[Wikimedia-l] WMF Chief of Staff transition
Dear colleagues, With the transition well underway for the Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer, it is time for me to begin my own transition from the organization. I shared with our executive team earlier this month that I will be departing on 1 April 2021. There is never a perfect time to leave an organization. It’s difficult to step away from this important work, and a community of colleagues, collaborators, and friends that I admire and appreciate. However, after successfully delivering two major strategic projects on behalf of the Foundation, notably the final movement strategy recommendations and coordinating the Foundation’s programme to combat disinformation, and with Katherine's departure as our CEO — the timing feels right. I want to afford the next chief executive the opportunity to select a chief of staff who has as close a working dynamic as Katherine and I have shared. Many of you know me from our work together in the free and open movement over many years — we’ve discussed the future of the web over a good coffee at MozFest, debated copyright reform and license terms at CC Summits, or worked to reshape our global movements in Berlin, Stockholm, Esino Lario, Tunis, and online. Over the past decade, it’s been a real joy to have so many conversations about the future we want to build together, and then to actually go out and work on it. The Wikimedia communities are at the center of the world’s most powerful collective act, and it’s been thrilling to be a part of it with you. For me, this most recent role in our open community was an opportunity to make a lasting impact on the future of free knowledge. It has been a tremendous honor to get to know our communities more deeply through the movement strategy process, and support this work to develop the strategy towards tangible actions that are now being implemented across our movement. It was exactly a year ago today that a small group of us met in New York City to finalize the draft recommendations, and today there are concrete commitments and an incredible momentum towards a new model of distributed, community-led governance that I know will reshape the movement forever. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have done this work with our movement, and for the collaboration and friendships that developed along the way. I’m also proud of our work together to combat disinformation. Wikimedians have been fighting disinformation together for 20 years — it’s a core value and approach. But this year brought unprecedented threats, and as always, communities stepped up to lead. At the Foundation, we came together with community members to make sure we had a coordinated approach to defend the projects against disinformation around COVID-19 and the US elections last fall. The experience of the disinformation taskforce taught us several valuable lessons that are informing how we understand and prepare for threats to the quality of knowledge on our projects. This is a movement built on the promise of radical collaboration. What I will miss most are the people that I have had the privilege to work with during my time here. I’m not certain what is next for me, but I have some conversations in the works and hope to have more to say soon. I will continue to be a part of this Big Open movement, and look forward to seeing you again — online or (fingers crossed) in person. With gratitude, Ryan Ryan Merkley (he/him) Chief of Staff and Board Liaison Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: transition to implementation begins
Dear all, It’s my pleasure to be writing to you about the Movement Strategy. We have come together over the past 3 years to develop our Strategic Direction [1] and then the recommendations [2] to guide our collaborations and future. So many of you contributed to the process — some for only a part, and others throughout the entire process. With the recommendations complete, our focus now shifts to implementing the recommendations in a collaborative, open, and transparent way. Transition To make the transition from the publication of the recommendations to their implementation, we need to do some planning. It’s a 10-year strategy, with dozens of initiatives, dependencies, and connected goals, to be delivered in a more distributed, deliberative, and open collaborative model than ever before. We’ll need to work together to define how we prioritize, sequence, resource, and support each initiative. So much of our work is done online, but a lot of strategic work also happens in person. We can’t do that now, and so we’ve had to adapt to engage broadly, and in inclusive ways. To create this plan, movement-wide virtual events will kick off in September. We will use the Movement Strategy principles [3] as a guiding framework to ensure the planning will be inclusive and empowering for our diverse range of communities, without leaving anyone behind. As a result of the pandemic, we lost the chance to work together in-person on the transition to implementation at the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin [4]. Yet we gained an opportunity to include a higher number and a more diverse profile of participants. Engaging with online contributors, technical developer communities, and smaller user groups throughout the process will be a key priority. Successful virtual engagements with a high number of diverse participants are difficult to do well. Therefore, a Design Group will collaborate to prepare for the virtual transition discussions. This group will consist of community members reflecting different parts and perspectives of the movement, including representatives of regional collaboratives (CEE, ESEAP, Indaba, Iberocoop, North America, South Asia, WikiArabia, WikiFranca), the EDs and chairpersons groups, and