikipedia articles are supported  by
> > > references that are inadequate to support the text or simply are not
> > > there.  That's about a million articles each on of the larger
> Wikpedias.
> > > Some thousands of those are biographies of living people and in view of
> > the
> > > risk of defamation, no such articles should exist on Wikipedia at all.
> > > There are several thousand articles that are possible copyright
> > violations:
> > > again such articles should not be there.  And when I say "should not",
> I
> > > mean according to the rules adopted by the Wikipedia volunteer
> community
> > > itself.
> > >
> > > This links to the conduct aspects.  The self-organising policies of the
> > > "encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" have flattened out the formal
> > > hierarchy to the extent that it has been replaced, nec

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright workflows - research (Was: Re: Foundation management of volunteers)

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Leila

Since I raised this particular issue,, I'll take the liberty of giving an
answer to this question, even though you addressed it to Benjamin.  The
failure that I was pointing to was not the failure to identify copyright
violations, but the failure to address the huge backlog of probable
infringements identified at, for example,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contributor_copyright_investigations/2008
where
there is a backlog of *thousands* of articles created by *one* user.  In
the absence of any coordinated management of the workload, at the current
rate of progress it will take about another decade to clear this single
case.  My analysis is that the pressing issue here is precisely that there
is no-one for whom this is a pressing issue: no-one is responsible for
clearing up the mess, and if there were, there are no resources available
to be allocated to it, and if there were, there is no way of deciding where
to allocate those resources.

Thrapostibongles

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 1:24 PM Leila Zia  wrote:

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

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Peter

You say that Wikipedia belongs to "us".  You are mistaken.  In so far as it
belongs to anyone, it belongs to the Foundation.

Thrapostibongles

On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 3:35 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> "We" are a subset of everyone. If Wikipedia belongs to everyone, it
> belongs to "us" as well.  It seems that Fram who was one of us has just
> been excluded from our community by questionable process. I agree that this
> should not happen, but suggest that it is sometimes necessary to exclude
> people from our community when they are shown in fair process to be unable
> to cooperate in furthering the purposes of the project. Some of us try to
> make it reasonably easy and pleasant to join the community and help build
> the project, but it is not compulsory, either to make it pleasant, or to
> join. However credibility and respect beyond that which should be afforded
> to anyone by virtue of being human are earned.
> Cheers,
> P
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Robert Fernandez
> Sent: 12 June 2019 16:08
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
>
> > I am not familiar with your name on enwiki, so I looked you up, and find
> that you have a grand total of 11 edits on all projects since 2015.
>
> This is part of the problem right here.  This isn't our project and we
> shouldn't be trying to exclude people from our community.  Wikipedia
> belongs to everyone.
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 9:53 AM Peter Southwood
>  wrote:
> >
> > Thrapostibongles,
> > I am not familiar with your name on enwiki, so I looked you up, and find
> that you have a grand total of 11 edits on all projects since 2015.
> > While it is possible that you have a long and distinguished edit history
> under a previous name or as an IP editor, it leads me to wonder just how
> familiar you are with the customs and culture of enwiki, which I freely
> agree are non-optimal, but have evolved to sort of work in an environment
> which was predicted to be impossible. Yet here we are, dysfunctionally
> surviving when we are theoretically long extinct. Our dysfunctional mores
> function as they do and evolve through surviving and occasional
> modification by consensus of those who care enough to take part in the
> process, within the environment in which we work. We are somewhere between
> an anarchy and a community, and we do not generally appreciate
> pontification from outsiders, which is what you appear to be, and to a
> large extent, what we consider WMF to be. It is a problem. If WMF chooses
> to rule by fiat it will have interesting consequences. So far they have
> mostly avoided that, and when they have it has not ended well. If you
> consider yourself an expert in something relevant I invite you to show
> evidence of your credentials. Otherwise we will take your comments as we do
> those of any other unproven internet commentator.
> > This is just my personal take, I do not presume to represent anyone
> else. You are as free to ignore me as I am to ignore you, but engaging in
> this discussion has its consequences, and one of them is to be questioned.
> > Cheers,
> > Peter Southwood
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Mister Thrapostibongles
> > Sent: 12 June 2019 09:06
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
> >
> > Yaroslav,
> >
> > I think it's reasonably clear that the English Wikipedia community and
> its
> > community structures, such as its Arbitration Committee, and processes
> are
> > not capable of maintaining a productive, harassment-free environment for
> > the volunteer workers.  For example, they have consistently failed, after
> > several attempts, to handle the case of a volunteer who used the word
> > "Cxxx" about a fellow worker, and the community has agreed that telling
> > others to "Fxxx off" is acceptable.  These are symptoms of a
> dysfunctional
> > community, which tolerates behaviour that is unacceptable in any
> collegial
> > working environment, and it is right that the Foundation should step in.
> >
> > Thrapostibongles
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 4:56 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> wrote:
> >
> > > The point made by pretty much everyone is not that Fram should or
> should
> > > not be banned, but that the process in this case should have followed
> the
> > > standard dispute resolution aven

