[Wikimedia-l] Re: Osama and Ziyad

[The Cunctator]

Frankly, that's implausible.

On Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:37 PM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> I do think that posting any kind of response to these questions *on a
> public mailing list* would do more harm than good. Thank you.
>
> Best,
> DerHexer
> *Wikimedia Steward*
>
> Am Montag, 25. September 2023 um 21:20:21 MESZ hat Andreas Kolbe <
> jayen...@gmail.com> Folgendes geschrieben:
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> As there was a recent press mention of Osama and Ziyad[1] (see "In the
> Media" in the current Signpost issue) – does the WMF's Human Rights Team
> (cc'ed) have any update on their situation?
>
> Has anyone else heard any news? If I recall correctly, Osama had married
> not long before being jailed in 2020 – has anyone been in touch with his
> wife?
>
> Is there anything the community can do?
>
> Andreas
>
> [1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_imprisoned_for_editing_Wikipedia
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Sharing an update on the Wikimedia Foundation Knowledge Equity Fund’s grantees

[The Cunctator]

This is all extremely helpful information. I am grateful for the with you
have done and I think this is an excellent project.

On Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 6:41 AM Biyanto  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My name is Biyanto Rebin, and I am one of the community members who is
> part of the Knowledge Equity Fund Committee. I joined the Equity Fund
> Committee last year because I believe that our movement needs support from
> other groups and organizations who are working on free knowledge to make
> sure that we can address knowledge equity, which is stated in the movement
> strategy.
>
> The grants support those groups that are being left behind or
> under-resourced, as we believe that supporting those particular entities
> will increase the quality of knowledge overall and contents on the
> Wikimedia projects in the future.
>
> It is not true that these grants are completely unrelated to Wikimedia or
> the Wikimedia projects. From the beginning, the Knowledge Equity Fund was
> designed as an experiment: a pilot fund to improve the pool of knowledge
> resources on underrepresented topics that can then be used to strengthen
> content on the Wikimedia projects. Because it is a pilot project with a
> limited pool of funds, our intention is to experiment with different
> approaches, and see where we can learn what works. The size of the initial
> Equity Fund, $4.5 million, was from the Foundation’s 2019-2020 fiscal year
> operating budget, when the Foundation had a budget underrun
> 
> due to COVID-19 and set aside funds for this pilot. No new funds from the
> Foundation’s revenue have been added to the Fund, and it is not meant to
> replace or compete with the other and larger grant programs
>  for community members and
> Wikimedia groups.
>
> I understand it is frustrating that we cannot yet measure impact directly
> to the Wikimedia projects. This is an area that we hope to improve in this
> new round, and to do so we are connecting each of our new grantees directly
> with groups in the Wikimedia movement. We believe that we cannot build
> stronger projects without building and strengthening alliances with other
> institutions working to create knowledge.
>
> One example I can explain using my local context is with Indonesian
> Wikipedia, and how we are connecting them with two of our new grantees:
> AMAN  and Project Multatuli
> . I am coming from Indonesia where
> indigenous topics are still marginalized issues and they are left behind.
> Sure, there has been some improvement for the last decade, but it is not
> enough. AMAN has an initiative to build an Indigenous Peoples Glossary, so
> Indonesian people in general can benefit from this resource. As indigenous
> peoples are marginalized, sometimes we still use some insensitive words
> toward them, and even some Indonesian Wikipedia articles still use these
> words. We cannot rely solely on resources that are coming from outside of
> indigenous people realm to define who they are, what we should call them.
> By having this initiative, we firmly believe our community can later use
> the Indigenous Peoples Glossary as one of useful resources for Indonesian
> indigenous people related topics. Project Multatuli is a non-profit
> journalism organization working with indigenous women topics for this grant
> and they also can collaborate to empower more indigenous people as citizen
> journalists.
>
> I’m also sharing details about the relationships that we’re building in
> the movement with some of our other new grantee.
>
> Black Cultural Archives : Given BCA’s
> focus, we have connected them with Wikimedia UK, Wiki Library User Group
> and Whose Knowledge to help them better understand how to connect their
> work and archives with the Wikimedia projects.
>
> Create Caribbean Research Institute :
> As the first digital humanities centre in the Caribbean, Create Caribbean
> has natural alignment with Wiki Cari UG, as well as Noircir, Whose
> Knowledge, Projet:Université de Guyane, and WikiMujeres. We also plan to
> connect them to present or speak at Wiki Con North America.
>
> Criola 
>
> Criola is a civil society organization dedicated to advocating for the
> rights of Black women in Brazilian society. We have connected them with Whose
> Knowledge, WikiMujeres, Mujeres (mulheres) latino americanas in Wikimedia,
> and we will be connecting them with Mais_Teoria_da_Historia Na Brasil.
>
> Data for Black Lives 
>
> Given D4BL’s focus in the US, we have connected them with AfroCROWD and
> Black Lunch Table.
>
> Filipino American National Historical Society
> : FANHS is focused on Filipino American

[Wikimedia-l] Re: ChatGPT as a reliable source

[The Cunctator]

Again at no point should even an improved version be considered a source;
at best it would be a research or editing tool.

On Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:40 AM Lane Chance  wrote:

> Keep in mind how fast these tools change. ChatGPT, Bard and
> competitors understand well the issues with lack of sources, and Bard
> does sometimes put a suitable source in a footnote, even if it
> (somewhat disappointingly) just links to wikipedia. There's likely to
> be a variation soon that does a decent job of providing references,
> and at that point the role of these tools moves beyond being an
> amusement to a far more credible research tool.
>
> So, these long discussions about impact on open knowledge are quite
> likely to have to run again in 2024...
>
> On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 09:24, Kiril Simeonovski
>  wrote:
> >
> > Thank you everyone for your input.
> >
> > Your considerations are very similar to mine, and they give a clear
> direction towards what the guidelines regarding the use of ChatGPT should
> point to.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kiril
> >
> > On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 10:11, Ilario valdelli 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Define "reliable source".
> >>
> >> A source is reliable if can be consulted by other people than the editor
> >> to check the content.
> >>
> >> Is this possible with ChatGPT? No, becaue if you address the same
> >> question to CHatGPT, you will have a different answer.
> >>
> >> In this case how the people verificaying the information can check that
> >> the editor did not invent the result?
> >>
> >> Kind regards
> >>
> >> On 17/05/2023 09:08, Kiril Simeonovski wrote:
> >> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >> >
> >> > Two days ago, a participant in one of our edit-a-thons consulted
> >> > ChatGPT when writing an article on the Macedonian Wikipedia that did
> >> > not exist on any other language edition. ChatGPT provided some output,
> >> > but the problem was how to cite it.
> >> >
> >> > The community on the Macedonian Wikipedia has not yet had a discussion
> >> > on this matter and we do not have any guidelines. So, my main
> >> > questions are the following:
> >> >
> >> > * Can ChatGPT be used as a reliable source and, if yes, how would the
> >> > citation look like?
> >> >
> >> > * Are there any ongoing community discussions on introducing
> guidelines?
> >> >
> >> > My personal opinion is that ChatGPT should be avoided as a reliable
> >> > source, and only the original source where the algorithm gets the
> >> > information from should be used.
> >> >
> >> > Best regards,
> >> > Kiril
> >> >
> >> > ___
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> >>
> >> --
> >> Ilario Valdelli
> >> Wikimedia CH
> >> Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> >> Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
> >> Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
> >> Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
> >> Wikipedia: Ilario
> >> Skype: valdelli
> >> Tel: +41764821371
> >> http://www.wikimedia.ch
> >>
> > ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation launches Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards on World Press Freedom Day

[The Cunctator]

I am personally fully in support of Wikimedia supporting journalism, fwiw.

On Sat, May 6, 2023, 9:08 AM Bobby Shabangu  wrote:

> These are interesting viewpoints indeed.
>
> I think the connection between these awards and Wikipedia (especially in
> the African continent) is clearly stated in the article. In fact, if it was
> me who was writing this press release I would have started that sentence
> with:
>
>- Most African Wikipedians struggle with adding content on the
>English/French Wikipedia because of lack of reliable references, and " *the
>awards recognise the essential role journalists play in creating
>well-researched articles that volunteer editors use as source materials to
>develop content on Wikipedia*"
>
> Colleagues, you will agree with me that there's no one size fits all
> solution to fix our problems. We exist in a dynamic community where
> something that was perfectly fine a few years ago may not work today. I
> personally participated in the development of the MS2030 but I was also
> fully aware that the recommendations of the MS2030 are not a silver bullet
> or a formula to solve all our problems in the movement. It is our
> collective thinking that by implementing the recommendations, our movement
> will be in a better strategic position by year 2030 to address the issues
> stated in the MS2030.
>
> Now does that mean we should say NO to a pilot project that the WMF
> consulted us to try out help close the knowledge gaps in Africa because
> it's not part of the MS2030 which is our silver bullet to solving all our
> problems? I don't know you tell me colleagues.
>
> Best regards,
> Bobby Shabangu
>
>
>
> On Sat, 6 May 2023 at 11:08, Mrb Rafi  wrote:
>
>> +1 to Paul.
>> I was thinking of the same thing but was confused about how to put it.
>> Many individuals from underrepresented communities, including myself, often
>> feel hesitant to contribute to global-level conversations in a meaningful
>> way and raise their concerns.
>>
>> The connection between Wikimedia and this initiative is too weak. While
>> cost is not the primary concern, the potential impact on Wikimedia is
>> significant for any Wikimedia initiative.
>> I am not trying to discourage our fellow Wikimedians from Africa in any
>> way. On the contrary, I have witnessed firsthand the incredible work they
>> are doing despite facing numerous obstacles, and their contributions often
>> go unrecognized.
>>
>> This is undoubtedly a good initiative that serves the local African
>> community. But how does this serve Wikimedia? How do we measure the direct
>> impact of this initiative on Wikimedia? How is it aligned with MS2030?
>> I am also slightly uncomfortable with the fact that the volunteer
>> organizers are not recognized in any visible place. They deserve proper
>> acknowledgment.
>>
>> From a broader perspective, there's something strange happening in the
>> movement. I fear that the focus is being shifted from community relations
>> and support to somewhere else. In the annual planning community
>> conversation, I expressed my concerns about the apparent reduction in
>> direct professional support from the Foundation for the communities.
>> Instead, it appears that the focus is shifting towards self-organized
>> initiatives, which will never be effective for underrepresented
>> communities. We require direct professional support from the Foundation,
>> which has been provided quietly but effectively in recent years. Wikimedia
>> communities need professional support from the foundation that empowers
>> them from the core and creates the capacity to work more independently.
>>
>> The foundation possesses all the linguistic expertise and the required
>> in-depth, unique, and specialized knowledge of the local Wikimedia
>> community dynamics to align this initiative with MS2030 and enhance its
>> direct impact on the movement. But for some strange reason, they're not
>> doing that—not only for this initiative but almost everywhere; they're
>> instead fully destroying that capacity themselves through the recent
>> layoffs (probably). The radical changes may have a very negative long-term
>> impact on communities, specially the underrepresented ones.
>>
>> I'm not sure, but I'm having the feeling that ideas like DEI and MS2030
>> are being misinterpreted to justify a lot of things that don't necessarily
>> serve DEI or MS2030 in the movement. Even I had the feeling that the draft
>> annual plan was just MS2030-washed without any visible impact. I've always
>> supported the foundation and its staff in any of their meaningful
>> contributions with all my enthusiasm and knowledge as a volunteer, but for
>> the last few days, I've been hesitating.
>> I want everyone, including the foundation, to work in such a way that it
>> creates capacity in the local communities and, at the same time, serves our
>> goals as a movement.
>>
>> Best,
>> Rafi
>>
>> On Sat, May 6, 2023 at 9:58 AM Paul J. Weiss  wrote:
>>

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation launches Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards on World Press Freedom Day

[The Cunctator]

While I share the concerns expressed, I'm personally enthusiastic about the
thoughtfulness and initiative of the Working Group. It might help to
explicitly mention the awareness of these language issues in the public
presentation of this effort.

On Fri, May 5, 2023, 10:45 AM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Hi Lodewijk,
>
> In your reply to Olushola you said:
>
> "I hope you can perhaps also clarify whether 'in English' means that the
> original article has to be available in English, or that some translation
> should be available in English."
>
> As Shola hasn't provided any clarification on this, note that the FAQ[1]
> for the award states:
>
> Q: My article is in French, Portuguese, Swahili, or any other language
> that is not English. Can I submit a translated version?
> A: This year’s awards are focused on articles published in English. We are 
> *not
> accepting translated articles*.
>
> Best regards,
> Andreas
>
> [1]
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/open-the-knowledge/journalism-awards/#a5-frequently-asked-questions
>
>
>
> On Thursday, May 4, 2023, effe iets anders 
> wrote:
> > Hi Olushola,
> > thanks for working on efforts like this. I think it's definitely our
> African communities that should be the judge of what shape works best for
> an award like this. Out of curiosity, as a way for us all to learn and
> maybe for Africans among us who want to participate in this conversation
> that you refer to, could you link to where this conversation/consultation
> is happening?
> > I hope you can perhaps also clarify whether 'in English' means that the
> original article has to be available in English, or that some translation
> should be available in English. I think the former would be much more
> restrictive than the latter, especially if some translation resources
> (including community resources) are available.
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> > On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 1:48 PM Olushola Olaniyan <
> olaniyanshol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear all,
> >>
> >> My name is Olushola (User: Olaniyan Olushola). I am from Africa and
> have been a Wikimedia since 2014 and passionate about language. I co-lead
> the Oral History documentation of Nigerian indigenous languages ( see more
> about it here ). I am part and parcel of the working group for this
> Journalism Award. Together with other community members and some foundation
> staff, we have co-created the submission guidelines and award criteria,
> including that articles should be English language articles published in a
> major outlet.
> >>
> >> Everything regarding the rationale for this award is being done in
> consultation with members of our African communities, aligned with our
> goals to increase exposure for the work we love in the region and close
> knowledge gaps.
> >>
> >> One thing to mention is that articles about Africa, especially written
> by journalists with a local perspective, must be better represented in our
> language Wikipedias, including English.
> >>
> >> With this being a brand-new initiative, it was the best time to learn.
> >>
> >> It is a pilot, and we all see this as an experiment to draw more
> attention to journalists' important role as content creators on Wikipedia.
> >>
> >> You will agree that we need to celebrate existing journalism excellence
> that helps fill knowledge gaps online.
> >>
> >> The working group conferred, and since this is a pilot, we decided
> together that it was a good idea to consider the need to limit the scope to
> collect data and insights easily. We understand the sentiment behind
> language in Africa and beyond, and we always wanted to keep everything
> simple. We know that no language is superior to the other, so this is a
> pilot. From here, we will likely assess the impact we can have before
> scaling.
> >>
> >> We wish to expand this initiative with more regional volunteers should
> it succeed - and we hope it will.
> >>
> >> We already have more than a hundred entries!
> >>
> >> Thank you
> >>
> >> Shola
> >>
> >> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter

[The Cunctator]

I honestly think the WMF has better things to do than worry about
engagement on what is clearly a grossly mismanaged website.

On Tue, May 2, 2023, 3:53 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Justice,
> Yes, it works that way, because we are not measuring the total engagement
> (where @Wikipedia wins @euwikipedia bat not @viquipedia) but the engagement
> rate per tweet, which is balanced with the number of followers.
>
> Another topic is that the take-over by Elon Musk is affecting our
> engagement, but this should also be taken in account by the Social media
> team. In fact, there should be a discussion following up here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Twitter_verification_checkmarks.
>
>
> Since the changes on the algorithm affects everyone, the @Wikipedia team
> should be interested in learning about successful stories and how other
> social media handles continue having engagement while the one that should
> be leading is losing engagement every month.
>
> Finally, I don't think that any discussion is "settled" if there's no
> answer. For the moment, the answer to the proposal of working together is
> silence.
>
> Thanks
>
> Galder
> --
> *From:* Justice Okai-Allotey 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 2, 2023 9:47 AM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
>
> Hi Galder,
>
>
> Twitter has consistently seen a downward trend since the take over by Elon
> Musk. A lot of people are not using that platform like they did in the
> past.
>
> And I thought this conversations was settled when WMF brought their social
> media strategy and engagement plan. But it looks like you keep bringing it
> up.
>
> Again you don't expect accounts with less following to have same
> engagements with accounts with higher following it doesn't work that way.
>
> Organizations define their own metrics and so success may mean different
> things to different organizations.
>
> Regards,
> Justice.
>
> On Tue, 2 May 2023 at 07:41, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
> The impact of @wikipedia continues going down on Twitter. There's no
> strategy to turn this trend and the team seems happy with the numbers .
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Organic_social_media_strategy_update.
>
>
> For context, the "Engagement Rate per Tweet" (this is the metric that the
> Communications Team proposed as a benchmark) felt to 0.011% (benchmark
> average is 0.035% and 0.05% for non-profits). Compare it with 0.27% of the
> Basque Wikipedia or the Catalan Wikipedia accounts (both have the same
> impact factor), or the 0.23% of the French Wikipedia account. We are
> talking about strategies with x25 impact.
>
> Some months ago, some users made an offer to collaborate in making the
> social media communication strategy better, but there's no answer from the
> Wikimedia Foundation. I'm still waiting for an aswer to the offer.
>
> Sincerely,
> Galder
> --
> *From:* Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 14, 2023 11:36 AM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in
> Twitter
>
> Dear all,
> I write to send a small update on this. In a message about the methodology
> followed to measure success (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Re:_Twitter_engagement_questions),
> Laura Dickinson posted this: "*According to its 2022 report
> , the
> median Twitter engagement rate for brands across all industries is 0.037%;
> for nonprofits specifically, it is 0.054% [our engagement] over the last 28
> day period is 2.7%.*"
>
> I have measured the engagement with that methodology (
> https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/#title-methodology)
> for @Wikipedia in January (Likes+RT+Comments / Number of followers) and the
> result is: 0.012%, three times lower than the industry standard and 4.5
> lower than for non-profits. For context, Basque Wikipedia had 0.055%,
> Catalan Viquipedia 0.060% and Indonesian Wikipedia an astonishing 2.79%.
> (You can check the numbers here:
> https://www.rivaliq.com/free-social-media-analytics/twitter-head-to-head)
>
> There's an open question about the strategy followed and a sincere
> proposal of opening this account to a shared volunteers/WMF administration.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Galder
>
> --
> *From:* Àlex Hinojo 
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 19, 2023 7:42 AM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
>
> +1
>
> On Thu, 19 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> A Wikipedia account *should* be under the control of Wikipedians,
> following the editorial policy for Wikipedia, but they could let WMF do the
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour

[The Cunctator]

I think one of the key lessons of software development is that infinite
money doesn't necessarily lead to good software development. I think the
work the new leadership is showing to address the structural flaws will go
a long way. There's certainly nothing immoral about a global non-profit
having an international staff. It is certainly true that wealth and salary
differentials are a challenge for any international organization, and
should be approached from a perspective of solidarity and mutuality. But
like many things in our world, it will always be a source of tension.

On Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 8:23 AM Felipe Schenone  wrote:

> Just to put things into perspective, in Argentina, earning USD 4000 a
> month means you're the fucking king. You can rent almost any place you
> want, buy food and all necessities, eat out everyday, and have enough left
> over to buy some land or a house in a few years. By contrast, a quick
> Google search suggests that renting a 1-bedroom apartment in NYC costs
> around USD 4000, while in Silicon Valley costs around USD 2500. I may be
> wrong, but judging from
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries I can see
> that nowadays, WMF salaries don't go below USD 200,000 per year, or USD
> 16,000 a month.
>
> Rather than morally bankrupt, I'd argue that bringing salaries of even USD
> 5000 per month to people in countries like mine would be an economic
> bonanza and a smart use of resources, a win-win situation. Regarding labor
> laws, many non-US countries, like mine, have quite stringent labor laws
> (such as Argentina, due to a long history of syndicalism). Perhaps it's
> just a matter of finding countries that balance both criteria. I'm not sure
> that expanding development to cheaper countries is the solution to all of
> WMF software problems, but I think it could help a lot.
>
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 8:55 AM Gnangarra  wrote:
>
>> or the 3am meetings
>>
>> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 19:49, Gnangarra  wrote:
>>
>>> Hiring people because they are in such countries as the basis for saving
>>> money is morally bankrupt,  yet we'll happily draw from the pool of
>>> donations that primarily come from those more expensive countries.  Much
>>> like we talk about equity but decide that some places arent worth engaging
>>> in because its too far to travel leaving others to shoulder the burden of
>>> travel.
>>>
>>> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 19:35, Felipe Schenone 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Yet in some countries, like mine, paying for food, renting a place,
 buying a house, etc. is far cheaper than in the US, so paying a lower
 salary (in USD) wouldn't amount to a lower standard of living at all, and
 doesn't feel immoral, at least to me.

 On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 8:00 AM Gnangarra  wrote:

>  Either we make software development cheaper somehow (move the WMF to
>> Romania or something)
>
>
> Hiring in countries with the worst labour laws and cheapest minimum
> wages is totally immoral. Especially in a community where equity is part 
> of
> our culture we must endeavour to ensure that employees/contractors
> regardless of where they live paid fairly and equally subject to skills 
> and
> responsibilities of the role.  WMF already has many employees that are
> based in countries where such immoral employment conditions dominate.
>
>>
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 05:49, Dan Garry (Deskana) 
> wrote:
>
>> I agree with much of what Amir has said here, except one little bit...
>>
>> On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 at 20:52, Amir Sarabadani 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> And even if a software would have an owner, it used to be that the
>>> team was under so much pressure to produce new things instead of
>>> maintenance that the software would practically be without a maintainer 
>>> (or
>>> worse, as even volunteers couldn't unofficially take the role). I can
>>> example a few.
>>>
>>
>> I think pressure on a team to deliver new things is *one* reason why
>> this situation has come about, but it's far from being the only one. 
>> Here's
>> a few others off the top of my head:
>>
>>- Owning so many things that even if there was zero pressure to
>>deliver new features, the team still couldn't maintain everything 
>> that they
>>own.
>>- Incredibly powerful and incredibly complex features that teams
>>are afraid of touching lest they break them and make community members
>>angry.
>>- Conservatism and fear of community outrage causing reluctance
>>to deprecate functionality.
>>- Lack of understanding of the impact of the feature.
>>- Lack of a clear roadmap (a list of bug reports and feature
>>requests is not a roadmap).
>>
>> There's more but those are some that come to the top of my head. And,
>> not everyone one of those always applies to every 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Bing-ChatGPT

[The Cunctator]

I really feel like we're getting into pretty aggressive corporate abuse of
the Wikipedia copyleft.

On Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 4:45 PM Adam Sobieski 
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I would like to indicate "Copilot" in the Edge browser as being
> potentially relevant to Wikipedia [1][2].
>
> It is foreseeable that end-users will be able to open sidebars in their
> Web browsers and subsequently chat with large language models about the
> contents of specific Web documents, e.g., encyclopedia articles. Using Web
> browsers, there can be task contexts available, including the documents or
> articles in users' current tabs, potentially including users' scroll
> positions, potentially including users' selections or highlightings of
> content.
>
> I, for one, am thinking about how Web standards, e.g., Web schema, can be
> of use for amplifying these features and capabilities for end-users.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Adam Sobieski
>
> [1]
> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-relnote-stable-channel?ranMID=24542#version-1110166141-march-13-2023
> [2] https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-edge-ai-copilot-184033427.html
>
> --
> *From:* Kimmo Virtanen 
> *Sent:* Friday, March 17, 2023 8:17 AM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Bing-ChatGPT
>
> Hi,
>
> The development of open-source large language models is going forward. The
> GPT-4 was released and it seems that it passed the Bar exam and tried to
> hire humans to solve catchpas which were too complex. However, the
> development in the open source and hacking side has been pretty fast and it
> seems that there are all the pieces for running LLM models in personal
> hardware (and in web browsers). Biggest missing piece is fine tuning of
> open source models such as Neox for the English language. For multilingual
> and multimodal (for example images+text) the model is also needed.
>
>
> So this is kind of a link dump for relevant things for creation of open
> source LLM model and service and also recap where the hacker community is
> now.
>
>
> 1.) Creation of an initial unaligned model.
>
>- Possible models
>   - 20b Neo(X)  by EleutherAI
>   (Apache 2.0)
>   - Fairseq Dense  by
>   Facebook (MIT-licence)
>   - LLaMa
>    by
>   Facebook (custom license, leaked research use only)
>   - Bloom  by Bigscience (custom
>   license . open,
>   non-commercial)
>
>
> 2.) Fine-tuning or align
>
>- Example: Standford Alpaca is ChatGPT fine-tuned LLaMa
>   - Alpaca: A Strong, Replicable Instruction-Following Model
>   
>   - Train and run Stanford Alpaca on your own machine
>   
>   - Github: Alpaca-LoRA: Low-Rank LLaMA Instruct-Tuning
>   
>
>
> 3.) 8,4,3 bit-quantization of model for reduced hardware requirements
>
>- Running LLaMA 7B and 13B on a 64GB M2 MacBook Pro with llama.cpp
>
>- Github: bloomz.cpp  &
>llama.cpp  (C++ only versions)
>- Int-4 LLaMa is not enough - Int-3 and beyond
>
>- How is LLaMa.cpp possible?
>
>
>
> 4.) Easy-to-use interfaces
>
>- Transformer.js  (WebAssembly
>libraries to run LLM models in the browser)
>- Dalai   ( run LLaMA and
>Alpaca in own computer as Node.js web service)
>- web-stable-diffusion  
> (stable
>diffusion image generation in browser)
>
>
> Br,
> -- Kimmo Virtanen
>
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 1:53 PM Kimmo Virtanen 
> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> The development of open-source large language models is going forward. The
> GPT-4 was released and it seems that it passed the Bar exam and tried to
> hire humans to solve catchpas which were too complex to it. However, the
> development in open source and hacking side has been pretty fast and it
> seems that there is all the pieces for running LLM models in personal
> hardware (and in web browser). Biggest missing piece is fine tuning of
> open source model such as Neox for english language. For multilingual and
> multimodal (for example images+text) the model is also needed.
>
>
> So this is kind of link dump for relevant things for creation of open
> source LLM model and service and also recap where hacker community is now.
>
>
> 1.) Creation of an 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Bing-ChatGPT

[The Cunctator]

This is an important development for editors to be aware of - we're going
to have to be increasingly on the lookout for sources using ML-generated
bullshit. Here are two instances I'm aware of this week:

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/internet-archive-publishers-lawsuit-chatbot/
> In late February, Tyler Cowen, a libertarian economics professor at George
> Mason University, published a blog post titled
> ,
> “Who was the most important critic of the printing press in the 17th
> century?” Cowen’s post contended that the polymath and statesman Francis
> Bacon was an “important” critic of the printing press; unfortunately, the
> post contains long, fake quotes attributed to Bacon’s *The Advancement of
> Learning *(1605), complete with false chapter and section numbers.
> Tech writer Mathew Ingram drew attention to the fabrications a few days
> later
> ,
> noting that Cowen has been writing approvingly about the AI chatbot
> ChatGPT
> 
>  for
> some time now; several commenters on Cowen’s post assumed the fake quotes
> must be the handiwork of ChatGPT. (Cowen did not reply to e-mailed
> questions regarding the post by press time, and later removed the post
> entirely, with no explanation whatsoever. However, a copy remains at the
> Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine).
>


>
> https://www.vice.com/en/article/3akz8y/ai-injected-misinformation-into-article-claiming-misinformation-in-navalny-doc
> An article claiming to identify misinformation in an Oscar-winning
> documentary about imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny is itself
> full of misinformation, thanks to the author using AI.
> Investigative news outlet *The Grayzone* recently published an article
> 
>  that included AI-generated text as a source for its information. The
> piece
> ,
> “Oscar-winning ‘Navalny’ documentary is packed with misinformation” by Lucy
> Komisar, included hyperlinks to PDFs
> 
>  uploaded to the author’s personal website that appear to be screenshots
> of conversations she had with ChatSonic, a free generative AI chatbot that
> advertises itself as a ChatGPT alternative that can “write factual trending
> content” using Google search results.

That said, I don't think this is anything to be too stressed about; the
Grayzone is already a deprecated source and blogs like Marginal Revolution
are treated with caution, though Cowen has sufficient credentials to be
treated as a reliable expert.

On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 11:23 AM Kimmo Virtanen 
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The development of open-source large language models is going forward. The
> GPT-4 was released and it seems that it passed the Bar exam and tried to
> hire humans to solve catchpas which were too complex. However, the
> development in the open source and hacking side has been pretty fast and it
> seems that there are all the pieces for running LLM models in personal
> hardware (and in web browsers). Biggest missing piece is fine tuning of
> open source models such as Neox for the English language. For multilingual
> and multimodal (for example images+text) the model is also needed.
>
>
> So this is kind of a link dump for relevant things for creation of open
> source LLM model and service and also recap where the hacker community is
> now.
>
>
> 1.) Creation of an initial unaligned model.
>
>- Possible models
>   - 20b Neo(X)  by EleutherAI
>   (Apache 2.0)
>   - Fairseq Dense  by
>   Facebook (MIT-licence)
>   - LLaMa
>    by
>   Facebook (custom license, leaked research use only)
>   - Bloom  by Bigscience (custom
>   license . open,
>   non-commercial)
>
>
> 2.) Fine-tuning or align
>
>- Example: Standford Alpaca is ChatGPT fine-tuned LLaMa
>   - Alpaca: A Strong, Replicable Instruction-Following Model
>   
>   - Train and run Stanford Alpaca on your own machine
>   
>  

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Chat GPT

[The Cunctator]

This is almost definitely the case.

On Mon, Feb 6, 2023, 2:39 AM Ilario Valdelli  wrote:

> And this is a problem.
>
> If ChatGPT uses open content, there is an infringement of license.
>
> Specifically the CC-by-sa if it uses Wikipedia. In this case the
> attribution must be present.
>
> Kind regards
>
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2023, 08:12 Peter Southwood, 
> wrote:
>
>> “Not citing sources is probably a conscious design choice, as citing
>> sources would mean sharing the sources used to train the language models”
>> This may be a choice that comes back to bite them. Without citing their
>> sources, they are unreliable as a source for anything one does not know
>> already. Someone will have a bad consequence from relying on the
>> information and will sue the publisher. It will be interesting to see how
>> they plan to weasel their way out of legal responsibility while retaining
>> any credibility. My guess is there will be a requirement to state that the
>> information is AI generated and of entirely unknown and untested
>> reliability. How soon to the first class action, I wonder. Lots of money
>> for the lawyers. Cheers, Peter.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Subhashish [mailto:psubhash...@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 05 February 2023 06:37
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List
>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Chat GPT
>>
>>
>>
>> Just to clarify, my point was not about Getty to begin with. Whether
>> Getty would win and whether a big corporation should own such a large
>> amount of visual content are questions outside this particular thread. It
>> would certainly be interesting to see how things roll.
>>
>>
>>
>> But AI/ML is way more than just looking. Training with large models is a
>> very sophisticated and technical process. Data annotation among many other
>> forms of labour are done by real people. the article I had linked earlier
>> tells a lot about the real world consequences of AI. I'm certain AI/ML,
>> especially when we're talking about language models like ChatGPT, are far
>> from innocent looking/reading. For starters, derivative of works, except
>> Public Domain ones, must attribute the authors. Any provision for
>> attribution is deliberately removed from systems like ChatGPT and that only
>> gives corporations like OpenAI a free ride sans accountability.
>>
>>
>>
>> Subhashish
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 4, 2023, 4:41 PM Todd Allen  wrote:
>>
>> I'm not so sure Getty's got a case, though. If the images are on the Web,
>> is using them to train an AI something copyright would cover? That to me
>> seems more equivalent to just looking at the images, and there's no
>> copyright problem in going to Getty's site and just looking at a bunch of
>> their pictures.
>>
>>
>>
>> But it will be interesting to see how that one shakes out.
>>
>>
>>
>> Todd
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 4, 2023 at 11:47 AM Subhashish  wrote:
>>
>> Not citing sources is probably a conscious design choice, as citing
>> sources would mean sharing the sources used to train the language models.
>> Getty has just sued Stability AI, alleging the use of 12 million
>> photographs without permission or compensation. Imagine if Stability had to
>> purchase from Getty through a legal process. For starters, Getty might not
>> have agreed in the first place. Bulk-scaping publicly visible text in
>> text-based AIs like ChatGPT would mean scraping text with copyright. But
>> even reusing CC BY-SA content would require attribution. None of the AI
>> platforms attributes their sources because they did not acquire content in
>> legal and ethical ways [1]. Large language models won't be large and
>> releases won't happen fast if they actually start acquiring content
>> gradually from trustworthy sources. It took so many years for hundreds and
>> thousands of Wikimedians to take Wikipedias in different languages to where
>> they are for a reason.
>>
>>
>>
>> 1. https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/
>>
>>
>> Subhashish
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 4, 2023 at 1:06 PM Peter Southwood <
>> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>>
>> From what I have seen the AIs are not great on citing sources. If they
>> start citing reliable sources, their contributions can be verified, or not.
>> If they produce verifiable, adequately sourced, well written information,
>> are they a problem or a solution?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Peter
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Gnangarra [mailto:gnanga...@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 04 February 2023 17:04
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List
>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Chat GPT
>>
>>
>>
>> I see our biggest challenge is going to be detecting these AI tools
>> adding content whether it's media or articles, along with identifying when
>> they are in use by sources.  The failing of all new AI is not in its
>> ability but in the lack of transparency with that being able to be
>> identified by the readers. We have seen people impersonating musicians and
>> writing songs in their style. We have also seen pictures that have been
>> created by copying someone else's 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: One Year Update

[The Cunctator]

Thank you so much; I'm impressed by the work you are doing and your
approach. One part of the Wikimedia mission that I hope returns to the fore
in the coming year is defense of copyleft; ensuring that users of Wikimedia
copyrighted content respect the license and share alike.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:09 PM Maryana Iskander 
wrote:

> This message is being translated into other languages on Meta-wiki.
> ‎العربية • español • 中文 • deutsch • français • português•
> You can help with more languages.
> 
>
> Hi everyone - This month marked my official one-year anniversary as CEO of
> the Wikimedia Foundation. Based on some feedback from this list,  I have
> tried to send a regular update every few months (see January
> ,
> April
> ,
> June
> ,
> September
> ).
> I wanted to send another one today to reflect on my first year, and share
> upcoming work we have planned at the Foundation.
>
> Some of you may recall that I prepared for joining Wikimedia with a
> two-month listening tour
> 
> that led me to talk to a few hundred volunteers and Foundation staff across
> 55 countries. This shaped the five puzzles
> 
> and three priorities
> 
> that I shared with you when I started. These puzzles continue to guide what
> I believe are the biggest questions we must answer collectively, especially
> the question of, "what does the world need from us now?"
>
> I also completed the three priorities I outlined last January: (1)
> reimagining the Foundation's annual plan
> 
> to be more firmly anchored in our movement's strategic direction; (2)
> recruiting a capable Chief Product & Technology Officer
> 
> for the Wikimedia Foundation; and (3) starting to refresh the Foundation's 
> organizational
> values  to
> guide our ways of working with each other, and with all of you.
>
> English Fundraising Campaign
>
> As 2022 came to a close, a Request for Comment (RfC) launched on English
> Wikipedia
> 
> to propose changes to the messaging of year-end fundraising banners. The
> Wikimedia Foundation accepted the guidance provided by the RfC, and
> established a co-creation page
>  to
> seek volunteer input on banner messaging from community members. Throughout
> the fundraising campaign, the Foundation team posted regular updates to
> this co-creation page. In brief, over 450+ banners were tested during this
> year's campaign, and $24.7M of revenue was raised compared to the original
> $30M goal (a shortfall of $5.3 million). During the first few days, the new
> banners resulted in about 70% less revenue than on the corresponding days
> in the prior year. Additional information on the campaign results are
> posted here
> .
> The fundraising team will continue to work with all language communities on
> banner messaging in the year ahead, and we look forward to building on what
> we learned in this campaign.
>
> The RfC raised a much wider range of issues than just fundraising banners. 
> While
> anticipated revenue shortfalls made this a difficult period for the
> Foundation, I believe we tried to hear these broader concerns, many of
> which are shared across communities beyond English Wikipedia.
>
> One concern was about the very rapid budget growth of the Foundation,
> which has stabilized in the last year. Given the revenue gap from this
> year's English campaign, we are reviewing and lowering our 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Endowment, again

[The Cunctator]

Thank you!!

On Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 5:55 PM Christophe Henner 
wrote:

> Thanks Caitlin!!!
>
> Sounds like that answers perfectly the original questions and things are
> going the way we were told, it just takes times :)
>
> Thanks again and have a good day!
>
> Christophe
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 27, 2023, at 10:19 PM, Caitlin Virtue 
> wrote:
>
> ?
>
> Hi Christophe,
>
> This thread has circled around the main question of will any decisions
> around the endowment be transparent. The answer is yes.
>
> The question of transparency has also become conflated with the mechanism
> of how the money is held. The answer here is that we are working to
> transition endowment funds out of Tides to the separate 501(c)(3) entity
> that is already registered
> 
> and the transition process will soon be underway.
>
> Finally, to answer some questions that came up directly:
>
> Is the Endowment an independent 501(c)(3) entity? Yes.
>
> Is the money currently managed by Tides? Yes.
>
> Will the money transition out of Tides to the new 501(c)(3)? Yes.
>
> You can also find a similar reply that we gave earlier, on meta
> 
> .
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Caitlin Virtue
>
> Senior Director of Development
>
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Endowment, again

[The Cunctator]

In this case, it does.

On Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 3:34 AM Peter Southwood 
wrote:

> Yes, but sometimes a yes/no answer does not reasonably represent reality.
>
> Cheers, Peter
>
>
>
> *From:* The Cunctator [mailto:cuncta...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 25 January 2023 17:26
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: The Endowment, again
>
>
>
> It looks like what Wikimedia is saying is they gave a (typically)
> confusing response to the Italian journalists which they (in good faith)
> misreported.
>
>
>
> Wikimedia communications would benefit from a willingness to answer yes/no
> questions with a yes or no, imho.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:24 AM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
> Lodewijk,
>
>
>
> The question at the top of that talk page section on Meta[1] is:
>
>
>
> "Is the money still with Tides?"
>
>
>
> The answer seems to be "Yes".
>
>
>
> If so, then the next question is:
>
>
>
> If the money is still with Tides, then why did the WMF tell the Italian
> journalists that their information was incorrect and the Endowment had
> already been moved to the 501(c)(3)?
>
>
>
> It seems like another case of paltering.[2] The bigger issue is that this
> sort of thing *undermines community trust in everything the WMF says*,
> especially about money.[3] Why didn't the WMF simply tell the journalists,
> as you just put it, Lodewijk, "No, not yet. But we are going towards that
> new situation"?
>
>
>
> We had two high-profile community RfCs on the English Wikipedia's Vilage
> Pump last year that came to the conclusion that the WMF puts out misleading
> or deceptive communications.[4] Half the shortlisted board candidates in
> last year's board election endorsed that view during their campaigns.[5]
>
>
>
> We have a longstanding and, I believe, popular (his talk page has 670
> watchers) English Wikipedia administrator, a former member of the
> Arbitration Committee, saying things like the following on his talk page[6]
> (last year, in a different context):
>
>
>
> *"I don't doubt that the WMF is lying here—when it comes to where the
> money comes from, where it goes, and who is taking a cut along the way, it
> would be more unusual to find them being honest". *
>
>
>
> *"What's particularly irritating is that there's no need for the WMF to
> equivocate here and they're just doing it out of habit."*
>
>
>
> I believe those are fairly mainstream views in the community, based on
> close observation of the WMF's conduct. It's not healthy, and I believe the
> WMF should look at its paltering habit.
>
>
>
> Andreas
>
>
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_with_Tides
> ?
>
> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paltering
>
> [3] See also ongoing discussions here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Additional_members_of_the_LLC_besides_the_Wikimedia_Foundation
>
> [4]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_193#Review_of_English_Wikimedia_fundraising_emails
> and
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_197#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign
>
> [5]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Community_Voting/Election_Compass/Answers
>
> [6]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Iridescent=1124517409
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:18 PM effe iets anders 
> wrote:
>
> Hi Lane,
>
>
>
> maybe I'm just reading this differently, but doesn't "we are in the
> process" typically mean "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new
> situation"? If you don't feel this answers your question, it might be
> beneficial to spell out the question a bit more explicitly. Re-reading the
> statement of Andreas, I mostly see a statement that he is confused and his
> question is "could someone please clarify this please". In Julia's
> response, I read a good faith effort (but apparently insufficient for you)
> to achieve just that: clarification.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Lodewijk
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 2:40 AM Lane Chance  wrote:
>
> Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on
> Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have
> not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
>
> A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for
> any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either
> controlled by Tides or i

[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Endowment, again

[The Cunctator]

It looks like what Wikimedia is saying is they gave a (typically) confusing
response to the Italian journalists which they (in good faith) misreported.

Wikimedia communications would benefit from a willingness to answer yes/no
questions with a yes or no, imho.

On Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:24 AM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Lodewijk,
>
> The question at the top of that talk page section on Meta[1] is:
>
> "Is the money still with Tides?"
>
> The answer seems to be "Yes".
>
> If so, then the next question is:
>
> If the money is still with Tides, then why did the WMF tell the Italian
> journalists that their information was incorrect and the Endowment had
> already been moved to the 501(c)(3)?
>
> It seems like another case of paltering.[2] The bigger issue is that this
> sort of thing *undermines community trust in everything the WMF says*,
> especially about money.[3] Why didn't the WMF simply tell the journalists,
> as you just put it, Lodewijk, "No, not yet. But we are going towards that
> new situation"?
>
> We had two high-profile community RfCs on the English Wikipedia's Vilage
> Pump last year that came to the conclusion that the WMF puts out misleading
> or deceptive communications.[4] Half the shortlisted board candidates in
> last year's board election endorsed that view during their campaigns.[5]
>
> We have a longstanding and, I believe, popular (his talk page has 670
> watchers) English Wikipedia administrator, a former member of the
> Arbitration Committee, saying things like the following on his talk page[6]
> (last year, in a different context):
>
> *"I don't doubt that the WMF is lying here—when it comes to where the
> money comes from, where it goes, and who is taking a cut along the way, it
> would be more unusual to find them being honest". *
>
> *"What's particularly irritating is that there's no need for the WMF to
> equivocate here and they're just doing it out of habit."*
>
> I believe those are fairly mainstream views in the community, based on
> close observation of the WMF's conduct. It's not healthy, and I believe the
> WMF should look at its paltering habit.
>
> Andreas
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_with_Tides
> ?
> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paltering
> [3] See also ongoing discussions here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Additional_members_of_the_LLC_besides_the_Wikimedia_Foundation
> [4]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_193#Review_of_English_Wikimedia_fundraising_emails
> and
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_197#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign
> [5]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Community_Voting/Election_Compass/Answers
> [6]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Iridescent=1124517409
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:18 PM effe iets anders 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Lane,
>>
>> maybe I'm just reading this differently, but doesn't "we are in the
>> process" typically mean "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new
>> situation"? If you don't feel this answers your question, it might be
>> beneficial to spell out the question a bit more explicitly. Re-reading the
>> statement of Andreas, I mostly see a statement that he is confused and his
>> question is "could someone please clarify this please". In Julia's
>> response, I read a good faith effort (but apparently insufficient for you)
>> to achieve just that: clarification.
>>
>> Best,
>> Lodewijk
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 2:40 AM Lane Chance  wrote:
>>
>>> Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on
>>> Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have
>>> not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
>>>
>>> A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for
>>> any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either
>>> controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the
>>> yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that
>>> they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim
>>> "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might
>>> think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does
>>> it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like
>>> for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of
>>> February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
>>>
>>> Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions
>>> and defensive non-answers.
>>>
>>> For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in
>>> the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be
>>> edited later on a wiki:
>>> "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s
>>> message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia
>>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Endowment, again

[The Cunctator]

I hope the always-welcome discussion here about non-profit logistics and
online civility doesn't derail an answer to Andreas's question, which is
important and remains unanswered.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 5:36 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and
> what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
>
> WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on
> its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year.  It will
> need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently
> provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action
> fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
>
> The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizational
> structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF,
> practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to
> the mandatory reports of a charity.  Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of
> clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future;
> perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
>
> Warmly, SJ
> (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for
> maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
>
> Dan S writes:
> > Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter

[The Cunctator]

The reasonable account to compared the official @wikipedia account to is
Depths of Wikipedia, on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. On Twitter it was
715K followers has about 10-20 posts a day, and monster engagement.

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 7:47 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> The obvious question surely is: Why not let volunteers (co-)run the
> Wikipedia Twitter account?
>
> A number of Wikipedia language versions (French, Catalan, Portuguese,
> Basque, Waray, etc.) seem to have volunteer-managed Twitter accounts that
> are doing fine. If volunteers are good enough to write the encyclopedia and
> curate the main page of each language version, aren't they good enough to
> write (or suggest) the occasional tweet?
>
> Andreas
>
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:20 PM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi/Bona nit,
>>
>> This last tweet from @Wikipedia is a good example of what some of us have
>> been mentioning in this list during the past days:
>>
>>
>> https://twitter.com/wikipedia/status/1615756186640334848?s=46=7wB7VI4gwISyFjo-X2jZvQ
>>
>> Despite the fact that many Wikipedias have already had this new skin
>> deployed since months ago as voluntary testers, not a single mention on
>> their huge contribution was explained on Twitter (neither back then
>> nor today…). We need to go to the 8th tweet of today's publication to read
>> something like "The new features, which start rolling out on English
>> Wikipedia today, were built in collaboration with Wikipedia volunteers
>> worldwide."
>>
>> If this is the situation in which the main account is monopolized only to
>> the English version and its news/articles, why not specifying it as
>> "English Wikipedia" in the profile and in the main link?
>>
>> Days pass by and we keep sharing to this list proofs, data and
>> justified arguments (even collagues offering themselves and willing to
>> trace a joint planning!), but still not a word or single thought from the
>> Comms department. Disappointing, I am sad to say.
>>
>> Kind regards/Salutacions
>>
>> Xavier Dengra
>>
>> El ds, 14 gen., 2023 a 09:52, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
>> galder...@hotmail.com> va escriure:
>>
>> Egun on Boodarwun/Gnangarra,
>> You are righth in one thing: it is very difficult to prove a point only
>> from one puntual statistic. That's why I have been tracking statistics for
>> a long time, because patterns are here the most important thing.
>> Neverthless, there is only one way to know if the point me and some other
>> users in this thread are rising is valid: experimenting. @Wikipedia should
>> try something: tweeting 6-7 times a day, with varied topics, "on this day"
>> like tweets, varying timezones and even curiosities about how Wikipedia
>> works (https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki/status/1614045362985082881 2
>> million impressions in 9 hours). Then, after -let's say- one month, if the
>> results (engagement, followers, retention) are better, it would be quite
>> obvious that there's a point changing the social media strategy. If not, if
>> engagement is the same, no obvious uprise in followers or RTs is visible,
>> the current strategy could be validated.
>>
>> Me, personally, I'm ready to help the Communications Team with this task,
>> proposing intercultural items that could be tweeted and promoted. If they
>> want help, they know where to go for it. Again, I think that following the
>> same pattern is a bad communication strategy (as we can see by our own
>> eyes) and trying something new could be better. Is up to the communications
>> team to aknowledge this and give a try.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Galder
>>
>> --
>> *From:* Gnangarra 
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 14, 2023 6:00 AM
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
>>
>> Kaya Galder
>>
>> The assumption that despite there being a wider audience the interests of
>> those audience members is exactly the same, if that was true why have
>> multiple channels.  What I am saying is that in different communities that
>> doesnt and will never hold true.  Using statistics to compare the two is
>> the issue and then complaining about different audience responses to the
>> same event being caused by those posting to the channel. Its not the
>> channel operators, it's the underlying expectation that all audiences are
>> the same and react exactly the same way every time even as the audience is
>> increasing by many orders of magnitude.
>>
>> Boodarwun
>>
>> On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 at 02:06, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
>> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> @Gnangarra: I would doubt on the idea that Pelé is not relevant to the
>> English audience, as it was the most visited article by far that day (
>> https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/topviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org=all-access=2022-12-29=),
>> and the second most visited next day, just after the less known Andrew
>> Tate. Also, the account is 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Recent press around December Office Action

[The Cunctator]

Thank you for speaking out. You've articulated many of my vague concerns
with the Foundation's communications.

On Sun, Jan 8, 2023, 1:47 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:

> (putting my long-term volunteer of Persian Wikipedia hat on)
>
> I first want to mention that out of 16 users banned by the office action,
> 10 were mostly active in Arabic Wikipedia and 6 were mostly active in
> Persian Wikipedia. I know it’s confusing but Arabic and Persian are
> completely different languages belonging to even different families and
> they only share the same script. An Arab person can read Persian but they
> won’t be able to understand anything except some loanwords. I’m saying this
> to emphasize they were basically two major office actions affecting
> different types of users. For example, the users banned in fawiki have
> mostly edited pro the Iranian government which meant they actually edited
> against the interest of the Saudis. I can’t comment if the 6 users were
> affiliated with the Iranian government or not.
>
> I don't know about the users in arwiki but the reception of bans on fawiki
> has been overwhelmingly positive. I have seen at least twenty different
> positive reactions, publicly and privately. And I personally welcome those
> actions and the only major criticism I got from most users of fawiki were
> that “it was overdue” or “user foo and bar are not banned”.
>
> > We understand the desire to take action or speak out. Know that we need
> to act in the interests of any volunteer whose safety is under threat.
>
> I’m not a communication or T expert. I don’t know the details of this
> case. So take what I’m saying with a mountain of salt. A mere suggestion.
> Iranian activists have been advising families of people arrested for
> political reasons in Iran to speak up. To make noise. To interview outside
> of Iran. In many cases it has actually helped those prisoners by increasing
> the international pressure. The lawyers appointed to Iranian activists have
> all been instructed by the government to tell the families “not to make a
> noise and it’ll all be fixed” and usually, the exact opposite happens and
> the families speak up after they receive the body of their children. Here
> is a grim example by Amnesty international
> .
> Again, this is a very specific case to Iran and I can’t really say what WMF
> should or shouldn’t do.
>
> On the topic of communication:
>
> But it seems WMF’s communication strategy here is to beat around the
> bushes. Press releases that deny very specific things that honestly don’t
> even need denying but by doing so if people don’t know specifics of the
> movement or don’t read it very very carefully, they might mistake it as
> denying all government interference. That is exactly what happens
> afterwards with many major media and WMF doesn’t try to correct the record.
>
> For example, Here WMF has denied that the Saudi government tried to
> infiltrate Wikimedia’s staff. That is correct and doesn’t even need
> denying. But it doesn’t deny that the government tried to infiltrate the
> volunteer community or push or control content in Wikipedia. The thing is
> that most people are not aware of the staff vs long-term volunteer
> distinction. The result? The press responds with “WMF denied allegation of
> Saudi’s interference in Wikipedia” Here is an example from BBC Persian (a
> reputable source in Persian):
> https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/cprnv1np9y2o I can find many more.
>
> Or the fact that these 16 users were related to the Saudi’s government.
> WMF denied that because at least 6 of them were related to Iran. That
> doesn’t negate the fact that *some of them* might have been affiliated with
> the Saudi government (to emphasize again, I don’t know if any of them did,
> I have no access to the cases. And to be honest I don’t want to know). The
> result? Press goes “these 16 banns were not related to the Saudi government
> at all”.
>
> IMHO, this is causing harm. For example, the Ars has released
> :
> “It's wildly irresponsible for international organizations and businesses
> to assume their affiliates can ever operate independently of, or safely
> from, Saudi government control”. This also makes us (the movement) look
> very naive. A government that kills dissidents in its consulate or (in case
> of Iranian government) rapes people in prison
> 
> as a scare tactic, tries to interfere with Scotish indepence referendum
> ,
> or makes 92 fake news websites in US
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mozilla's social media pledge

[The Cunctator]

No, I'm saying it is opaque who of the 41-member comms department at WMF
edits Diff. Standard practice even for non-profit publications is for the
masthead to be public.

On Tue, Jan 3, 2023, 11:34 AM Antoine Musso  wrote:

>
> > On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 9:06 PM geni  > <mailto:geni...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> ...
> > It has:
> >
> > https://diff.wikimedia.org/ <https://diff.wikimedia.org/>
> > ...
> Le 03/01/2023 à 15:32, The Cunctator a écrit :
>  > Pretty amusing that it's incredible opaque who edits it.
>  >
>
> Hello The Cunctator,
>
> I am assuming your reply was asking who can edit Diff. I don't think
> posts are editable in the sense of a Wiki.  Proposing a content on Diff
> is open to anyone as long as it fit in its scope. There are more
> informations at:
>
> * https://diff.wikimedia.org/about/
> * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Diff_(blog)
>
> The blog is managed by the WMF Movement Communications team:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Movement_Communications
> who will assist in polishing up your draft blog post before it is
> published.
>
> cheers,
>
> --
> Antoine "hashar" Musso
> Wikimedia Release Engineering
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mozilla's social media pledge

[The Cunctator]

Group accounts already there include:
https://wikis.world/@WikiSignpost
https://wikis.world/@wikisusdev
https://wikis.world/@Wikimedia_Fr
https://wikis.world/@WikiEducation
https://wikis.world/@govdirectory
https://wikis.world/@wikidata



On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 9:34 AM The Cunctator  wrote:

> The wikipedia community doesn't need WMF permission to act on behalf of
> the community, imho. There are already a bunch of great wikipedians at the
> wikis.world instance - it would be a good place to set up some "official"
> accounts on behalf of the various wikipedia/wikimedia communities.
>
> On Sat, Dec 31, 2022 at 4:09 AM Philippe Beaudette 
> wrote:
>
>> Erik speaks wisely here, and I find myself in concurrence with the others
>> who have spoken up: this is an unusual but important opportunity, and I am
>> disappointed to see that WMF not even swing at the pitch.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>
>>
>> Philippe Beaudette
>> Tulsa, OK
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 7:51 PM David Gerard  wrote:
>>
>>> I concur that the WMF should at the very least set up an account
>>> mirroring what's sent to the Twitter account. Or perhaps some
>>> well-known volunteer could set one up. (That's not me volunteering!)
>>> Dip a toe in.
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>>>
>>> On Sat, 31 Dec 2022 at 01:15, Erik Moeller  wrote:
>>> >
>>> > On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 2:30 PM Erik Moeller 
>>> wrote:
>>> > > These are just the nonprofits
>>> > > that Wikidata knows about:
>>> > >
>>> > > https://w.wiki/6Am4
>>> >
>>> > Apologies, that was the wrong URL. Here is the correct one for that
>>> > query: https://w.wiki/69V8
>>> >
>>> > And yeah, completely agree re: patience - hope everyone has a nice
>>> > start into the new year! :)
>>> >
>>> > Warmly,
>>> > Erik
>>> > ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mozilla's social media pledge

[The Cunctator]

The wikipedia community doesn't need WMF permission to act on behalf of the
community, imho. There are already a bunch of great wikipedians at the
wikis.world instance - it would be a good place to set up some "official"
accounts on behalf of the various wikipedia/wikimedia communities.

On Sat, Dec 31, 2022 at 4:09 AM Philippe Beaudette 
wrote:

> Erik speaks wisely here, and I find myself in concurrence with the others
> who have spoken up: this is an unusual but important opportunity, and I am
> disappointed to see that WMF not even swing at the pitch.
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Philippe Beaudette
> Tulsa, OK
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 7:51 PM David Gerard  wrote:
>
>> I concur that the WMF should at the very least set up an account
>> mirroring what's sent to the Twitter account. Or perhaps some
>> well-known volunteer could set one up. (That's not me volunteering!)
>> Dip a toe in.
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
>> On Sat, 31 Dec 2022 at 01:15, Erik Moeller  wrote:
>> >
>> > On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 2:30 PM Erik Moeller 
>> wrote:
>> > > These are just the nonprofits
>> > > that Wikidata knows about:
>> > >
>> > > https://w.wiki/6Am4
>> >
>> > Apologies, that was the wrong URL. Here is the correct one for that
>> > query: https://w.wiki/69V8
>> >
>> > And yeah, completely agree re: patience - hope everyone has a nice
>> > start into the new year! :)
>> >
>> > Warmly,
>> > Erik
>> > ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mozilla's social media pledge

[The Cunctator]

Pretty amusing that it's incredible opaque who edits it.

On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 9:06 PM geni  wrote:

> On Fri, 30 Dec 2022 at 22:31, Erik Moeller  wrote:
> > These events, and Musk's capricious leadership, should be sufficient
> > to make _any_ civil society organization begin to establish a presence
> > elsewhere,
>
> It has:
>
> https://diff.wikimedia.org/
>
> Mastodon is relivant for organisations that want or need to keep
> tweeting and its nor clear that either apply to the WMF.
>
> --
> geni
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Luis Bitencourt-Emilio Joins Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[The Cunctator]

He tweeted in praise of BAYC but has recently taken his tweets private
without explanation.

On Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 10:40 AM effe iets anders 
wrote:

> I'm probably missing some context. I've seen earlier references to this
> NFT in light of his appointment. What I somehow missed (sorry if I
> overlooked it) is a clear indication how he would have supported this NFT,
> and especially whether he supported problematic aspects of it specifically.
> Also: has he spoken out about it since, or contextualized it in any way?
>
> I hope those of us better informed can help to understand this
> conversation a bit better.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2022 at 7:06 PM Lane Chance  wrote:
>
>> Just to remind you, Luis Bitencourt-Emilio is one of the Wikimedia
>> Foundation's unelected trustees. He publicly supported the infamous
>> "monkey" NFTs, widely thought to mirror racist tropes,* and used one as his
>> social media avatar when first appointed to the board.
>>
>> In the last 24 hours a class action lawsuit is in the news, suing
>> celebrities who were paid to promote the same Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs now
>> considered "fraudulently misleading". It remains bizarre that the Wikimedia
>> Foundation, considered a technology-leading organization with a core
>> commitment to ethical behaviour, is publicly represented by someone who was
>> openly part of the BAYC fanbois with such bad judgement they helped this
>> alleged pyramid scheme. This background of lousy judgement does not meet
>> the requirement for anyone sitting in top-level governance over the
>> activities and massive funding for Wikimedia projects and operations.
>>
>> As was previously remarked in this email thread, "We should have looked
>> at that history and trod more carefully." More worryingly the defensively
>> circling the wagons at the beginning of the year to brush off the questions
>> this raises shows that the Wikimedia Foundation nor the governance
>> committee they rely on to "vet" unelected trustee appointments, failed.
>>
>> * A context here from an analysis by David Gerard "It does seem pretty
>> likely that the Ape bros are at least casually racist. For one thing, they
>> clearly feel at home in those corners of internet edgelord culture whose
>> syncretism includes the troll disposition that has characterised the
>> identitarian right since at least the eighties, the performative nihilism
>> that has come to characterise disaffected digital natives in the wake of
>> the Great Recession, and the ironic hipster racism that somehow always
>> stops being ironic after a while. For another, they are shilling crypto, a
>> project of the far right since day one." [3]
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Lane
>>
>> References
>> 1.
>> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/celebrity-promoters-sued-over-bored-ape-nft-endorsements-1235279115
>> 2.
>> https://futurism.com/the-byte/celebrities-bored-apes-are-hilariously-worthless-now
>> 3.
>> https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/02/06/bored-ape-yacht-club-and-neo-nazis-so-much-reaching-for-just-four-bananas/
>>
>> On Thu, 13 Jan 2022 at 16:02, Lane Chance  wrote:
>>
>>> Dariusz, Chair of the BGC: "Cryptocurrency and blockchains were not a
>>> factor here – the Governance Committee, and then the Board, were
>>> considering other things..."
>>>
>>> This is so wrong it's painful to read. The fundamental job of the
>>> Governance Committee is to ensure that appointed trustees do not come with
>>> the potential to cause harm to the Wikimedia 'brand' and the community.
>>>
>>> A WMF trustee that promotes Bitcoin and NFTs? Compare with the WMF
>>> statement "We at the Wikimedia Foundation strive to ensure that our work
>>> and mission support a sustainable world" - now in the bin as it lacks any
>>> credibility from here on, as the governance committee and therefore the
>>> board of trustees does not believe in these values. This is not a
>>> successful appointment, Luis Bitencourt-Emilio is not welcome as they are a
>>> controversial and damaging addition to the board.
>>>
>>> Ref:
>>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/19/how-the-wikimedia-foundation-is-making-efforts-to-go-green
>>>
>>> On Thu, 13 Jan 2022 at 13:40, Dariusz Jemielniak <
>>> dar...@kozminski.edu.pl> wrote:
>>>
 Dear Dan,

 Thank you for the feedback!

 The search for a trustee with an expertise in product and technology
 began a few months ago. One of the problems we identified was that the
 Wikimedia Foundation CTOs (Chief Technology Officer) are usually not
 staying for a long period of time, and then there was also a CPO (Chief
 Product Officer) transition. It was also important that the new CEO (Chief
 Executive Officer) would like to have a trustee with relevant experience
 and leadership in the tech world (as would the Board itself), but also with
 the understanding and experience of how technology and communities can work
 together, so, as you said, Reddit 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Luis Bitencourt-Emilio Joins Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[The Cunctator]

I would like to submit that I personally found SJ's characterizations of
other contributors' legitimate concerns and critiques as "light hazing" to
be offensively dismissive, but if SJ helps facilitate an honest and
respectful attempt by Luis and the board to answer those concerns I will
happily eat my words.

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:38 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

>  Welcome, Luis :)  A light hazing is traditional. ✨
>
> I am delighted to see someone w/ not just a product and technical
> background, but specific experience maintaining a collaborative read-write
> platform w/ global audience.  Of course the board is responsible for
> higher-level governance.  But increasingly, advancing the mission [of the
> foundation and the movement as a whole] touches on technical details and
> their implications.  That's why experience with our sort of tech at scale
> has long been on the list of skills the Board seeks.
>
> Yair writes:
> > People are allowed to have outside interests. Being incidentally
> interested in blockchain tech is not
> > a disqualifying attribute. Having worked in large technology companies
> is not a disqualifying attribute.
> > Neither of these things should even be counted negatively.
>
> Indeed not.  (Steven, I don't see any meaningful parallel w/ AG!)
>
> We should discuss what place blockchain + nft communities, trends, and
> practices have with respect to our mission.  But ... in a separate thread
> perhaps?
>
> SJ
> w:user:sj
>
> [ Personally I see more substantive alternatives to the destructive trend
> towards copyright-maximalism than I have for some time. ]
>
> On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 8:40 AM Dariusz Jemielniak <
> dar...@kozminski.edu.pl> wrote:
>
>> Dear Dan,
>>
>> Thank you for the feedback!
>>
>> The search for a trustee with an expertise in product and technology
>> began a few months ago. One of the problems we identified was that the
>> Wikimedia Foundation CTOs (Chief Technology Officer) are usually not
>> staying for a long period of time, and then there was also a CPO (Chief
>> Product Officer) transition. It was also important that the new CEO (Chief
>> Executive Officer) would like to have a trustee with relevant experience
>> and leadership in the tech world (as would the Board itself), but also with
>> the understanding and experience of how technology and communities can work
>> together, so, as you said, Reddit experience is very relevant.
>>
>> The other critical factor was diversity – the search was prioritizing
>> candidates with experience outside of Silicon Valley, in non-English
>> speaking countries, preferably from the Global South.
>>
>> And, of course, we also needed a commitment to spend enough time on the
>> Board work – to be engaged and present. For example, Luis met online and
>> offline with Wikimedia volunteers from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking
>> communities, he is eager to help us with his knowledge and experience.
>> Cryptocurrency and blockchains were not a factor here – the Governance
>> Committee, and then the Board, were considering other things Luis brings to
>> the table, the needed expertise, diversity and commitment.
>>
>> I personally am not particularly fond of cryptocurrencies, even though I
>> appreciate blockchain as a technology, and support e.g. decentralized
>> science (https://decentralized.science/). We as a movement have not had
>> a uniform stand on this, and I’m not sure if we should, though.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Dariusz (chair of the BGC)
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 1:40 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for the update, Nataliia. Knowledge and expertise in product and
>>> technology is a skill set that has been lacking on the Board, and it's
>>> great to see the Board addressing this by co-opting product and technology
>>> leaders. Luis's experience, such as his time at reddit, will likely be very
>>> applicable to our movement.
>>>
>>> However, I'm surprised that the Board chose to co-opt someone who seems
>>> to have such a public focus on technology like blockchains and
>>> cryptocurrency, and that this focus of his was omitted from this
>>> announcement.
>>>
>>> It would be helpful if we could hear from Luis how he intends to use his
>>> knowledge and expertise to contribute to the movement as a Board member,
>>> and to what extent he considers blockchain and cryptocurrency to factor
>>> into that.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> On Wed, 12 Jan 2022 at 17:20, Nataliia Tymkiv 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Dear All,

 Please join me in welcoming Luis Bitencourt-Emilio to the Wikimedia
 Foundation Board of Trustees. Luis was unanimously appointed to a 3-year
 term and replaces a board-selected Trustee, Lisa Lewin, whose term ended in
 November 2021 [1].

 Currently based in São Paulo, Luis is the Chief Technology Officer at
 Loft, a technology startup in the real-estate industry. He brings product
 and technology experience from a globally diverse career that has spanned
 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Luis Bitencourt-Emilio Joins Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[The Cunctator]

I am sincerely interested in your views on the open source movement, the
for-profit exploitation of Wikinedia, the role of the Foundation in
protecting the intellectual property interests of Wikimedia contributors,
and the role of influential technologists in promoting financially and
environmentally ruinous Ponzi schemes like cryptocurrency.

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 8:40 PM Luis Bitencourt-Emilio 
wrote:

> Hello everybody,
>
> Thank you Nataliia et al. for the warm welcome (and light hazing) and
> apologies to all for my late response.
>
> Years ago, a colleague from the Wikimedia Foundation staff reached out to
> talk about product & technology at the organization. I still remember how
> eye-opening that initial conversation was - discussing the challenges and
> opportunities behind Wikipedia, one of my favorite sites that I had used
> for over a decade at that time, left me with little doubt that this is a
> movement I would want to be part of in some capacity. I was still at Reddit
> at the time, learning what it was like to shift from using and contributing
> to open source software to working in a tech company built around open
> source and through active, committed, and vocal communities. My experience
> at Reddit was one of the most transformative periods in my career and one
> of the reasons that I was interested in volunteering for this role.
>
> I was born and grew up in Brazil, under vastly different circumstances
> than today. There was a critical moment in my life when my father placed
> me, at 8 years old, in a BASIC programming course which I would practice on
> our x286 hidden away in a laundry room. My passion for technology started
> then, and has only grown since. I believe in technology as a key path to
> the furthering of humanity, of knowledge, of quality of life, and of our
> collective future. I also believe that this will only happen with the
> guidance and efforts of active and inclusive communities that shepherd said
> technology to positive outcomes.
>
> So now, years later and after my return to Latin America, there was an
> opportunity to join the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. I spent the
> next several months in conversations with other board members, staff,
> community members and friends to try and internalize more about the
> challenges and opportunities ahead, and most importantly to learn whether I
> could indeed make a positive contribution. I join this movement deeply
> humbled and inspired by the passion of everyone I met, and with a strong
> drive to leverage my experiences as a product and engineering leader to
> build a world where every single human being can freely share in the sum of
> all knowledge.
>
> In this role, I can only be my authentic self, I will strive for
> understanding in my interactions with you, as well as do my absolute best
> to bring excellence to our product and technology. I will always be
> inclusive and welcoming of our differences, and engage in civil discourse,
> in service of a movement that is bigger than ourselves.
>
> Thank you for the opportunity to contribute. I hope to connect with many
> of you directly over the coming months.
>
> Cheers,
> Luis
>
> PS: I see a separate conversation has emerged relating to blockchains and
> my interests in that field. I want to clarify that I don’t work
> professionally in this field, and while I’m historically an early adopter
> of technology - in the same way I adopted the internet in the 90s - I share
> many of the same thoughts and questions about this new technology’s future
> that have been raised in this thread. As a new Trustee, first and foremost,
> I am here to learn and to hear more from all of you.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: ChatGPT and Wikipedia

[The Cunctator]

It's trained on Wikipedia. Here's a 2020 paper from the authors. I would
argue it's violating the copyright but I'm aware the foundation isn't very
interested in defending it.

 https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.14165

On Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 10:42 AM Anders Wennersten 
wrote:

> Is this Ai software using info from Wikipedia directly or indirecly, and
> if not is it an alternative way of storing knowledge to the wikiway?
>
> Anders
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: WMF financial statements for 2021-2022 published

[The Cunctator]

Did WMF sell bonds at a loss?

On Wed, Nov 9, 2022, 4:08 PM Ad Huikeshoven 
wrote:

> The WMF does not invest in stocks, only in bonds.
>
> Op wo 9 nov. 2022 21:51 schreef Andreas Kolbe :
>
>> Dear Steven,
>>
>> Thank you for your explanation. I had naively assumed the investment
>> income in the "Support and revenue" section of the financial statements was
>> only for income *from* investments (i.e. dividend payments etc.),
>> without tracking changes in the value *of* investments as well. So what
>> you say makes sense.
>>
>> There is still something odd though. The US stock market dropped in
>> 2019–2020 as well, as a result of Covid. The Dow Jones Index went from
>> about 26,600 at the end of June 2019 to about 25,000 by the end of June
>> 2020, having fallen below 20,000 in the spring. But even so, the WMF had a
>> positive investment income of $5.5 million that year.[1]
>>
>> The following year, 2020–2021, the stock market *rose* very
>> substantially, with the DJI going from the said 25,000 to 34,500 by the end
>> of June 2021 – an increase of almost 10,000 points. Yet WMF investment
>> income was $1 million *less* than the year prior: just $4.4 million.[1]
>>
>> In the 2021–2022 year, as you say, the stock market went down again, the
>> DJI dropping from the said 34,500 to 31,100 at the end of June 2022. So
>> that drop is indeed twice as large as the drop in 2019–2020, but to go from
>> a $5.5 million *gain* in a year where the DJI dropped by 1,600 points to
>> a $12 million *loss* in a year where the DJI dropped by 3,400 points
>> struck me as odd.
>>
>> And I still don't quite understand why the Q3 tuning session forecast a
>> $26 million surplus,[2] while the actual surplus turned out to be just $8
>> million. I guess the fact that most of the drop in the markets occurred
>> from April onwards could explain part of it.
>>
>> Andreas
>>
>> [1]
>> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf=5
>> [2]
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A_Tuning_Session_FY21-22_Q3.pdf=5
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 7:36 PM Steven Walling 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 10:37 AM Andreas Kolbe 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Dear WMF Finance staff,

 I inquired over a week ago on Meta-Wiki why the WMF is reporting a
 negative investment income (–$12 million). There has been no answer to
 date.[1]

 I am a layperson, but how can an investment income be negative? Would
 you mind sharing what this is about?

>>>
>>> You probably didn't get a prompt answer because "how can investment
>>> income be negative" is something you could have Googled before asking the
>>> finance team.
>>>
>>> Investments can lose value.* The US stock market has lost a tremendous
>>> amount of value over the last year, so it would not be surprising that most
>>> investments would have a negative return recently.
>>>
>>> * https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/negative-return.asp
>>> https://www.finra.org/investors/investing/investing-basics/risk
>>>
>>> I was also surprised to find that the reported increase in net assets
 for the 2021–2022 financial year was "only" $8.2 million. The third-quarter
 F tuning session published in May (based on data as of March 31) forecast
 a far higher surplus, with an increase in net assets of $25.9 million.[2]

 Would you mind sharing what happened in the fourth quarter to reduce
 the surplus by so much?

 Best wishes,
 Andreas

 [1]
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audits/2021-2022_-_frequently_asked_questions
 [2]
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A_Tuning_Session_FY21-22_Q3.pdf=5

 On Tue, Nov 1, 2022 at 3:45 PM Andreas Kolbe 
 wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> The WMF's audited financial statements are now available here:
>
>
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2021-2022_Audit_Report.pdf
>
> Some key figures from the page numbered 4 (page 6 in the pdf):
>
> – Net invest income was negative: –$12M (down $16M)
> – Total support and revenue was $155M (down $8M due to that negative
> investment income)
> – Total expenses were $146M (up $34M)
> – Salaries and wages were $88M (up $20M)
> – Net assets at end of year increased by $8M
>
> For reference, the end-of-year increase in net assets forecast in the
> third-quarter Finance & Administration tuning session deck published in 
> May
> 2022 was $25.9M:
>
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A_Tuning_Session_FY21-22_Q3.pdf=5
>
> Best,
> Andreas
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: WMF financial statements for 2021-2022 published

[The Cunctator]

That's negative investment value, not investment income.

On Wed, Nov 9, 2022, 2:36 PM Steven Walling 
wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 10:37 AM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
>> Dear WMF Finance staff,
>>
>> I inquired over a week ago on Meta-Wiki why the WMF is reporting a
>> negative investment income (–$12 million). There has been no answer to
>> date.[1]
>>
>> I am a layperson, but how can an investment income be negative? Would you
>> mind sharing what this is about?
>>
>
> You probably didn't get a prompt answer because "how can investment income
> be negative" is something you could have Googled before asking the finance
> team.
>
> Investments can lose value.* The US stock market has lost a tremendous
> amount of value over the last year, so it would not be surprising that most
> investments would have a negative return recently.
>
> * https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/negative-return.asp
> https://www.finra.org/investors/investing/investing-basics/risk
>
> I was also surprised to find that the reported increase in net assets for
>> the 2021–2022 financial year was "only" $8.2 million. The third-quarter F
>> tuning session published in May (based on data as of March 31) forecast a
>> far higher surplus, with an increase in net assets of $25.9 million.[2]
>>
>> Would you mind sharing what happened in the fourth quarter to reduce the
>> surplus by so much?
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Andreas
>>
>> [1]
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audits/2021-2022_-_frequently_asked_questions
>> [2]
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A_Tuning_Session_FY21-22_Q3.pdf=5
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 1, 2022 at 3:45 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> The WMF's audited financial statements are now available here:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2021-2022_Audit_Report.pdf
>>>
>>> Some key figures from the page numbered 4 (page 6 in the pdf):
>>>
>>> – Net invest income was negative: –$12M (down $16M)
>>> – Total support and revenue was $155M (down $8M due to that negative
>>> investment income)
>>> – Total expenses were $146M (up $34M)
>>> – Salaries and wages were $88M (up $20M)
>>> – Net assets at end of year increased by $8M
>>>
>>> For reference, the end-of-year increase in net assets forecast in the
>>> third-quarter Finance & Administration tuning session deck published in May
>>> 2022 was $25.9M:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A_Tuning_Session_FY21-22_Q3.pdf=5
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Decentralized fundraising, centralized distribution

[The Cunctator]

This is a very excellent report. Thanks to all for the work put into it.

