Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: A conversation?

[Thomas Morton]

The rights and wrongs of this dispute aside (and, crikey, I really have not
idea who is in the right at this point), and putting aside the right/wrong
of releasing the email (I tend to side with Erik):

This is the form of language that e.g. men use to dismiss women as
"emotional".

It's vile and judgemental.

It poses theories that James is either a liar, mentally ill or just so
angry he can't think straight.

It is not okay to say things like this, even in private. The effect of
words like this can be damaging in the least.

As a movement we should not accept this.

Jimmy, whilst you may not have explicitly meant these words in the way they
are being read, you need to perhaps step back and think about the impact of
what you have written here.

Tom

On Thu, 10 Mar 2016 at 00:56 Pete Forsyth  wrote:

> Below is a message Jimmy Wales sent to James Heilman and myself on Feb. 29.
> I mentioned the existence of this message on the list on March 2:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-March/082901.html
>
> I feel this message can provide important insight into the dynamics
> surrounding James H.'s dismissal, and various people have expressed
> interest in seeing it, so I'm forwarding it to the list. (For what it's
> worth, I did check with James H.; he had no objection to my sharing it.)
>
> For context, as I understand it, Jimmy's message was more or less in
> response to this list message of mine:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-February/082764.html
>
> -Pete
> [[User:Peteforsyth]]
>
> -- Forwarded message --
>
> *From: *Jimmy Wales
>
> *Date: *February 29, 2016 6:21:46 AM
>
> *To: *Pete Forsyth,James Heilman
>
> *Subject: **A conversation?*
>
>
> James, I wonder if you'd be up for a one on one conversation. I've been
> struck in a positive way by some of the things that Pete has said and I
> realize that moving things forward on wikimedia-l, being sniped at by
> people who are as interested in creating drama as anything else, isn't
> really conducive to reaching more understanding.
>
> I have some questions for you - real, sincere, and puzzled questions.
> Some of the things that you have said strike me as very obviously out of
> line with the facts. And I wonder how to reconcile that.
>
> One hypothesis is that you're just a liar. I have a hard time with that
> one.
>
> Another hypothesis is that you have a poor memory or low emotional
> intelligence or something like that - you seem to say things that just
> don't make sense and which attempt to lead people to conclusions that
> are clearly not true.
>
> Another hypothesis is that the emotional trauma of all this has colored
> your perceptions on certain details.
>
> As an example, and I'm not going to dig up the exact quotes, you said
> publicly that you wrote to me in October that we were building a
> Google-competing search engine and that I more or less said that I'm
> fine with it. Go back and read our exchange. There's just now way to
> get that from what I said - Indeed, I specifically said that we are NOT
> building a Google-competing search engine, and explained the much lower
> and much less complex ambition of improving search and discovery.
>
> As another example, you published a timeline starting with Wikia Search.
> It's really hard for me to interpret that in any other way than to try
> to lead people down the path of the conspiracy theorists that I had a
> pet project to compete with Google which led to a secret project to
> biuld a search engine, etc. etc. You know as well as I do that's a
> false narrative, so it's very hard for me to charitably interpret that.
>
> Anyway these are the kinds of things that I struggle with.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF trustee Arnnon Geshuri and part in anticompetitive agreements in Google

[Thomas Morton]

And more to the point; not knowing is a poor defence. Surely any level of
due diligence on new board members would have exposed this troubling
incident?

Tom

On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 09:27 Fæ  wrote:

> On 9 January 2016 at 09:06, Chris Keating 
> wrote:
> ...
> > Dariusz has said the Board is looking into the situation with Arnnon,
> which
> > they were clearly not aware of - that is what needs to happen and yet
> more
> > emails on this list won't mean that happens any more quickly.
> ...
>
> Correction to "they [the board] were clearly not aware":
>
> Yesterday Jimmy Wales confirmed that:[1]
> "I cannot speak for the entire board. As for myself, I was aware (from
> googling him and reading news reports) that he had a small part in the
> overall situation when he was told by Eric Schmidt that Google had a
> policy of not recruiting from Apple, and that a recruiter had done it,
> and that the recruiter should be fired, and he agreed to do so."
>
> It is not true that the WMF board were unaware before Arnnon was
> offered a seat on the board, when there were trustees that knew he
> took part in illegal activities at Google. The first page of results
> of a google search shows that Arnnon was a named defence party in the
> court case.
>
> Links
> 1.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=698802294&oldid=698801520
>
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please report to Google [was Re: Warning: "Wikimedia-l" Google Group]

[Thomas Morton]

I think the point is that the list owner is deiberately using those tactics
to gain attention :)

Tom
On 11 Jan 2015 13:55, "Rui Correia"  wrote:

> Would it not be more practical to ask the list owner at Google to kill
> his list and create a new one with a new name and to NOT add members
> without their permission?
>
> Rui
>
> 2015-01-11 15:39 GMT+02:00 Bence Damokos :
> > I found the same issue. The best thing to do is to send a letter to the
> > unsubscribe address from your various adresses (change the from field in
> > Gmail), and it should do it. (Doesn't work for the "opt out" option for
> > resubscribing.)
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Bence
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Cristian Consonni <
> kikkocrist...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> 2015-01-10 10:56 GMT+01:00 Lodewijk :
> >> > This sounds silly, but somehow it seems quite hard to unsubscribe from
> >> this
> >> > group, if you have multiple google accounts (google thinks you're
> trying
> >> to
> >> > unsubscribe with an account that is not subscribed etc).
> >>
> >> (sorry for the maybe even sillier answer)
> >> Have you tried logging out and/or uising different browsers?
> >>
> >> Cristian
> >>
> >> ___
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> >> 
> >>
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> 
>
>
>
> --
> _
> Rui Correia
> Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant
> Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant
>
> Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186
> Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186
> ___
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] United Nation of Wikimedia

[Thomas Morton]

Hi Ting,

It's lovely to see such operatic vision! And I for one would love to see
some of those things happen.

But, just to bring it down a bit; the technological issues rear their ugly
heads. Engineering-wise, hosting Wikipedia is a tough problem. Distributing
Wikimedia hosting across the globe is very definitely a "hard" problem. If
it could even be considered in a 5 year project scope that would be IMO an
aggressive timescale :)

Also, I am not sure the WMF has attitude for decentralisation to chapters;
nota bene the work relating to Labs and Toolserver. So commercially that
might be a tough sell.

However, despite this, I hope enough people see something in your vision to
push forward change.

Tom




On 7 April 2014 14:39, Ting Chen  wrote:

> Hello dear all,
>
> From 2008 on until recently the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) had seen a
> staggering growth to fulfill its mission, and it had pulled a great deal of
> the resources, in money, but as well as in talent, manpower and volunteer's
> effort of the movement.
>
>
> From the beginning hosting of the Wikimedia projects was the core
> competency of the WMF. A big part of the WMF budget and staff is dedicated
> to the operation of the servers. Meanwhile the main server farm is moved
> from Tampa, Florida to Ashburn, Virginia.
>
>
> In the last years the WMF had evolved to the main development party of the
> MediaWiki software. The software and product development had drawn many
> resources and talents from around the world to San Francisco. Many
> developers were relocated to join the WMF team.
>
>
> With the increased prominence of especially Wikipedia the WMF and its
> projects were facing more and more legal challenges in the past years. Law
> suits from around the world were reported since 2005. Because of this the
> WMF had expanded its legal team.
>
>
> To improve its role as the leader of the movement and to settle the
> disputes between the WMF and chapters about the processing and distribution
> of the funding the WMF had evolved since 2010 into a grant making
> organization.
>
>
> All in all the WMF is without doubt the center peace of the movement and
> claims four fifth of the expanses of the entire movement.
>
>
> The recent dispute about the URAA motivated massive content deletions on
> Wikimedia Commons highlights the problem of this strong centralized
> approach.
>
>
> In basic, the storage solution of the Wikimedia projects is still a very
> classical approach with two central database centers, both of them located
> in the US. This approach had repeatedly induced conflicts about what
> content can be stored and what cannot. It does not reflect the
> international character of the projects and had repeatedly induced critics
> on the Wikimedia projects to be US biased and it is, measured on today's
> storage technology, outdated. Even though currently the US law is one of
> the most liberal in relation to freedom of speech it does has its bias. The
> US copy right law for example is meanwhile one of the most restrictive and
> backward looking copy right laws in the entire world. Another example of
> the potential hazardous result of this approach are the image files that
> are currently stored in the individual projects. For example on Chinese
> Wikipedia images that are free according to the Chinese and Taiwanese copy
> right laws are stored directly there, and not on Commons. These images are
> nevertheless not free according to the US law and are stored in servers
> that are located in the US and distributed from there. This poses potential
> problems for all parties that are involved here: for the Foundation, for
> the project, for the community that is curating these images and for the
> users that are using these images.
>
>
> In a larger sense the problem is not constrained to the file repositories,
> but also to the content. Even though the Foundation had increased its legal
> department and had tentatively tried to work out an approach to support its
> community in legal conflict basically it is still working with the old
> strategy: In case there is a legal case in a foreign country the Foundation
> will avoid the call of the court while the Chapter will deny any
> responsibility for the content. This leaves in the end all potential
> hazards to the volunteer who contributed the content. In case of a court
> suit he is probably the one that have the worse legal support and had to
> take the charge privately, even if he handled legally and in good will.
>
>
> In my opinion, since the technology is ripe, it is time for the movement
> as a whole and WMF especially to seriously consider the approach of a
> distributed hosting. Files and contents that let's say are legal in the EU
> but not in the US should be able to be stored on a server located in the EU
> and distributed and operated from there. Files and contents that are legal
> in PRC and Taiwan and may violate copy right law in the US should be able
> to be stored in a serv

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About Wikipedia medical entries

[Thomas Morton]

Osteopathy is one of those “difficult” ones, where it does have some real 
evidence to back it up - but in the UK certain practitioners make exceptional 
and (hokum) claims.

The NHS recommends it for Lower Back Pain 
(http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Osteopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx, and 
personally I’ve found it the only effective treatment for my back pain) and 
also say may be effective for other forms of muskculoskeletal problems.

But you get plenty of osteopaths claiming that they can fix anything from IBS 
to heart problems (total BS).

Talking about it to my osteopath, those latter claims became popular in the 90s 
during the “hokum-medicine” (his words :P) boom, but fortunately today it seems 
to be falling further out of favour, with a twist to more realistic attitudes.

The US has a much more robust approach to such claims, and hopefully the UK 
will go that way too :D

Anyway, just an interesting aside :) As a note, the WP article on osteopathy 
does a good job of overviewing the topic!

Tom

On 27 May 2014 at 15:23:59, Nathan (nawr...@gmail.com) wrote:

On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoeks...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 4:01 PM, Marc A. Pelletier 
> wrote:
>
> > On 05/27/2014 09:44 AM, Stevie Benton wrote:
> > > American Osteopathic Association
> >
> > I'm not an expert on the latest woo-woo, but isn't Osteopathy one of the
> > numerous "faith-based 'medecine'"?
> >
> > -- Marc
> >
> >
> That issue was discussed before too. From what I remember from it is that
> what is called Osteopathy in the UK isn't the same thing that's called
> Osteopathy in the US, where the UK one is basically voodoo, and the US one
> a legitimate specialty in medicine (but correct me if I'm wrong)
>
> -- Martijn
>
> >
> > __
>

You are correct. In the UK osteopathy is a woo woo homeopathic discipline,
in the U.S. (where the study was conducted) the training and degree
granting processes for osteopathy are equivalent to medical doctors and the
two are treated identically.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.

[Thomas Morton]

I cannot believe I am saying this; but I totally agree with Russavia.

Wil; why not have a go contributing to some WP articles and seeing what
your experience is.

We have a comment statement that gets made on flame threads, which boils
down to "isn't there an article you could be writing?"

Tom


On 28 May 2014 21:44, Russavia  wrote:

> Wil,
>
> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:24 AM, Wil Sinclair  wrote:
>
> As you can see there is a lot of consternation being directed your
> way, and at some stage, and this will teach you well for the future as
> well, you have to learn to walk away from the keyboard. If you can't
> do this, and I have a feeling you might have difficulty doing so, try
> to at least delay hitting the send button, but this is something else
> you may have trouble doing. This is especially important on this list,
> as there is a sending limit per month that people are able send, and
> this is obviously done to prevent the drowning out of other
> participants by any single personyou would likely be well on your
> way to this limit by now.
>
> Wil, if you truly wanted to see how the projects work, usually the
> best way is to get involved at the ground level. Some people may want
> to make some edits on Wikipedia to an article on a subject that
> interest them. Others might add some information on one of their
> favourite holiday spots on Wikivoyage. Others might prefer to take a
> photo of their penis and upload it to Commons. There are literally
> plenty of ways for a n00b get involved on our projects.
>
> You have missed an opportunity here to be able to help Lila with her new
> job.
>
> Firstly, this is Lila's moment to shine and an opportunity for the
> community to get to know her and vice versa. It's a bit difficult for
> a sense of trust to be built when you have an overbearing partner
> essentially publicly pushing her aside and taking all of our
> attention. For example, I really don't know much about Lila, but I
> know more about you. And that presents a massive problem, and believe
> you me, others are thinking it, I'm willing to say it publicly.
>
> Secondly, as a n00b, you would have been a great person for Lila to
> use as a sounding board as to how it is for new editors on our
> projects to be able to edit and understand how to navigate our
> projects. You may not be aware but our projects have a dire editor
> retention rate, and your experiences, given that it is evident you are
> green to our projects, may have been able to help Lila understand that
> particular issue.
>
> Getting involved as you have done has only gone to serve
> Wikipediocracy by handing them the best PSA they could hope for on a
> silver platter.
>
> Having said that, if you want to get involved on Commons,
> #wikimedia-commons is full of helpful editors who might be able to
> give you some further ideas on how to contribute to that project.
>
> Learn the ropes first; there's plenty of time for wikipolitics and the
> like later on.
>
> Cheers
>
> Russavia
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Child Protection and Harassment Policy

[Thomas Morton]

>
> Child Protection- I'd like to hear about ways that policy might be
> changed here to better protect children, especially given some of the
> content on Commons. I'd also like to hear about specific examples of
> content on Commons that a parent might not find appropriate for their
> children. Note that this is not a repeat of the discussion to
> understand what policies are in place, as I have already opened a
> specific thread for that.
>

You seem to have conflated two items here... one is the idea of child
protection, and the other is of objectionable items on commons. I don't
think that in any way works.