Re: [Wikimedia-l] en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Todd

They certainly don't have the expertise. Most of them aren't regular
> participants on the English Wikipedia, and even those who are often dial
> back after joining the WMF. The most relevant expertise is participation in
> the project itself, and familiarity with how things are supposed to be done
> on it.
>

This seems to assume that dealing with harassment and community dysfunction
on the English Wikipedia is quite different to dealing with any other
community that exists in the world today.  Well, to misquote Tolstoy, every
dysfunctional community is indeed dysfunctional in its own way.  But the
problems of correcting that dysfunction are pretty similar across a broad
range of online community, and English Wikipedia is not special.  The
notion that it is, and that nobody who is not deeply embedded in its
dysfunctional culture can possibly know anything, say anything or do
anything about it is simply colossal arrogance and is part of what has led
us into the mess we are in today.


> It takes no money to evaluate an ANI complaint or file an ArbCom case. So,
> while the WMF may have money, that's irrelevant.
>

It takes money to hire people who know what they are doing and to give them
time and space to do it.  Volunteers plainly do not, and the evidence is
before us.

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Peter

Thank you for raising that issue.  Since user Peter Southwood has just one
recorded edit on English Wikipedia, from 2012, (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Peter_Southwood) I'm
puzzled by your speaking on behalf of the volunteer community. ("we do not
generally appreciate pontification from outsiders")

Thrapostibongles

On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 2:53 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Thrapostibongles,
> I am not familiar with your name on enwiki, so I looked you up, and find
> that you have a grand total of 11 edits on all projects since 2015.
> While it is possible that you have a long and distinguished edit history
> under a previous name or as an IP editor, it leads me to wonder just how
> familiar you are with the customs and culture of enwiki, which I freely
> agree are non-optimal, but have evolved to sort of work in an environment
> which was predicted to be impossible. Yet here we are, dysfunctionally
> surviving when we are theoretically long extinct. Our dysfunctional mores
> function as they do and evolve through surviving and occasional
> modification by consensus of those who care enough to take part in the
> process, within the environment in which we work. We are somewhere between
> an anarchy and a community, and we do not generally appreciate
> pontification from outsiders, which is what you appear to be, and to a
> large extent, what we consider WMF to be. It is a problem. If WMF chooses
> to rule by fiat it will have interesting consequences. So far they have
> mostly avoided that, and when they have it has not ended well. If you
> consider yourself an expert in something relevant I invite you to show
> evidence of your credentials. Otherwise we will take your comments as we do
> those of any other unproven internet commentator.
> This is just my personal take, I do not presume to represent anyone else.
> You are as free to ignore me as I am to ignore you, but engaging in this
> discussion has its consequences, and one of them is to be questioned.
> Cheers,
> Peter Southwood
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Mister Thrapostibongles
> Sent: 12 June 2019 09:06
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
>
> Yaroslav,
>
> I think it's reasonably clear that the English Wikipedia community and its
> community structures, such as its Arbitration Committee, and processes are
> not capable of maintaining a productive, harassment-free environment for
> the volunteer workers.  For example, they have consistently failed, after
> several attempts, to handle the case of a volunteer who used the word
> "Cxxx" about a fellow worker, and the community has agreed that telling
> others to "Fxxx off" is acceptable.  These are symptoms of a dysfunctional
> community, which tolerates behaviour that is unacceptable in any collegial
> working environment, and it is right that the Foundation should step in.
>
> Thrapostibongles
>
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 4:56 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > The point made by pretty much everyone is not that Fram should or should
> > not be banned, but that the process in this case should have followed the
> > standard dispute resolution avenues, More specifically, the case should
> > have been communicated to the Arbitration Committee, whose members did
> sign
> > the non-disclosure agreement.
> >
> > This is different from the past cases when users were banned by WMF,
> since
> > in this case it was made clear the case is based on on-wiki open activity
> > of Fram (and, specifically, only on the English Wikipedia). The on-wiki
> > activity is subject to the community policies.
> >
> > To be clear, I am not a friend of Fram, and in the past supported desysop
> > on a number of occasions.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Yaroslav
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 5:46 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > People who oppose the ban: Are you aware of all aspects and things Fram
> > has
> > > done? Do you have the full picture? It's really saddening to see how
> fast
> > > people jump to conclusion in page mentioned in the email. I personally,
> > > don't know what happened so I neither can support or oppose the ban. As
> > > simple as that.
> > >
> > > So what should be done IMO. If enwiki wants to know more, a community
> > body
> > > can ask for more information, if body satisfy two things:
> > >  - They had signed NDA not to disclose the case
> > >  - They are trusted by the community
> > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Yaroslav,