On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 10:47 AM Gnangarra  wrote:

> I see one of the key things in the the movement and the WMF has developed
> is thats leaving behind the volunteers and contributors.  There is focus on
> top down, corporate structures in everything and details fear of failure in
> attempting projects in some ways a lost of trust of volunteers altogether.
>  Significant bias is developing into favouring those who can write great
> documents and applications in an academic grant format leaving behind many
> of our "anyone can edit" community who arent as proficient in grant writing
> especially in an english/european academic format.
>
> Wikipedia started in the academic model with Nupedia, but it was  found
> that those outside that circle were doing it more effectively in so many
> ways that when it shifted.  The current system we have fallen into is
> symptom of the lack understanding of the communities where contributors
> arent as prominent in the decision processes but rather its people entering
> from those systems that failed Nupedia making the decisions using complex
> talk fests and year on year never ending discussion. You just need to look
> at the current BoT elections to see how long it takes to get anywhere,
> strategy started 7 years ago and yet we still havent even reached the
> implementation of anything. Many of the contributors that brought into and
> had input have moved on, there's large cohort of contributors that have
> joined since then.
>
> Our biggest successes now are coming from people who move outside the
> systems in place. Even now we chose play it safe and over use things like
> "Wiki Loves..." rather than step out of the comfortable zones.  We need to
> think differently again and trust to the community to do what cant be done,
> just like it did 20 years ago, less bureaucracy more trust, be bold
> nothing should be a big deal.
>
> On Thu, 8 Sept 2022 at 21:19, Nicola Zeuner 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Nathan,
>>
>> Thanks for bringing up comparability. The paper points out that the
>> historic development of the international office in the sampled cases is
>> different from how the WMF was formed. This does not, in my view, preclude
>> us from comparing systems.
>>
>> I agree with Andreas that the central value of our movement is provided
>> by volunteers, and they organize in affiliates. The WMF has many central
>> functions, which is probably what you are referring to, including
>> maintaining the platforms, fundraising, grantmaking, community development,
>> advocacy, to name but a few. The sampled INGOs secretariats have a great
>> variety of functions as well, but typically not including fundraising and
>> grantmaking.
>>
>> With 2030 Movement Strategy's drive toward decentralizing functions
>> (incl. fundraising), those of us working on and contributing to the charter
>> and policies should take good care at reviewing functions to see which ones
>> are still appropriate and effective to be done by a central org, and which
>> ones make more sense to do locally. Studying other global movements, in my
>> view, makes a lot of sense here, *especially *if they have grown
>> differently and gone through cycles of renewal and reform.
>>
>> This is our moment of redesigning and  re-forming.. So let's be open, and
>> not restrict our view by insisting on our exceptionality.
>>
>> best,
>> Nikki
>>
>>
>> Nikki Zeuner
>> Senior Advisor Global Partnerships
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
>> Tel. (030) 219 158 26-32
>> Mobile (0151) 50824711
>> https://wikimedia.de
>>
>> Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der
>> Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
>> https://spenden.wikimedia.de
>>
>> Bleiben Sie auf dem neuesten Stand! Aktuelle Nachrichten und spannende
>> Geschichten rund um Wikimedia, Wikipedia und Freies Wissen im Newsletter: Zur
>> Anmeldung .
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
>> Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
>> der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
>> Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
>>
>>
>> Am Mi., 7. Sept. 2022 um 16:06 Uhr schrieb Nathan :
>>
>>> Hi Nicole,
>>>
>>> Thanks for sharing this - very interesting reading so far. I'm hoping
>>> you can elaborate on WMDE's thinking around selecting INGOs for evaluation.
>>> Your criteria is very straightforward - INGOs with a confederation of
>>> independent organizations, connected by a global mission.
>>>
>>> But each of your selected INGOs is composed of individual organizations
>>> that deliver the products and services that advance the global mission
>>> within their geographic area, with an "international office" that fulfills
>>> a coordination and governance role. By contrast, 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Is GoogleTV violating Wikipedia's license?

[The Cunctator]

I think the official WMF stance that it is functionally powerless is the
wrong one to take. WMF should be much more aggressive, even if Google is a
major donor to WMF.

On Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 11:16 AM Nicholas Perry  wrote:

> As others mentioned in the thread, WMF can't enforce this directly as it
> is not the copyright holder. However, in past instances, we have raised the
> issue with Google (similar to the KPN example) and will do so for this one
> as well.
>
> I am meeting with Google later today and will flag this to remind them of
> the copyright obligations that come with using this text.
>
> Thanks for surfacing this,
>
> Nicholas
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 12:58 PM 
> wrote:
>
>> Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
>>
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikimedia-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>>
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>> wikimedia-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>1. Re: Is GoogleTV violating Wikipedia's license? (Peter Southwood)
>>2. Re: Is GoogleTV violating Wikipedia's license? (Ciell Wikipedia)
>>3. Re: [Small Wiki Toolkit] Writing Wikidata Queries Using WDQS Tool
>> Workshop On Tuesday, August 30th, 16:00 UTC
>>   (Seyram Komla Sapaty)
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:18:53 +0200
>> From: "Peter Southwood" 
>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Is GoogleTV violating Wikipedia's license?
>> To: "'F. Xavier Dengra i Grau'" ,
>> "'Wikimedia Mailing List'" 
>> Message-ID: <002201d8bc51$8963c6a0$9c2b53e0$@telkomsa.net>
>> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>> boundary="=_NextPart_000_0023_01D8BC62.4CF06730"
>>
>> If I understand the CC-by-sa licence correctly, Wikipedia and WMF
>> themselves do not own the copyright, it is owned by the contributors who
>> created the text. They can take this up with Google, the WMF cannot. If you
>> are one of those contributors you can approach Google as misusing your
>> copyright.
>>
>> Cheers,  Peter
>>
>>
>>
>> From: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l [mailto:
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org]
>> Sent: 29 August 2022 19:00
>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List; le...@wikimedia.org
>> Cc: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau
>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Is GoogleTV violating Wikipedia's license?
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> I want to bring a legal concern here on Google's misuse of our content.
>> It came up today <
>> https://twitter.com/epineda/status/1564143156702199813?s=20=z2xu6PMB29vvkpNB79p2iQ>
>> on Twitter that the GoogleTV app had linked a movie description text in
>> Catalan language (which in principle it should be good news regarding
>> language normalization). However, shortly after a wikipedian colleague
>> realised that the text was fully taken by the Catalan Wikipedia. Once I
>> downloaded the app by myself, I double-checked that Google does not specify
>> anywhere (or at least that I could find minimally visible) that those lines
>> belong to Wikipedia: neither the origin, the license, nor a link to the
>> full article or to the CC license.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'd like to recall the licensing footpage on Wikipedia (Text is available
>> under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0 <
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License>
>> ) and its conditions, as well as to ask others to check whether there's
>> more situations like this one. It's worth noting how wrong this is to
>> minoritised language Wikipedias: not only the legal issue itself, but also
>> the lack of legitimate clicks and views that we end up losing, the
>> confusion and misunderstandings from the readers that think this is a win
>> by Google (the example I shared, with both screenshots enclosed), and even
>> a subsequent chicken-and-egg situation that can lead to deleted articles by
>> some users thinking that the content was stolen from Google and not
>> actually the opposite.
>>
>>
>>
>> I remember that there was a previous thread here, not so long ago, about
>> the problems of Google taking over our data and therefore diminishing
>> clicks to the Wikimedia projects. Considering that I am fully against the
>> GAFAM-drift that the WMF is increasingly adopting by benefiting from Google
>> in our human, economical and digital structures, I prefer to share it here
>> as well -and not only to the legal team of the WMF (cced).
>>
>>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>>
>>
>> Xavier Dengra
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  <
>> http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email_source=link_campaign=sig-email_content=emailclient>
>> width=
>>
>> Virus-free. <
>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Seven Wikimedia chapters rejected as permanent observers to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

[The Cunctator]

Having read the Foundation press release, I have to say that if it were a
Wikipedia page, I would have edited it since it is quite misleading as
written. I understand the reticence to mention other countries since I
expect you want to portray China as a rogue actor here and I'm sympathetic
to that agenda but, on the other hand, being encyclopedic and truthful
really is kind of our brand.

On Mon, Jul 25, 2022, 11:16 AM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Dear Jan,
>
> Well, the accuracy of the press release would be enhanced if it mentioned
> the support China received from over a dozen other countries.
>
> This isn't just my opinion:
>
> https://twitter.com/Wikiland/status/1550515724673761280
>
> Congratulations on the ECOSOC accreditation.
>
> Andreas
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 1:36 PM Jan Gerlach 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Andreas
>>
>> China was in fact the only country to oppose the Wikimedia chapters'
>> request for observer status. Other countries for political or unknown
>> reasons may have aligned with China's position on process, but no country
>> besides China unilaterally or independently opposed the Wikimedia chapters'
>> request.
>>
>> Relatedly, you may have seen that the Wikimedia Foundation just obtained
>> accreditation at the UN's Economic and Social Affairs Council where a
>> similar situation was unblocked by a vote of the member countries:
>>
>>
>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/07/22/wikimedia-foundation-earns-accreditation-to-the-united-nations-economic-and-social-affairs-council-ecosoc/
>>
>>
>> Best,
>> Jan
>>
>>
>> ==
>>
>>
>>
>> Jan Gerlach
>> Public Policy Director
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
>> San Francisco, CA 94104
>> jgerl...@wikimedia.org
>>
>>
>> Andreas Kolbe  schrieb am Fr., 22. Juli 2022, 19:44:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> A week ago, the WMF issued a press release, "Seven Wikimedia chapters
>>> rejected as permanent observers to the World Intellectual Property
>>> Organization (WIPO)":
>>>
>>>
>>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/07/15/seven-wikimedia-chapters-rejected-as-permanent-observers-to-wipo/
>>>
>>> This stated, in part, "China was the only country to oppose the
>>> Wikimedia chapters’ request for observer status, again, claiming that
>>> chapters were complicit in spreading disinformation and are subsidiaries of
>>> the Wikimedia Foundation. These statements are unfounded and misrepresent
>>> Wikipedia’s model which prioritizes accuracy, neutrality, as well as the
>>> fact that the chapters are completely autonomous."
>>>
>>> About a week ago, I had seen and retweeted a Twitter thread[1] by James
>>> Love[2], the Director of Knowledge Ecology International, listing a whole
>>> litany of countries that had supported China's position.
>>>
>>> I checked the webcast of the July 15 WIPO proceedings today,[3] and
>>> there were over a dozen countries – Russia, Belarus, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan,
>>> Tajikistan, Iran, Syria, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia,
>>> Venezuela, North Korea – that took the floor to support and endorse China's
>>> position – more, in fact, than took the floor to support the chapters'
>>> approval.
>>>
>>> Would it be possible to amend the press release accordingly?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> [1] https://twitter.com/jamie_love/status/1550520525180518400
>>> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Love_(NGO_director)
>>> [3] Available here: https://webcast.wipo.int/ (afternoon session of
>>> July 15, part 6. Admission of Observers)
>>> ___
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>>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter

[The Cunctator]

I'm glad this conversation is moving over to meta-wiki. I hope the
communications staff will recognize their job should be to facilitate the
volunteers to do the work when it comes to anything other than speaking for
the Foundation.

On Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 2:22 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Lauren, I have followed there, because I think we are measuring two
> very different things when talking about engagement.
>
> Have a good day
> Galder
>
> 2022(e)ko uzt. 18(a) 19:48 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Lauren Dickinson <
> ldickin...@wikimedia.org>):
>
> Hi Galder, I just left a more detailed reply on Meta-Wiki
> 
> so we can continue the conversation there. In summary, we refer to a few
> different sources to benchmark our engagement rates on @Wikipedia.
> According to Rival IQ
> ,
> the median Twitter engagement rate for brands across all industries is
> 0.037%; for nonprofits specifically, it is 0.054%. According to Adobe
> ,
> "most would consider 0.5% to be a good engagement rate for Twitter, with
> anything above 1% great." @Wikipedia Twitter's engagement rate, according
> to the dashboard
> 
> we access when logged-in to the account, over the last 28 day period is
> 2.7%. In May and June, it was 2.6% and 2.2%, respectively. I hope the
> resources shared are helpful for your management of @euwikipedia.
>
> It's difficult to draw direct comparisons between the @euwikipedia and
> @wikipedia accounts due to the difference in follower size and our more
> global focus, as well as the objectives we are prioritizing to support the
> movement but also build resonance among groups who can help us to push
> forward our knowledge equity goals. At the same time, a straight
> comparison—with the understanding that I cannot see the analytics for the
> @euwikipedia account—reveals more retweets, likes, and comments on the
> @Wikipedia account. I'd like to better understand however if we are
> defining engagement differently. Also, an overall higher engagement rate
> from Twitter's analytics could be a result of the low base effect
>  (comparing two accounts
> of different sizes).
>
> Please note that I am managing a family commitment this week. I am happy
> to continue this conversation on Meta-Wiki
> 
> when I return.
>
> Also, Andy, we will follow up this week regarding your questions
>  about the
> @WiktionaryUsers and @Wiktionary accounts. We do not currently have access
> but are exploring potential options via Twitter now.
>
> Thank you, all, for your comments.
>
> Lauren
> *Lauren Dickinson (she/her)*
> Senior Communications Manager
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 5:16 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the answer, Lauren. I see quite a few interactions with the
> tweets (despite having more than half a million followers). You say that
> the engagement is above the industry standard. Is there any data we can use
> to compare? I'm one of the managers of @euwikipedia and I see we have even
> more engagement than @wikipedia, so I would like to know which are those
> industry standards, so we can also measure ourselves.
>
> Thanks
>
> Galder
>
> 2022(e)ko uzt. 14(a) 00:56 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Lauren Dickinson <
> ldickin...@wikimedia.org>):
>
> Hi again — thanks for these comments!
>
> I wanted to add that we very regularly refer to the ITN/DYK sections (and
> OTD, too) when planning out the content calendar and responding to current
> news and topics. These are great, natural sources of topic inspiration for
> the Wikipedia channels.
>
> As mentioned, we welcome other ideas for articles / topics to share. I
> understand that the form may not always be the best way to do this. So, I
> invite you to share ideas and feedback on Meta-Wiki
>  (we just did a light
> clean up of the page). I am also a member of the Facebook group (Wikimedia
> social media hub) that Andy shared; I see most posts, but the form and
> Meta-Wiki are the best way to reach me.
>
> For additional perspective, based on the note from Galder, there are
> currently two staff, including myself working on digital communications
> strategy at the Foundation, which includes both the Wikimedia and Wikipedia
> social accounts, as well as our website and blogs. Across all, we
> prioritize showing up with a consistent voice and identity, so through
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: 2020 Form 990 published

[The Cunctator]

Thank you for this summary. The rate of turnover at Wikipedia is surprising
to me.

On Sun, May 22, 2022, 9:00 AM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The WMF published its Form 990 for the 2020 calendar year a week ago[1],
> along with an FAQ on Meta[2].
>
> Some salient points:
>
> 1. In 2020, the number of Wikimedia employees whose total compensation and
> benefits exceeded $300,000 went up to eight. They were:[3]
>
> Katherine Maher, ED ($423,318)
> Grant Ingersoll, CTO ($355,523)
> Amanda Keton, GC ($350,292)
> Jaime Villagomez, CFO ($347,642)
> Janeen Uzzell, COO ($336,068)
> Anthony Negrin, CPO ($324,916)
> Lisa Seitz, CAO ($323,293)
> Robyn Arville, CT/CO ($306,579)
>
> In part this reflected salary increases of existing executives, in part it
> was due to three new hires filling C-level vacancies (CTO, COO, CT/CO) at
> significantly higher compensation levels than their predecessors.
>
> All three of those new hires are no longer with the WMF today, each
> staying only around two years.
>
> Of the existing executives' salary increases, a couple seem reasonable
> compared to the previous year's figures,[4] but in one case total
> compensation went up by over 25% year on year, in another by 14%, without a
> change in job title. (US inflation was at around 2% from 2010 to 2020.[5])
>
> Note that present-day compensation levels are likely to be 10–15% higher
> than the 2020 figures above.
>
> 2. Overall salary costs rose by $12 million on the year prior (we knew
> this already from the audited financial statements released in December).
> The FAQ now clarifies that the number of employees (320 in 2020, vs. 291 in
> 2019) on page 1 of the Form 990 refers to US employees only, while the
> salary costs figure given on the same page ($67.9M in 2020 vs. $55.6M in
> 2019) also includes an unspecified number of non-US employees. I have asked
> for more detailed information on Meta.
>
> Andreas
>
> [1]
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikimedia_Foundation_2020_Form_990.pdf
> [2]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRS_tax_related_information/2020_Wikimedia_Foundation_Form_990_Frequently_Asked_Questions
> [3]
> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation_2020_Form_990.pdf=48
>
> [4]
> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation_2019_Form_990.pdf=48
> [5]
> https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/12F13/production/_118478577_optimised-us.inflation-nc.png
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

[The Cunctator]

Respectfully, the inclusion of the second part does not seem to make much
sense.

On Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 8:02 PM Stella Ng  wrote:

> Hello Andreas and Todd,
>
> I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this.
>
> First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum
> set of guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior.  However, it does
> not make existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in
> our global movement may have different policies around the disclosure of
> private information (“doxxing”), specifically taking into context what is
> going on on a day-to-day basis, as well as relationship and political
> dynamics (such as the position of power or influence) that the individuals
> involved could have. Depending on the specific context of your examples,
> interpretation and action could differ widely under those doxxing
> policies.
>
> What would be contextually consistent across the communities, however, is
> the UCoC. If we look specifically at section 3.1, which is what doxxing is
> nested under, what is important to note is context - specifically that if
> the information is provided or the behavior is “intended primarily to
> intimidate, outrage or upset a person, or any behaviour where this would
> reasonably be considered the most likely main outcome” (emphasis added).
> The next sentence expands further that “Behaviour can be considered
> harassment if it is beyond what a reasonable person would be expected to
> tolerate in a global, intercultural environment.” (emphasis added) The
> policy as written is pretty clear that both intent and what is often called
> in law the “reasonable person
> ”
> test applies. This is one of the reasons that the Enforcement Guidelines
> are built around human review since application of policy will always
> require judgment. The community members who review situations will
> hopefully read the text in context within the policy and will also have
> experience in understanding the parties involved, their unique dynamics
> within their respective communities, and their own project policies on
> doxxing as COI, as they will have the experience of dealing with the day to
> day.
>
> However, it is likely the standards could be clarified further in the
> round of Policy review that will be conducted a year after the completion
> of Phase 2.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Stella
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 11:02 PM Todd Allen  wrote:
>
>> Actually, you're technically even breaching it saying it here, since the
>> mailing list is "outside the Wikimedia projects".
>>
>> I would agree that this needs substantial clarification, especially
>> regarding both spammers and already-public information.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Todd Allen
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 12:02 PM Andreas Kolbe 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Rosie,
>>>
>>> Could you kindly also look at and clarify the following passage in the
>>> Universal Code of Conduct:
>>>
>>>
>>>- *Disclosure of personal data (Doxing):* sharing other
>>>contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment,
>>>physical or email address without their explicit consent either on the
>>>Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their
>>>Wikimedia activity outside the projects.
>>>
>>>
>>> As written, the first part of this says that contributors must no longer
>>> state – on Wikipedia or elsewhere – that a particular editor appears to be
>>> working for a PR firm, is a congressional staffer,[1] etc.
>>>
>>> The second part forbids any and all discussion of contributors'
>>> Wikimedia activity outside the projects. (For example, if I were to say on
>>> Twitter that User:Koavf has made over 2 million edits to Wikipedia, I would
>>> already be in breach of the code as written.)
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 5:09 PM Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight <
>>> rstephen...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
 Hello,

 The Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
 Trustees would like to thank everyone who participated in the recently
 concluded community vote on the Enforcement Guidelines for the
 Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC)
 
 .