Our child protection policies are about protecting children when they
interact online. This is a perennial problem for any internet site, as I am
sure you know. We do have some policies that help a lot (for example,
admins always err on the side of caution and delete personal details that
underage editors post). We have avenues to report potential issues such as
grooming.

Could more be done? Yes, I've thought so; for example publicising the
problem more.

But is WP worse that other communities (note; not site) of similar size?
Probably not. At least not in my experience (which, of course, is pretty
extensive given my former job).

Child protection from porn, etc.? I think it's well established that kids
can come across porn anywhere (apparently, Facebook, if my cousins'
activity on there are anything to go by :S). And frankly, it's never struck
me as an issue under the umbrella of "xhild protection".

How far does policing it become our job and not that of a parent? It's a
difficult decision... especially when browser-based content filters are
prevelant and easy to set up.

I've always said; we should educate our users about how to install and use
content filters, as this will benefit them outside WP too!

So then, on the flip side of your comment here you have the global issue of
objectionable images.

This is a much broader issue that the narrow one you're focusing on here.
For example, one of the main (and by main I mean constant and persistent,
beyond any complaints of porn!) complaints we see relate to images of the
prophet mohammed.

How do you, then, feel about Commons hosting images like that?

One of the tenets of the projects are that they are not censored, which I
think is a good thing. However, we've not yet struck a balance between
displaying everything and filtering things an individual doesn't want to
see.

I like the Mohammed example because it emphasises the problem where those
of us who are not Muslim find a subset of images perfectly okay, but a
Muslim might not.



>
> Since I don't have enough experience with the community and WP yet to
> discuss controversial topics myself, I will not chime in unless the
> thread has very obviously gone off topic. Just to pick an arbitrary
> about of time that is more than the few months that others have
> mentioned here, let's say that you can only participate in this
> discussion if you have at least one year of experience as an active
> contributor.
>

I'm not sure what purpose it serves to bring up controversial topics, in
this forum, with an express note that you have nothing new to bring? ;)

Not to be too critical; but do you imagine that these issues aren't being
discussed on the various projects - hopefully with incremental improvement
each time. Or that individuals here are not aware of them?

More than anything though, I'm sure you're an experienced internet chap -
what did you expect to recieve in stirring up two relatively ingrained
"sides"? It wasn't very deft, I have to observe :)

One thing it might be important to communicate is that whilst this list is
useful for global discussion, it's not a venue that any agreement or
consensus is reached. So these discussions are really best conducted
on-wiki. I'm not sure if you've actually attempted to open such topics on
any of the projects, but the discussion you appear to be looking for can
really only happen there (rather than here, or IRC, for example).

Regards,
Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocking Wil from this List

[Thomas Morton]

Wil I ask this as a serious, non-snarky question; have you stepped back for
a second and thought about your actions here.

Some responses have been a bit tough. But I don't think you've handled
yourself at all well.

Imagine, for example, I came into your place of work and started asking
questions. Questions which at best are naive or worst leading. What if I
immediately plunged into one of the most controversial topics of
discussion, in a somewhat aloof tone, and revealed that I'd been talking to
a news outlet who'd just run an in depth expose on your bosses sex life.
What if my comments exposed that my research consisted entirely of what I
had been fed from that outlet.

What I'm saying is; this is a community which is established and often
thoughful. For a web community it is quite welcoming to thoughtful new
contributions. But unlike many web communities it's tolerance for bullshit
is extremely low.

We respond positively to things like reasoned arguments, or great
contributions. We respond badly to oddly crafted explorations. Your opening
email reads, and believe me we have years of them for training, like the
typical flamebait.

Remember as a community we face constant disruption and vandalism: and so
our tools to deal with that, and move back onto content, are abrupt and
harsh.

As a regular and vocal critic myself, I think you've crossed the line in
these threads into disruption.

If you want to understand WM culture then the one and only way to do so is
to become a member of the community. It's not simple or easy, it takes work
to produce quality contributions.

Looking from the outside will only get you so far. I hope you'll delve in
and find not only the bad, but the excellent as well.

Take that as you will. I hope it's useful.

Unfortunately your comments about Kohs mean I find your judgement extremely
lacking. I hope you'll be able to regain the respect youve so quickly lost
here.

Tom
On 29 May 2014 00:25, "Wil Sinclair"  wrote:

> I'm starting a thread with the correct title, so that everyone knows
> that we're discussing whether I should be banned and for what reasons.
>
> ,Wil
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Moderation of messages sent to this list

[Thomas Morton]

At a guess; unpleasant snark.

Tom
On 21 Jun 2014 16:49, "Tomasz W. Kozłowski"  wrote:

> Earlier today, I used the Gmane.org gateway to send a message to this
> mailing list in response to the "Iraqi 2014 elections thread" started
> by GerardM.
>
> Here is the content of my message (typed from memory):
>
> Have you tried Google yet? It is a search engine that lets
> you search for information easily and accurately (most of
> the time).
>
> The Wikidata entry for Google is at
> .
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Tomasz
>
> I was surprised to receive a notification saying that my e-mail was
> rejected by an unnamed moderator (as all e-mails sent to the list
> through Gmane have to be accepted before being sent on), with the
> following reason: "Your message was deemed inappropriate by the
> moderator."
>
> I would like the unknown moderator to — please — explain to me what
> was so inappropriate in my message that they had to reject it.
>
> Thank you!
> --
> Tomasz
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)

[Thomas Morton]

I've been watching this unfold over the weekend. And am sorely disapointed
with the rudeness from ALL sides (not from everyone, it should be said)

The action of removing admin access with little warning, and last thing on
a Friday is obnoxious and rude. I'd expect the foundation to review
policies of interacting with community members and remind staff that
important or controversial actions should occur when people are available
to respond in a timely fashion.

I'd also like to see more explanation of foundation actions, in advance
preferably. And will expect to see feedback soon on how to handle
situations such as these better :)

Conversely, a number of community members here should be ashamed. Righteous
anger is ridiculous and pointless. Certainly if you are one of the
ex-admins I can understand a level of furstration and hurt. But with few
exceptions those individuals have been positively expressing that hurt.

It's the others, seizing on the opportunity to swing for the foundation
that are a disappointment. I've pretty much stopped trying to be an admin
on EN wiki because of the attitude of entitlement that takes up so much
time and energy that could be spent writing content

It's sad to see this is a cross movement problem.

Everyone; buck your ideas up.

Tom

On Monday, May 13, 2013, Thomas Goldammer wrote:

> "but will circle back when I return to work next Monday." (Gayle)
>
> Wait for that. Whatever time it actually means. :)
>
> Th.
>
>
> 2013/5/13 Huib Laurens >
>
> > Thomas,
> >
> > She is on holiday, she will not be in the office today?
> >
> > Huib
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil

[Thomas Morton]

>
> tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and
> disengage.
>

We see this effect anyway. Correlation does not imply causation. :)

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please, let's save the Wikipedia - from itself

[Thomas Morton]

Lets just be clear here, the contributuion Rui is talking about was as
follows:

Must be a joke - how can moving from W8 to W XP be called a downgrade? W8
is crap! I want a computer, not a basket of "apps" for retarded
morons!

His response to its removal is to suggest those removing it are paid
Pro-Microsoft editors.

Rui, what I'm going to suggest here is that you've not really understood
the processes that go into collaborating on an article. You may well be
right that the content needs changing, but your presentation of a personal
opinion in such a ranting form makes it very hard to collaborate.

Look at it from another side. If you'd put a lot of effort into writing and
article and then someone turned up on the talk page to post what looked
like a personal rant about the content, citing no sources and putting very
little in the way of suggested changes would you be peeved? Would you
wonder if perhaps that editor was a paid editor sent to disrupt the article
by a competitor?

Would you be offended if Lisa held that view about you (that you were a
paid advocate?).

So, yes, Wikipedia has a big problem. But it's not just abusive admins (we
have a few) and grumpy editors, or paid advocates. It is a broad spectrum
of problems - and in this case you were the one with the less-than-perfect
contribution.

Broadly speaking this is an education problem; we need to bring more focus
on the concept of the talk page as a collaboration portal *not* as a place
to discuss the topic (i.e. NOTFORUM) and we also need to emphasise the
importance of making comments in the right tone, and with supporting
sources.

Regards,
Tom


On 4 September 2013 22:08, Rui Correia  wrote:

> Greetings to All
>
> Let me start by saying that I don't do much here at the WP, not compared to
> people who make hundreds of edits a week. I would love to, have a long list
> of "to-do", but unfortunately time is not on my side.
>
> In my limited involvemet here, I have seen many a good editor leave the
> project. Mostly, people leave because they can't take it anymore having to
> fight the 'blocks' of defenders that coalesce around certain topics.
>
> In itself, though not very healthy, such blocks forming around topis is
> fine. What is not fine is that if any issue gets referred to a higher
> process for a resolution, it is often the same people grouping of people
> previously involved in disputes on the same topic who come to the
> resolution forum to issue a decision. However, it is always the 'outsider'
> that loses. He gets acused of everything under the sun, and gets 'good
> advice' from supposedly neutral editors, urging him to calm down, to temper
> his language etc. It is like trying to point out that the earth is round at
> a monthly meetng of the fat-earthers. That is not healthy and is making the
> WP processes look like a kangaroo court run by a cabal.
>
> And I expect pretty much the same reaction to this email.
>
> I pointed out in an ealier email to this list the difficulty that one
> encounters when you include something negative about certain big
> corporations. I was stoned and made to feel that I was wrong and everbody
> else was right. The reaction was tantamount to a chorus of "yes, we know
> there are problems, but don't say it out loud, someone might hear you!".
>
> Let's for argument's say that I was wrong. But - more importantantly - was
> anything done to investigate what I was saying? What if there are legions
> out there paid to sanitise the pages of big corporations? And we know that
> they exist, and that WP has taken up the issue as in here,
>
> http://nick-xomba-ceo.xomba.com/microsoft_accused_of_paying_blogger_to_alter_wikipedia_articles
>
> I made a silly remark on a Talk page about the choice of the word
> "downgrade" to refer to people using Windows 8 who wanted to go back to XP.
> For a failed product, by Microsoft's own admission, going back to XP is an
> upgrade, going back to sanity, not a downgrade.
>
> I was first accused of trolling, then something else, then of offending the
> entire community of users of Windows 8. The editor who is adamant - not the
> first time - to purge ant-MS from the talkpage violated the 3RR, but
> nothing gets done about it. I reported the 3RR, and it was immediately
> closed, labelled as being relatiatory. There is a backlog of issues on that
> page, but my entry was closed within minutes.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Codename_Lisa_reported_by_User:Rui_Gabriel_Correia_.28Result:_Closed.29
>
> It was closed, claiming that it was already being addressed elsewhere.
>
> So, I too will consider my stay here. Like I said right at the top, I don't
> do much here, so I am certain I will not even be missed. I edit in eight
> languages, small little bits here and there. I participated in a number of
> initiaves on the development of Chapters in 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright URAA trolls on Wikimedia Commons

[Thomas Morton]

Well not to get into a whole seperate discussion; but from emails recovered
by prosecutors it seems they knowingly violated the safe harbour provisions
by claiming to copyright holders that they had no access to raw files, when
in fact they did.

Actually, that context does have relevance. To what extent to we balance
the rights of copyright holders against what's best for reusers. And how
does that place us and the foundation legally?

Tom
On 1 Jan 2014 11:33, "Gerard Meijssen"  wrote:

> Hoi,
> What effective claim has been made against Kim Dotcom and, THAT is your
> argument.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
> On 1 January 2014 12:21, ???  wrote:
>
> > On 01/01/2014 07:41, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >
> >> Hoi,
> >> When you go the way of comparing to Kim Dotcom to make a point, you will
> >> have to recognise that the government has been shown to act illegally.
> >> Consequently your argument is without real merit.
> >> Thanks,
> >>   GerardM
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > The first thing that is wrong with the above is that copyright holders
> are
> > not the Government.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  On 31 December 2013 20:45, ???  wrote:
> >>
> >>  On 31/12/2013 15:01, Yann Forget wrote:
> >>>
> >>>  2013/12/31 ??? 
> 
> 
> >
> > Isn't that the attitude that got Kim Dotcom into trouble?
> > http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/us-unveils-the-
> > case-against-kim-dotcom-revealing-e-mails-and-financial-data/
> >
> >
> 
>  This is a typical trolling. Comparing Megaupload with Wikimedia
> Commons?
>  Don't you have better (constructive) arguments?
> 
> 
>   I'm comparing your attitude that rather than fixing the known
> copyright
> >>> issues upfront one should await complaints before addressing, to be
> >>> similar
> >>> to that exhibited by megaupload. An attitude that is essentially one of
> >>> "We'll get away with it for as long as possible, until someone
> >>> complains."
> >>> Meanwhile falsely advertising that the content is free to use.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Announcement] James Forrester joins WMF as Technical Product Analyst

[Thomas Morton]

On 17 May 2012 18:19, Chris Keating  wrote:

> >
> > It’s my pleasure to announce that James Forrester is joining our San
> > Francisco office as a Technical Product Analyst, supporting the Visual
> > Editor team. James started his work as a remote contractor yesterday
> > and will be joining us in San Francisco later this year as a staff
> > member.
>
>
> Congratulations, James!
>
> I hope this means the Visual Editor will use the correct spellings of words
> like colour, axe, and aluminium, and will offer to make people tea. :-)


Oh gods no, don't suggest it makes tea! Shades of Douglas Adams will come
to haunt us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrimatic_drinks_dispenser#Nutrimatic_Drinks_Dispenser

And probably crash the servers.