I think it's reasonably clear that the English Wikipedia community and its
community structures, such as its Arbitration Committee, and processes are
not capable of maintaining a productive, harassment-free environment for
the volunteer workers.  For example, they have consistently failed, after
several attempts, to handle the case of a volunteer who used the word
"Cxxx" about a fellow worker, and the community has agreed that telling
others to "Fxxx off" is acceptable.  These are symptoms of a dysfunctional
community, which tolerates behaviour that is unacceptable in any collegial
working environment, and it is right that the Foundation should step in.

Thrapostibongles

On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 4:56 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> The point made by pretty much everyone is not that Fram should or should
> not be banned, but that the process in this case should have followed the
> standard dispute resolution avenues, More specifically, the case should
> have been communicated to the Arbitration Committee, whose members did sign
> the non-disclosure agreement.
>
> This is different from the past cases when users were banned by WMF, since
> in this case it was made clear the case is based on on-wiki open activity
> of Fram (and, specifically, only on the English Wikipedia). The on-wiki
> activity is subject to the community policies.
>
> To be clear, I am not a friend of Fram, and in the past supported desysop
> on a number of occasions.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 5:46 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
>
> > People who oppose the ban: Are you aware of all aspects and things Fram
> has
> > done? Do you have the full picture? It's really saddening to see how fast
> > people jump to conclusion in page mentioned in the email. I personally,
> > don't know what happened so I neither can support or oppose the ban. As
> > simple as that.
> >
> > So what should be done IMO. If enwiki wants to know more, a community
> body
> > can ask for more information, if body satisfy two things:
> >  - They had signed NDA not to disclose the case
> >  - They are trusted by the community
> >
> > I think the only body can sorta work with this is stewards but not sure
> > (Does ArbCom NDA'ed?)
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 3:58 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Lack of transparency from the WMF, whatelse is new.
> > > I'm currently under a funding ban secretly decided (by who?) based on a
> > > false accusation, without providing any evidence. Until now I'm waiting
> > for
> > > an explanation from the WMF. So, this sort of attitude doesn't surprise
> > me
> > > at all.
> > > It is very unfortunate that the WMF apparently thrives in this kind of
> > > medieval obscurity, the opposite of the values of the Wikimedia
> Movement.
> > > Matter for Roles & Reponsibilities.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > >
> > > Benjamin Ikuta  escreveu no dia terça,
> > 11/06/2019
> > > à(s) 05:45:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for this.
> > > >
> > > > I'm glad to see I'm not the only one dismayed by the unilateralism
> and
> > > > lack of transparency.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Jun 10, 2019, at 8:25 PM, Techman224 
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Forwarding to WIkimedia-l since WikiEN-l is relatively dead.
> > > > >
> > > > > Since this message, an Arbcom member (SilkTork) stated that they
> > > weren't
> > > > consulted, nor did this action was the result of Arbcom forwarding a
> > > > concern to the office. [1]
> > > > >
> > > > > The only non-response excuse from the WMF [2] was that "local
> > > > communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own
> > autonomous
> > > > rules but the Terms of Use, too.” even though there were no
> complaints
> > > > on-wiki nor to Arbcom privately.
> > > > >
> > > > > The on-wiki discussion is taking place at the Bureaucrats and the
> > > Arbcom
> > > > noticeboards.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Request_for_ArbCom_to_comment_publicly_on_Fram's_ban
> > > > >
> > > > > [1]
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> > > > >
> > > > > [2]
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team
> > > > >
> > > > > Techman224
> > > > >
> > > > >> Begin forwarded message:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> From: George Herbert 
> > > > >> Subject: [WikiEN-l] 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Dennis,

I started this thread to discuss both conduct and content policies on
Wikipedia, and indeed how the two interact.  Wikipedia is a project to
build an encyclopaedia.  By its own criteria, encyclopaedias are reliable
sources and Wikipedia is not a reliable source; hence by its own criteria,
Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia.  That is, it is currently in a state of
failure with respect to its own mission.

