Re: [Wikimedia-l] extend mediawiki software to allow append a group, and COI to an edit
Hi rupert, I think this requester feature has merit, as it provides a tool for communities to use for this purpose (COI) and others. One possible implementation is the tag system already part of the Abuse Filter extension. Bug 18670 requests the tag system be more flexible, allowing false positives to be addessed, and would also allow self-tagging of edits. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18670 On Feb 22, 2014 10:26 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com wrote: hi, could wmf please extend the mediawiki software in the following way: 1. it should knows groups 2. allow users to store an arbitrary number of groups with their profile 3. allow to select one of the groups joined to an edit when saving 4. add a checkbox COI to an edit, meaning potential conflict of interest 5. display and filter edits marked with COI in a different color in history views 6. display and filter edits done for a group in a different color in history views 7. allow members of a group to receive notifications done on the group page, or when a group is mentioned in an edit/comment/talk page. reason: currently it is quite cumbersome to participate as an organisation. it is quite cumbersome for people as well to detect COI edits. the most prominent examples are employees of the wikimedia foundation, and GLAMs. users tend to create multiple accounts, and try to create company accounts. the main reason for this behaviour are (examples, but of course valid general): * have a feedback page / notification page for the swiss federal archive for other users * make clear that an edit is done private or as wmf employee this then would allow the community to create new policies, e.g. the german community might cease using company accounts, and switch over to this system. this proposal is purely technical. current policies can still be applied if people do not need something else, e.g. wmf employees may continue to use sue gardner (wmf) accounts. what you think? best regards, rupert --- swissGLAMour, http://wikimedia.ch ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reasonator use in Wikipedias
If I understand you correctly, the redlink wont be touched, but the empty
page will show reasonator data on it (ideally displayed using the
approptiate infobox). That would help readers and (source editor) writers,
as the important facts are on the screen for them to include into the prose
of the new article.
On Jan 21, 2014 10:18 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi,
At this moment Wikipedia red links provide no information whatsoever.
This is not cool.
In Wikidata we often have labels for the missing (=red link) articles. We
can and do provide information from Wikidata in a reasonable way that is
informative in the Reasonator. We also provide additional search
information on many Wikipedias.
In the Reasonator we have now implemented red lines [1]. They indicate
when a label does not exist in the primary language that is in use.
What we are considering is creating a template {{Reasonator}} that will
present information based on what is available in Wikidata. Such a template
would be a stand in until an article is actually written. What we would
provide is information that is presented in the same way as we provide it
as this moment in time [2]
This may open up a box of worms; Reasonator is NOT using any caching. There
may be lots of other reasons why you might think this proposal is evil. All
the evil that is technical has some merit but, you have to consider that
the other side of the equation is that we are not sharing in the sum of
all knowledge even when we have much of the missing requested information
available to us.
One saving (technical) grace, Reasonator loads round about as quickly as
WIkidata does.
As this is advance warning, I hope that you can help with the issues that
will come about. I hope that you will consider the impact this will have on
our traffic and measure to what extend it grows our data.
The Reasonator pages will not show up prettily on mobile phones .. so does
Wikidata by the way. It does not consider Wikipedia zero. There may be more
issues that may require attention. But again, it beats not serving the
information that we have to those that are requesting it.
Thanks,
GerardM
[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2014/01/reasonator-is-red-lining-your-data.html
[2] http://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/test/?lang=ocq=35610
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's accept Bitcoin as a donation method
Thanks Erik for a well written overview. Would it be possible for the WMF to give an estimate on what it would cost to build and/or what the threshold of annual bitcoin donations would make it worthwhile building. Someone might be interested in donating specifically to have this built, or we could obtain pledges to donate to see if the threshold can be reached. On Jan 9, 2014 9:06 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: In general, I would personally like it if the WMF avoided accepting bitcoin. Today, bitcoin isn't really a functioning currency of exchange -- it's actually used more as an investment tool to create wealth that naturally appreciates in value, like playing the stock market or buying gold. Avoiding lots of risky investments is something our very competent financial managers already steer clear of, and I see no reason to start taking on more risk now. While this is true, a more pragmatic view is that, as long as BTC has value to some people, there's no harm in accepting it and transferring it to USD the moment we receive any, provided legal/financial issues can be addressed with reasonable effort. The strongest counter-argument is that we might not actually get a donation total that makes this worth our time. The Internet Archive has a single-use Bitcoin address that's received a total of $30K at current (insanely high) exchange rates. But for me, the main reason not do this sooner is that it would have significantly fueled the Bitcoin speculative bubble, and WMF should remain neutral on the utility of Bitcoin. At this point though, whatever WMF does or doesn't do is just a small drop in the bucket of the overall Bitcoin mania, so I'm personally fine with a decision being made on pragmatic grounds alone. My own view is that Bitcoin has significant design flaws (built-in economic inequality, most rational actors will hoard rather than spend, doubtful long-term scalability, questionable value as an actual currency due to crazy volatility, tendency to centralize power with miners, rampant security attacks against BTC holders, etc.), but as long as no more severe technical flaws are discovered/exploited, at least some value will likely attach to BTC for some time to come, even if it's dramatically less than the current exchange rate. With that said, I fully defer to our fundraising team on this since it's a decision that should be made purely on cost/benefit grounds, perhaps by also comparing with other currencies that see relatively little use. The one unambiguous positive that I see coming out of Bitcoin mania is a renewed interest in peer-to-peer networks; the last time that happened was about 12 years ago, and it resulted in technologies like BitTorrent, Tor, various file sharing networks and many others being developed. Experimenting is, overall, a good thing, and no matter how this one plays out (and how exhausting a topic it can be given the idiocy of coverage about it), I'm optimistic that we will see positive ripple effects for the free culture movement. Erik [1] https://blockchain.info/address/1Archive1n2C579dMsAu3iC6tWzuQJz8dN -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdoored
James, Jasper asked you to justify your claim of $70 per server vs his $200 per server. Does $70 buy the same processing power? What support comes with it? etc. On Dec 30, 2013 2:53 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Jasper, if you can't write an email or pick up the phone asking for a hardware quote without supporting the status quo of the Foundation datacenter being a monument to the poster boy of corporate tax abuses, Microsoft OEM bundling abuses, and NSA collaboration, I really can't help you. If you're interested in what the long term savings can look like, see: http://www.cnx-software.com/2010/11/16/arm-based-embedded-servers-marvell-armada-xp/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Data privacy, encrypted links and recent change captures