WMF staff. Anyone who is interested can contribute. Regular summaries of the preparation work and design discussions will be published on meta so that anyone interested will be able to share insights and help improve the process, even if not part of the Design Group itself. Participation I look forward to: Working with many of you at the virtual transition events. Ways to participate and the schedule of events will be determined by the Design Group. The current plan is to start the virtual transition discussions with the movement in September. The virtual events is where major discussions will take place on sequencing, prioritizing, and resourcing the recommendations across the movement. Seeing those of you interested participate in the open review of the transition preparations. The task will be to review the work of the Design Group and share your perspective, enriching the thinking to improve the events. Open review will happen in parallel to the work of the Design Group from the end of June to the end of July / beginning of August. Having nominations from different movement groups and collaboratives (mentioned above) for the Design Group. The task will be to design as a group how the transition process of online events will be set up. Want to know more? We have put together a placeholder meta page [5] and will keep updating it as more information becomes available. Join office hours with the Movement Strategy core team on Wednesday. June 10 @ 17:00 UTC (Google Meet <http://meet.google.com/uun-pzmb-kti>) [6] or Thursday. June 11 @ 08:00 UTC (Google Meet <http://meet.google.com/rva-yqaq-zdk>) [7] to share any comments and ask questions. Our email channel is always open: strategy2...@wikimedia.org <mailto:strategy2...@wikimedia.org>. Best, Ryan Merkley Chief of Staff, Wikimedia Foundation [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Movement_Strategy_Principles <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Movement_Strategy_Principles> [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Report> [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/2030 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/2030> [6] https://meet.google.com/uun-pzmb-kti <https://meet.google.co
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Passings of Users Tsirel, Muidlatif, Dmitrismirnov, and Ronhjones
I’m incredibly sad to learn of Muid’s passing. He was such a bright light with an enormous personality. I was very fortunate to know him though my work at CC. r. _ Ryan Merkley (he/him) Chief of Staff, Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> rmerk...@wikimedia.org <mailto:rmerk...@wikimedia.org> @ryanmerkley <https://twitter.com/ryanmerkley> +1 415 271 4946 > On May 2, 2020, at 4:45 PM, Pine W wrote: > > Hello Wikimedia-l colleagues, > > It has come to my attention that the following four contributors have passed > on. > > The obituaries here are adapted from > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deceased_Wikipedians/2020, > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deceased_Wikipedians/2019, and > https://ru.wikinews.org/wiki/%D0%92_%D0%92%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D0%BE%D1%82_COVID-19_%D1%83%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_%D0%B8_%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B5%D1%86_%D0%94%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%A1%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2; > see those pages for the original texts and attribution. > > > == Boris Tsirelson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tsirel) == > > On 21 January 2020, Boris Semyonovich Tsirelson, a mathematician and > professor of mathematics at Tel Aviv University, Israel, as well as a > Wikipedian, passed away due to being voluntarily euthanized following > a terminal battle with cancer. He was 69. During his lifetime, he made > notable contributions to probability theory and functional analysis, > such as "Tsirelson's bound" and "Tsirelson space". On Wikipedia, he > made 8,857 edits, including the creation of pages such as > "Conditioning (probability)" and "Standard probability space", among > others. It is currently unknown if he is survived by anyone, but his > legacy will not be forgotten. > > > == Muid Latif (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Muidlatif) == > > On 11 April 2020, Muid Latif, a former project lead of Creative > Commons in Malaysia who had been promoting free-culture movement and > open collaboration, passed away as announced by his brother at Latif's > official Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/muidlatif/). > > In addition to his user pages, there are articles about him in Malay > Wikipedia (https://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muid_Latif) and English > Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muid_Latif). > > > == Dmitri Smirnov (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dmitrismirnov) == > > A Russian émigré to the UK, composer and teacher, and a Wikimedian, > Dmitri passed away on 9 April from COVID-19. I will quote portions of > the page from Russian Wikinews. > > В четверг, 9 апреля 2020 года, в больнице города Уотфорд > (Великобритания) от осложнений, вызванных коронавирусной инфекцией > COVID-19, умер советский и британский композитор, поэт, викимедиец, > администратор Русской и Английской Викитеки Дмитрий Смирнов. В ноябре > прошлого года ему исполнился 71 год. > > Дмитрий Николаевич Смирнов родился 2 ноября 1948 года в Минске в семье > оперных певцов Николая Трофимовича Сенькина (сценический псевдоним > Садовский, 1914—1999) и Евгении Александровны Смирновой (1914—2003). > > В 1967 году окончил музыкальное училище в городе Фрунзе (ныне Бишкек), > а затем, в 1972 году, Московскую консерваторию. Среди его учителей > Эдисон Денисов, Николай