One of the reasons for that state of failure is indeed the failure to
provide a collegial working atmosphere.

Thrapostibongles



On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 2:19 PM Dennis During  wrote:

> "One (and not the most important) pieces of evidence for Wikipedia being in
> a failed state is precisely that
> it does not, by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable source
> "
>
> You have made this argument more than once. That might be a piece of
> evidence seems both wrong and not relevant to the sense in which people
> here as saying WP has failed, which is as a welcoming, "safe" environment
> for contributors and would-be contributors.
>
> It is good policy to make sure that contributors reach out to other
> sources, even when one believes that Wikipedia is as reliable as the
> average tertiary source we allow as a reference. It prevents us from
> relying exclusively on what can easily turn out to be a very narrow set of
> points of view.  Does/did the Encyclopedia Britanica cite other EB articles
> as references rather than include them as "see alsos"?
>
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:27 AM Mister Thrapostibongles <
> thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Vito
> >
> > This rather tends to support my point.  One (and not the most important)
> > pieces of evidence for Wikipedia being in a failed state is precisely
> that
> > it does not , by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
> > source:whereas "Reputable tertiary sources
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TERTIARY>, such as
> > introductory-level university textbooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias, may
> > be cited".  So Wikipedia fails in its aim of being an encyclopaedia on
> one
> > of the most important tests one could imagine, namely reliability.  And a
> > reason for that is its lack of effective content management policies and
> > mechanisms to put them into effect (in the old days we called that being
> an
> > editor, but that word on Wikipedia now is more or less a redundant
> synonym
> > for contributor).
> >
> > Now suppose that Wikipedia had effective editorial policies and processes
> > that allowed it to assume the status of a reliable source, just like the
> > encyclopaedia it aims to be.  You say that even in that situation, it
> would
> > be easy to manipulate.  On that assumption, how much easier it must be to
> > "trick" it today when it has no such effective policies and processes in
> > place!
> >
> > Thrapostibongles
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Dennis C. During
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Martin

You really think that it is ridiculous that encyclopaedias in general and
Wikipedia in particular should be judged, among other criteria, on their
reliability?  If so, I disagree.

However, if you really believe that an encyclopadia does not ned to be
reliable, then it seems that on this specific point we may need to agree to
disagree.  How about the other points I adduce, such as the millions of
unreferenced or inadeqautely referenced articles discovered at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/04/03/can-machine-learning-uncover-wikipedias-missing-citation-needed-tags/
--
is that evidence of success?  The thousands of articles in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unreferenced_BLPs -- is that
evidence of success?

Thrapostibongles

On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 1:44 PM Martijn Hoekstra 
wrote:

> No.
>
> What I'm saying is this: setting meeting the reliable sources policy of
> wikipedia as a condition for success, or not meeting that policy as
> evidence of failure is ridiculous.
>
> On Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 14:29 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Martin, Dennis
> >
> > The tenor of your arguments appears to be that Wikipedia is in fact
> > reliable, because it uses reliable sources, but that it pretends not to
> be
> > because it's too hard to prevent people writing article based on other
> > articles.  This is not in accord with the facts.  As I pointed out, and
> as
> > Foundation research has shown, millions -- literally millions, and when I
> > say "literally" I literally mean "literally" -- of articles, about one in
> > five, are not founded on reliable sources, and some thousands of those,
> > being biographies of living people, should have been instantly deleted.
> So
> > we cannot rely on any of those millions of articles, by your own
> > reasoning.  The reason why Wikipedia deems itself unreliable is that it
> is
> > an open wiki, and all such sources are forbidden, because anyone can
> write
> > anything on them: "Content from websites whose content is largely
> > user-generated
> > is also generally unacceptable."  Wikipedia is cited in the policy as
> > merely another example of such unreliable sources.
> >
> > The way forward, however unpalatable this may be to people who would like
> > to believe that this is somehow silly or sophistry, is to look the facts
> in
> > the face and accept that some form of editorial policy, content workflow
> > management and supervision of the volunteer effort is necessary to make
> > Wikipedia what aspires to be, but is not currently, namely an
> > encyclopaedia.
> >
> > Thrapostibongles
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 11:06 PM Martijn Hoekstra <
> > martijnhoeks...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Wikipedia itself can never be more reliable than the sources it cites.
> If
> > > it's allowed to cite itself, then there is no "bottom" to lean on, and
> > its
> > > quality would quickly drop.
> > >
> > > That you conclude from that that wikipedia is unreliable and therefore
> > > failed is IMO such a silly proposition, that I dont know whether you
> > > seriously think this, in which case we should probably take this off
> > list,
> > > or that you're engaging in sophistry and using arguments you don't
> think
> > > are reasonable in the first place.
> > >
> > > On Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 19:56 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dennis,
> > > >
> > > > I started this thread to discuss both conduct and content policies on
> > > > Wikipedia, and indeed how the two interact.  Wikipedia is a project
> to
> > > > build an encyclopaedia.  By its own criteria, encyclopaedias are
> > reliable
> > > > sources and Wikipedia is not a reliable source; hence by its own
> > > criteria,
> > > > Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia.  That is, it is currently in a
> state
> > > of
> > > > failure with respect to its own mission.
> > > >
> > > > One of the reasons for that state of failure is indeed the failure to
> > > > provide a collegial working atmosphere.
> > > >
> > > > Thrapostibongles
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 2:19 PM Dennis During 
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > "One (and not the most important) pieces of evidence for Wikipedia
> > > being
> > > > in
&