We know NSA wants Wikipedia data, as Wikipedia is listed in one of the NSA slides: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KS8-001.jpg That slide is about HTTP, and the tech staff are moving the user/reader base to HTTPS. As we learn more about the NSA programs, we need to consider vectors other than HTTP for the NSA to obtain the data they want. And the userbase needs to be aware of the current risks. One question from the Dells are backdored[sic] thread that is worth separate consideration is: Are the Wikimedia transit links encrypted, especially for database replication? MySQL has replication over SSL, so I assume the answer is Yes. If not, is this necessary or useful, and feasible ? However we also need to consider that SSL and other encryption may be useless against NSA/etc, which means replicating non-public data should be avoided wherever possible, as it becomes a single point of failure. Given how public our system is, we don't have a lot of non-public data, so we might be able to design the architecture so that information isnt replicated, and also ensure it isnt accessed over insecure links. I think the only parts of the dataset that are private valuable are * passwords/login cookies, * checkuser info - IPs and useragents, * WMF analytics, which includes readers iirc, and * hidden/deleted edits * private wikis and mailing lists Have I missed any? Are passwords and/or checkuser info replicated? Is there a data policy on WMF analytics data which prevents it flowing over insecure links, and limits what is collected and ensures destruction of the data within reasonable timeframes? i.e. how about not using cookies to track analytics of readers who are on HTTP instead of HTTPS? The private wikis can be restricted to https, depending on the value of the data on those wikis in the wrong hands. The private mailing lists will be harder to secure, and at least the English Wikipedia arbcom list contain a lot of valuable data about contributors. Regarding hidden/deleted edits, the replication isnt the only source of this data. All edits are also exposed via Recent Changes (https/api/etc) as they occur, and the value of these edits is determined by the fact they are hidden afterwards (e.g. don't appear in dumps). Is there any way to control who is effectively capturing all edits via Recent Changes? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored
Putting aside the 'tax' aspect, whether or not there is a backdoor in the shipped product is not the point of the article you linked to James. NSA is intercepting hardware deliveries and adding backdoors while it is enroute from supplier to customer. Buying new equipment gives NSA a new opportunity to inject backdoors unless WMF has staff watching the entire manufacturing and delivery process. The latest revelations give details of only a few of NSAs capabilities. Eliminating the now known threats, and all the other possible vectors is not feasible. A more sensible strategy is to put perimeters around sets of private data, and watch your own equipment for unusual activity, with more focus on outbound than was previously thought necessary by most organisations. The extreme end is using trusted operating systems, tagging all data and network interfaces software preventing unapproved data transits. WMF already has serious network traffic analytics and monitoring. Maybe some more rules and alerts are needed, but everyone is reviewing how suspicious they should be of their 'own' internal equipment now. On Dec 29, 2013 7:56 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes and start buying datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for instance? Ref.: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html Best regards, James ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resolution: Media about living people
checks annually; Wikipedias which have chosen to not use FlaggedRevs would be required to come up with feasible alternative solutions to verify the existing BLPs are clean of significant BLP problems. Projects which failed to complete their periodic reviews of the content would be put into maintenance mode(s) until they have completed the review. e.g. The devs might be asked to disable 'creation of new pages in mainspace' on the wiki as a first step measure to focus the community on the task. More generally, we should have tiers in the notability system, by which we agree that not everyone is as notable as Barack Obama, and therefore their 'living' bio should not contain every detail that is ever published. The lowest tier is bios about people with questionable notability or low notability and avoid publicity, such as (most) referees, sports people who only played a few matches, most academics, which should only include facts that are relevant to their notability and their brief appearances into 'public life'. On English Wikipedia, those articles should all be put under FlaggedRevs, and edits that increase the scope of the biography are rejected/held/not-approved until there is consensus on the talk page that the subject is notable enough that other aspects of their life are of general interest to understanding their achievements or actions which have become notable. Perhaps not just yet, but Wikidata should bring new solutions to this problem. We may have more consensus to remove classes of living people biographies from Wikipedia as the basic details of their life can be placed into Wikidata. For example, only a few of these referees deserve a proper 'biography' - for the others, their bio exists on Wikipedia only because it is useful to have a unique identifier for the person, and we like to record a list of a person's public appearances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_soccer_referees In a few of those articles, there are unsourced claims that the referee made a significant mistake. Besides official honours awarded, there is not similar commentary describing all of the times that sports commentators spoke highly of the referees decisions. i.e. these articles are either BLP problems now, or will be in the future. A referees decisions are usually only relevant within the context of a match, and don't belong on their bio. In almost every case, the details in those articles can be moved to claims in Wikidata once a few Wikidata properties are created, and a non-editable page could be automatically generated on Wikipedias to describe the subject and list the events the person appeared in. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's accept Bitcoin as a donation method
On Dec 13, 2013 5:55 AM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Jake Orlowitz jorlow...@gmail.com wrote: * Our peers like EFF, and Internet archive accept it To be totally honest, I think this is moot. Support for bitcoin among these two organizations has hardly been a ringing endorsement. In the past, EFF has rejected it for very practical reasons I think still apply.[1] As for Internet Archive, I was literally in the room when their fundraising staff announced they started accepting bitcoin, and they actually said they didn't really understand what it was, other than people requested they accept it. In general, I would personally like it if the WMF avoided accepting bitcoin. Today, bitcoin isn't really a functioning currency of exchange -- it's actually used more as an investment tool to create wealth that naturally appreciates in value, like playing the stock market or buying gold. Avoiding lots of risky investments is something our very competent financial managers already steer clear of, and I see no reason to start taking on more risk now. As Peter just said, there is no risk if WMF converts bitcoin donations to USD immediately. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner obscuring site interface
On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 9:24 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 12/10/2013 03:07 AM, David Gerard wrote: There's a whole site full of possible inspirations: And yet: Our donor services team haven't seen any negative emails about this banner. Moreover adding the floating tab results in an increase in donations of roughly 15%, one of the biggest improvements we have found so far this year. So clearly, while it annoys some people and inspires tumblrs, the practice is clearly beneficial and not universally reviled. Mind you, you are comparing apples (a small floaty reminder that /can/ overlap with part of the sidebar when scrolling) with oranges (a modal dialog that hides contents). The techs might want to reply to these: https://twitter.com/MikeASchneider/status/409359331377684480 https://twitter.com/nyatagarasu/status/405134111796240384 On the flipside, maybe this will help: https://twitter.com/listrophy/status/380864414145970176 This looks like a complaint, but it is hard to tell https://twitter.com/ItsMalachi/status/408067770048192514 And a request for bitcoins https://twitter.com/DrWeidinger/status/407656789274947584 -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] It's time to reclaim the community logo
On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:47 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, let me start by saying that I agree with Dariusz's opinion that we should discuss this as a community, and perhaps move on from 'debate by press release' into more focused formats like Google Hangout or IRC office hours in order to find common ground, share our research, and highlight the many outstanding questions that need to be addressed before we can make an informed decision about the right path forward. I've just seen that on Monday Philippe indicated that the consultation will be closed today, Saturday 7 December. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Community_Logo/Request_for_consultationdiff=prevoldid=6585034 I didnt see any notice to this list. There has been no response from the WMF regarding the request to have an interactive dialog to sort out the remaining unanswered questions regarding the collective trademark. In the last office hours held by LCA, back in January, Phillipe indicated there would be more IRC office hours this year.[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-01-22 I know the LCA team is very busy with many proposals in community consultation phase. With that in mind, I think the community logo should remain open until the LCA team has had time to hold an IRC office hours (or similar) to discuss it. Hopefully before this year closes...? Or if it is distracting staff from other projects, maybe close it temporarily and reopen it after an IRC office hours has been held. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Which Wikipedias have had large scale bot creation of articles this year?