 The volunteer scrutinizing group has completed the review of the
 accuracy of the vote and has reported the total number of votes received as
 2,283. Out of the 2,283 votes received, 1,338 (58.6%) community members
 voted for the enforcement guidelines, and a total of 945 (41.4%) community
 members voted against it. In addition, 658 participants left comments, with
 77% of the comments written in English.

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Form 990 clarification request (for the attention of WMF accounts staff)

[The Cunctator]

Frankly, I think we should all be thanking Andreas for not backing down.

On Tue, Feb 1, 2022, 12:08 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Andreas,
>
> Are you ... sealioning WMF staff?  Please don't.  
>
> You've been posting a lot
> 
>  lately,
> when that happens one can forget to be kind.  I do find you're taking an
> overly jaundiced view.
>
> Fewer, shorter messages keep the list more usable by others. You don't
> need to respond to everyone.  Rants and nitpicks are better suited to
> channels *without* *mass **push-*notifications, like the wiki.  There's
> an FAQ
> 
>  on
> Meta for every 990, as you know
> ,
> for Qs like this.
>
> And you should stop calling out individual staff, period.  Including for
> salary analyses. That is the least informative (for reasons Christophe laid
> out) and most disruptive use of the public information which we are all
> glad to have access to.
>
> Warmly, SJ
> (ramping back my own posting for a while!)
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 9:11 AM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
>> Dear WMF accounts staff,
>>
>> Could you kindly clarify whether the "Salaries, other compensation,
>> employee benefits" figure in Part I, line 15 of the Form 990 relates solely
>> to the 291 employees indicated in Part I, line 5, or whether it also
>> includes salaries, compensation and benefits for the 82 contractors listed
>> in Part V, line 1a of the Form 990.
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Andreas
>>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikipedia Library: Accessing free reliable sources is now easier than ever

[The Cunctator]

This is really well done. One suggestion that's probably already been made
and may have various reasons for not including would be to add some of the
non-paywalled libraries (like HathiTrust and the Federal Register) as
searchable options.

On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 12:10 PM Sam Walton  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We've just published a blog post summarising the new features and
> functionality available to active Wikipedia editors in The Wikipedia
> Library:
> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/01/19/the-wikipedia-library-accessing-free-reliable-sources-is-now-easier-than-ever/
>
> The Wikipedia Library is a tool providing active Wikipedia editors with
> free access to otherwise-paywalled resources, including journals, books,
> newspapers, magazines, and databases. Over the past 5-10 years the library
> has built up a large collection of content from a wide range of publishers.
>
> In the past couple of years we've been finalising the centralised
> Wikipedia Library tool used for accessing all this content:
> https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/. I'm really pleased to announce
> that we've finished work on some long-requested and planned features which
> make it really simple to use!
>
> The library now has:
>
>- Proxy-based authentication for direct access of resources without a
>secondary login
>- A centralised search feature for browsing multiple collections from
>one place
>- An on-wiki notification to let editors know about the library when
>they have crossed the eligibility threshold (rolling out in stages
>throughout January)
>
> As the project I first joined the Wikimedia Foundation to work on years
> ago I'm personally thrilled that we've finally been able to deploy all
> these features!
>
> If you're eligible to use the library (500+ edits, 6+ months editing) you
> can jump in and start using the library straight away. We're now working on
> expanding and diversifying the content available in the library, so let us
> know on the suggestions page if there are collections you want us to make
> available: https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/suggest/
>
> If the tool isn't currently localised into your language, you can
> translate it on TranslateWiki:
> https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Wikipedia_Library_Card_Platform
>
> We're planning to host some Office Hours, which will be a chance to get a
> walkthrough of how to use the library, as well as discuss your research
> needs and requests for new collections with the team. Look out for more on
> that in the coming weeks.
>
> --
> Sam Walton
> Product Manager, The Wikipedia Library
>
> swal...@wikimedia.org
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: (How) can I see the early revision history?

[The Cunctator]

This bug is a real problem for the protection of editors' copyright. A
proper edit history is critical for that.

On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 2:48 PM Andy Mabbett 
wrote:

> On Fri, 8 Oct 2021 at 01:57, Denny Vrandečić 
> wrote:
> >
> > I wanted to see the beginning of the article about Jupiter.
>
> > I expect more history to be in the UseMod archives.
>
> There is a bug in the history of older articles. I raised a ticket:
>
>https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T292869
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Endowment reaches initial $100 million goal and welcomes new board members

[The Cunctator]

Congratulations on developing a useful service for the most profitable and
powerful corporations on the planet.

On Sun, Sep 26, 2021 at 2:34 AM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> Facts are in and of themselves not copyrightable. Collections of data may
> be copyrighted.We choose not to and as a result Wikidata is the powerhouse
> that it has become.The CC-by-sa license is our license of choice for
> Wikipedia however, the way it has been enforced so far has been defensive,
> we are quite happy when our material is used.
>
> At Wikidata we are long past the point where the majority of the data is
> from a Wikipedia. From day one Wikidata has provided essential services to
> every Wikipedia,  Wikidata can provide superior services to Wikipedia.
> Because like Commons, we have to maintain the data only once and have it
> available everywhere. Wikidata is instrumental in sychronising death
> information among our projects. It has been shown over and over again to
> have more complete information as can be found in Wikipedia lists and
> categories. Wikipedians choose to stick with their arguably substandard
> practices.
>
> The notion that a Google or an Amazon are not capable of extracting facts
> from a Wikipedia is silly. They have the capacity and the skills and the
> software to do just that. Wikidata provides them additional information
> making their information more complete. They have their reasons to be model
> citizens and contribute to the Wikimedia Foundation. We now provide paid
> for services to them making their bot activity less of a strain to our
> services and provide them a (paid for) service.
> Thanks,
>GerardM
>
> On Sun, 26 Sept 2021 at 04:32, The Cunctator  wrote:
>
>> Sorry for not being explicit; the connection is that protection of
>> copyleft would be inconvenient to major endowment donors such as Google and
>> Amazon. WikiData is a Wikimedia project that converts copylefted content
>> into (what Wikimedia asserts to be) copyright-free content.
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 5:40 PM Andy Mabbett 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 23 Sept 2021 at 19:27, The Cunctator 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > It's really disappointing to me that the Structured Data work has been
>>> used to blow up Wikipedia's copyleft.
>>>
>>> 1. Your message has nothing to do with the endowment
>>>
>>> 2. You offer no evidence that "the Structured Data work has been used
>>> to blow up Wikipedia's copyleft."
>>>
>>> 3. You do not explain what you mean by "blow up Wikipedia's copyleft."
>>>
>>> If you wish to discuss copyright and/or structured data, please start
>>> a new thread; and be clear there about the point you wish to make.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Andy Mabbett
>>> @pigsonthewing
>>> https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Endowment reaches initial $100 million goal and welcomes new board members

[The Cunctator]

Sorry for not being explicit; the connection is that protection of copyleft
would be inconvenient to major endowment donors such as Google and Amazon.
WikiData is a Wikimedia project that converts copylefted content into (what
Wikimedia asserts to be) copyright-free content.

On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 5:40 PM Andy Mabbett 
wrote:

> On Thu, 23 Sept 2021 at 19:27, The Cunctator  wrote:
>
> > It's really disappointing to me that the Structured Data work has been
> used to blow up Wikipedia's copyleft.
>
> 1. Your message has nothing to do with the endowment
>
> 2. You offer no evidence that "the Structured Data work has been used
> to blow up Wikipedia's copyleft."
>
> 3. You do not explain what you mean by "blow up Wikipedia's copyleft."
>
> If you wish to discuss copyright and/or structured data, please start
> a new thread; and be clear there about the point you wish to make.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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[Wikimedia-l] NYT Interview with incoming Wikimedia ED Maryana Iskander

[The Cunctator]

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) not a very in-depth interview,
US-centric.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/technology/wikipedia-misinformation.html
*Give us a sense of your direction and vision for Wikimedia, especially in
such a fraught information landscape and in this polarized world.*

There are a few core principles of Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia,
that I think are important starting points. It’s an online encyclopedia.
It’s not trying to be anything else. It’s certainly not trying to be a
traditional social media platform in any way. It has a structure that is
led by volunteer editors. And as you may know, the foundation has no
editorial control. This is very much a user-led community, which we support
and enable.

The lessons to learn from, not just with what we’re doing but how we
continue to iterate and improve, start with this idea of radical
transparency. Everything on Wikipedia is cited. It’s debated on our talk
pages. So even when people may have different points of view, those debates
are public and transparent, and in some cases really allow for the right
kind of back and forth. I think that’s the need in such a polarized society
— you have to make space for the back and forth. But how do you do that in
a way that’s transparent and ultimately leads to a better product and
better information?

And the last thing that I’ll say is, you know, this is a community of
extremely humble and honest people. As we look to the future, how do we
build on those attributes in terms of what this platform can continue to
offer society and provide free access to knowledge? How do we make sure
that we are reaching the full diversity of humanity in terms of who is
invited to participate, who is written about? How are we really making sure
that our collective efforts reflect more of the global south, reflect more
women and reflect the diversity of human knowledge, to be more reflective
of reality?

*What is your take on how Wikipedia fits into the widespread problem of
disinformation online?*

Many of the core attributes of this platform are very different than some
of the traditional social media platforms. If you take misinformation
around Covid, the Wikimedia Foundation entered into a partnership with the
World Health Organization. A group of volunteers came together around what
was called WikiProject Medicine, which is focused on medical content and
creating articles that then are very carefully monitored because these are
the kinds of topics that you want to be mindful around misinformation.

Another example is that the foundation put together a task force ahead of
the U.S. elections, again, trying to be very proactive. [The task force
supported 56,000 volunteer editors watching and monitoring key election
pages.] And the fact that there were only 33 reversions on the main U.S.
election page was an example of how to be very focused on key topics where
misinformation poses real risks.

Then another example that I just think is really cool is there’s a podcast
called “The World According to Wikipedia.” And on one of the episodes,
there’s a volunteer who is interviewed, and she really has made it her job
to be one of the main watchers of the climate change pages.

We have tech that alerts these editors when changes are made to any of the
pages so they can go see what the changes are. If there’s a risk that,
actually, misinformation may be creeping in, there’s an opportunity to
temporarily lock a page. Nobody wants to do that unless it’s absolutely
necessary. The climate change example is useful because the talk pages
behind that have massive debate. Our editor is saying: “Let’s have the
debate. But this is a page I’m watching and monitoring carefully.”

*One big debate that is currently happening on these social media platforms
is this issue of the censorship of information. There are people who claim
that biased views take precedence on these platforms and that more
conservative views are taken down. As you think about how to handle these
debates once you’re at the head of Wikipedia, how do you make judgment
calls with this happening in the background?*

For me, what’s been inspiring about this organization and these communities
is that there are core pillars that were established on Day 1 in setting up
Wikipedia. One of them is this idea of presenting information with a
neutral point of view, and that neutrality requires understanding all sides
and all perspectives.

It’s what I was saying earlier: Have the debates on talk pages on the side,
but then come to an informed, documented, verifiable citable kind of
conclusion on the articles. I think this is a core principle that, again,
could potentially offer something to others to learn from.

*Having come from a progressive organization fighting for women’s rights,
have you thought much about misinformers weaponizing your background to say
it may influence the calls you make about what is allowed on Wikipedia?*

I would say two things. I 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Endowment reaches initial $100 million goal and welcomes new board members

[The Cunctator]

It's really disappointing to me that the Structured Data work has been used
to blow up Wikipedia's copyleft.

On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 1:20 PM Lisa Gruwell  wrote:

> Thank you, Christophe and SJ.  You both were great supporters of this
> effort when you were on the WMF board and it wouldn't have gotten off the
> ground without you.  It takes a lot of vision and trust to do something
> long-term like an endowment.  Thanks for giving that to us!
>
> Best,
> Lisa
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 1:52 AM Christophe Henner <
> christophe.hen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Congratulations Lisa and team, I know how much energy you pour into it!
>> That is an amazing step. And great to see the endowment becoming its own
>> organization.
>>
>> And "welcome" to the "new" endowment board members! :)
>>
>> Few people might know Doron, but he is not a stranger. He has been
>> supporting the movement for a very very long time and knows us very well. I
>> remember back in 2016, he understood very very fast why it was critical to
>> invest in Wikidata and that lead to the Structured Data grant:
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data/Sloan_Grant.
>>
>> Phoebe, Doron and Patricio are great additions to the endowment board!
>>
>> All good news, thank you again Lisa!
>>
>>
>> --
>> Christophe
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 22 Sept 2021 at 16:58, Lisa Gruwell 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Today I am very happy to announce the Wikimedia Endowment [1] has
>>> reached its initial $100 million goal. The Endowment was started in 2016 as
>>> a permanent fund to support the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity [2].
>>>
>>> My deep gratitude goes out to our generous donors, the Endowment board,
>>> Foundation staff, and volunteers who made this possible. I am grateful
>>> to the future-focused community members who began considering the idea of
>>> an endowment years ago, to those who participated in community
>>> conversations on Meta [3] to help us think through initial decisions
>>> regarding its launch, and to all contributors whose work creating
>>> Wikimedia content has brought free knowledge to the world.
>>>
>>> As part of this milestone, the Wikimedia Endowment Board has also
>>> welcomed three new members: Phoebe Ayers, Patricio Lorente, and Doron
>>> Weber, bringing in important expertise of the Wikimedia movement and
>>> priorities as well as in nonprofit management.
>>>
>>> You can read more about this milestone, what it means for the movement,
>>> and what comes next for the Endowment on Diff [4] and the Endowment Meta
>>> page [5]. We invite you to share any questions or feedback on the Endowment
>>> talk page [6].
>>>
>>> Thank you to everyone who has made this incredible achievement possible.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Lisa
>>>
>>> [1] https://wikimediaendowment.org/
>>>
>>> [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/
>>> 
>>>
>>> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment_Essay
>>>
>>> [4]
>>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/09/22/the-wikimedia-endowment-reaches-100-million-milestone-and-welcomes-three-new-members-to-its-board-more-on-what-these-developments-mean-for-the-projects-and-movement/
>>> 
>>>
>>> [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment
>>> 
>>> [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Lisa Seitz Gruwell
>>>
>>> Chief Advancement Officer
>>>
>>> Wikimedia Foundation 
>>>
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>
>
>
> --
>
> Lisa Seitz Gruwell
>
> Chief Advancement Officer
>
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Welcoming María Sefidari as a Foundation consultant. :)

[The Cunctator]

It's pretty embarrassing that regional Wikimedias have better governance
standards than the (extraordinarily wealthy) international Foundation.

I don't understand how  the Tides/Wikimedia general counsel believes that
the conflict of interest of Maria has moved directly from being Board chair
to being a paid consultant for an undisclosed amount "would be shortly
mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons".

On Fri, Jun 25, 2021 at 12:25 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) 
wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 12:56, Chris Keating 
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the detailed comments. However, still, this doesn't really
>> help that much.
>>
>> From your email it seems that over several months the WMF has created a
>> new role which just happens to be ideal for its outgoing Chair to fill, and
>> indeed could scarcely be filled by anyone else because it so closely
>> relates to the Board's priorities.
>>
>> If this is allowed to happen then it raises serious questions about
>> whether Board members make decisions about the WMF's priorities in order to
>> create consultancy posts for themselves. As it happens I don't believe that
>> is what has happened here, but one could be forgiven for drawing that
>> conclusion. There is a clear appearance of a conflict of interest. And
>> there is a real risk of undermining the credibility of pretty much any
>> decision the Board might take in future, if people - the community, donors
>> or the media - start to believe that those decisions are being taken
>> because Board members will be eased into paid positions to implement them.
>>
>> No amount of reassurances that conversations happened in a particular
>> order can avoid this. The letter and indeed the spirit of the WMF's
>> conflict of interest policy may have been followed. But the object of the
>> WMF's conflict of interest policy has not been achieved, quite the
>> opposite. One can follow a policy and end up making the wrong decision, and
>> that's what's happened here.
>>
>
> I agree wholeheartedly with Chris's eloquent comments on this situation.
> What has happened here is very inappropriate, and deeply troubling.
>
> Dan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The thousand millionth edit on the English Language Wikipedia

[The Cunctator]

Pedants and old codgers :) congrats everyone.

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 3:57 AM WereSpielChequers 
wrote:

> The English Language Wikipedia passed an interesting milestone a few hours
> ago.
>
> The thousand millionth edit was at 1:03 AM this morning
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_Breathing=10
> the article on the album Death Breathing was amended by Wikipedian Ser
> Amantio di Nicolao, one of over 3.9 million edits done by the Wikipedian
> with the highest edit count other than bots.
>
> Pedants may be aware that this is only the thousand million since the move
> to MediaWiki software and not all of the hundreds of thousands of previous
> edits have since been reloaded. So if we could work out the true counts
> since edit one it probably came one, maybe two days earlier.
>
> But Death Breathing got the edit with the  thousand million counter.
>
> Happy editing everyone.
>
> WSC
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board of Trustees participation in the Movement Strategy Process

[The Cunctator]

That's a good find. Hopefully every working group will be tasked with
making their work explicitly consistent with the actual mission of
Wikimedia.

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 11:48 AM Craig Newmark 
wrote:

> Maria, thanks, much appreciated!
>
> Which group focuses on information quality and accuracy?
>
> What's the role of the Advisory Board?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Craig Newmark
> founder craigslist
> craignewmarkphilanthropies.org
> On July 19, 2018 9:43:21 AM María Sefidari 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> > In 2017, the Wikimedia movement began a collaborative process to define
> > what we want to build or achieve together by 2030. After eight months of
> > discussion, across languages, geographies, and contexts, the outcome
> > was a Strategic
> > Direction
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20
> >
> > focused on knowledge as a service and knowledge equity:
> >
> > “By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the
> > ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be
> able
> > to join us.[1]”
> >
> > Now our task as a movement is to apply the Strategic Direction to our own
> > work. We need to answer questions that define our path forward: What kind
> > of structures are ideal for achieving our strategic direction? What
> > resources and capacities do we need to develop? How do we relate to each
> > other and make decisions as a movement? How do we manage change in a
> > healthy, sustainable way?
> >
> > Over the next year, the Wikimedia movement will engage in a structured,
> > distributed process to answer these questions. The process will be
> > structured around Working Groups who will develop guidance in key
> Thematic
> > Areas.[2]
> >
> > The Board of Trustees is committed to the Movement Strategy process and
> > each of us will join one of the Working Groups:
> >
> >
> >   -
> >
> >   Roles & Responsibilities: Nataliia
> >   -
> >
> >   Revenue Streams: Tanya
> >   -
> >
> >   Resource Allocation: María
> >   -
> >
> >   Partnerships: Raju
> >   -
> >
> >   Community Health: James
> >   -
> >
> >   Product & Technology: Christophe
> >   -
> >
> >   Capacity Building: Dariusz
> >   -
> >
> >   Diversity: Esra’a
> >   -
> >
> >   Advocacy: Jimmy
> >
> >
> > We will play two specific roles in this process:
> >
> >   1.
> >
> >   Individually, as members of the Working Groups
> >   2.
> >  1.
> >
> >  participate mindfully in ourtheir individual capacity,
> >  2.
> >
> >  bring our their content expertise and experience to the discussion,
> >  3.
> >
> >  ensure the information flow from the Working Group to the Board,
> >  4.
> >
> >  support an effective, and inclusive process.
> >  3.
> >
> >   Collectively, as the Board of Trustees
> >   4.
> >  1.
> >
> >  review recommendations from each Working Group and provide feedback,
> >  2.
> >
> >  resolve difficult questions as required and adhere to decisions
> made,
> >  3.
> >
> >  delegate approval of recommendations to an appropriate community
> >  mechanism whenever possible (such as endorsement or consensus),
> >  4.
> >
> >  make decisions when there is no other mechanism to make the
> decision,
> >  5.
> >
> >  accept the recommendations that are consistent with the movement’s
> >  values, the Strategic Direction as well as law and other compliance
> >  requirements,
> >  6.
> >
> >  direct resources, budgets and capacities for the implementation of
> >  approved recommendations.
> >
> >
> > This statement captures the perspective of the Board of Trustees, and we
> > believe that the process is a unique opportunity for the movement to
> build
> > and shape our future together. We will participate in strategy
> > conversations and sessions at Wikimania[3], and look forward to
> > contributing throughout the process together with many of you. We
> encourage
> > those who are attending Wikimania to also join these conversations and
> all
> > Wikimedians to participate in all the upcoming strategic conversations
> and
> > consultations.
> >
> > On behalf of the Board,
> >
> > María Sefidari
> >
> > [1]
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20
> >
> > [2]
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups
> >
> > [3] https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_2030#Schedule
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
>
>
>
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Ask Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft to state wiki article source dates in voice?