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Martin


> No, I'm saying that it's ridiculous to judge wikipedia on its policy that
> citing itself is disallowed.
>

Perhaps, then, rather than telling us what it is that you don't agree with,
you would like to propound your own position, and in your own words.  Do
you believe that Wikipedia is a success?  That it merits the description
of "encyclopaedia"?  In particular that it is reliable?

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Martijn

>
> I'm under no such obligation,


Indeed, none of us is under any such obligation, which is why it is
somewhat pointless for one list member to issue orders to another, such as
"Don't do that."


> I do want to call out when something so egregiously
> off base is put forward as the assertion that wikipedia is unreliable
> *because* it has a policy that prevents it from citing itself,
>

And if anyone were to put forward that assertion, by all means call it
out.  You will have noticed, I'm sure that the initial post on this thread
asserted that Wikipedia has a policy that prevents it from citing itself
*because* it is unreliable.  Quite a different thing.

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

All,

A suggestion that I think might help to focus the discussion.

I suggest that anyone who wants to discuss what Fram might or might not
have done, and whether or not some acts that Frame might or might not have
done, or failed to do, merits the punishment that has been meted out should
refrain from doing so.  Since no-one with reliable information about
exactly what the complaints to T were is going to post here, and no-one
who posts here has any reliable information about them, all such
discussions here are based on guesses, assumptions, rumours or
confabulations, and can be of precisely no value whatsoever.

Thrapostibongles

On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 4:26 AM Techman224  wrote:

> Forwarding to WIkimedia-l since WikiEN-l is relatively dead.
>
> Since this message, an Arbcom member (SilkTork) stated that they weren't
> consulted, nor did this action was the result of Arbcom forwarding a
> concern to the office. [1]
>
> The only non-response excuse from the WMF [2] was that "local communities
> consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but the
> Terms of Use, too.” even though there were no complaints on-wiki nor to
> Arbcom privately.
>
> The on-wiki discussion is taking place at the Bureaucrats and the Arbcom
> noticeboards.
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> >
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Request_for_ArbCom_to_comment_publicly_on_Fram's_ban
>
> [1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528
> >
> [2]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team
>
> Techman224
>
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: George Herbert 
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
> > Date: June 10, 2019 at 8:54:34 PM CDT
> > To: English Wikipedia 
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia 
> >
> > In case you're not following on-wiki - Office S blocked English
> Wikipedia
> > user / administrator Fram for a year and desysopped, for unspecified
> > reasons in the Office purview.  There was a brief statement here from
> > Office regarding it which gave no details other than that normal policy
> and
> > procedures for Office actions were followed, which under normal
> > circumstances preclude public comments.
> >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> >
> > Several people on Arbcom and board have commented they're making private
> > inquiries under normal reporting and communication channels, due to the
> > oddity and essentially uniqueness of the action.
> >
> > There was an initial surge of dismay which has mellowed IMHO into "Ok,
> > responsible people following up".
> >
> > I understand the sensitivity of some of the topics under Office actions,
> > having done OTRS and other various had-to-stay-private stuff myself at
> > times in the past.  A high profile investigation target is most unusual
> but
> > not unheard of.
> >
> > I did send email to Fram earlier today asking if they had any public
> > comment, no reply as yet.
> >
> >
> > --
> > -george william herbert
> > george.herb...@gmail.com
> > ___
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Paulo

I've not been on those dumping grounds, open air sewages and troll hives
> were that stuff is said to be happening,
>

Unfortunately one of those dumping grounds now appears to be the official
Twitter account of Wiki Women in Red, a recognised Wikipedia Project, where
a member chose to accuse one of the people involved in this case of "real
crimes".  While that tweet has been, quite properly, removed, it
illustrates how extremely damaging to all possibilities of civil discourse
and constructive debate it is to discuss the details of this case from what
can only be a position of ignorance.