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Steven Walling swall...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi all, My team is doing some background research in to Wikipedia article creation right now.[1] One question I'd like answer is which Wikipedias are currently (i.e. this year) running bots to create many articles. I know that Lsjbot has run (or is running) on Swedish (sv), Cebuano (ceb), and Waray-Waray (war). It seems to me that, by looking at the stats for new articles per day,[2] Dutch (nl) and Vietnamese (vi) Wikipedias might have also been running bots? Am I wrong? Hi Steven Indonesia language Minangkabau Wikipedia has also been using bots. The project was started early 2013, and now has 220,800 articles. Unfortunately this project, and other new projects, are not being included in Erik Zachte's reports. http://min.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedias_by_size The same team are using the same bots to add content to Indonesian Wikipedia. 100,000 new articles created in October. http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaID.htm -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] It's time to reclaim the community logo
you're after? On 9 October 2013 07:13, James Alexander jalexan...@wikimedia.org wrote: The legal team have provided some background on the hiring on Jones Day in this action. Here is their comment: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation#Legal_representation James Alexander Legal and Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 3:56 PM, tom...@twkozlowski.net wrote: Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote on September 26, 2013, 15:22 UTC: Trademark don't self-enforce, they are enforceable as long as someone believes to you when you use them as threat tools. So yes, I suppose they might. ... and given that the WMF just hired the infamous Jones Day bullies as their representative before the OHIM to fight an opposition filled by their own volunteers (me and Federico), I don't think it's an unfair view. I suggest that everyone interested in the subject read http://www.dmlp.org/blog/**2009/sam-bayard/thoughts-** jones-day-blockshopper-**settlement http://www.dmlp.org/blog/2009/sam-bayard/thoughts-jones-day-blockshopper-settlement and related links for an overview of a 2009 Jones Day lawsuit against a start-up company Blockshopper.com which Paul Levy called a new a new entry in the contest for grossest abuse of trademark law to suppress speech the plaintiff doesn't like. I'm aware that, being a party of the opposition, I shouldn't really comment on the WMF's litigation tactics, but it still leaves me wonder about the point of hiring, as some say, one of the worst trademark abusers in history, as their representative in this case. Tomasz __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.org wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=**unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- __ dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak profesor zarządzania kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia blog moving to WordPress.com
How much do we expect to be paying to Wordpress each year for this service? John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Sep 6, 2013 8:23 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Leslie Carr lc...@wikimedia.org wrote: Currently the blog is in a partially maintained by Operations state. In ops, we have a few concerns - #1 is security (exemplified by our recent security incident) of having a wordpress instance in our production environment. #2 is support of the blog from a technical standpoint. We are currently all oversubscribed with trying to keep the production sites up and speedy. The blog is low priority for us compared to the wiki's, and therefore is often neglected. When we hire about 5 more ops people, it may be more sustainable, but right now, it's not - so it would actually be a net positive for the Operations team to move the blog onto a dedicated third party, and will also hopefully prevent any future security incidents. Exactly. Just because we have people who have no trouble maintaining a WordPress install doesn't mean we should. Time is always limited, and we have to prioritize. Working with a reputable third party that also drives development of the same open source software seems like a perfectly reasonable choice to me in this instance. And BTW - we do get situations where the blog gets a huge spike of traffic every once in a while, e.g. during the SOPA/PIPA protest, so hosting it ourselves is not as effortless as it may seem, without even accounting for customization requests from our communications team, etc. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF's New Global South Strategy
'Global Strategy countries'? I think this aligns with the intention of GS, which is to support initiatives that help make our movement more global by investing in areas/languages where editors and/or readers is low but potential is high. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Aug 30, 2013 11:42 AM, Balázs Viczián balazs.vicz...@wikimedia.hu wrote: What about making it simply global...? Balázs 2013.08.30. 2:44, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org ezt írta: On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term Global South with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning. No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ Global South is emphatically not on the agenda. The term Global South is pretty awful and deserves a quick death. Agreed... But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead yet. ...but what do we replace it with? This has been rehashed quite a bit, but no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably concise and is politically acceptable. (Personally I am happy with developing world and developing nations, but of course those terms are euphemistic as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.) I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a list of countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some uniformity throughout all these countries. It is my understanding that most of the consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the assumption that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS countries the same. I hope it is by now evident we are not. Once again, I find no point to debating this. All who _are_ interested are welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a shortlist) to WMF for consideration. If a superior term arises, I promise to make an effort to adopt it across WMF. Until then, let's focus on the actual work rather than the nomenclature. I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads No WMF contractors on the ground any more, but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation of the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements. Does the no contractors on the ground line mean only full-time staff will be working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future? Full-time staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia Foundation contractors? There are no WMF employees outside the US, so no contractors on the ground (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the world!) means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in progress), no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be WMF grantees. Cheers, A. -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: Communication plans for community engagement
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com wrote: I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter. For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author. It is currently being ported to Labs ( https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot ) to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests? Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it comes back soon! It appears to be operating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Citation_bot So chapters can offer to help porting tools like this to Labs and ongoing maintenance of these tools? Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid support? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2013-14 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation
On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi all, the Wikimedia Foundation's 2013-14 Annual Plan has just been published at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2013-2014_WMF_Plan_As_Published.pdf accompanied by a QA: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2013-2014_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers The plan was approved by the Board of Trustees on June 28, 2013. I have converted it to wiki text. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_2013-14 It doesnt have the graphs yet. Maybe someone at WMF can easily create those graphs from the original document? If not, we'll have to rebuild them. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Advocacy Advisors] WMF response to PRISM?
On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 4:07 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Would publicizing these free and open secure alternatives to commercial applications known to be under surveillance -- https://prism-break.org/ -- be sufficiently aligned with out values? Our values? ... Our practise. No. SSL is mandatory to avoid surveillance, but TOR is also quite important. The very first entry on prism-break is TOR, which is blocked on Wikimedia projects for editing, by explicit blocks and by the TorBlock extension, which is enabled on all wikis, even Chinese Wikipedia. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TorBlock https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version The mobile functionality is very unfriendly for privacy. Loading a non-mobile HTTPS url (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984), redirects the reader to the mobile HTTP page. If they clicked on a https link believing that their browsing pattern was not able to be monitored, their reading patterns are in clear text on the internet without them being informed of this. The EFF is pushing solutions to send readers from HTTP to HTTPS sites, and WMF is sending readers from HTTPS to HTTP - transparently. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35215 (reported March 2012, last comment from WMF tech team in April 2013 indicates this may not be fixed soon) Admins can bypass the Tor block, however logging in on Mobile is not easy. In the mobile search type in special:userlogin. The login screen appears, and the 'sign in' button replies to the user that there was a cookie error. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31045 (reported 2011; closed as INVALID the same day) When using the Orweb browser (part of the tor solution for Android), trying to log in is even more difficult as you cant go to the Desktop site without tying in a long url that bypasses the mobile site. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51277 (reported by me today) -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM
On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 11:00 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 6:21 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: No, massive amounts of information about people doing ordinary things like editing articles about Homer Simpson is kind of the opposite of intelligence; it IS the haystack, not the needle. And yet, PRISM is exactly about collecting the full haystack. And it makes sense, if you ignore the privacy implications: Collect everything in your multi-zetabyte storage device, even if you aren't going to analyze it right away. And we give every needle a distinct and descriptive name. And yeah, editing articles about Homer Simpson is one thing. Editing articles about the Tea Party, on the other hand... Or DeCSS, or AACS, .. Or 2012 Benghazi attack, Efforts to impeach Barack Obama, Drone attacks in Pakistan, .. Or PRISM (surveillance program), Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, .. It would be good *if* the WMF can provide assurances to editors that they havent received any national security letters or other 'trawling' requests from any U.S. agency. If the WMF has received zero such requests, can the WMF say that? There wouldn't be any gag order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter says that the gag orders were struck down, pending appeal. That means we may have to wait a while.. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM
On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 8:15 AM, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, all- For your information, we have not been approached to participate in PRISM, and we have never received or honored an NSA or FISA subpoena or order. If we were to be approached in the future, we would reject participation in any PRISM-type program to the maximum extent possible and challenge in court any such demand, since this sort of program, as described in the press, contradicts our core values of a free Internet and open, neutral access to knowledge. We should have a blog post up within the next few days to discuss PRISM and our values in more detail; we will pass that along here when it is posted. Thanks. Please put the draft on meta so the volunteers can review it and identify phrases which are not tight enough. e.g. we have never received or honored an NSA or FISA subpoena or order is good (and far better than I've seen from Google or Facebook), but ... does that exclude all possible orders under the Patriot Act? does that exclude orders from any U.S. Government agency? e.g. FBI? I don't know the answer to those questions, and I am sure the average reader doesn't either. It would be helpful to have a response with has both precise language and broad statements that will ensure the layman doesnt worry that WMF is dodging the question. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Adopt a page
On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 9:36 AM, Strainu strain...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I've just seen an OTRS ticket asking why isn't Wikipedia giving its pages for adoption (like when you adopt a page and your name ends up on its cage or something like that). I've moved the ticket to the donations queue, but I was wondering if this has ever been discussed/considered before. fwiw, this model was discussed on the private fundraising mailing list in November 2010, with similar results IMO. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Wikimedia Armenia
Excellent news. Congrats to WMAM! On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 7:26 AM, Bence Damokos bdamo...@gmail.com wrote: Dear all, I am happy to announce that the the WMF Board of Trustees have resolved to recognize Wikimedia Armenia as the newest Wikimedia chapter: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Recognition_of_Wikimedia_Armenia This group has already put a lot of effort into promoting Wikipedia and the other projects in Armenia on their road to recognition and I am really looking forward to hearing of their future endeavours. Please give a warm welcome to Wikimedia Armenia! Best regards, Bence (Affiliations Committee) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA Meeting - Google Hangout is on on rocking!