Congrats James :)

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Announcement] James Forrester joins WMF as Technical Product Analyst

[Thomas Morton]

On 17 May 2012 18:25, Kat Walsh  wrote:

> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Thomas Morton
>  wrote:
> > On 17 May 2012 18:19, Chris Keating  wrote:
> >
> >> >
> >> > It’s my pleasure to announce that James Forrester is joining our San
> >> > Francisco office as a Technical Product Analyst, supporting the Visual
> >> > Editor team. James started his work as a remote contractor yesterday
> >> > and will be joining us in San Francisco later this year as a staff
> >> > member.
> >>
> >>
> >> Congratulations, James!
> >>
> >> I hope this means the Visual Editor will use the correct spellings of
> words
> >> like colour, axe, and aluminium, and will offer to make people tea. :-)
> >
> >
> > Oh gods no, don't suggest it makes tea! Shades of Douglas Adams will come
> > to haunt us.
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrimatic_drinks_dispenser#Nutrimatic_Drinks_Dispenser
>
> I should have figured someone would beat me to the Hitchhiker's Guide
> joke...
>
>
Your version was better :)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched

[Thomas Morton]

On 11 June 2012 08:40, Mike Dupont  wrote:

> After rereading your question, it boils down to if the tags are wrong. If
> the tags are wrong we will have to deal with them on a case by case issue,
> and I see that we will have to do more finer tagging of articles to be
> deleted, I hope that this will be the outcome of my effort to see that
> articles that are properly tagged and deleted according to a fair and
> transparent set of rules. lets work on this together to make the wikipedia
> better.
>

I'm not sure if this is beneficial. Speedy tagging is the first line for
removing junk, inappropriate content, spam and obvious hoaxes. THe material
is of such low quality the only consideration is that it is deleted - not
how well we tag it for deletion.

Expending more effort on this material is non-optimal.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched

[Thomas Morton]

I think a lot of those efforts petered out because, in the end, the
material was of so little utility no one was interested in it.

Or to put it another way; it was being archived for the sake of it, more
than anything else.

Tom

On 11 June 2012 14:02, Tarc Meridian  wrote:

>
> This  has been tried before, i.e. wikialpha.org.  Pages are speedily
> deleted for a reason, many of them quite properly so.  Moving potentially
> libelous BLP attack pages and other sundry junk to a publicly viewable wiki
> is not a very well-thought-out idea.
>
>
> > From: jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com
> > Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 07:37:24 +
> > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched
> >
> > Hi,
> > I have launched speedydeletion.wika.com , it is updated every 30 minutes
> > with the proposed deletions and speedy deletion articles (not notable and
> > hoaxes, not others).
> > it is running on the en.wikipedia.org. the sources for the script are
> all
> > on git hub and are a merger of pywikipediabot and the wikiteam codebases.
> > hope you enjoy it,
> > thanks,
> > mike
> > --
> > James Michael DuPont
> > Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
> > Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
> > Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched

[Thomas Morton]

Indeed; and so it was...

{{facepalm}}

Tom

On 11 June 2012 17:32, Mike Dupont  wrote:

> here is one that is worth keeping!
> http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Rootstrikers
>
> On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 2:57 PM, emijrp  wrote:
>
> > Mike is the terror of deletionists.
> >
> > Good work.
> >
> > 2012/6/10 Mike Dupont 
> >
> > > Hi,
> > > I have launched speedydeletion.wika.com , it is updated every 30
> minutes
> > > with the proposed deletions and speedy deletion articles (not notable
> and
> > > hoaxes, not others).
> > > it is running on the en.wikipedia.org. the sources for the script are
> > all
> > > on git hub and are a merger of pywikipediabot and the wikiteam
> codebases.
> > > hope you enjoy it,
> > > thanks,
> > > mike
> > > --
> > > James Michael DuPont
> > > Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
> > > Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
> > > Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada. E-mail: emijrp AT gmail DOT com
> > Pre-doctoral student at the University of Cádiz (Spain)
> > Projects: AVBOT  |
> > StatMediaWiki
> > | WikiEvidens  |
> > WikiPapers
> > | WikiTeam 
> > Personal website: https://sites.google.com/site/emijrp/
> > ___
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> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> James Michael DuPont
> Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
> Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
> Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched

[Thomas Morton]

This has been debated numerous times; to what extent does the attribution
have to relate to the exact contribution of each author.

A list of authors has been considered acceptable in the past (including
on-wiki).

Tom

On 12 June 2012 23:48, Kim Bruning  wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 05:44:40AM +, Mike Dupont wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Again the full history is available on archive.org and i think that no
> one
> > is going to think that this data is from me, it is clearly marked as
> being
> > from wikipedia.
>
>
> You are very concientious, and normally this would indeed be adequate (not
> perfect,
> but definitely adequate :)
>
> It is adequate because wikipedia itself retains full attribution
> information in
> page history. One can follow the chain from the copy back to the wikipedia
> original
> back to the page history and voila, more than you ever wanted to know.
>
> The problem with deleted/hidden articles on en.wp is that the history
> information
> is also deleted/hidden; and therefore the attribution chain is broken.
>
> Attribution information is important for legal and open content reasons of
> course.
>
> Is it possible to keep a copy of page history somewhere also?
>
> I know the mediawiki export/import functions support this, and work
> via GET request.
> see
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export
>
> eg:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export/Train
>
> sincerely,
>Kim Bruning
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who invoked "principle of least surprise" for the image filter?

[Thomas Morton]

On 18 June 2012 12:39, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 18 June 2012 12:29, Tobias Oelgarte 
> wrote:
>
> > I guess Tom misunderstood my comment. I wrote down a simple plan how an
> > external solution could work and how to minimize the effort to maintain
> it.
> > If there is a community (it might overlap with our community) that would
> run
> > such a "filter portal" (or even multiple portals) then it should be even
> > more sufficient as if we would implement filters inside Wikipedia itself.
> > They could really block images and make a child-save zone after their own
> > definition, while we could continue as usual without having the burden to
> > avoid conflicts.
>
>
> The Board acted according to the Harris report, which just said to do
> it on the site itself:
>
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content:_Part_Two
>
> It's still not clear to me (looking over part two or part one) why it
> has to be on the site itself and no post-site solution is acceptable.
> Presumably someone interested can dredge through part one and pick out
> the sentences that back this position as opposed to post-site
> filtering.


Utility; hiding a filter on a lower order site does not make it useful.
Incorporating it into the main site (prefferably client side) makes it the
most accessible for our community.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who invoked "principle of least surprise" for the image filter?

[Thomas Morton]

On 18 June 2012 12:42, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 18 June 2012 12:41, Thomas Morton  wrote:
> > On 18 June 2012 12:39, David Gerard  wrote:
>
>
> >> The Board acted according to the Harris report, which just said to do
> >> it on the site itself:
> >>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content:_Part_Two
> >> It's still not clear to me (looking over part two or part one) why it
> >> has to be on the site itself and no post-site solution is acceptable.
> >> Presumably someone interested can dredge through part one and pick out
> >> the sentences that back this position as opposed to post-site
> >> filtering.
>
> > Utility; hiding a filter on a lower order site does not make it useful.
> > Incorporating it into the main site (prefferably client side) makes it
> the
> > most accessible for our community.
>
>
> That's not from the Harris report. What was the justification in the
> report?


Because they were investigating solutions to problems *on* Wikipedia. Seems
rather obvious ;)

Or perhaps you didn't read parts in full, this for example:

For example, all of these sites, as WMF pages do, have internally-generated
> policies that determine what content is permitted on their sites at all.


Or

However, on every one of these sites, they also employ a series of
> user-controlled options (options designed by the site) that allow users to
> tailor their viewing experiences to their individual needs. Unique among
> these sites, at the moment, Wikimedia projects employ no such options.


I'm not sure where you are leading with this line of argument.. but it
seems to be down a black hole :)

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who invoked "principle of least surprise" for the image filter?

[Thomas Morton]

On 18 June 2012 08:00, Tom Morris  wrote:

>
> On Monday, 18 June 2012 at 02:44, Tobias Oelgarte wrote:
>
> > Every stupid bot could do this. There is no "running out of the box"
> > solution at the moment, but the effort to set up something like this
> > would be minimal compared to anything else.
> >
> > I would say that Citizendium failed because they did no automatic
> > updating. What i have in mind is delayed mirror with update control. It
> > is not meant to be edited by hand. It is a subset of the current content
> > selected by the host (one or many users) of the page himself. It is
> > essentially a whitelist for Wikipedia that only contains
> > selected/checked content. That way a "childrens Wiki" could easily be
> > created, by not including any unwanted content, while the effort stays
> > minimal. (Not more effort then to create your own book from a list of
> > already written articles)
>
> {{sofixit}}
>
>
> If all the people in favour of filters had spent their time building them
> rather than arguing about them, we would have had a wide array of different
> solutions, without any politics or drama.
>
> That said, if people want to filter Wikipedia, a client-side solution
> rather than a filtered mirror is preferable. If a filtered mirror were to
> come into existence and become popular, this would mean that people would
> just filter all of main Wikipedia, which would prevent people from editing
> Wikipedia. A client-side solution means they are still looking at
> wikipedia.org just without naughty pics and doesn't interfere with
> editing. It also reduces the need for any servers.


The technical solution is a fairly trivial part of the problem; a
client-side filter could probably be put together in a few days IMO.

The *hard* problem is convincing the "not censored" abusers that it's a
useful feature for our community.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who invoked "principle of least surprise" for the image filter?

[Thomas Morton]

>
>
>>  It is not convincing since it interferes with the work of our editors
> that aren't interested in such a feature.


Seems unlikely. Although please feel to expand on this with specifics.


> If we tag images inside the project itself then we impose our judgment
> onto it, while ignoring or separating it from the context it is used in.


And yet you allow that we use editorial judgement in articles. This is no
different, it gives a further tool for editorial decisions to be made.



> The first proposal (referendum) mentioned various tagging
> options/categories that would have to be maintained by the community,
> despite existing and huge backlogs.


 A reasonable argument; but almost everything adds to our backlog anyway.

Additionally we are a multi culture project with quite different view
> points and which accepts different view points (main difference between
> Flickr and Co).


This is an argument for an opt-in filter.


> The result will be huge amount of discussions about whether to tag an
> image or not.


Not if well designed. And at the moment we have big discussions about
whether to include images or not.


> This leads me to the simple conclusion that it isn't worth the effort,
> especially if the filter is advertised to make Wikipedia a save place for
> children, while everyone (including children) can disable it at any time.
>

"Think of the children" is not really an argument I ascribe to. And not
really one other proponents of the filter, by my observation, ascribe to
either.

It mostly seems to be brought up by opponents to try and invalidate
arguments.


> Separate projects that only focus on one task (providing a whitelisted
> view, an automatically updated subset of Wikipedia) would not be a burden
> for the community or at least for everyone not interested in or against
> filtering. Additionally it could define it's own strict rules and could
> even hide images and articles entirely depending on it's goal.
>

Please note we define community in significantly different ways. My
"community" includes a minority, us, who edit and maintain the project. And
also the vast majority who merely read and use the project.

Our goal as maintainers for this main community should be:
* Maximise the ability of individuals to access content by...
* Minimising the road blocks (social, political, etc.) to accessing content

A significant portion of the filter discussion is predicated on our
internal prejudices and POV - basically navel gazing - with a wide
rejection of the idea that a multi-cultural society exists.

A non-WMF filtering project would not be useful to our community due to the
chicken/egg seeding problem.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who invoked "principle of least surprise" for the image filter?

[Thomas Morton]

On 18 June 2012 15:16, Tobias Oelgarte wrote:

> Am 18.06.2012 15:06, schrieb Thomas Morton:
>
>
>>>   It is not convincing since it interferes with the work of our editors
>>>>
>>> that aren't interested in such a feature.
>>>
>>
>> Seems unlikely. Although please feel to expand on this with specifics.
>>
> Any tagging by non neutral definitions would interfere with project. It's
> like to create categories named "bad images", "uninteresting topics" or
> "not for ethnic minority X".


Of course; but that is predicated on a bad process design. Solution; design
an appropriate process.


>
>  If we tag images inside the project itself then we impose our judgment
>>> onto it, while ignoring or separating it from the context it is used in.
>>>
>>
>> And yet you allow that we use editorial judgement in articles. This is no
>> different, it gives a further tool for editorial decisions to be made.
>>
> Editorial judgment is based on how to wrap up a topic a nice way without
> making an own judgment about the topic. A hard job to do, but that is the
> goal.
>
> If i would write the article "pornography" then i would have to think
> about what should be mentioned inside this article because it is important
> and which parts are not relevant enough or should be but in separate
> sections to elaborate them in further detail. This is entirely different to
> say "pornography is good or evil" or "this pornographic practice is good or
> evil and thats why it should be mentioned or excluded".
>
> There is a difference between the relevance of a topic and the attitude
> toward a topic. The whole image filter idea is based on the latter and not
> to be confused with editorial judgment.


Pornography articles, as it stands, have a community-implemented "filter"
as it is. Which is the tradition that articles are illustrated with
graphics, not photographs. So the example is a poor one; because we already
have a poor man's filter :)

Similarly the decision "does this image represent hardcore porn, softcore
porn, nudity or none of the above" is an editorial one. Bad design process
would introduce POV issues - but we are plagued with them anyway. If
anything this gives us an opportunity to design and trial a process without
those issues (or at least minimising them).



>  The first proposal (referendum) mentioned various tagging
>>> options/categories that would have to be maintained by the community,
>>> despite existing and huge backlogs.
>>>
>>
>>  A reasonable argument; but almost everything adds to our backlog anyway.
>>
> I would have nothing against additional work if i would see the benefits.
> But in this case i see some good points and i also see list of bad points.
> At best it might be a very tiny improvement which comes along with a huge
> load of additional work while other parts could be improved with little
> extra work and be a true improvement. If we had nothing better to do then i
> would say "yes lets try it". But at the moment it is a plain "No, other
> things have to come first".
>
>
>  Additionally we are a multi culture project with quite different view
>>
>>> points and which accepts different view points (main difference between
>>> Flickr and Co).
>>>
>>
>> This is an argument for an opt-in filter.
>>
> Don't confuse opt-in and opt-out if a filter is implemented on an external
> platform. There is no opt-in or opt-out for Wikipedia as long the WP isn't
> blocked and the filter is the only access to Wikipedia.  irony>We have the long story that parents want their children to visit
> Wikipedia without coming across controversial content, which they
> apparently do everytime they search for something entirely
> unrelated. In this case an opt-in (to view) filter
> makes actually sense. Otherwise it doesn't.


We may be confusing opt in/out between us. The filter I would like to see
is optional to enable (and then stays enabled) and gives a robust method of
customising the level and type of filtering.


>
>  The result will be huge amount of discussions about whether to tag an
>>> image or not.
>>>
>>
>> Not if well designed. And at the moment we have big discussions about
>> whether to include images or not.
>>
> We have such discussions. But I'm afraid that most of them do not circle
> around the benefits of the image for the article, but the latter part that
> i mentioned above (editorial judgment vs attitude judgment).
>

Filtering images would resolve most of these issues.


>
> Believe me or

Re: [Wikimedia-l] O'Dwyer

[Thomas Morton]

Jimmy's platform is Wikipedia.