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Martin, Dennis

The tenor of your arguments appears to be that Wikipedia is in fact
reliable, because it uses reliable sources, but that it pretends not to be
because it's too hard to prevent people writing article based on other
articles.  This is not in accord with the facts.  As I pointed out, and as
Foundation research has shown, millions -- literally millions, and when I
say "literally" I literally mean "literally" -- of articles, about one in
five, are not founded on reliable sources, and some thousands of those,
being biographies of living people, should have been instantly deleted.  So
we cannot rely on any of those millions of articles, by your own
reasoning.  The reason why Wikipedia deems itself unreliable is that it is
an open wiki, and all such sources are forbidden, because anyone can write
anything on them: "Content from websites whose content is largely
user-generated
is also generally unacceptable."  Wikipedia is cited in the policy as
merely another example of such unreliable sources.

The way forward, however unpalatable this may be to people who would like
to believe that this is somehow silly or sophistry, is to look the facts in
the face and accept that some form of editorial policy, content workflow
management and supervision of the volunteer effort is necessary to make
Wikipedia what aspires to be, but is not currently, namely an encyclopaedia.

Thrapostibongles

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 11:06 PM Martijn Hoekstra 
wrote:

> Wikipedia itself can never be more reliable than the sources it cites. If
> it's allowed to cite itself, then there is no "bottom" to lean on, and its
> quality would quickly drop.
>
> That you conclude from that that wikipedia is unreliable and therefore
> failed is IMO such a silly proposition, that I dont know whether you
> seriously think this, in which case we should probably take this off list,
> or that you're engaging in sophistry and using arguments you don't think
> are reasonable in the first place.
>
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 19:56 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Dennis,
> >
> > I started this thread to discuss both conduct and content policies on
> > Wikipedia, and indeed how the two interact.  Wikipedia is a project to
> > build an encyclopaedia.  By its own criteria, encyclopaedias are reliable
> > sources and Wikipedia is not a reliable source; hence by its own
> criteria,
> > Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia.  That is, it is currently in a state
> of
> > failure with respect to its own mission.
> >
> > One of the reasons for that state of failure is indeed the failure to
> > provide a collegial working atmosphere.
> >
> > Thrapostibongles
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 2:19 PM Dennis During 
> wrote:
> >
> > > "One (and not the most important) pieces of evidence for Wikipedia
> being
> > in
> > > a failed state is precisely that
> > > it does not, by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
> > source
> > > "
> > >
> > > You have made this argument more than once. That might be a piece of
> > > evidence seems both wrong and not relevant to the sense in which people
> > > here as saying WP has failed, which is as a welcoming, "safe"
> environment
> > > for contributors and would-be contributors.
> > >
> > > It is good policy to make sure that contributors reach out to other
> > > sources, even when one believes that Wikipedia is as reliable as the
> > > average tertiary source we allow as a reference. It prevents us from
> > > relying exclusively on what can easily turn out to be a very narrow set
> > of
> > > points of view.  Does/did the Encyclopedia Britanica cite other EB
> > articles
> > > as references rather than include them as "see alsos"?
> > >
> > > On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:27 AM Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Vito
> > > >
> > > > This rather tends to support my point.  One (and not the most
> > important)
> > > > pieces of evidence for Wikipedia being in a failed state is precisely
> > > that
> > > > it does not , by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
> > > > source:whereas "Reputable tertiary sources
> > > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TERTIARY>, such as
> > > > introductory-level university textbooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias,
> > may
> > > > be cited".  So Wikipedia fails in its aim of being an encyclopaedia
&

[Wikimedia-l] Structured data ethical implications

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Dear all,
There have been announcements about the Structured data project on Commons,
that is intended to make it easier to view, search, edit, organize and
re-use the metadata on media.  This is clearly of great value to
researchers and developers in image recognition, who will have a large
repository of tagged image files to train their AI implementations on.

There is however an ethical issue here.  Readers will recall that Google
discovered that its facial regonition software was prone to classifying
African-American faces as "gorilla", because the training dataset had not
contained enough non-white faces -- see for example The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/16882408/google-racist-gorillas-photo-recognition-algorithm-ai


Is the Foundation confident that the Commons repository is sufficiently
diverse that it can ethically offer it to others as a source of training
data?