When I joined just now..I can hear people talking in the background, but see a room full of empty chairs. Will the video be published afterwards? John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Feb 17, 2013 9:19 PM, Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch wrote: Good Morning, we had to set up a new Hangout session: https://plus.google.com/**hangouts/_/**234db5e9ffbce74397e2e13f77c901** 7bebc888cehttps://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/234db5e9ffbce74397e2e13f77c9017bebc888ce Please come by, join us, chat with us or just speak up - we have speakers here so we hear you. /Manuel Am 2013-02-16 11:33, schrieb Michał Buczyński: WCA London Meeting is on! We would like to remind you **our agenda: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/**Wikimedia_Chapters_** Association/Meetings/2013-07http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013-07 Please, join us on Google **Hangout: https://plus.google.com/**hangouts/_/**38ea423ec0e987450e09259bde4be1** e52ce7f327https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/38ea423ec0e987450e09259bde4be1e52ce7f327 We are welcoming your input. -- Manuel Schneider Wikimedia CH - Gesellschaft zur Förderung freien Wissens www.wikimedia.ch __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA Meeting - Google Hangout is on on rocking!
Sorry, I fell asleep and missed the second half. Will the video be published afterwards? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member
For context (because I needed to look it up).. I believe this vacancy is to replace the seat held by Matt Halprin, which was not renewed at the end of December 2012. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:CurrentBoardChart https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_of_trustees needs an update too if Matt has left the board. The WMF board portal and noticeboard havent been updated https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_portal On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 17, 2013 8:29 PM, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il wrote: I don't understand. The board hired and pays to a company to find a board member? Have we tried before via our networks, chapters, and via our advisory board to find such a person (as been done until now?). The chapters are used to find new foundation board members. That's what the chapter selected board seats are for. The expert board seats are for providing expertise that we are missing after the community and chapters have selected people. Forgive me if the current board has already communicated their plan, and I have missed it. Please advise me if there is a published strategy/plan for filling this seat. I can only find this note saying Kat is leading this initiative, and they hope to interview candidates in person at the chapters conference in the Milan between 18-21 April: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_Governance_Committee/Agenda_2012-2013#Successor_for_Matt Following on from Thomas Dalton's explanation, which I believe is both accurate and appropriate... As we are approaching the board election to refill the three community elected seats, I think it may make sense to avoid appointing someone to the vacant expert seat until after the community elected seats are appointed. Shortening the list of candidates is a good idea for 18-21 April, but the expert seat should used to maximise the skills and experiences of the board, filling as many gaps in the board as possible. Those gaps can't be fully identified until the community elected seats are filled. The community elected seats will provide the board with three people that the community believes are important additions. In some cases these seats may be filled by people whose skillsets and experiences were identified by the community as needed on the board, but the nature of the process is that skillset balance is hard to control via these community seats. The process ensures that many potential candidates do not even enter the board election, the wiki user interface hamstrings the candidates who are not well versed in wiki editing and the wiki discussion format, so these seats typically go to people who have 10,000+ edits and are well respected in our community, which limits the field quite a bit. The community may also vote for someone who has very similar skills and experience to someone already on the board, and it would be a very bold board that invalidates the election result on that basis. The expert seat is an opportunity to select a person based on the skillset that is found to be missing on the board, and that should happen _after_ the skills and experience of the three community seats are locked in by their appointment. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaau-l] Sue Gardner interview on ABC Radio
WMAu is investigating. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Feb 15, 2013 9:53 PM, Everton Zanella Alvarenga t...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 2:06 AM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: There is now a downloadable MP3 (50min) at http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/02/15/3691244.htm . Have someone tried to ask permission to open this content with a free license? At least in Brazil it worked sometimes with me when I asked and I could add them on Commons, even when dealing with the big news media. Tom -- Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom) A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaau-l] Sue Gardner interview on ABC Radio
Live stream now for me in Brisbane http://www.abc.net.au/local/players/internet_radio.htm?streamFile=localsydneystreamTitle=Conversations%20with%20Richard%20Fidler -- Forwarded message -- From: Craig Franklin cfrank...@halonetwork.net Date: Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 11:23 AM Subject: [Wikimediaau-l] Sue Gardner interview on ABC Radio To: Wikimedia-au wikimediaa...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi All, Just a quick reminder that if you weren't able to catch the live streaming version of Sue Gardner's Australian interview on Wednesday night, it's being played on ABC Radio today at 11am across the country (except Victoria, for complicated ABC reasons). The programme you are looking for is Conversations with Richard Fidler. If you miss that, I am assuming that you'll be able to download a podcast of the show later tonight to listen. http://www.abc.net.au/local/sites/conversations/?section=podcast Cheers, Craig Franklin ___ Wikimediaau-l mailing list wikimediaa...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Moodbar gone????
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 4:30 PM, Richard Ames rich...@ames.id.au wrote: From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:FeedbackDashboard I get: No such special page Have I missed the demise of this tool or is something broken? It has been undeployed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Undeployment_of_MoodBar.2FFeedback_Dashboard -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI versus OUTING
This happens all the time. It sounds like their attempt to alter the content was thwarted. If not, alert a few admins privately, or send more specific info to the functionaries-en mailing list so they can keep a watchful eye on the articles in question. And talk to the offender and explain what they did contravenes Wikipedia guidelines. In my opinion you should report it to an ethics board privately, if you believe they did (intend to) break the industries ethical guidelines. Even if they acted improperly, by intimidating someone, you need to follow appropriate protocols. Two wrongs dont make a right. It sounds like you can inform press without breaking any confidences. Tell them the account name or IP and let them independently guess who it is. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Jan 22, 2013 12:09 AM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote: A not really hypothetical question: Let say one is the director of marketing at a 16 billion dollar company and decides to come to Wikipedia in an attempt to alter its coverage of one of your companies key products (which has been hit fairly hard lately by the evidence). One also invites 50 of your best friends (most of which are on your pay role to join you in this effort). Let say you are trying to do it anonymously but both you and your associates send out a whole bunch of intimidating emails to a long standing editor. Than this long standing editor without any real difficulty figures out who you are (as you sort of did email him). You than vanish from Wikipedia. What if this long standing editor decided to either hand the story over to the press or write something up for publication in a peer review journal as said editor does not stand for intimidation easily? And this long standing editor believes that the world / patients might be better off if this behavior become more widely known. How would the Wikimedia community apply the above two policies / guidelines (WP:COI and WP:OUTING)? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Congrats wikivoyagers!