The media struggle to seperate the two (note the connect back to SOPA
in this case)

Not that I agree entirely with Andreas. But certainly I think the
community could have a view on this.

Tom Morton

On 27 Jun 2012, at 18:01, Tom Morris  wrote:

> On Wednesday, 27 June 2012 at 17:56, Nathan wrote:
>> Jimmy is not Wikipedia. What about that is hard to understand?
>
>
>
>
> The whole point about deliberate obfuscation is that it's supposed to blur 
> that line. ;-)
>
> --
> Tom Morris
> 
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] O'Dwyer

[Thomas Morton]

On 27 June 2012 21:25, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 8:19 PM, geni  wrote:
>
> > On 27 June 2012 18:51, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:> And
> > hell, there really are two points of view about copyright,
> >
> > I understand you've not really studied the subject but there are far
> > more than that.
>
>
>
> Let's just start with the notion that there might be more than just *one*
> view. ;)
>
>
It's a question of extremes.

At one extreme there are, for example, music executives who see a risk to
they fat paychecks, and prefer a model where they can control the
distribution and license costs indefinitely.

On the other extreme are people who not only want something for nothing,
but consider it an inherent right they deserve it.

I find both of these people objectionable.



The aggravating thing about copyright reform lobby is that I often find
myself surrounded by the latter people - the utter dregs of society. As
mentioned somewhere here the idea of intellectual property is a moral
right; lack of respect for this is yet another symptom of our declining
social standards.



O'dwyer is an odd case. I don't begrudge him the opportunity to make good
money he saw (the media seem not to be interested in how much he has
stashed away... but from his own words, I imagine it is a fair amount) He
is far from an impoverished and defenceless individual.

I'm not a fan of extraditing him. But I would like to see a firmer stance
taken in the UK; perhaps a court could rule he must pay compensation to the
copyright holders of the works he linked to.

On the topic of Jimmy; Wikipedia is his calling card, it opens doors. I
think he hasn't done enough in many situations to distance his own views
from us; which is unfortunate. But not necessarily deliberate :)

As I said before; Wikipedia should have it's own view.

It would be interesting to see the community develop its own high profile
media contacts so this view can be communicated to the world!

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons down

[Thomas Morton]

WP & Commons down here (UK).

Tom

On 2 July 2012 22:59, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov <
alexandrdmitriroma...@gmail.com> wrote:

> "Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem." in Morocco.
>
> Alex
>
>
>
> 2012/7/2 Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada 
>
> > Up in Spain.
> >
> > 2012/7/2 WereSpielChequers 
> >
> > > After ten minute and three unsuccessful attempts to categorise an image
> > via
> > > Hotcat I've now got the following error message:
> > >
> > >  Request: GET
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_Geograph_British_Isles_project_needing_categories_in_grid_SU1026
> > > ,
> > > from 91.198.174.56 via amssq33.esams.wikimedia.org (squid/2.7.STABLE9)
> > to
> > > ()
> > > Error: ERR_CANNOT_FORWARD, errno (11) Resource temporarily unavailable
> at
> > > Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:45:48 GMT
> > >
> > > Normally Commons only goes down for a minute or so at a time, any one
> > know
> > > what the problem is this evening?
> > >
> > > WSC
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada. E-mail: emijrp AT gmail DOT com
> > Pre-doctoral student at the University of Cádiz (Spain)
> > Projects: AVBOT  |
> > StatMediaWiki
> > | WikiEvidens  |
> > WikiPapers
> > | WikiTeam 
> > Personal website: https://sites.google.com/site/emijrp/
> > ___
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> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!

[Thomas Morton]

On 3 July 2012 12:02, Tom Morris  wrote:

> 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!"
>
>
Hammersoft makes a compelling argument.

I've been keeping track of the discussion (no particular personal opinion
on it) and currently some of the deletion arguments seems to be holding
strong sway; particularly comments about NOTDIR & content forking etc.

The keep arguments largely centre around ILIKEIT; some assert notability
under GNG but so far no one has presented a source that adequately covers
this. I've been through a big portion of the sources looking for one that
covers this intersection/topic in sufficient depth to assert notability and
so far there isn't one.

It's essentially a collection of trivial mentions & news/gossip reports.

Whether that adds up to GNG I don't know. The keep votes aren't doing a
good job of convincing me.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!

[Thomas Morton]

On 3 July 2012 14:49, Svip  wrote:

> On 3 July 2012 15:35, Tarc Meridian  wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Is it not about time that we stop calling Wikipedia an encyclopaedia,
> because it is really not?  One might argue that Wikipedia has changed
> the definition of what an encyclopaedia is,


I prefer the latter; because it sets the distinction of being a work of
reference.

Really, Wikipedia hasn't redefined "encyclopaedia"; what it has done is
demonstrated that encyclopaedia's of an unprecedented scale can be written.

Our coverage is significantly wider than other encyclopaedias - but still
very narrow (biased heavily toward current events in the Western world).

What does 'encyclopaedic worthiness' even mean?  If Wikipedia is an
> encyclopaedia, then all those niche-wikis are encyclopaedia too.  Then
> suddenly if there is a White House wiki, then surely "White House
> Thanksgiving 2009 Dinner Table" becomes 'encyclopaedic worthiness'
> within that scope.
>

It's about levels of detail; if the WH Thanksgiving dinner was a matter of
ongoing interest then it should certainly be mentioned (probably in the WH
article, or something). But specific details of food served  each year,
etc, are happily left to the source material. Which is the point of a
summary resource.


> It is hard to say where the line goes.  I agree that _just_ because
> something is reliably sourced, does not make it worthy for an entire
> Wikipedia article.  But _what_ does make it worthy of Wikipedia's
> attention?


This is the crux of the problem. Our notability guidelines don't help
define a line between what should be included and what shouldn't. Many many
many things can be written about that would pass GNG. As Hammersoft points
out, if we take this article as notable then there are several other JB on
XYZ articles that could be written,

Question is; do we need that level of detail.

Decisions over levels of detail are haphazard and varying across all of
Wikipedia, to the extent that no one can answer this question.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!

[Thomas Morton]

On 4 July 2012 00:49, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 4 July 2012 00:48, Marc A. Pelletier  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.
>
>
> We could call it "Wikinews".
>
>
>
God-dammit, that's my line.

;)

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike

[Thomas Morton]

On 9 July 2012 20:41, Milos Rancic  wrote:

> In less than half an hour Russian Wikipedia will go on one-day strike
> against SOPA/PIPA-like law in Russia [1] (in Russian).
>

Unless I am missing something key; whilst this is a crappy law, it is not
much like SOPA/PIPA in that it doesn't seem to threaten the existence of
Russian Wikipedia.

Comparatively; when some ISPs in the UK blacklisted The Pirate Bay at the
behest of the government we didn't black Wikipedia out over it.

Party is on #wikipedia-ru@freenode
>
>
Even in lieu of it being a valid action (and we know I am skeptical of us
being too political anyway) this is disgusting to see.

Cutting off access to free knowledge should be a sombre and severe affair;
those doing so should appreciate, deeply, the impact of their actions. They
should not be partying like school children who got access to
dad's liquor cabinet.

As with the pictures of the WMF celebrations around English Wikipedia
blackout, I am sorely disappointed.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike

[Thomas Morton]

On 12 July 2012 10:27, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 12 July 2012 08:47, Mike Godwin  wrote:
>
> > At the heart of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects' success is
> > democratic action, driven by those who are engaged in the process of
> > promoting, supporting, and maintaining these projects. So my instinct
> > is to believe, respect, and support the Russian-language Wikimedia
> > project activists' decision to demonstrate in an effective way that
> > what we all are working on here is under threat by ill-considered
> > legislation by legacy governmental traditions that are used to having
> > their own top-down way.
>
>
> The worrying thing is not only that we've done this three times in the
> past year, it's that we've had cause to do it three times in the past
> year.
>
>
Oh pish.

Laws like the ones we protested have been created many times over the last
few years (France, UK, etc.) and we've never protested them before.

The change was us, not them.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly

[Thomas Morton]

One of the key problems with the interface is that it doesn't do a lot to
seperate editing and reading.

I know the point is to make editing easy - and to encourage readers to
become editors. But realistically most of them will not - and we could do
significantly better in streamlining our anon. front end.

Tom

On 25 July 2012 20:33, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:

> Hoi,
> Most people are stupid and they still deserve a great reading experience..
> Our aim is to share in the sum of all knowledge with everyone. When people
> fail to read Wikipedia.. and they do..  there is a reason to do better for
> them. Any effective measure that provides a better experience for all the
> different screens helps us share with more people.
>
> Even stupid people deserve to be educated... eh especially stupid people
> deserve to be educated ...
> Thanks,
>   Gerard
>
> On 25 July 2012 17:22, Michel Vuijlsteke  wrote:
>
> > On 25 July 2012 15:57, Kim Bruning  wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > That's default web behaviour. If you want narrower columns, just make
> the
> > > browser window narrower.
> > >
> > > * If your answer is "Some people don't know how to use a browser"...
> > > well...
> > >   ARGH
> > >
> >
> > Most people never resize their browser windows.
> > If your answer is "Most people are stupid and don't *deserve* a better
> > reading experience"… well, sum, yeah. There's that.
> >
> >
> > > * Else If your answer is "Lets make it narrower for everyone (including
> > us
> > > WIMPs
> > >   who *do* know how to use Windows Icons Menus and Pointers) whether
> they
> > >   want to or not."   I KL YOU
> > >
> >
> > It's not about making it "narrower". It's about making it *better*.
> > Analogy: "Let's reduce the amount of words in the lede" <> "Let's make
> the
> > lede better".
> >
> >
> > > * Else If your answer is "better DTPishlayout control in CSS, including
> > > some sane way to
> > >   do proper columnated text": YES YES, 1000 TIMES YES!
> > >
> >
> > Column layout on scrolling web pages doesn't make a lot of sense.
> > Some additional "DTP-ish" layout control in CSS would be nice, sure, but
> > that's not the point.
> >
> >
> > > * Else If other: Ok, go ahead, I'm listening? :-)
> > >
> >
> > Well, see points raised earlier. Making Wikipedia easier to read and use
> is
> > not just mollycoddling lazy users who "should know better".
> >
> > Michel
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly

[Thomas Morton]

On 25 July 2012 21:01, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 25 July 2012 20:44, Thomas Morton  wrote:
>
> > One of the key problems with the interface is that it doesn't do a lot to
> > seperate editing and reading.
> > I know the point is to make editing easy - and to encourage readers to
> > become editors. But realistically most of them will not - and we could do
> > significantly better in streamlining our anon. front end.
>
>
> I would disagree. We need to make it easy for people to hit "edit",
> and we need to make it easy for them to be able to do something
> useful.
>
> (This is why I'm so disappointed the mobile app doesn't do editing,
> for example. Or, indeed, some way to take a photo and quickly add it
> to an article.)
>
>
Yes.

We also need to be understanding of the "99%" - the ones who just want to
read.

Our interface should suit the reader - with a prominent prompt to edit.
Which once clicked opens things up into the world of editing Wikipedia.

But if you don't click that prompt then you don't get useless fluff to
distract you.

This all ties back to my view that we don't think of the average reader
enough :)

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright on Xrays

[Thomas Morton]

  2) The X ray tech who took the image

> 3) The person / institution who paid to have the image taken
>  a) The HMO or patient if in the USA
>  b) The government if in many parts of the world
> 4) The doctor who ordered the image
> 5) The doctor who read the image
> 6) The hospital / shareholders of the hospital who owns the equipment
> 7) All of the above / some of the above / none of the above
>
>
I'd suggest; 7.

The person who took the image, by the skilled use of X-Ray equipment
probably holds copyright.

But the image may be covered by data protection laws, and the employees
contract may also deal with things such as these.

And finally the individual being imaged as personality/privacy rights.

So; copyright with the tech, but that is only the tip of the iceberg :)

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide RFC closing in 3,2,...

[Thomas Morton]

I see none of the issues raised were really addressed.

Another spam filled, little populated, project then.

*sigh*

Tom

On 23 August 2012 11:53, Andrew Gray  wrote:

> On 22 August 2012 22:39, Kim Bruning  wrote:
> > For those interested, a quick reminder:
> >
> > The travel guide RFC will (soft) close in 1 hour, 17 minutes as of the
> > moment this mail is sent. (At 0:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC))
> >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Travel_Guide
>
> Thanks for the pointer. For those wondering what the end result was,
> it was just under 4:1 in favour of taking on a new WT type project.
>
> There seems to have been a flurry of activity in the past few days,
> per the talk page - Internet Brands running a survey of their readers
> opposing the split, attempts to canvass WT editors to contribute to
> the RFC resulting in blocking and desysopping... all very messy.
>
> WikiVoyage seems to have started preparing for a migration (though
> this may only be an intermediate step) -
> http://www.wikivoyage.org/general/Migration_FAQ
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide RFC closing in 3,2,...

[Thomas Morton]

On 23 August 2012 14:56, James Heilman  wrote:

> Most of the issues where addressed. And they only way to determine if many
> of the concerns hold water is to simply try it. A travel guide will likely
> be heavily read and edited.
>
> As a comparison their are an approximately an equal number of medical
> articles on Wikipedia to travel articles. Yet the travel articles had a
> much higher number of dedicated editors. I hope that you Thomas do not see
> this as justification to delete the medical project? Also if you look at
> readership on Wikipedia. We have many thousands of article that receive
> little to no viewership I do not consider this viewership justification for
> deleting them.
>
>
You're building straw men there.

I am just griping; we'll see if I end up being right or not I suppose.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[Thomas Morton]

Just to note:

Everyone (including in the recent board statement) seems to be avoiding
mention that this new travel site has come about due to Wiki Travel admins
having an interest in moving away from IB, or that it will be seeded with
Wiki Travel content.

It seems intellectually dishonest to leave this out of public statements.
It doesn't materially affect the issue - but it could well be seen as
underhand by the cynical mind (i.e. if someone as suspicious as me,
approaching this for the first time, later found out this fact it would
certainly be an "aha" moment).

If we can't defend the right to fork publicly, then we are hypocrites.