Thrapostibongles
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[Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Hello all,

There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons components
of The Community, judging by the article "Wikimedia Commons: a highly
hostile place for multimedia students contributions" at the Education
Newsletter

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/April_2019/Wikimedia_Commons:_a_highly_hostile_place_for_multimedia_students_contributions

As far as I can understand it, some students on an Outreach project
uploaded some rather well-made video material, and comeone on Commons
deleted them because they appeared to well-made to be student projects and
so concluded they were copyright violations.  But some rather odd remarks
were made "Commons has to fight the endless stream of uploaded copyrighted
content on behalf of a headquarters in San Francisco that doesn't care." and
 "you have regarded Commons as little more than free cloud storage for
images you intend to use on Wikipedia ".

Perhaps the Foundation needs to resolve this dispute?

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

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Fae,

I think that what you are describing is essentially the sort of mechanism
that would be mandated by Article 17 on the proposed new European copyright
directive.  Since the Foundation has explicitly opposed that, see their
blog post
https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/03/26/european-parliament-limits-internet-freedom-in-controversial-copyright-vote/
I
presume that they will not permit the use of such an automated system on
their projects.

Thrapostibongles

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 12:41 PM Fæ  wrote:

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

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Interpretation of CC NC from SUISA

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Yury

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.  Firstly, this isn't the right venue
for a discussion of the general principle of non-commercial licensing,
especially as the Foundation has decided on the use of licences that permit
commercial reuse.  And secondly, there's nothing to prevent a rights owner
from granting a full/libre licence if they want to for the works they own:
so why would one need to advocate for it, here or anywhere else?

Thrapostibongles

On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 10:42 AM Yury Bulka 
wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> Just stumbled upon an page where Swiss collecting society SUISA lists
> things which they consider commercial use within CC NC licenses, as
> applied to works they have copyright on (delegated from authors who are
> their members). It's quite interesting and I think it is a very good
> example for advocating for fully free/libre licensing of works.
>
> Here's the page:
>
> https://www.suisa.ch/en/members/authors/how-to-register-a-work/creative-commons.html
>
> The list of uses that they consider commercial use is quite
> interesting. For instance, it includes things like:
>
> - involving a counterpart, of a financial or other nature, regardless of
> the beneficiary, title or grounds;
> - in exchange for other goods, whether or not the exchange generates
>   direct or indirect revenues or gives rise to a payment of any nature
>   whatsoever;
> - at places of work;
>
> Best,
> Yury.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Interpretation of CC NC from SUISA

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

James

> Per "the Foundation has decided", it is not the foundation but our movement
> that has decided that we will mostly only allow licenses that allow
> commercial reuse.
>

That doesn't seem quite right.  The Foundation Board adopted a resolution
on 23 March 2007,  which is published at
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy and
cross-referred to on Wikipedia as still current, headed

> This policy is approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> .
> It may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by Wikimedia Foundation
> officers or staff nor local policies of any Wikimedia project
> .


and statng

   - All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free
   Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the
   'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above.

So it seems to me that it is the Foundation not the movement that controls
the licensing.

Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Interpretation of CC NC from SUISA

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Benjamin

There appear to be misconceptions about the CC licences in general.  They
may be free in the sense of no money changing hands but that does not mean
they are free in the sense of being without conditions or restrictions.
The CC-BY-SA licences that Wikipedia uses allow for use of material on
certain conditions, including attribution.  The NC licences impose
additional conditions.  But in either case conditions are imposed.

In passing, and more within the orbit of this discussion group, we may note
that while there are conditions on the use of CC-BY-SA material, they are
routinely violated.  As has been noted previously, Amazon does not provide
the attribution required when it reuses Wikipedia material via Alexa.
Strictly speaking I suppose the remedy is in the hands of the individual
volunteers as owners of the rights.  It is regrettable that the Foundation
has not chosen to support them in this.