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Leslie Carr lc...@wikimedia.org wrote: http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/wikivoyage/ An awesome writeup in Wired! Argh; Sarah Mitroff calls wikivoyage a new travel-focused wiki ;-( and then continues to present Wikivoyage as a new entrant into this space. It’s a great notion, but Wikivoyage is coming late to the already crowded travel industry.. The article also includes a video of Jimmy on Colbert Nation hosted at http://hulu.com which can only be seen in the USA (and Japan?). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulu This story covers the launch better, but I think it puts too much emphasis on the lawsuits: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2024997/wikipedia-launches-travel-site-wikivoyage-on-january-15.html Anyone found a better wikivoyage launch news stories that is accurate and can be accessed outside of USA and Japan? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] No access to the Uzbek Wikipedia in Uzbekistan
How many languages _need_ this? Is it only one language-project? If you only need one IP address, to avoid censorship by one country, it should be achievable. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Dec 28, 2012 4:21 AM, Leslie Carr lc...@wikimedia.org wrote: I wish that http://208.80.154.225/wiki/Bosh_Sahifa and https://208.80.154.225/wiki/Bosh_Sahifa would work, too, but the foundation apparently can't or chooses not to afford separate IP addresses for each language's Wikipedia. As one of the network folks, I will answer this. We do not have enough public IP(v4)s for an address for each language in each project, and unless someone gives us a major donation of IPv4 addresses (anyone have a spare /20 laying around?), I don't think we will be able to make this happen as we are frugal with our existing IPs and the allocating authorities (RIPE and ARIN) are being quite strict with their new IPv4 allocations. If you'd like to read more about IP allocation policies, here's a few links https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#four3 https://www.arin.net/resources/request/ipv4_depletion.html https://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-553 (see section 5.6) Leslie -- Leslie Carr Wikimedia Foundation AS 14907, 43821 http://as14907.peeringdb.com/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] proposed urgent Board of Trustees resolution without a meeting
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 7:35 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: What an odd resolution to post. Agreed. But Just on this point whereas because of their low levels of compensation, junior foundation technical staff are often unable to afford housing which does not involve a lengthy commute from unsavory neighborhoods;[11] [11] http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/**Job/jobs.htm?clickSource=** searchBtntypedKeyword=sc.**keyword=wikimedialocT=locId=http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Job/jobs.htm?clickSource=searchBtntypedKeyword=sc.keyword=wikimedialocT=locId= oddly enough the link here seems to be to a Wikimedia UK job, not a foundation job, so none of the particulars apply to Foundation technical staff at any level. (also Wikimedia UK's staff don't have to live in unsavory neighbourhoods, though I expect many of them do commute to work, as does virtually everyone else working in London...) Chris Hi Chris, It might be using geolocation; I see USA jobs on that search result. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board resolutions on bylaw amendments and appointment of Foundation staff officers
Bylaw changes are never housekeeping. This resolution does change the composition of the board. Two seats had a defined role, with clear responsibilities. Now they dont. Of course there is always shared responsibility, but having one person chiefly responsible ensures someone is focused on those responsibilities and does not allow themselves to be distracted. One seat (treasurer) needed to have relevant professional experience. Now it doesnt. At least one additional WMF staff officer (the new secretary) will, presumably, now be present at all board meetings. I dont mind the change, but discussion would have resulted in better options being considered and hopefully enacted. We were given a good score for our 'terms and conditions' rewrite. We could have achieved the same with this bylaws update. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Nov 6, 2012 7:30 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Well, that's the point. Phoebe *was* responsible for this, just as Bishakha has been so far this year. Who's been sending out the minutes and posting resolutions? Further, it's to improve compliance with legislation. Thus, it's housekeeping. Risker On 5 November 2012 19:04, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I would be very surprised if the trustee Secretary actually took minutes... That would usually be delegated... On Nov 6, 2012 12:02 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: It would strike me that one of the urgencies that might be involved is the fact that this resolution was passed so that the Board member who had previously been the secretary could participate as an individual board member, and the appointed secretary could take the minutes. It's extremely rare for a staffed charity/non-profit to have sitting trustees acting as secretary or treasurer, and none of the discussion here has indicated any concern about this decision; this was essentially housekeeping. Therefore, the only thing I can take from this is that it is a process issue, and that some members of the community wish to know in advance and in detail what the board will be discussing. I can understand that; at the same time, I think that attempting to micro-manage the board over housekeeping items is not terribly helpful. Now, if the Board had been deciding on its composition (which as best I can tell was never publicly discussed the last time it was changed), I think that would certainly benefit from community input. Risker On 5 November 2012 18:25, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: (just for the record: in case someone does have a valid reason, I'm still very open to hearing good reasons why the board chose the procedure they chose (behind closed doors), and whether there was any urgency to the changes proposed. I somehow missed that in the replies but may have missed it. Knowing about such reasons might be helpful in the light of proposing changes to procedures. Lodewijk) 2012/11/2 Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org Hi Bishakha, 2012/11/2 Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.com On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: Dear Bishakha, could you please elaborate why the board has chosen for a secretive amendment procedure here, rather than sharing the proposed amendments with the community and asking their input on it? Especially where it concerns such non-trivial changes. Ok, now that the document showing old and new has finally been uploaded, I will try to answer your question. The legal team proposed that we amend the bylaws, primarily to ensure compliance with Florida non-profit laws. Since most of the changes are legal in nature, they were not referred to the community for prior input. I understand how this action can be seen as secretive or opaque, even though it may not have been intended as such. Is it also possible to see this action as reasonable, given the nature of most of the changes? I don't see how this validates the fact that you did not consult the community on these changes. If the changes are fairly trivial and legalistic, then the community will likely have little objection. But as you noted, there was at least one significant change (I haven't been able to check myself) and I'm having a hard time understanding why you (the board) would /not/ want the input of the community on such decisions. If people talk rubbish, it is easy to ignore. But maybe they have a very good point that you want to take into account. If they come up with an argument that changes your mind - wouldn't that mean that the goal has been accomplished? Especially
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2012 Editor survey launched
Hi Tilman, Could you explain the logic behind the survey link not being static until the user completes the survey or dismisses the notice? I appreciate that you're offering, via email, to give people the survey link if they missed it, but that will influence who ends up your survey population. Not everyone on your target population is subscribed to a list whetr this offer has been made. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Oct 31, 2012 7:26 AM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi all, we have just launched the Foundation's 2012 editor survey; with invitations to participate being shown to logged-in users on Wikipedia and Commons. A few quick facts about the survey (for more refer to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012 ): * This is the third survey of editors as envisaged in the Foundation's 2010-15 strategic plan in order to take the pulse of the community and identify pressing issues or concerns, after the April 2011 and December 2011 surveys. * The first main purpose of this survey is to continue the work of the 2011 studies (conducted by Mani Pande and Ayush Khanna), with a focus on tracking changes since last year and identifying trends. Which is why many questions are being repeated from last time. * The second emphasis in this instance of the survey is to measure the satisfaction of the editing community with the work of the Wikimedia Foundation. * This is the first editor survey that includes a non-Wikipedia project (Commons, for the questions that are non Wikipedia-specific). * Thanks to everyone who commented on the draft questionnaire after we solicited feedback on this list and in and IRC office hour, as well as to those who commented about the last survey. We made several changes based on the feedback, and tried to reply to all concerns. * Also many thanks to all volunteer translators who reviewed or contributed translations; the questionnaire is available in 14 languages (Italian, Polish and Portuguese will launch a bit later). * As with the previous two surveys, the results will be published in the following forms: A topline report detailing the percentage of responses for each question, a series of posts on https://blog.wikimedia.org analyzing the results, and a data set consisting of anonymized responses which others can use to do their own analyses. This time we will also aim to produce language-specific topline reports (an approach we already tested for Chinese with the data from the December 2011 survey). -- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2012 Editor survey launched