Tom

On 6 September 2012 01:46, Kelly Kay  wrote:

> A few moments ago we posted this to the Wikimedia Foundation Blog, it is
> self explanatory.
>
> Today the Wikimedia Foundation filed a 
> suit
>  in
> San Francisco against Internet Brands seeking a judicial declaration that
> Internet Brands has no lawful right to impede, disrupt or block the
> creation of a new travel oriented, Wikimedia Foundation-owned website in
> response to the request of Wikimedia community volunteers. Over the summer,
> in response to requests generated by our volunteers, the Wikimedia
> community conducted a lengthy Request For 
> Comment (RFC)
> process to facilitate public debate and discussion regarding the benefits
> and challenges of creating a new, Wikimedia Foundation-hosted travel guide
> project. The community extended the RFC at the Wikimedia Foundation Board’s
> request to allow for greater community input, and to encourage input from
> Internet Brands. Once concluded, the RFC process revealed the community’s
> desire to see a new travel project created. The Wikimedia Foundation Board
> supports the community’s decision and is moving forward with the creation
> of this new project.
>
> Unfortunately, Internet Brands (owner of the travel website Wikitravel)
> has decided to disrupt this process by engaging in litigation against two
> Wikitravel volunteers who are also Wikimedia community members. On August
> 29, Internet Brands sued two volunteer administrators, one based in Los
> Angeles and one in Canada, asserting a variety of claims. The intent of the
> action is clear – intimidate other community volunteers from exercising
> their rights to freely discuss the establishment of a new community focused
> on the creation of a new, not-for-profit travel guide under the Creative
> Commons licenses.
>
> While the suit filed by Internet Brands does not directly name the
> Wikimedia Foundation as a defendant, we believe that we are the real
> target. We feel our only recourse is to file this suit in order to get
> everything on the table and deal head on with Internet Brand’s actions over
> the past few months in trying to impede the creation of this new travel
> project.
>
> Our community and potential new community members are key to the success
> of all of our projects. We will steadfastly and proudly defend our
> community’s right to free speech, and we will support these volunteer
> community members in their legal defense. We do not feel it is appropriate
> for Internet Brands, a large corporation with hundreds of millions of
> dollars in assets, to seek to intimidate two individuals.
>
> This new, proposed project would allow all travel content to be freely
> used and disseminated by anyone for any purpose as long as the content is
> given proper attribution and is offered with the same free-to-use license.
> Internet Brands appears to be attempting to thwart the creation of a new,
> non-commercial travel wiki in a misguided effort to protect its for-profit
> Wikitravel site.
>
> The Wikimedia movement stands in the balance and the Wikimedia Foundation
> will not sit idly by and allow a commercial actor like Internet Brands to
> engage in threats, intimidation and litigation to prevent the organic
> expression of community interest in favor of a new travel project, one that
> is not driven by commercial interests.
>
> The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people
> around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free
> license  or in the public
> domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. We are devoted to
> creating and nurturing free knowledge projects supported by volunteers. Our
> actions today represent the full stride of our commitment to protect the
> Wikimedia movement against the efforts of for-profit entities like Internet
> Brands to prevent communities and volunteers from making their own
> decisions about where and how freely-usable content may be shared.
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/05/wikimedia-foundation-seeks-declaratory-relief-in-response-to-legal-threats-from-internet-brands/
>
> Kelly Kay, Deputy Gen

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[Thomas Morton]

Nonsense; the blog post is the PR release.

So, yes, unfortunately I assert bad faith - hiding it in the brief is
basically standard misdirection, in my experience. And for a movement
dedicated (supposedly) to transparency it is very sad to see.

Tom

On 6 September 2012 15:03, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 6 September 2012 14:53, Thomas Morton 
> wrote:
>
> > Everyone (including in the recent board statement) seems to be avoiding
> > mention that this new travel site has come about due to Wiki Travel
> admins
> > having an interest in moving away from IB, or that it will be seeded with
> > Wiki Travel content.
> > It seems intellectually dishonest to leave this out of public statements.
> > It doesn't materially affect the issue - but it could well be seen as
> > underhand by the cynical mind (i.e. if someone as suspicious as me,
> > approaching this for the first time, later found out this fact it would
> > certainly be an "aha" moment).
>
>
> It certainly explicitly says just that all over the PDF. Did you read
> it, before asserting bad faith?
>
> The blog post is somewhat wordy, but it does correctly note "The
> Wikimedia movement stands in the balance". I really don't think
> they're soft-pedaling this.
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitravel hits spammy oblivion

[Thomas Morton]

Gloating (and throwing insults) is childish, and will not help resolve the
situation.

Tom

On 10 September 2012 12:49, David Gerard  wrote:

> Noticed by Keegan Peterzell.
>
>
> http://wikitravel.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Special%3ARecentChanges&limit=500
>
> Turns out you can't replace 48 volunteer admins with one incompetent
> employee. Who'da thunk.
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[Thomas Morton]

Reading through it now I have had time, and with my legal cap on..

IB probably have a strong enough case to win some of their claims (which is
how civil suits often work).

The behaviour they describe,* if true*, is disappointing (on a personal
note) to see. I don't want to see our guys sued over it - but even so.. not
pleasant to see our lot acting like this.

Tom

On 7 September 2012 16:50, Nathan  wrote:

> Reading through the IB filing, they aren't even bothering to structure
> a good case. It's all blather and no substance (claiming, for
> instance, that the defendants have been unjustly enriched by
> establishing a website with a name confusingly similar to WikiTravel;
> when of course no such site exists, and there is no possible way for
> the named defendants to have been enriched at all, unjustly or
> otherwise).
>
> I can see why the WMF described it as a transparent attempt at
> intimidation. The conduct IB is trying to deter has primarily
> consisted of criticizing IB and encouraging the development of an
> alternative; viewed from that angle, and since there is no actual
> underlying business conduct, I wonder if the complaint falls afoul of
> California's strong anti-SLAPP statute. I suppose you'd have to find
> some way of arguing that criticizing IB is in the public interest.
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 8:26 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
> >
> >
> http://static.ibsrv.net/ibsite/pdf/2012/2012_9_4_Internet%20Brands%20Files%20To%20Protect%20Its%20Wikitravel%20Trademark%20From%20Deliberate%20Infringement.pdf
> >
> > It does indeed look the same as the copy served on Ryan:
> >
> >
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Internet_Brands_v_William_Ryan_Holliday.pdf
> >
> > Compare and contrast with the Wikimedia PDF.
> >
> >
> > My blog post, in which I emphasise that this is fundamentally an
> > attack on CC by-sa and the freedom of free content:
> >
> >
> http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2012/09/06/internet-brands-sues-people-for-forking-under-cc-by-sa/
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[Thomas Morton]

On 11 September 2012 12:16, Thomas Dalton  wrote:

> On 11 September 2012 09:41, Thomas Morton 
> wrote:
> > Reading through it now I have had time, and with my legal cap on..
> >
> > IB probably have a strong enough case to win some of their claims (which
> is
> > how civil suits often work).
> >
> > The behaviour they describe,* if true*, is disappointing (on a personal
> > note) to see. I don't want to see our guys sued over it - but even so..
> not
> > pleasant to see our lot acting like this.
>
> Which claims in particular? I haven't read through their allegations
> thoroughly, but on a quick read through they are mostly complaining
> about people conspiring against IB. Since what they were planning on
> doing (forking the project) wasn't illegal, it can't be a conspiracy.
>
>
The particular thing that stands out is the allegation that Ryan emailed
Wikitravel members in a way that implied he represented Wikitravel, and
telling them the site was migrating to the WMF. (#29 onwards)

Of course; the argument hinges on the wording of the email and whether the
intent was to mislead the community.

Also; count IV is interesting. IB seem to be contending that the two (and
perhaps others) conspired to fork the community by undermining IB's
business (i.e. Wikitravel). Obviously the content is freely licensed, but
the community carries no license! What they would have to prove is that
e.g. the email intentionally tried to redirect the WT community to a forked
version by confusing people as to the official status of WT. (you can
commit a civil conspiracy if your ultimate aim is legal, but the way you go
about reaching it is illegal etc.).

No comment on whether they *can* prove this as I haven't seen the email in
question, or the other evidence. But on the face of it there may be some
case to answer. A response from the defendants may clear up the matter.

Seeing as the intent is to replace IB's as the host of the main travel site
wiki then I think IB is justified in defending their position if they
believe they have been unfairly undermined. I do disapprove of doing it via
lawsuits though (they could e.g. just import WT...).

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[Thomas Morton]

Of course; if a member of the local Muslim community put on a fake uniform
for the shop in question, and stood outside handing out leaflets about the
better place... that would be a problem.

This is what IB appear to be alleging.

All of these metaphor, however, are very interesting; but not really utile
in advancing the discussion. We can all think up varying metaphors to
support our points - fortunately courts do not rely on metaphors :)

Tom

On 12 September 2012 12:09, FT2  wrote:

> To tackle both these at once:
>
> *@Deryck Chan, three trivial rebuttals: *
>
>1. WT's "mission" is stated clearly, "*Wikitravel is a project to create
>a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide".*  I
>don't see any of the parties that are proposing or wishing to fork, not
>endorsing that goal thoroughly. They are merely stating they wish to
> pursue
>that goal on a different website, under different hosting behavior.
>2. The TOU you cite state that WT is a "built in collaboration by
>Wikitravellers from around the globe", not a site "built in
> collaboration
>with IB". The consensus policy speaks to collaboration between members
> of
>the public writing, and its pages show that the community did not
> consider
>IB to have a heightened right to declare itself "the community" or "the
>party obtaining mandatory agreement" in that collaboration. The initial
>legal agreement (I gather) says as much.  There is no evidence that
> WT'ers
>were not willing to collaborate with WT'ers, as the policy states.
> Rather,
>WT'ers did not like the hosting service IB provided, or felt they could
>obtain better, which is completely separate.
>3. At the worst to use your own logic against itself, the departing
>WTers did indeed use the service while they felt able to follow the TOU
> you
>cite.  When they realised they did not feel like collaborating, they
> did as
>it required - indeed demanded or asked they do - namely departed. And
> used
>their right to reinstate their CC content at the new host of their
>choosing, following discussion. Others had done so previously, and
>individuals had departed not en masse due to IB before. No WTer is
> forced
>to leave, or impeded in freewill.
>
>
> *@Nemo:*
> In fact AFAIK, this is legal
> too.
>
>
>1. If a supermarket, for example, unreliably stocks Hallal food,
>garnering numerous complains over the years, and a person who shops at a
>competitor contacts or is contacted by members of the local Muslim
>community, or puts members of the community in touch with that other
>vendor, on the basis they provide a wider range of Hallal food of the
> types
>complained about, and at a better price, and as a result a number of
> local
>community members agree in social discussions that many of them feel
> like
>switching to shop at the other store. This is completely normal and
> legal,
>and happens every day.
>2. A clerk is an employee with a contractual obligation of loyalty.
>Nobody is suggesting that is the case here, or an IB staffer was
> involved.
>
>
> FT2
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 11:42 AM, Deryck Chan  >wrote:
>
> > One possibility lies within their terms of use:
> > "If you're not interested in our goals, or if you agree with our goals
> but
> > refuse to collaborate, compromise, reach
> > consensusor make
> > concessions with other Wikitravellers, we ask that you not use this
> > Web service. If you continue to use the service against our wishes, we
> > reserve the right to use whatever means available -- technical or legal
> --
> > to prevent you from disrupting our work together."
> >
> > The goals page (http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Goals_and_non-goals)
> > does imply the goal of making Wikitravel the travel guide, not just a
> > travel guide. It is therefore possible to make a case against the
> > fork-enthusiasts, and James in particular because he spent more time on
> > Wikitravel preparing the fork than actually improving Wikitravel, that
> > they're violating the Wikitravel terms of use in some fringe way, which
> is
> > a form of breach of contract.
> >
> >
> On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
> wrote:
> >
> > Actually, a fairer representation of what IB claims is that the "members
> > of the public" are free to choose where to drink their beer, but someone
> > with a "Pub X" cap in front of "Pub X" stopped all passing people and
> > regulars that "Pub X" was renovating and to go to the new location "Pub
> Xb"
> > across the street instead. Or that a clerk of "Y bookshop" used the list
> of
> > all its customers and its official letter papers to mail them saying to
> > send their next mail orders to the new postal address of "Yb bookshop".
> > Surely it's not trivial to prove, so to say...
> >
> __

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[Thomas Morton]

On 12 September 2012 12:29, Deryck Chan  wrote:

> On 12 September 2012 12:27, Thomas Morton  >wrote:
>
> > [...] fortunately courts do not rely on metaphors :)
> >
> > Tom
> >
>
> Oh they do. That's precisely what case law is. Inaccurate metaphors are the
> reason that courts worldwide have a ridiculous view on what constitutes a
> copyright violation.
>
>
Ouch, no case law is not metaphors.

You won't see a court asking for metaphorical submissions to demonstrate
guilt (or innocence).

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[Thomas Morton]

On 12 September 2012 12:34, FT2  wrote:

> *@Tom:*  Case law is all about analogous situations so these matter very
> much.
> The side-suggestion you make is more about tortious deception (I pretend to
> be an employee or official representative of someone, or pretend not to
> be), but that's not alleged here.  "Who was involved with whom" and
> relationships between those involved were unambiguous by the sound of it.
> (It is hard to imagine any of the individuals now complaining "I wouldn't
> have done/agreed that if I'd known who you really were/really represented")
>
>
Sure; but it's not a metaphor. It's a cited precedent.

My apologies if your supermarket analogy was a true precedent rather than a
metaphor.