Thrapostibongles

On Tue, May 21, 2019 at 1:22 AM Benjamin Ikuta 
wrote:

>
>
> Do you think it might be a common misconception, perhaps?
>
>
>
> On May 20, 2019, at 6:39 AM, Paulo Santos Perneta 
> wrote:
>
> > The idea that NC is "open and free" is growing like a cancer in Brazil
> and
> > Portugal. I've been noticing that for some time already, and I do believe
> > we as a Movement should have some sort of plan or strategy to fight that
> -
> > and never indulge in accepting NC as a valid license for the Wikimedia
> > projects, as IMO it really hinders our mission of a free and open
> project.
> >
> > Paulo
> >
> > Yury Bulka  escreveu no dia segunda,
> > 20/05/2019 à(s) 07:28:
> >
> >>> From: Mister Thrapostibongles 
> >>>
> >>> I'm not quite sure what you mean here.  Firstly, this isn't the right
> >> venue
> >>> for a discussion of the general principle of non-commercial licensing,
> >>> especially as the Foundation has decided on the use of licences that
> >> permit
> >>> commercial reuse.
> >> In my opition it's not a terribly offtopic subject for this list, but
> >> let my clarify that my intent is not to revisit the current licensing
> >> policy of Wikimedia projects.
> >>
> >> I just thought that this could be useful to someone advocating for the
> >> use of fully libre licenses (the ones without any non-commercial
> >> clauses) outside Wikimedia projects, as it shows how the non-commercial
> >> clause could be interpreted by some actors that have resources and
> >> rights to go to court over your use of the work.
> >>
> >>> And secondly, there's nothing to prevent a rights owner
> >>> from granting a full/libre licence if they want to for the works they
> >> own:
> >>> so why would one need to advocate for it, here or anywhere else?
> >> Because many people think that non-commercial is good enough, for
> >> instance MPs establishing laws touching Freedom of Panorama.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Yury.
> >>
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[Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Mister Thrapostibongles]

Dear all,
The discussion triggered by recent WMF T actions has tended to focus on
the merits or otherwise of that specific action (even though as I have
pointed out elsewhere this is very much a case of those who know don;t talk
and those who talk don't know).  So I though it might be helpful to try and
abstract some more general points for discussion.

The long-term future of the Community, and the relationship between the
Foundation and its volunteers is under discussion in an elaborately
structured consultation announced already here in September 2017.  It would
not be particularly helpful to try to run a parallel discussion here.  But
in the short to medium term, it seems that it will be necessary for the
Foundation to take a different stance with respect to the management of the
various projects, and the English Wikipedia in particular.

It is often said that "The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in
practice. In theory, it can never work."  Well, that's half true.  What the
experiment has proved is that the theory was indeed correct -- Wikipedia,
as currently constituted, does not work.  There are two inter-related
aspects to its failure: content and conduct, inextricably related in a
project founded on crowd-sourcing.

Let's look at the content first.  Even on Wikipedia's own terms, it has
failed.  It is a principle that Wikipedia is founded on reliable sources,
and by its own admission, Wikipedia itself is not such a source.  That
bears repetition -- a project aiming to be an encyclopaedia, that compares
itself with Britannica, explicitly is not reliable.  Foundation research
has shown that about one fifth of Wikipedia articles are supported  by
references that are inadequate to support the text or simply are not
there.  That's about a million articles each on of the larger Wikpedias.
Some thousands of those are biographies of living people and in view of the
risk of defamation, no such articles should exist on Wikipedia at all.
There are several thousand articles that are possible copyright violations:
again such articles should not be there.  And when I say "should not", I
mean according to the rules adopted by the Wikipedia volunteer community
itself.

This links to the conduct aspects.  The self-organising policies of the
"encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" have flattened out the formal
hierarchy to the extent that it has been replaced, necessarily, by an
informal but strong hierarchy based on a reputation econiomy.  This creates
an unpleasant and hence ineffective working environment, and makes it all
but impossible to organise a volunteer workforce into coping with the major
violations of content policy alreay mentioned.  Indeed, the conduct policy
makes it all but impossible to effectively handle cases of major abuse,
witting ot uwitting.  For example, one reason for the failure to manage
copyright violations is that some thousand of articles were written by a
volunteer who was unable or unwilling to comply with the copyright
requirements applicable to their contributions   There is simply no
mechanism that allows for contributions to be effectively checked either
when contributed or subsequently, bcause there is no mechanism that makes
it possible to manage or organise the work of the volunteers, and existing
community norms will not accept such a degree of organisation.

These mutually reinforcing failures make to necessary for some degree of
organisation and management of content and conduct to be imposed from
outside the volunteer community.  The Foundation has the resources and is
the only entity that can acquire and deploy the expertise required to do
so.  No doubt this is unpalatable to some of the more vociferous members of
the community -- those who stand highest in the reputation economy and have
most to lose by it being replaced by an effective management policy.  But
the fact remains -- Wikipedia is failing, and in its present form will
inevitably continue to do so.

Foundation or failure -- which is it to be?

Thrapostibongles
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