Thanks Tilman. Good to see the offer is in the public FAQ. I was on my phone at the time I saw it, and having some time on my hands I tried to fill it in. I managed to screw up the survey software on the languages selection by trying to select more than one, and then it wouldnt let me pick any. I quit thinking I would get another chance...on my desktop. I dont remember if the survey told me that I would only have one chance... Do you know how many people have seen the banner vs how many have completed it? Is there a page which lists pros and cons of this approach? I think the WMF should collect all the survey data they can. Maximum ROI and all that. You can use models to select a subset of the 2012 data that would be comparable to the 2011 data. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Nov 3, 2012 10:58 AM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi John, On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 6:05 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Tilman, Could you explain the logic behind the survey link not being static until the user completes the survey or dismisses the notice? I guess you are referring to the fact that the survey invitation banner is designed to be shown only once to each user? This is explained in the QA for the survey: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#Why_will_a_user_see_the_link_to_the_survey_only_once.3F_How.3F In short, it's intended to reduce bias towards more frequent editors. There are reasons for and against this setup, but it's one of the many things that we want to keep consistent with the last survey so as to be able to do longitudinal analysis, i.e. identify trends. (In case this is not what you meant, feel free to rephrase the question and I will try to reply again.) I appreciate that you're offering, via email, to give people the survey link if they missed it, but that will influence who ends up your survey population. Not everyone on your target population is subscribed to a list whetr this offer has been made. I understand this concern from a theoretical standpoint, but considering the fact that only four people have requested such a link so far, the bias that this introduces is likely to be negligible. - If one goes down that road, one would need to worry much more about the effect of announcements and discussions about the survey on mailing lists and on Meta before it has completed, but this is a price we are happy to pay to involve the community and achieve transparence. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Oct 31, 2012 7:26 AM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi all, we have just launched the Foundation's 2012 editor survey; with invitations to participate being shown to logged-in users on Wikipedia and Commons. A few quick facts about the survey (for more refer to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012 ): * This is the third survey of editors as envisaged in the Foundation's 2010-15 strategic plan in order to take the pulse of the community and identify pressing issues or concerns, after the April 2011 and December 2011 surveys. * The first main purpose of this survey is to continue the work of the 2011 studies (conducted by Mani Pande and Ayush Khanna), with a focus on tracking changes since last year and identifying trends. Which is why many questions are being repeated from last time. * The second emphasis in this instance of the survey is to measure the satisfaction of the editing community with the work of the Wikimedia Foundation. * This is the first editor survey that includes a non-Wikipedia project (Commons, for the questions that are non Wikipedia-specific). * Thanks to everyone who commented on the draft questionnaire after we solicited feedback on this list and in and IRC office hour, as well as to those who commented about the last survey. We made several changes based on the feedback, and tried to reply to all concerns. * Also many thanks to all volunteer translators who reviewed or contributed translations; the questionnaire is available in 14 languages (Italian, Polish and Portuguese will launch a bit later). * As with the previous two surveys, the results will be published in the following forms: A topline report detailing the percentage of responses for each question, a series of posts on https://blog.wikimedia.org analyzing the results, and a data set consisting of anonymized responses which others can use to do their own analyses. This time we will also aim to produce language-specific topline reports (an approach we already tested for Chinese with the data from the December 2011 survey). -- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Question for Board
On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 12:46 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... It is sad that those who are very well off are so quick to exclude the possibility of helping impoverished long term contributors. WMF is not a welfare system. Donors would rightly complain if the money was used for purposes other than those described in the donation solicitation messaging. Impoverished long term contributors should get a job. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposed Wikimedia Medicine Thematic Organisation
On Oct 15, 2012 3:36 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: James Heilman, 14/10/2012 22:18: Thematic organizations have the same amount of authority over content on Wikipedia as chapters. To spell this out clearly that means NONE. One does not put these sorts of details in a NGOs by laws [...] Actually, chapters do and very clearly, as a general rule. Aye. This is done to ensure the chapter cant legally exert influence over content or the community, but also to help shield the chapter from lawsuits about content. A medicine org needs to be very clear about this, as lawsuits for incorrect medical information will be very expensive. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Meeting on Monday with Group Contacts for WM IRC channels
Is there a log of this meeting? John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Oct 15, 2012 5:15 AM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Greetings, For those who might not have seen the announcements in #wikimedia-ops and other IRC channels: There will be a meeting with the Group Contacts for the WM IRC channels on Monday, October 15. Agenda and details are available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Group_Contacts/Meetings/October_2012 So far, messages have been given in the following channels: #wikimedia #wikimedia-ops #wikimedia-commons #wikimedia-stewards #wikipedia #wikipedia-de #wikipedia-en #wikipedia-es #wikipedia-fr #wikipedia-it #wikipedia-nl #wikipedia-pl #wikipedia-ru I have attempted to contact people in these channels but didn’t get a reply, so if anyone who has competence in the language, please translate and forward this announcement. Additional languages are also welcome. #wikipedia-pt #wikipedia-ja #wikipedia-zh Thank you. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter
Also working for me. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Oct 12, 2012 11:21 PM, Jim Redmond j...@scrubnugget.com 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 werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: Does anyone know why Wikipedia and Commons have both gone down? WSC Writing from a slightly modified editing workshop in London ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Jim Redmond [[User:Jredmond]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Recruitment process for Secretary General of the Wikimedia Chapters Association
On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Fae f...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: On 11 October 2012 22:10, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: The consultant has apparently been chosen already based on a recommendation from Pavel. What other consultants were considered? What was the process? Did you get competing quotes? No, I did not get competing quotes. On the meta talk page, Tomer says he had two offers. I have had agencies and consultants approaching me ... Seriously? HR firms noticed the page on meta and cold called you? Wow. .. but Pavel's recommendation was solid. Unfortunately Ziko was unavailable on the day for the interview. Considering that Stefan comes with a great recommendation and experience of doing very similar work, this seemed a low risk decision. I have never worked with Stefan before and have no conflict of loyalties in this regard, I am merely going for a low risk pragmatic decision to ensure tangible progress on our first and most important goal for this year - getting a Secretary General established. The resolution of the WCA is clear that the _first_ important goal is to incorporate. By 15 August 2012. It is a difficult decision, but it is not simplified by WCA's volunteer time being diverted to If the Council wishes to pause progress and consider a more detailed recruitment process with a number of bids against an open specification, I can ask Stefan to stop or terminate at any time and WMDE will cover those costs. Has Stefan already started? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Recruitment process for Secretary General of the Wikimedia Chapters Association
On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 6:29 AM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: ... The resolution of the WCA is clear that the _first_ important goal is to incorporate. By 15 August 2012. It is a difficult decision, but it is not simplified by WCA's volunteer time being diverted to .. that should say diverted to other activities. e.g. the unapproved Governance committee. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Governance -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 2:38 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: -- Forwarded message -- From: Roger Bamkin victuall...@gmail.com Date: 29 September 2012 06:53 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation To: UK Wikimedia mailing list wikimediau...@lists.wikimedia.org I have been encouraged to issue statements for the last week or so about the debate. I have resisted as I did not want to escalate what I saw as an unfortunate bit of publicity for Wikimedia UK and the Foundation. I'm very disappointed to see the latest press release I believe that the statement on my talk page on the English, Catalan and Simple Wikipedia supplies some background. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Victuallers Coping text of user-page here under CC-BY-SA; link above; attribution: Victuallers. It could be that you were unaware of my declared conflicts of interest, however it wasn't your job to be aware, however they were well known. Wikimedia UK were managing this. They said, Roger ... has not voted in any Wikimedia UK decisions about Monmouthpedia since the start of his consultancy relationship with MCC or on any decisions about Gibraltarpedia or QRpedia.[1] Wikimedia UK made monthly reports to the Wikimedia Foundation detailing all significant events. They web cast their board meetings. They had little or no secrets. Over the past ten months, Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK trustee helped lead two Wikipedia-related projects, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia. Both of these projects were based on QRpedia which is a service that has been offered free to the movement via Wikimedia UK. As part of this award winning work, the Foundation signed a trademark agreement with Monmouthshire County Council[2] and later with the Government of Gibraltar.