As to your second point; they explicitly make this allegation in the filing.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Naming for the Travel Guide project

[Thomas Morton]

If anyone has a good idea for a name, but lacks to funds or means to pick
it up (and the WMF declines to do so), feel free to get in touch. I am
happy to handle the purchase and later transfer (if it wins!) for you :)

Hopefully that removes that hurdle :D

Tom

On 27 September 2012 13:48, Philippe Beaudette wrote:

> Hi Lodewijk,
>
> Currently the process is that the suggested name must be owned by the WMF
> or a volunteer who is willing to transfer it free of charge.  Any
> exceptions would have to be worked out with Kelly and Erik.
>
> Thanks,
> pb
> ___
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> Director, Community Advocacy
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>
> phili...@wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:05 AM, Lodewijk  >wrote:
>
> > Thanks Philippe,
> >
> > just as clarification: do I understand correctly that people can only
> > suggest names that are either owned by the WMF or they are willing to
> > invest money to buy the domains for at least the .org and possibly some
> > more? Or would the WMF also be willing to buy/reimburse the domains that
> > would likely be serious candidates? This wasn't entirely clear from the
> > page to me.
> >
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > 2012/9/27 Samuel Klein 
> >
> > > Thanks for keeping this rolling, Philippe.
> > > It's great to see the names turned up already.
> > >
> > > SJ
> > >
> > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:24 AM, Philippe Beaudette
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi all,
> > > >
> > > > The straw poll [1] for the name of the new travel guide project has
> > > closed.
> > > >  While there's been strong support for the name Wikivoyage, there
> have
> > > also
> > > > been strong arguments expressing the desire for a more open-ended
> > process
> > > > and no overall consensus to go forward without it. The Wikimedia
> > > Foundation
> > > > therefore would like to invite participation in an open process,
> which
> > is
> > > > described at
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Travel_Guide/Naming_Process
> > > ,
> > > > and begins immediately with the submission of suggested names (please
> > > note
> > > > the submission process).  Thank you for your participation.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > pb
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [1] -
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Travel_Guide/Naming_straw_poll/en
> > > > ___
> > > > Philippe Beaudette
> > > > Director, Community Advocacy
> > > > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> > > >
> > > > 415-839-6885, x 6643
> > > >
> > > > phili...@wikimedia.org
> > > > ___
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> > > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529
> > 4266
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter

[Thomas Morton]

And up here in Lincoln.

Tom Morton

On 12 Oct 2012, at 17:23, John Vandenberg  wrote:

> Also working for me.
>
> John Vandenberg.
> sent from Galaxy Note
> On Oct 12, 2012 11:21 PM, "Jim Redmond"  wrote:
>
>> No trouble here either.
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Philippe Beaudette <
>> phili...@wikimedia.org
>>> wrote:
>>
>>> They're up for me...
>>> ___
>>> Philippe Beaudette
>>> Director, Community Advocacy
>>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>>>
>>> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>>>
>>> phili...@wikimedia.org
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 8:44 AM, WereSpielChequers
>>>  wrote:
 Does anyone know why Wikipedia and Commons have both gone down?

 WSC

 Writing from a slightly modified editing workshop in London
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>> --
>> Jim Redmond
>> [[User:Jredmond]]
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info action

[Thomas Morton]

On 23 October 2012 11:29, Andy Mabbett  wrote:

> On 22 October 2012 22:41, MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> > This is just a heads-up that you'll start seeing a "Page information"
> link
> > in the sidebar (under "Toolbox") in the coming days on Wikimedia wikis.
>
> This sounds like a really useful feature.
>
> > for some users (such as administrators), certain additional fields (such
> > as the number of page watchers) will be displayed.
>
> Why is this for admins only?
>

For the same reason Special:UnwatchedPages is Admin-only I presume :) to
avoid people using this feature to identify unwatched pages to vandalise.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long

[Thomas Morton]

On 4 Dec 2012, at 19:09, Todd Allen  wrote:

> That's nice and all, but there should also be no "sticking". When I scroll
> a page, I expect the -entire page- to scroll. Anything that breaks that and
> "moves with" or "sticks with" the page is extremely visually distracting
> and gets hit with AdBlock at once, even if it's just a "Share This" bar. It
> indicates either poor design or an attempt to deliberately distract, and
> either is unacceptable. If that means "more days" of banners that can be
> scrolled past, more days it is. And no, I'm not the only one I know who
> thinks so.

That seems a very personal, and technically adept persons, viewpoint.

This IS, as you identify, an attempt to deliberately attract notice.
You are not the target audience, though, so feel free to us Adblock
:-) problem solved!

>
> Also on the subject of flow:
>
> A: Because it reverses the normal reading flow.
>
> Q: ...


I think you might have gotten this the wrong way round ;-)

Tom

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] proposed urgent Board of Trustees resolution without a meeting

[Thomas Morton]

>From a good governance point of view "maximum" is a bad idea.

This motion would introduce so very poor governance ideas without clear
aims.

Tom

On Monday, December 24, 2012, James Salsman wrote:

> Federico,
>
> Thank you for your very helpful reply. I'm sorry, I didn't realize
> that Glassdoor.com results were client location specific. You can use
> a proxy terminating in the U.S. to read about Wikimedia Foundation
> employee satisfaction and compensation relative to other San Francisco
> technology firms.
>
> > Your proposal has already been implemented in 2010:
> > «All Wikimedia fundraising activities must aim to raise the maximum
> > possible amount of money [...]»
> > <
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Developing_Scenarios_for_future_of_fundraising
> >
> > «Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be
> > directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support
> [...]»
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_principles
>
> This is most helpful for allowing fundraising to continue without the
> need for a Board resolution without a meeting, or for more specific
> trustee candidate questions if it does not.
>
> > Are you asking to amend
> > <
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Delegations_of_Financial_and_Spending_Authority
> >
>
> Is there any reason that subsequent specific direction can not be
> provided without amending that resolution?
>
> > Are you asking to amend
> > ?
>
> Not necessarily, but I am asking that it be reconsidered after
> community consultation. That resolution was approved without a widely
> announced community discussion, which is so completely unprecedented
> for a change of that magnitude that I could not believe it at the
> time. The comments at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus
> show that the Foundation staff and trustees are very much opposed to
> the opinions of the few members of the community who found that page
> in time to comment.
>
> For that reason I will be recommending specific community initiatives
> during next year's Board elections.
>
> Best regards,
> James Salsman
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Big data" benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices)

[Thomas Morton]

On 3 January 2013 06:38, Tim Starling  wrote:

> You don't need "big data" to see what needs to be done.


It might help; often it is surprising how statistical analysis can help
narrow the focus of such efforts.

For example; it is taken as a given that incivility drives away new users,
but do we have hard statistical evidence to back that up? And if that is a
true situation, can we identify specifically what uncivil things are
driving the most editors away (rudeness, templating, etc.).

Although please lets do it without words like "big data", which makes me
squirm :P


Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] compromise?

[Thomas Morton]

On Saturday, January 5, 2013, James Salsman wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
> >
> >... You think that having people mortgage their future and simply
> > giving them more cash, which they don't ultimately enjoy other
> > than to pay loans at distressed interest rates, is a greater benefit
> > to them than providing the best insurance coverage we can offer?
>
> No, I didn't mean to imply anything like that. If a typical working
> age American's immediate family suffers catastrophic medical expenses,
> it's most likely going to be one of their parents, who aren't covered
> by the Foundation's or any other employer's plan. Medicare only pays
> for 60 days of hospitalization, with copayments totaling about $30,000
> for the following 60 days, and then it stops paying altogether. (See
> e.g. http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/7768.pdf ) In any case, most
> Americans who enter bankruptcy because of medical expenses have on
> average about $45,000 of debt, which amounts to 2.2 years of the
> difference between the mean salary of Wikimedia and Mozilla Foundation
> junior software engineers. It's not like the difference between being
> able to save a loved one from bankruptcy and keeping them in the
> hospital when they need it would displace existing health insurance or
> even make a serious dent in retirement savings.


This is a bad idea because it puts the responsibility of saving/investing
that money on the employee.

Also without healthcare insurance simple everyday costs can be astronomical
(prescriptions etc.).

So all that would happen is those employees would have to organise their
own healthcare, and would probably not get as good a deal as the foundation
can arrange.



>
> And that brings up another important point: What kind of talent does
> the WMF forgo by not being able to offer employees competitive
> retirement savings?  I suggest that there are very good reasons that
> all the additional Glassdoor reviews in the past week didn't really
> move the needle in satisfaction or recommendation scores. If anything
> the Foundation should be exceeding market rate to make up for its
> inability to provide equity participation plans for retirement savings
> which commercial firms can offer.


As a charity the foundation has a responsibility to balance hiring the best
talent with spending too frivolously.

So the foundation should NOT throw money at staff without showing that
paying extra would bring the charity significant increases in value.

I know programmers on a par with my talent who are perfectly content
earning significantly less than I do. So this is not a case of "the best
costs the most".


>
> Richard Symonds wrote:
> >
> > I would object to the precedent being set that donors from around the
> > world, however old or young, are able to directly decide the salaries of
> > staff at the WMF
>
> I am not suggesting allowing donors to set salary levels, only to
> express their opinions as to whether they would object to the
> Foundation meeting market labor pay, or exceeding it to compensate for
> the inability to offer equity participation. Since the only objections
> raised against competitive pay have been that it would be an
> "irresponsible" use of donor's money, why not find out from the
> donor's whether they actually share that view? The worst that could
> happen would be that we would find that donors agree with the status
> quo.
>
> > I would also have an issue with donors being bombarded with emails...
>
> A representative sample of 384 donors is sufficient to establish the
> answer with 95% confidence. I am not suggesting asking all however
> many million there have been.



I call this number the magic 384, it's a common rookie mistake when
designing surveys for a million people.

With a sample size of 384 you do get 95% confidence, with a confidence
interval of 5%. So the data is fairly meaningless (if 49% of your
respondents say X then that could represent anything from 44 to 54 percent
of the population).

You need around 12000 for any solid degree of confidence. And I believe we
have a lot more than a million donors across a wide variety of cultures.

Please don't just throw out numbers like this unless you know what you are
taking about.

Tom




>
> > we should be saving our 'communication points' for something more
> important.
>
> What might be more important that we haven't already asked in donor
> surveys of years past?
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] compromise?

[Thomas Morton]

If you know nothing about surveys or statistics it is probably a good idea
not to describe a properly calculated metric (yes, I sat down and did the
math) as absurd, and then claim efficacy of your own informal survey.

Just sayin.

Incidentally I am not sure your point about the glassdoor reviews really
rebuts mine re the value of paying more money.

If we pay more to the current staff will they be a lot more productive
(hint; this doesn't often equate in the way you'd expect) or wil lthose
hard problems become easier?

And does increased wage offerings attract more competent staff? Again, this
does not always work out as you expect.

James, please don't take this the wrong way but all of your contribution so
far seems to be "Google educated", without any practical experience to
guide your words. I'm sorry if that is not the case, but you do appear to
be rolling out a lot of the "rookie" viewpoints on many different fronts.

Tom

On Saturday, January 5, 2013, James Salsman wrote:

> Again, I am not suggesting canceling anyone's health insurance or
> replacing it with increased salary. I am only trying to say that in
> the case of when a parent or sibling faces catastrophic medical
> expenses in the U.S., just over two years of the difference between
> typical junior software engineer pay at the Wikimedia and Mozilla
> foundations is the same amount that the average American who enters
> bankruptcy because of medical expenses has in debt.
>
> > On 5 January 2013 11:11, Thomas Morton 
> > >
> wrote:
> >
> >> So the foundation should NOT throw money at staff without showing that
> >> paying extra would bring the charity significant increases in value.
>
> If the nine reviews added to
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wikimedia-Foundation-Reviews-E38331.htm
> over the past two weeks does not establish that, then I can't imagine
> anything will.
>
> >>> A representative sample of 384 donors is sufficient to establish the
> >>> answer with 95% confidence. I am not suggesting asking all however
> >>> many million there have been.
> >>
> >> I call this number the magic 384, it's a common rookie mistake when
> >> designing surveys for a million people.
> >>
> >> With a sample size of 384 you do get 95% confidence, with a confidence
> >> interval of 5%. So the data is fairly meaningless (if 49% of your
> >> respondents say X then that could represent anything from 44 to 54
> percent
> >> of the population).
>
> If my preliminary informal survey of a much smaller number of donors
> is representative, then the results will be much closer to 100%
> agreeing that the Foundation should meet or exceed market pay than
> 50%.
>
> >> You need around 12000 for any solid degree of confidence. And I believe
> we
> >> have a lot more than a million donors across a wide variety of cultures.
>
> That is absurdly excessive. There has never been a Foundation donor
> survey of more than 3,760 donors, and that number was only chosen
> because of a requirement to measure fine grained demographics in
> categories for which few respondents were expected. 384 is plenty to
> resolve a yes/no or below/meet/exceed question at the 95% confidence
> level unless anyone has any actual evidence that the result is likely
> to be close.
>
> I am convinced that if asked, donors would think it is irresponsible
> to pay so little that Oracle employees are more satisfied.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Licencing question

[Thomas Morton]

I've always considered this poor policy on the part of Wikipedia; a sort of
intellectual "grab" that we do so well :(

I've uploaded images before by great photographers, after working to obtain
their permission, and make a point of crediting them when inserting the
image into the article - partly because it's useful to know and partly
because it seems fair.

Tom


On 22 January 2013 17:46, Lodewijk  wrote:

> And I'm also unsure all the upload wizards have the same text?
>
> 2013/1/22 David Gerard 
>
> > On 22 January 2013 17:41, Philippe Beaudette 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > FYI, each and every edit on Commons has this text above the edit box:
> > > "...You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under
> the
> > > Creative Commons license."
> >
> >
> > Yeah, but Commons pulls in stuff from other CC-licenced places, so we
> > can't presume the creators have clicked said button.
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS

[Thomas Morton]

I offered to look into this some time last year, and apply for a grant to
write an up to date piece of software. However it didn't get a good
response, with the foundation promising an OTRS update early this year...
apparent progress was made at that point, but it petered out very quickly.

Tom


On 21 February 2013 05:18, DeltaQuad Wikipedia wrote:

> +1, the interface still confuses me at somepoints today.
>
> But I have to ask, are we getting everything we need with an OTRS update to
> the new version, or are we settling for a medioker (excuse my spelling, it
> is late). Is it a better idea to have wikimedians (maybe through grants,
> idk) build something open source and cc-whatever? That way fixes can be
> made and we can get many devs (broad sense of the term) fixing bugs of a
> new system.
>
> DeltaQuad - Mobile phone
> English Wikipedia Administrator and Checkuser
> On Feb 20, 2013 11:35 PM, "Rjd0060"  wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> >
> > > Hi.
> > >
> > > OTRS () is a critical piece of
> > Wikimedia's
> > > infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service
> > inquiries
> > > directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this
> > > e-mail.
> > >
> > > Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently
> > > released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to
> > update
> > > Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now:
> > > . OTRS' inventor kindly offered
> to
> > > donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of
> factors,
> > > this has become an untenable solution.
> > >
> > > Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of
> > > running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being
> > > overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software,
> and
> > > mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area
> > > where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend
> a
> > > hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important
> > > infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this
> > > issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting
> > > this software any longer.
> > >
> > > Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm
> > > wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement
> > > player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation
> (by
> > > hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different
> > > response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere.
> > >
> > > MZMcBride
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > I've been working on OTRS since 2008 and have been an OTRS administrator
> > for much of that time.  As somebody who devotes a lot of his time to
> > OTRS-related work, I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of support the
> > OTRS team has been dealing with.  As MZMcBride points out, there are a
> > number of reasons why the software needs to be updated.
> >
> > Last year, we handled roughly 40,000 general inquiries in over 35
> > languages.[1]  This alone should be a convincing reason as to why we
> should
> > have at least somewhat up-to-date software, clean of security issues and
> > other problems.[2]
> >
> > While I realize that there have been other priorities, I would have
> thought
> > that with 3 years of waiting, eventually OTRS would be important enough
> for
> > somebody to give some much needed attention to.
> >
> > [1] -
> >
> >
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/the-incredible-work-of-the-wikimedia-volunteer-response-team/
> > [2] -
> >
> >
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&component=OTRS&product=Wikimedia
> >
> > --
> >
> > Ryan
> > User:Rjd0060
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment

[Thomas Morton]

Just having a backup is only 1/10th of the problem though, if that.