[The Cunctator]

Large corporations should not be allowed to violate copyleft. If they are
creating derivative products from Wikipedia -- which they are -- those
derivative products should be released under CC-BY-SA.

Google Knowledge Graph seems to be somewhat close, in that there is an API
https://developers.google.com/knowledge-graph/ - but it is not CC-BY-SA.

Wikipedia's license is *not* CC-BY. It is CC-BY-SA.

On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 11:55 AM, James Salsman  wrote:

> > That's a completely different and unrelated issue to the thread YOU
> stated.
>
> The issues share the commonalities of user friendliness/design and a
> Foundation decision on the question of presentation vs. editor
> attraction and retention.
>
> > Please stick to the topic at hand or start a new thread.
>
> Suppose we offer Cook, Bezos, Page, and Nadella the right to omit the
> date in return for $50 million each, half to the Endowment and half to
> the Foundation?
>
> >> > I don't think it's particularly user/design friendly
> >>
> >> How does the Foundation choose between presentation advantages for
> >> commercial users, and advantages for attracting and retaining editors?
> >>
> >> Is the request to try the word "edit" instead of a pencil icon on
> >> mobile a good example of the Foundation's general disposition of such
> >> questions?
> >>
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2017_Community_Wishlist_
> >> Survey/Archive/Replace_or_supplement_mobile_pencil_icon_
> >> with_%22edit%22_in_square_brackets_and_A/B_test_editing_uptake
> >>
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Heatherawalls#
> >> Design-blocked_technical_community_wish
> >>
> >> > On Wed, 7 Mar 2018, 16:22 James Salsman,  wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> I wanted to share this because it's pertinent to issues with large
> >> >> companies using our information without complying with the license
> >> >> terms:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_amazon_
> >> apple_facebook_and_google_manipulate_our_emotions
> >> >>
> >> >> One discussions I've had with both Erik Moeller online and Katherine
> >> >> Maher in person is about whether voice browsers should share the date
> >> >> of CC-BY wiki articles when their speech synthesis devices quote from
> >> >> them.
> >> >>
> >> >> Are there any reasons that would be bad? It would help encourage new
> >> >> editors by raising awareness of the ultimate source of "AI" answers.
> >> >>
> >> >> Best regards,
> >> >> Jim
> >> >>
> >> >> ___
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> >> >> 
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> >> 
> >>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Amazon Echo' use of Wikipedia; CC license compliance?

[The Cunctator]

Would love for an update. Wikipedia license doesn't just call for
attribution, but for copyleft to be preserved.

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Anthony Cole  wrote:

> Thank you Adele and Yongmin. I'll ask Barbara to clarify next time we chat.
>
> On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 at 12:49 am, Yongmin H.  wrote:
>
> > I tried quite a lot (around 10 times) and succeded to get one saying
> > ‘here’s something I found from Wikipedia.’ I have it recorded, but
> > uploading it fails... Will try later.
> >
> > --
> > Yongmin
> > Sent from my iPhone
> > https://wp.revi.blog
> > Text licensed under CC BY ND 2.0 KR
> > Please note that this address is list-only address and any non-mailing
> > list mails will be treated as spam.
> > Please use https://encrypt.to/0x947f156f16250de39788c3c35b625da5beff197a
> .
> >
> > 2017. 9. 22. 01:27, Anthony Cole  작성:
> >
> > > I was speaking with Barbara Page last night (Barbara's highlighting of
> > this
> > > issue in a Wikipediocracy blog post
> > > http://wikipediocracy.com/2017/07/24/alexa/ prompted Andreas to open
> > this
> > > discussion) last night and she told me when she asks Alexa about
> ovarian
> > > cancer these days, Alexa begins with "According to Wikipedia..." Can
> > anyone
> > > else with Alexa confirm this?
> > >
> > >> On Sat, 5 Aug 2017 at 3:55 am, Andreas Kolbe 
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Hi all,
> > >>
> > >> I checked in with Adele today, to ask about progress on the Amazon
> Echo
> > >> licensing issue, and whether she had a rough idea when she'd be able
> to
> > >> report back to us.
> > >>
> > >> Adele was happy for me to pass on here that we're unlikely to hear
> > anything
> > >> further about this until September, as Wikimania is looming, and she
> > will
> > >> be off on a much-needed holiday after that.
> > >>
> > >> Adele added that the timeline really depends on the Amazon staff they
> > >> contacted. While she will let us know as soon as she hears from them,
> > the
> > >> call required for this type of outreach will probably only happen in
> > >> September.
> > >>
> > >> Best,
> > >> Andreas
> > >>
> > >>> On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 1:29 AM, Adele Vrana 
> > wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> Hello,
> > >>>
> > >>> I am Adele Vrana, Director of Strategic Partnerships at the
> Foundation.
> > >>>
> > >>> We have contacts at Amazon and will seek to clarify the questions
> > raised
> > >> on
> > >>> this thread. I will make sure to circle back with you once we have an
> > >>> update.
> > >>>
> > >>> All the best,
> > >>> Adele
> > >>>
> >  On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 10:13 AM, Simon Poole 
> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > Am 27.07.2017 um 18:37 schrieb Andreas Kolbe:
> > >
> > > Edward Joseph "Ed" Snowden ...
> > >
> > > I will not spend an hour trying to identify the exact article
> version
> >  that
> > > matches Alexa's output in that video best, but it's safe to assume
> > >> that
> > > this inserted "Ed", too, came from Wikipedia, even though it had
> gone
> > >>> by
> > > the time the video was uploaded to YouTube.
> > 
> >  The current (full) answer is
> > 
> >  'Edward Joseph "Ed" Snowden, the American computer professional
> former
> >  CIA employee, and government contractor who leaked classified
> >  information from the U.S. National Security Agency in 2013.'
> > 
> >  Now obviously there could be -lots- going on behind the scenes, for
> >  example long term caching of search results (difficult to believe
> that
> >  Bing would allow that if it is really from them, but who knows) and
> so
> > >>> on.
> > 
> >  Simon
> > 
> > 
> >  ___
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> >  wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> >  Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
> mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > ,
> >   unsubscribe>
> > 
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> *Adele Vrana*
> > >>> *Strategic Partnerships - Global Reach*
> > >>> Wikimedia Foundation
> > >>> +1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6773
> > >>> avr...@wikimedia.org
> > >>>
> > >>> *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
> in
> > >> the
> > >>> sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate.
> > >>> *
> > >>> ___
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> > >>> 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,
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright enforcement?

[The Cunctator]

Thanks. I've added entries for Google Knowledge Graph and various Google
derivative products, which have varying quality of attribution and license
information and license. None appear to be fully compliant.

On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 9:29 PM, Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Editors used to do plenty by hand, if you recall. The on-wiki list of
> mirrors and forks had compliance info, and individuals would reach out and
> ask for license changes or takedowns.
>
> Since having a legal team I don't know how these have happened, or which
> individuals have made such claims & requests.
>
> On Jan 29, 2018 10:19 AM, "The Cunctator" <cuncta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Related, has there ever been any copyright enforcement for Wikipedia, or
> is
> > its copyleft a joke and it's functionally purely public domain?
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 7:42 AM, Renée Bagslint <reneebagsl...@gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Does the Foundation have any standing to enforce the copyright, since
> > that
> > > belongs to the individual contributors?
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 12:12 AM, James Salsman <jsals...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Attribution is often considered impractical, but providing the source
> > > > date along with e.g. the article name can be used to derive the
> > > > attribution, so it should be required. It's not just a good idea to
> > > > require this information from content re-users like Amazon, Apple,
> and
> > > > Google, but doing so will help encourage those who find issues to
> > > > edit.
> > > >
> > > > If the Foundation doesn't make attribution or at least article date a
> > > > requirement, then they are actively opposing editor recruitment.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 7:34 PM, The Cunctator <cuncta...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > The copyright requirement isn't attribution; it's attribution and
> > > > copyleft
> > > > > retention for derived works.
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 12:28 AM, James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> It search result only contains a snippet (and thus is fair use).
> > Plus
> > > > >> Google provide attribution in a lot of their results.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> J
> > > > >>
> > > > >> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 1:03 PM, geni <geni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> > On 5 June 2017 at 18:32, The Cunctator <cuncta...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > > >> > > Both Google and Graphiq are using pretty much the entire
> > Wikipedia
> > > > >> corpus
> > > > >> > > for their results.
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > However due to the way their output is structured it falls under
> > > "you
> > > > >> > can't copyright facts".
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > --
> > > > >> > geni
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > ___
> > > > >> > 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>
> > > > >> >
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >> --
> > > > >> James Heilman
> > > > >> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > > > >>
> > > > >> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> > > > >> ___
> > > > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > > >> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright enforcement?

[The Cunctator]

Related, has there ever been any copyright enforcement for Wikipedia, or is
its copyleft a joke and it's functionally purely public domain?

On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 7:42 AM, Renée Bagslint <reneebagsl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Does the Foundation have any standing to enforce the copyright, since that
> belongs to the individual contributors?
>
> On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 12:12 AM, James Salsman <jsals...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Attribution is often considered impractical, but providing the source
> > date along with e.g. the article name can be used to derive the
> > attribution, so it should be required. It's not just a good idea to
> > require this information from content re-users like Amazon, Apple, and
> > Google, but doing so will help encourage those who find issues to
> > edit.
> >
> > If the Foundation doesn't make attribution or at least article date a
> > requirement, then they are actively opposing editor recruitment.
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 7:34 PM, The Cunctator <cuncta...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > The copyright requirement isn't attribution; it's attribution and
> > copyleft
> > > retention for derived works.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 12:28 AM, James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> It search result only contains a snippet (and thus is fair use). Plus
> > >> Google provide attribution in a lot of their results.
> > >>
> > >> J
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 1:03 PM, geni <geni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> > On 5 June 2017 at 18:32, The Cunctator <cuncta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> > > Both Google and Graphiq are using pretty much the entire Wikipedia
> > >> corpus
> > >> > > for their results.
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > However due to the way their output is structured it falls under
> "you
> > >> > can't copyright facts".
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > --
> > >> > geni
> > >> >
> > >> > ___
> > >> > 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>
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> James Heilman
> > >> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > >>
> > >> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> > >> ___
> > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
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> > >> wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> ,
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> > >>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright enforcement?

[The Cunctator]

The copyright requirement isn't attribution; it's attribution and copyleft
retention for derived works.

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 12:28 AM, James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It search result only contains a snippet (and thus is fair use). Plus
> Google provide attribution in a lot of their results.
>
> J
>
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 1:03 PM, geni <geni...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 5 June 2017 at 18:32, The Cunctator <cuncta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Both Google and Graphiq are using pretty much the entire Wikipedia
> corpus
> > > for their results.
> >
> >
> > However due to the way their output is structured it falls under "you
> > can't copyright facts".
> >
> >
> > --
> > geni
> >
> > ___
> > 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
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright enforcement?

[The Cunctator]

Both Google and Graphiq are using pretty much the entire Wikipedia corpus
for their results.

On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 12:40 PM, James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well "fair use" applies, but if the amount of content used goes beyond fair
> use than it needs to be indicated that the content is under an open
> license.
>
> J
>
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 10:32 AM, The Cunctator <cuncta...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I've been a bit out of the loop on this for a while, so please be kind to
> > the oldbie - what's current Wikimedia policy on adaptive reuse of
> Wikipedia
> > content into non-free publications?
> >
> > E.g. Graphiq
> > https://www.graphiq.com/terms-and-conditions
> > http://colleges.startclass.com/l/1929/Harvard-University
> >
> > and Google
> > https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/
> > https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+university
> >
> > I recognize that Google gives Wikimedia a lot of money, even if the
> > foundation isn't very transparent about that, but I'd think that doesn't
> > free the company from following CC BY-SA.
> > ___
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>
>
>
> --
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> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
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[Wikimedia-l] Copyright enforcement?

[The Cunctator]

I've been a bit out of the loop on this for a while, so please be kind to
the oldbie - what's current Wikimedia policy on adaptive reuse of Wikipedia
content into non-free publications?

E.g. Graphiq
https://www.graphiq.com/terms-and-conditions
http://colleges.startclass.com/l/1929/Harvard-University

and Google
https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/
https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+university

I recognize that Google gives Wikimedia a lot of money, even if the
foundation isn't very transparent about that, but I'd think that doesn't
free the company from following CC BY-SA.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[The Cunctator]

One very serious element of this decision-making really should be the fact
that Google is blatantly violating the CCA-SA by reusing Wikipedia content
without making their derivative work open.


   - *Share Alike*—If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you
   may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a
   compatible license.


On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 9:58 AM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 5:00 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> > I used the phrase "run amok" based on comments at
> > . Specifically,
> > Brion Vibber writes:
> >
> > "Former VP of Engineering Damon Sicore, who as far as I know conceived
> the
> > 'knowledge engine', shopped the idea around in secret (to the point of
> > GPG-encrypting emails about it) with the idea that Google/etc form an
> > 'existential threat' to Wikipedia in the long term by co-opting our
> > traffic, potentially reducing the inflow of new contributors via the
> > 'reader -> editor' pipeline. [...]"
> >
> > Jimmy Wales replies:
> >
> > "It is important, most likely, that people know that Damon's secrecy was
> > not something that was known to me or the rest of the board. I've only
> > yesterday been sent, by a longtime member of staff who prefers to remain
> > anonymous, the document that Damon was passing around GPG-encrypted with
> > strict orders to keep it top secret. Apparently, he (and he alone, as far
> > as I can tell) really was advocating for taking a run at Google. [...]"
> >
>
>
> I find it interesting to compare Damon's purported concerns with those
> voiced by Jimmy Wales in his October emails to James Heilman, as made
> available to the Signpost:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-04-24/Op-ed
>
> There we read that Wales said:
>
> 
> Right now the page at www.wikipedia.org is pretty useless. There's no
> question it could be improved. Is your concern that if we improve it and it
> starts to look like a "search engine" in the first definition this could
> cause us problems?
>
> Are you concerned that in due course we might expand beyond just internal
> search (across all our properties)?
>
> Right now when I type "Queen Elizabeth II" I am taken to the article about
> her. I'm not told about any other resources we may have about her.
>
> If I type a search term for which there is no Wikipedia entry, I'm taken to
> our wikipedia search results page – which is pretty bad.
>
> Here's an example: search for 'how old is tom cruise?'
>
> It returns 10 different articles, none of which are Tom Cruise!
>
> When I search in Google – I'm just told the answer to the question. Google
> got this answer from us, I'm quite sure.
>
> So, yes, this would include Google graph type of functionality. Why is that
> alarming to you?
>
> ...
>
> I don't agree that there's a serious gulf between what we have been told
> and what funders are being told.
>
> ...
>
> Imagine if we could handle a wide range of questions that are easy enough
> to do by using wikidata / data embedded in templates / textual analysis.
>
> "How old is Tom Cruise?"
>
> "Is Tom Cruise married?"
>
> "How many children does Tom Cruise have?"
>
> The reason this is relevant is that we are falling behind what users
> expect. 5 years ago, questions like that simple returned Wikipedia as the
> first result at Google. Now, Google just tells the answer and the users
> don't come to us.
> 
>
>
> When told that there clearly had been an attempt to fund a massive project
> to build a search engine that was then "scoped down to a $250k exploration
> for a fully developed plan", Wales replied:
>
>
> 
> In my opinion: There was and there is and there will be. I strongly support
> the effort, and I'm writing up a public blog post on that topic today. Our
> entire fundraising future is at stake.
> 
>
>
> Wales's concerns don't sound all that different from Sicore's to me.
>
> Both seem to have perceived developments at Google as an existential
> threat, because users get their answers there without having to navigate to
> Wikipedia or Wikidata (which are among the sources from which Google takes
> its answers).
>
> Nor do I think these concerns are entirely unfounded. By opting for a CC
> licence allowing full commercial re-use, years ago, Wikipedia set itself up
> to be cannibalised in precisely that way.
>
> For better or worse, it relinquished all control over how and by whom its
> knowledge would be presented. It should hardly come as a surprise that
> commercial operators then step up to exploit that vacuum, set up commercial
> operations based on Wikimedia content, and eventually draw users away.
>
> Moreover, the current search function does suck. Anyone looking for a
> picture on Commons for example is better off using Google than the internal
> search function.
>
> What I don't understand is why all the secrecy and double-talk was
> necessary.
>
>
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff

[The Cunctator]

I can't think of a better justification for IAR than this thread.
On Apr 17, 2014 8:04 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 17 April 2014 12:49, Erlend Bjørtvedt erl...@wikimedia.no wrote:
  Same practice here, through spontneous reflection independent of wmfr.
  Seemes that this is at least natural for a chapter. I believe wmf
 employees
  should also be encouraged to contribute to the projects.

 There seems some confusion. There are two real recommendations here,
 none involves stopping employees of any Wikimedia organization from
 being editors.

 1. The examples Russavia has identified show instances of outright
 conflict of interest. Some edits state they are editing knowing they
 have a conflict of interest but have not bothered to propose changes
 so that others without a conflict can chose to implement them. It is
 recommended that the Foundation direct its employees to never edit
 where there is a conflict of interest relating to their employment.

 2. Using pseudonyms or anonymous accounts which obscure that the
 editor is an employee, and may be making edits related to their
 employment, is bad practice as it goes against our movement's
 commitment to simple transparency and openness. It is recommended that
 the Foundation direct its employees and contractors to ensure their
 interest is declared clearly and consistently so that the Wikimedia
 Community is never seen to be misled.