Сидельников, Юрий Холопов, Филипп Гершкович. > > Был женат на композиторе Елене Фирсовой. > > В 1991 году Смирнов эмигрировал в Великобританию. Преподавал в > Кембридже (Сент-Джонс колледж, 1992), в Дартингтоне (графство > Девоншир, 1992), в 1993—1997 профессор композиции в Килском > университете (графство Стаффордшир), в Голдсмитс-колледже (Лондон, > 2002). > > Смирнов — один из активнейших участников вики-проектов Викимедиа с > псевдонимом Dmitrismirnov. Начиная с 18 апреля 2006 года он сделал 242 > 896 правок. Основным его проектом стала Русская Викитека, где Дмитрий > был администратором и внёс 212 513 изминений. Как наиболее > продуктивный участник этого проекта он шесть раз удостаивался > Вики-премии в 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016 и 2019 годов. Также он внёс > заметный вклад в Английской Викитеке, где так же был администратором, > в Викисклад, в Русскую и Английскую Википедии, в Викиданные. > > Он вносил изменения в вики-проекты практически каждый день. Последние > его правки датируются 12 марта. > > 3 апреля он размещает в Facebook первые фотографии из госпиталя в > кислородной маске. Потом он выкладывает ещё несколько фоторепортажей > из клиники: 3 и 4 апреля, шутит. Между ними воспоминания — фотография >
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Face recognition
I don't believe it implies that. As with many things legal, the answer re: derivatives is likely "it depends". R. On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:30 PM Benjamin Ikuta wrote: > > > Thanks for that. > > Pardon me if I've missed something, but that seems to imply, but not > directly state, that AI training is a derivative work; could you clarify > that? > > > > On Jan 18, 2020, at 2:58 PM, Ryan Merkley wrote: > > > [My comments are my own, and don’t reflect or suggest any official > position from WMF] > > > > The NBC story linked below come out about a year ago. Around the same > time, when I was CEO at Creative Commons, we published a statement and > updated FAQs that attempted to respond to questions being asked about > permitted uses and attribution related to the licenses. > > > > CC’s statement (March 2019) is here: > https://creativecommons.org/2019/03/13/statement-on-shared-images-in-facial-recognition-ai/ > < > https://creativecommons.org/2019/03/13/statement-on-shared-images-in-facial-recognition-ai/ > > > > The FAQs are here: > https://creativecommons.org/faq/#artificial-intelligence-and-cc-licenses < > https://creativecommons.org/faq/#artificial-intelligence-and-cc-licenses> > > > > r. > > > > _ > > > > Ryan Merkley (he/him) > > Chief of Staff, Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> > > > > rmerk...@wikimedia.org <mailto:rmerk...@wikimedia.org> > > @ryanmerkley <https://twitter.com/ryanmerkley> > > +1 416 802 0662 > > > >> On Jan 18, 2020, at 2:14 PM, John Erling Blad wrote: > >> > >> There are several reports of face recognition going mainstream, often > >> in less than optimum circumstances, and often violating copyright and > >> licenses > >> > >> > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html > >> > https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/facial-recognition-s-dirty-little-secret-millions-online-photos-scraped-n981921 > >> https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/01/diversity-in-faces/ > >> > >> In my opinion building a model for face recognition is a derived work, > >> and as such must credit the photographers. That pose a real problem > >> when the photographers counts in the millions and billions. Even a 1px > >> fine print would be troublesome! > >> > >> What is the official stance on this? Is it a copyright infringement or > >> not, does the license(s) cover the case or not? > >> > >> John Erling Blad > >> /jeblad > >> > >> ___ > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > ___ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Face recognition
[My comments are my own, and don’t reflect or suggest any official position from WMF] The NBC story linked below come out about a year ago. Around the same time, when I was CEO at Creative Commons, we published a statement and updated FAQs that attempted to respond to questions being asked about permitted uses and attribution related to the licenses. CC’s statement (March 2019) is here: https://creativecommons.org/2019/03/13/statement-on-shared-images-in-facial-recognition-ai/ <https://creativecommons.org/2019/03/13/statement-on-shared-images-in-facial-recognition-ai/> The FAQs are here: https://creativecommons.org/faq/#artificial-intelligence-and-cc-licenses <https://creativecommons.org/faq/#artificial-intelligence-and-cc-licenses> r. _____ Ryan Merkley (he/him) Chief of Staff, Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> rmerk...@wikimedia.org <mailto:rmerk...@wikimedia.org> @ryanmerkley <https://twitter.com/ryanmerkley> +1 416 802 0662 > On Jan 18, 2020, at 2:14 PM, John Erling Blad wrote: > > There are several reports of face recognition going mainstream, often > in less than optimum circumstances, and often violating copyright and > licenses > > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html > https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/facial-recognition-s-dirty-little-secret-millions-online-photos-scraped-n981921 > https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/01/diversity-in-faces/ > > In my opinion building a model for face recognition is a derived work, > and as such must credit the photographers. That pose a real problem > when the photographers counts in the millions and billions. Even a 1px > fine print would be troublesome! > > What is the official stance on this? Is it a copyright infringement or > not, does the license(s) cover the case or not? > > John Erling Blad > /jeblad > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