If Wikimedia Commons, for example, where to disappear in a cloud of smoke
overnight what would it take to turn one of those backups into a properly
functioning replacement?

Open knowledge data is only useful when it's accessible :)

Tom


On 18 March 2013 13:28, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 18 March 2013 13:18, Fae  wrote:
>
> > PS I have heard the archive question answered recently by a
> > representative of the WMF on a radio interview as "Oh, it's all over
> > the internet, if we disappear it could always be re-created" (or words
> > to that effect) - I thought this a particularly naff answer for an
> > organization with many millions in the bank to spend on operational
> > risks.
>
>
> That's not quite right ...
>
> * we need to make sure there are actually multiple accessible copies
> of the huge database dump files around
> * someone needs to take one of these and recreate a working, editable
> copy of (say) en:wp, with all text and images
> * if that fails in any regard whatsoever, it's something that really
> needs fixing
>
> This is largely a matter for ops, of course. But someone needs to get
> a spare PC with a huge amount of disk and try it ... (Why not me?
> Time/arsedness/lack of said PC and huge disk.)
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New member of staff for WMUK Education

[Thomas Morton]

Hi Toni!

Welcome aboard :) look forward to meeting you at some point over the next
few months.

Tom


On 26 March 2013 14:00, Toni Sant  wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Some of you may already know me, but I thought it would be good to send out
> a message to this list to let everyone know that I'm a new member of staff
> at Wikimedia UK working on Education matters.
>
> A blog post announcing this can be seen here:
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/03/toni-sant-joins-wikimedia-uk-as-education-organiser/
>
> Best regards...
>
>  ...Toni
>
> --
> Dr Toni Sant - Education Organiser, Wikimedia UK
> toni.s...@wikimedia.org.uk +44 (0)7885 980 536
> --
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
> Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
> United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
> movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
> operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
>
> *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
> over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"

[Thomas Morton]

It's a weird dichotomy.

I've spent several hundred quid on source material for my current topic
area. I could easily have spent several grand.

Paid editing is a major issue, because it conflicts with our culture

But if someone were able to buy my sources then it would be of huge
benefit.

And, controversially, if someone could fund me one day a week to write
these articles I could likely expand from one GA per month to covering this
entire field in GAs in a year.

Without that it will take me a good five years

I've come recently to see that funding article work is not inherently an
awful thing. But it needs to be done with extreme care to protect our
ideals and neutrality. And that is a HARD problem.

Tom

On Saturday, March 30, 2013, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" > wrote:
> >
> > How so?
>
> It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer
> written encyclopedia.
>
> You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid editors.
> There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The whole
> concept would be extremely divisive.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] xkcd collecting donations for WMF?

[Thomas Morton]

Heh, the CSV's have some amusing, umm. campaign names in them...

Tom


On 1 April 2013 20:42, Manuel Schneider wrote:

> Thanks Marc and Michael!
>
> Am 01.04.2013 21:28, schrieb Marc A. Pelletier:
>
> > http://samarium.wikimedia.org/
> >
> > My understanding is that this was done in collaboration with Randall,
> > but it has obvious general applicability.
>
> thanks for this link, I didn't know about this site and data. This is
> very useful.
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Manuel
> --
> Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] xkcd collecting donations for WMF?

[Thomas Morton]

Not uncommon for Xkcd :p

Although the article being used is changing so rapidly that it's unlikely
to cause much disruption.

On an unrelated note; I can't make head nor tails of some of those csv
files... Are we really collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars daily???
:s

Tom

On Monday, April 1, 2013, Deryck Chan wrote:

> As a side note, the first panel of the comic also openly calls its readers
> to edit war over certain articles.
>
>
> On 1 April 2013 20:22, Manuel Schneider 
> 
> >wrote:
>
> > Did you see this April's Fool Day comic on xkcd, with an interactivly
> > growing dog: "The dog gains a pound for every $10 donated to the
> > Wikimedia Foundation via this link."
> >
> > http://xkcd.org/
> >
> > Is this real? How can it tell how much has been donated to WMF through
> > this comic? I see that there is a special campaign reference in the
> > donation link but how can it fetch the amount?
> >
> > Has there been any cooperation / negotiation between Randall Munroe and
> > the WMF beforehand?
> >
> > /Manuel
> > --
> > Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> > Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Tweet this page" from some or all sites???

[Thomas Morton]

> If you mean publish something on tweeter while browsing a WMF project, I
> can't see the point. I'm sure most users know they can have more than one
> tab/window at a time.


Weren't you asking for evidence to back up similar assertions a minute ago?
:D


> Those said, I don't use Twitter in the first place, so I really have no
> idea what kind of gap you would like to fill with your feature.
>
>
*rolls eyes*

Sorry, I don't mean to be snippy but this discussion always frustrates me.
It's the sort of elitest tech snobbery (anti-social-networks, lack of
understanding of how 90% of the world use the web, etc.) we suffer from.

Of course sharing buttons would be wonderful for our readers - that is the
whole point of the internet, facilitating the building of the web of links!

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Tweet this page" from some or all sites???

[Thomas Morton]

>  Those said, I don't use Twitter in the first place, so I really have no
>>> idea what kind of gap you would like to fill with your feature.
>>>
>>>
>>>  *rolls eyes*
>>
>> Sorry, I don't mean to be snippy but this discussion always frustrates me.
>> It's the sort of elitest tech snobbery (anti-social-networks, lack of
>> understanding of how 90% of the world use the web, etc.) we suffer from.
>>
>
> All appologies, while I for sure have a tech background, I didn't meant to
> sound elitist. On the contrary, I'm asking you to explain me what is the
> obvious need that you hope to fill with such a feature and that couldn't be
> achieved within Wikimedia,


What would it achieve? Well, people share content all over the web to their
network; Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, etc. Facilitating this is
obvious The reason it hasn't happened yet is that the editing community
seems generally politically against the idea of social networks, so
anything relating to them is evil! ;)

Why should be only be building and sharing content within Wikimedia? The
vast majority of the consumers of the site could not care one thing about
"within Wikimedia", and that is fine. Foisting it upon them is the poor
approach :D



> espcecialy with the coming Echo extension.
>
>
I'm not sure how the Echo extension is relevant to sharing Wikipedia
content as widely as possible. It's an internal notification system. :S I'd
be *very *disappointed to see us build a system for sharing content
internally (which is what you appear to be advocating), that is not our
purpose (to be a social network).


>
>
>
>> Of course sharing buttons would be wonderful for our readers - that is the
>> whole point of the internet, facilitating the building of the web of
>> links!
>>
>
> Sure, but I just don't understand what prevent you from building links
> within Mediawiki.
>
>
See above; are you really suggesting that no one should be sharing content
outside of Mediawiki?? ;)

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Tweet this page" from some or all sites???

[Thomas Morton]

Or, you could click a button.

Why is making something easy a problem?

And more to the point; a very large number of people would become confused
with the processes you're describing. You are somewhere in the top 0.1% of
technically literate persons!! So judging what is possible or not based on
your own skills/abilities introduces a critical bias.

A lack of neutrality, if you will :)

Tom


On 18 April 2013 13:46, Mathieu Stumpf wrote:

> Le 2013-04-18 14:11, Stevie Benton a écrit :
>
>> [Speaking personally, not from WMUK]
>>
>> Not sure how advertisements came in to the discussion, it's totally
>> different. If we agree we want to share the sum total of all human
>> knowledge, then it makes sense that we make it as easy to share that
>> knowledge as possible. Having small, discreet buttons that allow one / two
>> click sharing removes some of the barriers that may exist.  Just my
>> opinion, of course.
>>
>> Stevie
>>
>
> I really don't understand what's the supposed "barriers", you can save the
> whole page to send it, copy/paste the whole page, send the direct URL. What
> the use case where current possibilities would prevent one to share this
> knowledge?
>
>
>
>>
>> On 18 April 2013 13:04, Mathieu Stumpf > >wrote:
>>
>>  Le 2013-04-18 11:43, Stevie Benton a écrit :
>>>
>>>  [Speaking personally, not from WMUK]
>>>

 I like the idea of sharing buttons, as long as they aren't too
 prominent.
 Wikipedia was a social medium before the term was really in widespread
 use.
 I think it also shows that our audience is important. Aren't we
 ultimately
 about sharing?

 Stevie


>>> To my mind, it's not just about sharing, it's about sharing knowledge in
>>> a
>>> form which is as neutral as we can achieve to produce. If you stop to
>>> "sharing", then you may just as well let "free to share" advertisments
>>> invade wikipedia.
>>>
>>>
>>>
 On 18 April 2013 10:37, David Gerard  wrote:

  On 18 April 2013 10:27, Mathieu Stumpf >>> ***>

> wrote:
>
> > I didn't read the tweeter EULA, as I don't use it. Does it feet our
> general
> > policy[1]? If no, as one may easily expect, then you have a
> definitive
> > answer to your "why not".
>
>
> You could tweet from a button without WMF sending data to Twitter, so
> that's not a problem.
>
>
> - d.
>
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 --

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 Communications Organiser
 Wikimedia UK
 +44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
 @StevieBenton

 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
 and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
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 global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
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>>>
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>>
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>>
>> Stevie Benton
>> Communications Organiser
>> Wikimedia UK
>> +44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
>> @StevieBenton
>>
>> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
>> and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
>> Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
>> London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
>> global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
>> Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
>>
>> *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal
>> control over Wikipedia

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Tweet this page" from some or all sites???

[Thomas Morton]

On 18 April 2013 14:39, Mathieu Stumpf wrote:

> Le 2013-04-18 14:42, Thomas Morton a écrit :
>
>   Those said, I don't use Twitter in the first place, so I really have no
>>>
>>>> idea what kind of gap you would like to fill with your feature.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  *rolls eyes*
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, I don't mean to be snippy but this discussion always frustrates
>>>> me.
>>>> It's the sort of elitest tech snobbery (anti-social-networks, lack of
>>>> understanding of how 90% of the world use the web, etc.) we suffer from.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> All appologies, while I for sure have a tech background, I didn't meant
>>> to
>>> sound elitist. On the contrary, I'm asking you to explain me what is the
>>> obvious need that you hope to fill with such a feature and that couldn't
>>> be
>>> achieved within Wikimedia,
>>>
>>
>>
>> What would it achieve? Well, people share content all over the web to
>> their
>> network; Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, etc. Facilitating this is
>> obvious The reason it hasn't happened yet is that the editing community
>> seems generally politically against the idea of social networks, so
>> anything relating to them is evil! ;)
>>
>
> Ok, but what I don't understand is what prevent them to share links to
> Wikimedia projects?


Nothing; as you say they can copy the link and paste it to Facebook. But
that doesn't mean making that process *easier *is a bad thing! :)




> Why should be only be building and sharing content within Wikimedia? The
>
>> vast majority of the consumers of the site could not care one thing about
>> "within Wikimedia", and that is fine. Foisting it upon them is the poor
>> approach :D
>>
>
> I agree. However if people are intending to give feed back on the page,
> especialy feedback which would be useful to improve it, I think it would be
> far better to keep this comments within the Wikimedia echosystem.
>

Yeh you're considering the problem too narrowly here; we're not talking
about contributing to the development of an article.

For example; a social news site I hang out on regularly has interesting
Wikipedia articles posted to it. The comments then involve discussing the
topic and putting forward our personal experience, viewpoints or related
information. None of which is relevant to the Wikipedia talk page :) (e.g.
NOTFORUM).

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Travel Guide

[Thomas Morton]

On 10 April 2012 12:48, Peter Coombe  wrote:

> On 10 April 2012 05:32, Strainu  wrote:
> > În data de 9 aprilie 2012, 21:17, Ziko van Dijk
> >  a scris:
> >> One might get problems with policies such as NOR and NPOV. I suppose
> >> that they should be applied on Wiki Travel Guide, as on Wikipedia,
> >> Wikibooks and other Wikimedia sites.
> >
> > If using these as they are now would be a precondition for hosting the
> > project at wikimedia, then Wikivoyage is better of on its own. I'm not
> > that familiar with the rules of these different sites, but the
> > articles did not strike me as extremely neutral - but not clearly
> > partisan either. Most of them are very near that balance that makes
> > them appealing to a large public while keeping them serious.
> >
>
> No Original Research shouldn't be an issue, we already have Wikinews
> accepting original reporting.
>

It's a bit different though... on WikiNews you can objectively report
things as "OR" - with clear notes taken at the time, etc.

On WikiTravel it's not really like that; because a lot of it revolves
around the best... restaurant, bar, place to stay, way to get around,
sights to see. This is all extremely subjective and basically depends on
who is writing the page.

For example; I would probably write a very different guide to Paris as
someone else who had visited the city!


>
> Neutral Point of View might be a more delicate area. You probably
> couldn't write a travel guide using the same standards of NPOV as used
> on Wikipedia, and if you could it would most likely be very dull. As
> far as I know all the existing projects follow some form of NPOV, but
> it isn't actually enshrined in the Foundation's mission statement,
> vision or values.


Dullness doesn't have anything to do with NPOV; it's just poor writing.
There are featured articles on some very dull 16th century individuals that
positively pop and sizzle because the writing is excellent.

Non-neutral material *looks* exciting because it is controversial. But it's
a faux-excitment, and is of significantly less utility to the reader.

WikiTravel is AWESOME and should totally be embraced by Wikimedia. However,
I'd be cautious of embracing all of their content without some level of
filtering...