[3] Wikimedia UK were well aware of the trustee's commercial involvement[4] in both cases and the Foundation as part of due diligence would have found that out by talking to the trustee, Wikimedia UK and the people they were signing the agreement with. Roger stood again for the board and made it clear that he was a paid consultant of Monmouthshire County Council working on Monmouthpedia in his statement to the members. He was re-elected. Roger has received no payments apart from expenses from Wikimedia UK. He has helped create two projects which align with Wikimedia UK's vision and they have only had to contribute a minority financial contribution. Coincidentally this is the same trustee who led the Wikimedia UK board to become a registered charity[5] and to obtain (£1m and) hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of gift aid and partial funding for 2012/13. Roger Bamkin stood down as chair here when he took Monmouthshire County Council (Wikimedia UK partners for the Monmouthpedia project) as a client.[4] The recent edits on the Gibraltarpedia project are shown here. There are just the additions being made to the English Wikipedia. In the last several weeks volunteers have added 200 new articles in many languages. (Most of the new articles are not in English) As a result of the action of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK have agreed to not take part in the fundraiser. Before this action was taken the following press release was issued[1] regards Roger Bamkin Notes: QRpedia was shortlisted by the UK as best phone application Monmouthpedia was voted the world's coolest wikiproject by the World membership present at the annual conference Gibraltarpedia is the first time that the Foundation has signed a trade mark agreement with a Government. On the left hand side of this page you will see some of the languages who have been contacted and many involved in the projects described here. References: 1. Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/gibraltarpedia-the-facts/ 2. Welcome to the world’s first Wikipedia town http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/05/welcome-to-the-worlds-first-wikipedia-town/ 3. Volunteer’s efforts win Gibraltar the right to be the first Wikipedia ‘city’ http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/volunteers-efforts-win-gibraltar-the-right-to-be-the-first-wikipedia-city/ 4. Changes to the Wikimedia UK board – A message from Roger Bamkin http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/04/changes-to-the-wikimedia-uk-board-a-message-from-roger-bamkin/ 5. What did you think of our annual report? http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/what-did-you-think-of-our-annual-report/ -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia-blog] [Wikimedia Announcements] Joint statement from Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 3:20 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 September 2012 21:18, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: At the same time, Wikimedia UK has agreed with the Wikimedia Foundation that the Foundation shall process payments for the United Kingdom during this year’s fundraiser. This being the meat. The selection criteria for payment processors should have been defined and used to evaluate whether each chapter is 'fit' for the purpose. e.g. 1. technical capability, 2. fundraising know-how, 3. dedication to the donor's bill of rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donor%27s_Bill_of_Rights Note that the donor's bill of rights includes more than just privacy, which is what is required by the fundraising agreement. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012-13_Fundraising_Agreement_%28Master%29 Anyway, most chapters have decided to adopt the donor's bill of rights, including WMUK. https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Donor_Privacy_Policy -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Page Curation launch on English Wikipedia
It's %!#?y nice. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Sep 26, 2012 4:47 PM, PARNALL Perry parnall.pe...@aol.com wrote: This is ok PARNALL Perry parnall.pe...@aol.com -Original Message- From: Fabrice Florin fflo...@wikimedia.org To: wikimedia-l wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org; wikitech-l wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, Sep 26, 2012 6:32 am Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Page Curation launch on English Wikipedia Hi folks, I am happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation has just launched Page Curation, a new suite of tools for reviewing articles on Wikipedia. Current page patrol tools like Special:NewPages and Twinkle can be hard to use quickly and accurately, and have led to frustration for some users. Page Curation aims to improve that page patrol experience by making it faster and easier to review new pages, using two integrated tools: the New Pages Feed and the Curation Toolbar. Read the Page Curation announcement on our blog: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/25/page-curation-launch/ To learn more, visit our introduction page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Page_Curation/Introduction If you are an experienced editor, please give Page Curation a try: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:NewPagesFeed We are also holding IRC office hours on Wednesday, September 26 at 4pm PT (23:00 UTC), during which we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Please report any issues on our talk page or to our Community Liaison, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org. A number of patrollers have already started using Page Curation, and we hope that more curators will adopt this new toolkit over time. A 'release version' was deployed on the English Wikipedia on September 20, 2012, and we plan to make it available to other projects in coming weeks. This feature was created in close collaboration with editors. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the community members who patiently guided our progress over the past few months. This includes folks like Athleek123, DGG, Dori, Fluffernutter, Logan, The Helpful One, Tom Morris, Utar and WereSpielChequers, to name but a few. We are deeply grateful for your generous contributions to this project! We designed Page Curation to offer a better experience, by making it easier for curators to review new pages and by providing more feedback to creators so they can improve Wikipedia together. We hope that you will find this new tool useful. Enjoy! Fabrice Florin Product Manager, Editor Engagement Team Wikimedia Foundation User:Fabrice Florin (WMF) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editor_Engagement ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] : Copyright of deep space objects (DSOs) outside of the solar system
Where is the onwiki discussion about this? I could find '[1]' Or a wikipedia page that describes the copyright status of imagery of DSOs? John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Sep 15, 2012 1:25 PM, とある白い猫 to.aru.shiroi.n...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I am not seeking legal advice. I am asking the pursuit of the issue. I am not a US citizen so I do not have a congress person to contact. The laws governing copyright can be amended to address the issue of deep space objects (DSO). I do not expect a result next week, I merely want the issue to enter into an agenda of some sort. If the Foundation is going to take the lead, this probably would only be possible through a board decision. In such a case I want to work with people to come up with such a draft proposal to the board. I realize this is an unusual request but there seems to be a lack of clarity on this issue[1]. Argument is that copyright can be an issue since not every organization observing or assisting NASA's observations are PD-USgov compatible. We may be forced to permanently delete all deep space objects as a result. I'd like to provide a short technical explanation why copyright of deep space objects or DSOs (objects outside of the solar system) are meaningless. For ordinary photographs copyright is determined by factors such as lighting, perspective, exposure and other such settings that creates a different image of the same object. You can distinguish the difference between a daylight photo and an evening photo. With deep space objects however, even the stellar parallax[2] has a very small value. The closest object outside of the solar system is 4.24 light years (268,136 AU's) away. The semi-major axis of earth is about 1AUs. The difference in perspective is like looking at a 2cm (width of a nickel) wide object 5.3km (3.29 miles) away and the perspective difference is switching left eye to the right eye. We lack scientific instruments to even detect a stellar parallax for objects much further. In other words our perspective of the nearest star and beyond is more or less constant and the objects themselves look the same for hundreds of years. So any photo of a deep space object I or someone else takes from the solar system will look identical regardless of when and where on earth I take it within multiple lifetimes. I think this can bring legal precedent for us to either disregard any copyright claim or at least pursue lawmakers in congress to amend the copyright law to make an exception in the law. People who worked with congress such as Neil Degrasse Tyson could be consulted to this end. Also international treaties[3] can be consulted to this end as copyrighting photos of deep space objects could be interpreted as an unfair exploitation of resources. I realize this reads like something out of Star Trek but this is growing to be quite a problem as we see more and more weird copyright claims even when dealing with NASA which traditionally had a PD-USgov mentality. NASA regularly contracts its more recent projects and to be fair we do not know how NASA contracts these projects which could potentially lead to legitimate copyright claims in the future. [1]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Potential_deletion_of_all_deep_space_objects [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_parallax [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law#International_treaties -- とある白い猫 (To Aru Shiroi Neko) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] : Copyright of deep space objects (DSOs) outside of the solar system