 Fae
 --
 fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[The Cunctator]

Given that allowing mp4 would be an act of commercial expedience at the
expense of core Wikipedia principles, let me make the modest suggestion of
introducing mp4 in concert with a name change to Encarta.
On Jan 16, 2014 5:15 AM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote:

 Great post Manuel, and I wholeheartedly agree, including the final
 recommendation. I, instead, voted for full MP4 support on the RfC to draw
 the center of gravity towards accepting MP4, but I would be happy even with
 a partial solution.

 Some points:

 1. The video project in English Wikipedia is:
 [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video]] We certainly welcome more than
 just English Wikipedians there! We've had several university classes use
 this, and I think a pretty good set of example videos and guidelines
 including many videos shot by journalism and media studies students:

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

 2. I talked recently with the Mozilla Popcorn folks, and they seem to have
 the best OSS, online video editing system today with Popcorn Maker. You can
 actually paste in URLs of Commons video and start splicing them together.
 Just make sure to use an Ogg/WebM friendly browser. I encourage you to try
 it out.

 https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

 They said they would be thrilled if Popcorn became part of the editing
 solution for Wikimedia. One problem is that they right now only manage an
 EDL of edits, so embedding an edited video together requires an online
 Javascript environment -- there is no provision for re-compressing and
 outputting the video to a standalone Ogg or WebM file. But this is OSS so
 adding this functionality should be possible with the right resources.

 3. Perhaps we should do several sessions at Wikimedia in succession,
 including a workshop on how to shoot and make video? I teach video shooting
 and editing to students each year, so this would be quite an easy thing for
 me to pitch in on.

 -Andrew





 On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:54 AM, Manuel Schneider 
 manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch wrote:

  Hi Fabrice,
 
  interesting question!
 
  I'd like to remind of a discussion we had at last year's Wikimania in
  Hong Kong concerning tools for the video community.
 
  Yet we do not really have a video community but scattered small groups
  or individuals doing some work. I try to coordinate this in the
  german-speaking world and we do this via Wikipedia, then there are
  people in the Czech Republic doing videos on national parks, Andrew did
  some great stuff in the US, there is a british initiative as well. We
  all face similar challenges. One things - which is off-topic here - is
  that I have in mind to connect these groups to an internationl video
  community, maybe by having a WikiVideo (or whatever the name might be)
  project.
 
  But back to the RfC: One of the challenges is that we need a solution for
 
  * storing the raw video material allowing people to re-use, re-edit
  etc., also most volunteers don't have the storage capacity to store all
  their raw material
 
  * collaborative editing - hard to do technically and it mostly implies
  that raw material is being shared - hard for people that can meet each
  other as these files are big, fast storage is needed etc. and it is even
  harder for people working online
 
  * upload of high-quality, finished video projects is a pain. They mostly
  have more than 1 GB, you need to have another server to upload and share
  it, make a bug report, find a server admin who downloads and imports it
  etc.
 
  My idea which we talked about briefly at Wikimania was a server where
  people could upload there raw material, it gets transcoded into smaller
  proxy clips everyone can easily download, edit and then upload the EDL
  (edit decision list = video editing project file, which just holds the
  operations). The server would then use the EDL on the raw material
  stored there and render the final video. The upload process can then be
  automated between this server and Commons.
 
  The reason this idea was dismissed is the core of this RfC: patent
  trolling etc. on H.264 codecs etc. which we would need to allow as raw
  material.
 
  So my take on this topic is a compromise:
 
  * allow MP4 / H.264 as a source codec
 
  * deliver everything in WebM / Ogg Theora (or other free codecs)
 
  Especially with WebM I see no reason why people really need H.264. Ogg
  Theora is somewhat exotic but WebM isn't.
  And once we have solved the legal problem around this RfC nothing is
  stoping us to implement the video editing server, right?
 
 
  /Manuel
  --
  Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
  Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[The Cunctator]

He wasn't assuming bad faith; he was accurately describing the situation
without ascribing intent.
On Jan 16, 2014 7:36 AM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote:

  There aren't two principles in conflict here.
 
  This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content
 will
  be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque
 license,
  it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that
 change,
  but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do.  As
 such
  it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major
  change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a
 question
  about format support.


 As much as I hate how MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 creates a non-free climate for our
 video, it's unfair to use backdoor to characterize intent of either
 community members or WMF employees in this area.

 Video has been a big shortcoming in Wikipedia and in the FLOSS community in
 general. Overcoming means we need to consider the unique nature of the
 problem with some possible new solutions. That's not backdooring -- that's
 directly addressing the needs of content creation given the current legal
 and IP situation.

 Let's debate the merits of the case and not assume bad faith of the folks
 putting it forward.

 -Andrew
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant in the room

[The Cunctator]

Also, vandalism had always been a red herring, kind of like the terrorism
that justifies the TSA security theater and NBA surveillance or the Red
Scare. It's a wrong-headed obsession that weakens community.
On Nov 22, 2013 2:06 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 12:37 AM, WereSpielChequers 
 werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote:

  Typo correction and vandalism reversion are certainly both entries to
  editing, and it isn't just anti-vandalism where the opportunities have
  declined in recent years. Typos are getting harder to find, especially in
  stable widely read articles. Yes you can find plenty of typos by checking
  new pages and recent changes, but I doubt our  5 edits a month editors
 are
  going to internal maintenance pages like that. I suspect they are readers
  who fix things they come across. It would be interesting to survey a
 sample
  of them I suspect we'd find many who are reading Wikipedia just as much
 as
  they used to, but if they only edit when they spot a mistake then of
 course
  they will now be editing less frequently. And of course none of that is
  actually bad, any more than is the loss of large numbers of vandals who
  used to get into the 5 edits a month band for at least the month in which
  they did their spree and were blocked..
 
  The difficulty of getting precise measurements of community health
 makes
  it a fascinating topic, and with many known factors altering edit levels
 in
  sometimes poorly understood ways we need to be wary of
 oversimplifications.
  No-one really knows what would have happened if the many edit filters
  installed in the last four years had instead been coded as anti vandalism
  bots, clearly our edit count would now be much higher, but whether it
 would
  currently be higher or lower than in 2009 when the edit filters were
  introduced is unknown. Nor should we fret that we shifted so much of our
  anti-vandalism work from very quick reversion to not accepting edits.
  However it isn't sensible to  benchmark community health against past
 edit
  levels, we should really be comparing community activity against
 readership
  levels. If we do that there is a disconnect between our readership which
  for years has grown faster than the internet and our community which is
  broadly stable. To some extent this can be considered a success for
 Vector
  and the shift of our default from a skin optimised for editing to one
  optimised for reading. Of course if we want to increase editing levels we
  always have the option of defaulting new accounts to Monobook instead of
  Vector. My suspicion is also that the rise of the mobile device,
 especially
  amongst the young, is turning us from an interactive medium into more of
 a
  broadcast one. It is also likely to be contributing to the greying of the
  pedia.
 
  I am trying to list the major known and probable causes of changes of the
  fall in the raw editing levels in a page on
  wiki
 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/Going_off_the_boil%3F
  ,
  feedback welcome.
 

 Holy smokes this thread has gotten off topic, but I'll bite. ;)

 Making articles that need spelling and grammar fixes easily available to
 new editors is precisely what we're doing with GettingStarted, our software
 system for introducing newly-registered people to editing. (Docs at
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GettingStarted and
 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Onboarding_new_Wikipedians). We're
 currently
 getting thousands of new people to make their first typo fix a month on
 English Wikipedia, and we're moving to other Wikipedias soon.

 In English Wikipedia it's quite easy for us to do so, since there's a large
 category of articles needing copyediting. In other Wikipedias, it's not
 easy, because there is no such category. If you want to help us help
 newbies, the best thing you could do is create a copyediting category on
 your Wikipedia and link it to the appropriate Wikidata item
 (either Q8235695 or Q9137504).

 As a side point: when we examine first-time editors contributions, these
 days it's rare to find someone start out by correcting vandalism, probably
 because now bots and users of tools like Huggle or Twinkle catch it all so
 fast. It's so small a number that when we examine samples of new
 contributors in our qualitative research,[1][2] we just put it in the Other
 category of edit types.

 Steven

 1.

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Qualitative_analysis
 2.

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/OB6/Contribution_quality_and_type
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant in the room

[The Cunctator]

Yes, let's keep on pushing for policies that drive away editors!
On Nov 20, 2013 2:10 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 19 November 2013 20:44, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote:
  Aside @Fae: the tineye crew are curious  quite pro-freeculture, I bet
 they
  would be glad to help design a bot that uses their API to check image
  copyvios.

 This is an area this spins off from my little experiments with better
 management of uploads to Commons from mobile devices. I would like to
 look at this again and perhaps get a funding proposal together (or
 partnership with Tineye if they are up for it), It is one of several
 creative back-burner volunteer projects that I hope to have time to
 dig into again next year.

 Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant in the room

[The Cunctator]

There's also been discussion of automatically deleting content from
contributors contributor from their own writing.
On Nov 20, 2013 8:31 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote:

 On 11/20/2013 07:13 AM, The Cunctator wrote:
  Yes, let's keep on pushing for policies that drive away editors!

 Let's be clear here: contributions that are copyright violations are not
 desirable to begin with.  If someone is driven away because they cannot
 cut and paste from random websites anymore, I'm not sure that this could
 reasonably be taken to be a bad thing.

 -- Marc


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out

[The Cunctator]

Yes, it should be made clear that opt out will always be an acceptable user
preference.
On Aug 6, 2013 7:26 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 8:35 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

  Todd Allen wrote:
  [comments about VisualEditor]
 
  Hi Todd.
 
  Thank you for writing this e-mail. Unfortunately I don't have a
  particularly unified reply to write here, but I can offer five thoughts.
 
  Regarding the specific issue you mention (the labeling of the user
  preference), I think there should be at least a little recognition that
  much more than half of the battle was getting this user preference
  re-added, supported for future VisualEditor releases, and appropriately
  positioned under the Editing user preferences tab rather than the
  Gadgets user preferences tab. Now that we've made forward progress on
  those fronts, re-labeling the user preference is a simple matter of
  editing the page MediaWiki:Visualeditor-preference-betatempdisable.
 
  Broadly, looking at your e-mail, I wonder what your thoughts are on the
  extent to which one wiki, even the golden goose, can dictate Wikimedia
  Foundation product engineering and development. While the English
  Wikipedia is certainly a formidable force, do you think it should be
  capable, through an on-wiki discussion, of setting or changing high-level
  priorities and their implementation strategies? If so, why and how?
 
  I started
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Improvements to
  discuss actionable improvements that can be made right now related to
  VisualEditor and its deployment. Please participate. :-)
 
  And I started https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints
 to
  examine the pattern of complaints related to VisualEditor.
 
  Finally, and somewhat related to the complaints page, I've been thinking
  lately about the British and the Irish and the nature of insurgencies. I
  believe the VisualEditor team is now viewed by many on the English
  Wikipedia (and other wikis) as an occupying force. Consequently, this has
  created an insurgency composed of long-time editors. This isn't meant to
  be hyperbolic: nobody is rioting in the streets or planning warfare
 (yet).
  However, the anger felt by many in the editing community toward the
  VisualEditor team is very real and very worrying, as is the seemingly
  heavy-handed way in which VisualEditor has been deployed. Just a few
 weeks
  ago, VisualEditor was receiving accolades for the way in which it had
 been
  slowly and thoughtfully developed and deployed. However, seemingly
  arbitrary deadlines and a few key bad decisions have greatly hurt it. The
  wounds are deep, but it remains to be seen whether they will be fatal.
 
  MZMcBride
 
 
 
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 MzMcBride,

 Thanks for the response, and the thoughtful questions. Since they're rather
 different, I'll answer them in turn.

 My concern on the user preference is not what we call it. Rather, it's on
 what we intend to do with it; namely, remove it after the VE beta is done
 (and for many of us, WMF's project managers have shown remarkably poor
 judgment in properly determining what's done or ready). Even if VE
 worked well, I'm the type of person who uses a bash command shell in
 preference to a GUI most of the time (and go nuts when I'm required to use
 Windows for work), and I'm just not interested in the visual editor. For me
 personally, it's nothing I'll ever use. By all means, offer the GUI to
 whoever will find it useful, but I want a way to make sure it's not sucking
 up resources every time I edit. But despite this, once they say it's
 ready, we're getting it crammed down our throats, like it or not. Even
 the name of the page, betatempdisable, indicates that once again, the
 ability to disable this thing will be taken out of where it belongs, and
 once again volunteers will have to use their time to develop and maintain a
 gadget because WMF just can't resist saying We say it's READY, and you
 will have it there whether or not you ever plan to use it!

 As to dictat(ing) to WMF, well, in the most technical sense, no one has
 any say at all. WMF pays the bills and the devs, so WMF can, whenever it
 wants, override what en.wikipedia or any other project tells it.

 So we know WMF -can- override en.wikipedia, or any other project. The
 question, then, is whether they should. This is a volunteer project, where
 comparable to the user base, a relatively small group of volunteer users
 does the bulk of the work on creating and maintaining the site's content.
 Anonymous and drive-by editors are allowed to help, they often do, and
 that's appreciated. We should do what we can to make it easier for them to,
 but not at the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out

[The Cunctator]

This perspective is not a productive one for building and maintaining a
community. You need to have a better way of granting legitimacy to people's
concerns while being able to discern histrionics.

Generally the optimal easy is to have there be a pathway by which the
complainants have to fix the problem to the satisfaction of their strongest
opposition.
On Aug 6, 2013 1:04 PM, Peter Southwood peter.southw...@telkomsa.net
wrote:

 To me it looks like a fairly small number of editors are making a fairly
 large amount of noise, A very small number making a disproportionately
 large amount, and a much larger number, probably the majority, have not
 even bothered to comment at all. I also have not analysed the numbers, but
 to me it looks like the numbers who have made one liner comments that they
 approve is probably the same order of magnitude as the number who protest
 incessantly. This is Wikipedia, there are always a small number who make a
 lot of noise. After a while fewer people take them seriously. I start to
 get the impression that there are now some people who have invested so much
 effort into making a big deal of this that they now feel obliged to make an
 even bigger deal so they can feel justified in doing so.  Maybe I'm wrong,
 maybe the numbers do indicate a wdespread and deep seated sense of
 alienation. Maybe not. Time will probably tell, and hey, someone who is
 prepared to approach the analysis scientifcally may get a dissertation out
 of it. Stranger things have happened.. I also think the approach was
 flawed, but I appreciate the reasons and I am prepared to assume good faith.
 Cheers,
 Peter
 - Original Message - From: Kevin Wayne Williams 
 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com
 To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
 wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 
 Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 9:02 PM
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out


  I've made no claim about most long-term editors, but any perusal of the
 two RFCs and the Feedback page would demonstrate that there's a fairly
 large group.

 Or are you arguing that deploying bug-ridden software that corrupts
 articles, hangs browsers, crashes unexpectedly, and doesn't have sufficient
 features to edit basic articles is somehow OK as long the site survives the
 disruption? Even if it can be shown that development knew that was the case
 prior to deployment, and chose to deploy it anyway?

 KWW

 Op 2013/08/06 10:54, Peter Southwood schreef:

 Evidence that most long term editors are frothing at the mouth would be
 a good start, evidence that the rollout of VE has had a significant impact
 on long term editor retention, either way, even evidence that WP is in
 rapid decline that is in any way related to VE, positively or negatively,
 Cheers,
 Peter

 - Original Message - From: Kevin Wayne Williams 
 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com
 To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
 wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 
 Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 6:14 PM
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out


  Op 2013/08/06 9:07, Peter Southwood schreef:

 Do you have data to back up your claims?
 Peter

 What do you need? Evidence that Wikipedia has survived for years?
 Evidence that its decline is not so rapid as to indicate an emergency
 situation? Quotes from Erik where he states that he disrupted English
 Wikipedia in order to create a test bed? The first two are judgement calls,
 for the third there's an embarrassment of riches. Let me know what you 
 need.

 KWW



  - Original Message - From: Kevin Wayne Williams 
 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com
 To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
 wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 
 Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 4:51 PM
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out


  Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:

 This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out.
 Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and they
 make reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.

 This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their argument
 for 'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing 
 that
 it affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have
 concerns about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it 
 has
 survived for years and will survive for years more. The stability of the
 site is much more important than testing this code, and the testing
 strategy of presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing 
 what
 people did with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely and
 absolutely irresponsible.

 KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!

[The Cunctator]

I love it when individuals decide that they know what is important and
worthy of inclusion, as opposed to the mindless masses. Because that's such
a healthy way to ensure an open, neutral, and comprehensive encyclopedia.

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Tarc Meridian t...@hotmail.com wrote:


 I think that is a very dismissive misreading of the discussion.

 Some people have it in their heads that appears in reliable sources
 equates to article-worthiness, but the problem here is that the doings of
 celebrities is covered in excruciating detial by the media, including what
 tey eat, the clothes they wear, and so on.  Same for some politicians, such
 as every Thanksgiving some poor sod gets to stand outside the White House
 gate and breathlessly report what is on the President's table, or at XMas
 the reports of what the First Family bought each other.  Reliably sourced?
  Yes.  Encyclopedic worthiness of White House Thanksgiving 2009 Dinner
 Table ?  None at all.


  Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 12:02:46 +0100
  From: t...@tommorris.org
  To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
  Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!
 
  On Tuesday, 3 July 2012 at 10:15, Svip wrote:
   I can't believe _I_ am not the ultimate ruler on what is valuable
   enough to get on Wikipedia. It seems most of the delete comments on
   the Justin Bieber article are mostly people who dislike Justin Bieber.
  
   Surely Lady Gaga on Twitter[3] should be deleted as well? Or perhaps
   that is different, because they like Lady Gaga more than they like
   Justin Bieber.
  
   [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Gaga_on_Twitter
 
  To be fair, 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' is also up for deletion too. In
 both the Kutcher and Bieber case, there's a lot of I don't like it,
 therefore it can't be notable!
 
  I just cannot see any legitimate argument for deletion being presented.
 They all basically boil down to don't like it!
 
  --
  Tom Morris
  http://tommorris.org/
 
 
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!

[The Cunctator]

Just think, in a few years we can set up the site to construct drafts for
the site that constructs drafts for Wikipedia.



On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 12:48 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org
 wrote:
  There's nothing that prevents a subject from having an article in both
  namespaces.  One can be seen as the complement of the other; mainspace
 would
  become more encyclopedic and there would be a neat space where the more
  recent coverage can be found for further information.
 
  It'd only be a matter of educating editors and readers; the mainspace is
 the
  most reliable and seriously sourced base of articles, at the cost of
 being
  possibly a bit dated or drier.  The space below the fold is more
 timely,
  and possibly more detailed at the cost of being possibly less reliable.

 This is a good idea, and you can take it further, as suggested in the
 past:  we need a space in which one can draft verifiable articles
 about any topic, without arguments about notability.

 Just as Wikipedia was a 'simple, unreliable scratch space' to let
 everyone draft articles for nupedia, we need the same sort of space to
 let everyone draft articles for [what we currently think of as]
 wikipedia.

 SJ

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