I use it a lot and many of the pages ramble excessively and complain about
issues without any form of sourcing. In fact most articles lack even the
most basic sourcing; if they came onboard I don't think that state of
affairs could continue, and I'd be cautious of importing content without
any form of review.

The other issue is one of advertising and promotion, which is rather
delicate. Many pages have recommendations for accommodation, restaurants,
bars, etc. that read either as promotional, or very subjective. They tend
to be quite out of date too.

Finding a way to integrate a database of amenities for each location
(rather than have it on the page in the prose), perhaps with
ratings/reviews, would be interesting - and solve the problem of
introducing first hand accounts without clear context.

Just some random thoughts; pitched right, Wikitravel would be a great
addition to the mix IMO.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

>
> First, NPOV would probably be a deal-breaker. The travel wiki community
> (usually working at Wikitravel) have long used Traveller's Point of View.
> This point of view is not neutral at all, but favours the traveller.
> Hoteliers, restaurateurs, etc. have different points of view, but for us
> it's the traveller's that counts. We're under the impression that there are
> other Wikimedia foundation projects which don't use NPOV, and so those of
> us favouring approaching WMF have been able to argue that we wouldn't be
> forced to use it. If that's wrong then we should probably just give up this
> line of exploration and go find another solution.
>

I'm not sure NPOV would be such a problem - because NPOV is really
misnamed. It's about representing the mainstream viewpoint in a fair and
objective way.

For a Wiki dedicated to travel information the mainstream viewpoint is
certainly the travellers.

What I think would be important to avoid is too much subjective information
from one individual; for example, where I to write about York, UK I would
recommend not going to the Jorvik centre (a main attraction) because I
thought it overpriced and boring.

Whilst my viewpoint on this is subjectively valid, it may not reflect the
overall viewpoint of travellers to York (I know plenty of people who loved
it)! NPOV aims to make sure that the most mainstream of these viewpoints if
reflected - and any other viewpoints (i.e. "hate it") are given space if
deemed appropriate.

So in summary I don't see that there is any real difference in our stance
on this - it might just need a bit of rethinking.

This really ties back into something more important; which is sourcing. I
think one thing that WT sorely lacks is secondary sourcing the support the
material, and that this would improve its content significantly. I'd be
cautious of supporting a new WMF project that avoided sourcing in favour of
mostly whatever the editors contribute from their experience. I think a
good argument could be made for using personal experience to write a WT
guide - but it should also incorporate good sourcing and editorial
standards as developed here (Wikinews is a good example of where
they successfully manage such a tradeoff).

Second, this is a fairly old and established community, with its own
> habits, mores, etc. As with other communities it makes some sense perhaps
> to learn about ours a bit before visiting. I think some of our fellow
> travellers are a bit concerned about being swamped by the shear size of the
> communities involved in other WMF projects (Wikipedia) and rightly so. They
> worry that the travel guide community runs a chance of quickly losing
> editorial control, and that this will lead not to the desired
> consolidation, but rather more unhealthy splintering in the collaborative
> travel guide space.
>

I think that's a relevant concern; there would have to be tradeoffs on both
sides I imagine. If WT are looking purely for a new host then.. I'm not
sure that is a good fit. If you are looking for a movement to become a
wider part of, to hold a specific corner (the travel side) and contribute
your own viewpoints as well as recieve some of ours... then that is
definitely a good idea.

You'd like to attract a community, but under your own rules... however this
community has a number of viewpoints that might not match up with how WT
currently operates (from my investigation anyway).

I don't see this, personally, as an unassailable problem.

One further thing worth pointing out; from the discussions so far I gather
the current host is unlikely to provide any technical support, such as a
full dump for importing? This represents a problem to overcome because of
attribution - any import would need a way to record the attribution history
of each page (i.e. the authors) to comply with the licensing. I don't think
pointing to the original WT page would work because, obviously, that could
disappear etc. Just a point to remember.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

>
> > What I think would be important to avoid is too much subjective
> information
> > from one individual; for example, where I to write about York, UK I would
> > recommend not going to the Jorvik centre (a main attraction) because I
> > thought it overpriced and boring.
> >
>
>
> > Whilst my viewpoint on this is subjectively valid, it may not reflect the
> > overall viewpoint of travellers to York (I know plenty of people who
> loved
> > it)! NPOV aims to make sure that the most mainstream of these viewpoints
> if
> > reflected - and any other viewpoints (i.e. "hate it") are given space if
> > deemed appropriate.
> >
>
>
> The whole point of a travel guide is subjective information from
> individuals!


Is it? I'd define it as "useful advice for travellers".

Subjective information from only a few people can be useless, because most
people will have different viewpoints (for example; I would write about the
beautiful historical parts of Amsterdam, but, say, a younger person could
just have easily been looking for information on drug tourism).

The point of "NPOV" is balancing these personal priorities to make sure the
readers gets lots of useful information. Rather than say "Don't bother
walking up to the Sacré-Coeur, it's a long climb and not worth the bother"
you'd say "The climb up to Sacré-Coeur can be a long one".



> However, there are travellers with different interests. Jorvik
> actually works out pretty well for travellers with children, for instance,
> but for (young) adults travelling on their own it's pretty overpriced, and
> not so interesting so that's what the guide should say.


Well I went as a child; and would recommend families not to bother
(overpriced, not all that interesting). Which possibly hihglights the point?



> I don't think
> that's NPOV though, because the Jorvik probably think they're pretty
> awesome for everybody.
>

Well, yes, but that's not "NPOV" because the Jorvik centre's view is
demonstrably biased :) (i.e. not a travellers perspective).



> > So in summary I don't see that there is any real difference in our stance
> > on this - it might just need a bit of rethinking.
> >
>
> We'd like to express it as "Traveller's Point of View".
>

I think this is a good name for it.

p.s. I read your "fair" link with interest - I think that is a good way to
resolve the issue with clashing of personal experience. However one thing a
bigger community brings is a difficulty in resolving these problems (or,
they crop up more often). On Wikipedia we can use sources so that
uninvolved people can voice an opinion and help resolve the situation - but
where this relies on personal experience that is simply not possible. Do
you have an approach to help scale this form of dispute resolution?

Other questions I had:

- What sort of size is the WT community at the moment?

- What are the policies/approach to copyright violations and other issues
such as slander, etc?

- What is the policy r.e. advertising and promotional (quite often, when I
use WT, I see a lot of content that seems quite promotional in quality -
e.g. for a particular restaurant).

Cheers,
Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

Just to highlight my earlier point about sourcing, the article on Florence
currently says:

Opera was invented in Florence.


This happens to be true - but I have no proof of it, and it may well simply
be the opinion of the original writer. Much of the rest of the historical
section is the same; it is encyclopaedic detail about the city, spiced up
for travel guide purposes. I have no issue with the spicing up (it is
appropriate in the context), but I think this is the sort of content that
can/should be sourced to help the reader be assured the material is true in
at least some way (even if there is subjective opinion mixed in).

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

>
> > - What are the policies/approach to copyright violations and other issues
> > such as slander, etc?
> >
>
> http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft
>
>
>
I was more looking for the communities approach to hunting down, removing
or otherwise investigating copyright issues. (this is quite an important
issue within the WM movement).



> > - What is the policy r.e. advertising and promotional (quite often, when
> I
> > use WT, I see a lot of content that seems quite promotional in quality -
> > e.g. for a particular restaurant).
> >
>
> When we've got a full complement of contributors watching recent changes
> that stuff is supposed to be stamped out ruthlessly and quickly under the
> "Don't Tout" rule:
>
> http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Don%27t_tout


Cheers.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention implies social features

[Thomas Morton]

On 17 April 2012 15:56, Jan Kučera  wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> I understand your objections. Surely privacy is a key here. We should
> make "social" our way, taking in account various aspects of privacy
> and commerce...
>
> The goal definitely is rising the the number of editors... we should
> do this through all possible ways... as someone wrote here the only
> question is _how many resources_ (money etc.) is WMF wanting to invest
> into editor retention...
>
> Kozuch
>

I think my major concern is that "social features" encourage the wrong sort
of editor - i.e. those here for hat collecting, chat, community, etc. I'm
not against the idea of community but I think that
a) On-wiki it should be incidental/casual (as it is now)
b) Any more social collectives should exist off-wiki (what we are missing)

The editor retention program should be looking to bring in quality editors
willing to work primarily on article content. Whether they also want to
socialise with other editors is somewhat a secondary
consideration/distraction.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention implies social features

[Thomas Morton]

>
> >> The goal definitely is rising the the number of editors...
>
> Yes.
>
> > The editor retention program should be looking to bring in quality
> editors
> > willing to work primarily on article content.
>
> No. Aiming for quality, would only reduce the number of editors.
>

Quality editors; perhaps should have said quality authors/writers.

We have no end of vandal fighters, admin material and so forth, who are
also critical. Those people will keep coming in. But we sorely lack people
with a quiet focus on content creation and prose. Doubling our current
numbers of that sort of editor would be a huge step toward improving our
content. Doubling the other sorts of editors would not have the same effect.

The idea that having more quality editors would reduce the number of other
editors is... somewhat confusing. But if that really is the case (and we
can swap low quality editors for high quality editors) then fine by me.

But I would be interested to hear your reasoning as to why looking for &
engaging quality writers would drive off others?


> Remember: "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
>

Just because they *can* edit doesn't mean they should. We are aiming to
create free content here *not* create a place anyone can edit. Important,
even critical, distinction.

We do not blindly follow that pithy tagline (i.e. the existence of
semi-protection, bans/blocks for total incompetence).

> Whether they also want to
> > socialise with other editors is somewhat a secondary
> > consideration/distraction.
>
> I disagree. A lot.


Of course that is your prerogative.

But I think in holding that view you've critically lost sight of the point
of being here. We are not building a social network in the background. A
social structure has to exists to keep the community going, but the prime
purpose is to write/develop free content.

But perhaps it would be useful to suggest some specific social features
that you'd want - that might help focus the discussion.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Facebook goes turncoat on the "squash internet freedom" battle.

[Thomas Morton]

Can you at least tone down the rhetoric. That's probably the main
reason few have responded yet.

Tom Morton

On 17 Apr 2012, at 20:38, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen  wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 10:32 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>>  wrote:
>>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 10:14 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:
 On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 11:20 PM, Mono  wrote:
> Well, piracy is illegal and piracy stems from file sharing...
>
> On Monday, April 16, 2012, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>
>> First there were SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and OPEN. Now there is going to be
>> Yet Another Attempt
>> to enact draconian legislation through mislabeling the real purpose of
>> IP legislation by inserting
>> it as a rider to law supposedly intended to help in combatting
>> Cyber-terrorism: CISPA.
>>
>> From the link below:
>>
>> ‎"It's a little piece of Sopa [the Stop Online Piracy Act] wrapped up
>> in a bill that's
>> supposedly designed to facilitate detection of and defence against
>> cyber-security
>> threats. The language is so vague that an ISP could use it to monitor
>> communications of subscribers for potential infringement of
>> intellectual property."
>>
>> In effect this law is directed against file-sharers, not Cyber terrorism.
>>
>> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17730266
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
>>
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 I've heard that pirates also use the Internet. We need to get rid of
 that thing immediately.

 Wait! What if they burn CDs/DVDs/Blu-Rays? We need to get rid of all
 those blank discs, right now!

 And hey wait, they all breathe, too! If we just stop people from
 breathing, we can put an end to it.

 Just because a technology is used to break the law doesn't mean it's
 responsible for the lawbreaking. Filesharing networks are no more
 responsible for piracy than the telephone company is responsible for a
 person calling in a bomb threat.

>>>
>>> So what's our game-plan? Don't please start arguing about the small
>>> stuff. This is massive!
>>>
>>> I probably shouldn't even say this, but the foundation will look like a
>>> massive prat, totally wrongfooted -- and grandstanding with all the
>>> talk our spokespersons let slip out of their mouths after SOPA
>>> went down, if they now pass CISPA, which is ten times worse.
>>>
>>> I've read the law, and it isn't pretty...
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
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>>>
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>>
>> Would it be possible to get enough other sites behind another protest?
>> The last one didn't succeed just because of Wikipedia, it succeeded
>> because there were so many. Facebook didn't do squat anyway, so nobody
>> cares about them, but Google and Reddit are a different story. Just
>> the threat of another protest (especially with a "They apparently
>> didn't listen" theme), this close to elections, might be enough to put
>> them off this one. It'll have to be something that shows they can't
>> just wait a couple months and try again.
>>
>
> I actually have my own battleplan but I would like to hear from more
> people first, to be sure we are all on the same page that this is a
> battle we cannot afford to lose.
>
>
> --
> --
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Breivik: My Biggest Influence Was Wikipedia

[Thomas Morton]

On 18 April 2012 13:55, Marc Riddell  wrote:

> on 4/18/12 4:53 AM, Mike  Dupont at jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> > this just in, scary.
> >
> > Breivik: My Biggest Influence Was Wikipedia
> >
> http://www.businessinsider.com/norwegian-terrorist-anders-breivik-my-biggest-i
> > nfluence-was-wikipedia-2012-4#ixzz1sN3LZci6
>
> Unless he expanded on his statement, which isn't in the posted clip, his
> "answer" could very well be a sarcastic non-answer to an entity he believes
> has neither credibility nor authority over him.
>
> Marc Riddell


It's my understanding that what he said is that Wikipedia was venue he used
for researching his ideology.

At the end of the day Wikipedia is full of right wing material - because it
is a part of history/culture and we have to record it (neutrally). It is
entirely possible to take that material and use it to build a world view.

This is what people do anyway.

We simply have to be accepting of the fact that, while our intent might be
to spread a more inclusive society by opening up knowledge to the masses,
there is a portion of the population who will form views we find abhorrent.

Tom
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why the Wikimedia Foundation should openly articulate its political POV by establishing a new neutral wiki for world political knowledge (modeled on Wikipedia)

[Thomas Morton]

>
> As a fictional example, let's suppose some members of Congress propose
> legislation to build a new Brooklyn Bridge. Under the subject: HR 999
> Proposal to build a new Brooklyn Bridge, there would be one pro and one con
> argument edited only by members of Congress and one pro and one con
> argument edited by the general public.


Why would political knowledge need to presented with a POV? That merely
encourages confirmation bias.

Dividing viewpoints into two different strands doesn't sound much like
informing, it sounds rather a lot like providing a platform for soapboxing
:)

Tom
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