Thanks. I didnt search. I looked in the last 250 revisions of the page. I didnt look back far enough. John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Sep 17, 2012 8:42 PM, Strainu strain...@gmail.com wrote: Have you searched for it? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2012/09#Potential_deletion_of_all_deep_space_objects 2012/9/17 John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com: Where is the onwiki discussion about this? I could find '[1]' Or a wikipedia page that describes the copyright status of imagery of DSOs? John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Sep 15, 2012 1:25 PM, とある白い猫 to.aru.shiroi.n...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I am not seeking legal advice. I am asking the pursuit of the issue. I am not a US citizen so I do not have a congress person to contact. The laws governing copyright can be amended to address the issue of deep space objects (DSO). I do not expect a result next week, I merely want the issue to enter into an agenda of some sort. If the Foundation is going to take the lead, this probably would only be possible through a board decision. In such a case I want to work with people to come up with such a draft proposal to the board. I realize this is an unusual request but there seems to be a lack of clarity on this issue[1]. Argument is that copyright can be an issue since not every organization observing or assisting NASA's observations are PD-USgov compatible. We may be forced to permanently delete all deep space objects as a result. I'd like to provide a short technical explanation why copyright of deep space objects or DSOs (objects outside of the solar system) are meaningless. For ordinary photographs copyright is determined by factors such as lighting, perspective, exposure and other such settings that creates a different image of the same object. You can distinguish the difference between a daylight photo and an evening photo. With deep space objects however, even the stellar parallax[2] has a very small value. The closest object outside of the solar system is 4.24 light years (268,136 AU's) away. The semi-major axis of earth is about 1AUs. The difference in perspective is like looking at a 2cm (width of a nickel) wide object 5.3km (3.29 miles) away and the perspective difference is switching left eye to the right eye. We lack scientific instruments to even detect a stellar parallax for objects much further. In other words our perspective of the nearest star and beyond is more or less constant and the objects themselves look the same for hundreds of years. So any photo of a deep space object I or someone else takes from the solar system will look identical regardless of when and where on earth I take it within multiple lifetimes. I think this can bring legal precedent for us to either disregard any copyright claim or at least pursue lawmakers in congress to amend the copyright law to make an exception in the law. People who worked with congress such as Neil Degrasse Tyson could be consulted to this end. Also international treaties[3] can be consulted to this end as copyrighting photos of deep space objects could be interpreted as an unfair exploitation of resources. I realize this reads like something out of Star Trek but this is growing to be quite a problem as we see more and more weird copyright claims even when dealing with NASA which traditionally had a PD-USgov mentality. NASA regularly contracts its more recent projects and to be fair we do not know how NASA contracts these projects which could potentially lead to legitimate copyright claims in the future. [1]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Potential_deletion_of_all_deep_space_objects [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_parallax [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law#International_treaties -- とある白い猫 (To Aru Shiroi Neko) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Education] [WikiEN-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation
On Jul 31, 2012 1:43 AM, LiAnna Davis lda...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi John, On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 2:39 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: Ive asked for more info at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Education_Program_evaluation#random_sample I did my best to answer your question there. Ive replied with more specific questions. This research was mentioned because of bold statements in the annual plan, and Tilman Bayer mentioned this blog post: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/19/wikipedia-education-program-stats-fall-2011/ Which says U.S. Education Program users are three times better than other users. -- JV ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation
On Jul 30, 2012 7:18 AM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 4:37 AM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote: On 7/28/12 5:58 AM, Tilman Bayer wrote: Hi all, the Wikimedia Foundation's 2012-13 Annual Plan has just been published at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf accompanied by a QA: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers The plan was approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting in Washington, DC, at Wikimania, and previously outlined to the Foundation staff and interested community members at the monthly staff meeting on July 5, 2012. We were planning to publish the video recording of that meeting at this point, but encountered technical difficulties; the video will hopefully become available soon. Slide 8 : How are we doing against the 2012 targets I was stopped by The Global Education Program is now the largest-ever systematic effort of the Wikimedia mouvement to boost high quality content creation, with a projected addition of 19 million characters to Wikipedia through student assignements 2011-2012 OF COURSE, we all know that WMF needs to glorify what it is actually initiating/in charge of. And that's fair enough. But seriously... I would feel fine with us trying to claim that the GEP is the largest system effort to INCREASE the number of articles. It is probably true. But we all know that the result is... so and so. Possibly good content, but also lot's of crap being reverted and deleted afterwards. Claiming it is the largest effort to boost high quality content is not only disingenous... but I actually find it counter productive and a tiny bit offensive toward the actual community. High quality content simply does NOT come from newbie students. Over the last years, the Foundation has been trying to base decisions and evaluations more often on objective data and research rather than on personal opinions and impressions. Of course, here the term high quality does not necessarily mean, say, featured content (e.g. on the English Wikipedia, featured articles currently make up less than 0.1% of the total articles), but instead refers to comparisons with average contributions. Someone from the Education Program will be able to give a more thorough overview of the efforts to evaluate its results, but for example I'm aware of https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/19/wikipedia-education-program-stats-fall-2011/ Ive asked for more info at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Education_Program_evaluation#random_sample . The quantitative method used there has its limitations, but similar methods are employed in independent (i.e non-WMF) research about Wikipedia in the academic literature. Do you have links to any relevant studies of the GEP? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] conversations between WMF and non-English projects
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 5:09 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 July 2012 22:57, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Can your masters degree in mathematics point out where in Wikimedia's statement it said all or implied anything other than having met some of Portuguese Wikipedia's top contributors? Not sure what the big deal is. The word all actually appeared in my email that Steven was replying to. He claimed that a majority of Portuguese Wikipedians being from Brazil contradicted my statement that not all (top) Portuguese Wikipedians are from Brazil. That was a straw man argument, due to all and majority not meaning the same thing. confirming.. there are residents of Portugal in http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaPT.htm#wikipedians but the 'majority' do appear to be Brazilian. I cant easily see if those top contributors attended the meetups at https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/22/brazil-meetups-march/ -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Subject: IRC office hours to discuss FDC eligibility criteria and next steps
Hi Michael and everyone, I added the IRC office hours on meta, and made the mistake. Sorry about this. Thanks to the WMF for holding two office hours so Australians can attend. On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Michael Jahn michael.j...@wikimedia.de wrote: Just about to put this information on WMDE's blog, but I'm confused about the timing: 16:00 UTC and 23.00 UTC are given as starting times in the below email (which is 9 PDT and 16 PDT). But on Meta it reads 9 _UTC_ and 16 _UTC_, respectively: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Office_Hours Clarification would be much appreciated! Best, Michael 2012/7/21 Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org Dear Wikimedia Community, As you may have seen, last week the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees passed a resolution to establish the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) [1]. Full details about the planned structure and processes of the FDC can be found in the framework proposed to the Board [2]. This framework was developed over the past few months with input from a variety of people across the movement. We will be holding two sets of *IRC office hours* on *Wednesday 25 July*, to answer any questions community members may have about the FDC process; in particular the first step of establishing the eligibility to apply to the FDC. Office hours will be held: · 16:00-17:00 UTC/09:00 PDT Wednesday, July 25th · 23:00-23:59 UTC/16:00 PDT Wednesday, July 25th On *Monday 23 July 2012*, the Foundation will publish a list of eligible entities based on the eligibility criteria established in the framework [3]. Please let me know if you believe there are any corrections to be made to this list. Entities who are interested in applying for funds through the FDC but are ineligible due to compliance issues should work with the Foundation to develop a plan to correct compliance issues. Entities who are ineligible for other reasons - or who would prefer not to go through the FDC process in this round -may seek funding through the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program. I will be sending out a more detailed email on Monday to inform you of this list and next steps in the process. I look forward to speaking with you on Wednesday. Sincerely, Garfield Byrd (WMF Chief of Finance and Administration) [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Funds_Dissemination_Committee_framework_and_initial_operation [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Draft_FDC_Proposal_for_the_Board [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Sample_letter_of_intent_and_eligibility_checklist -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Öffentlichkeitsarbeit Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstraße 72 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 260 http://wikimedia.de http://www.wikimedia.de Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch freien Zugang zu der Gesamtheit des Wissens der Menschheit hat. Helfen Sie uns dabei! *Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes digitales Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird. Unterzeichnen Sie die Online-Petition:* http://wikipedia.de/wke/Main_Page?setlang=de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Geolocalization improvement proposal
A location gadget would be a way to start. With a gadget, it is opt-in. On Jul 23, 2012 7:43 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: birgitte...@yahoo.com, 23/07/2012 14:28: I am unaware of what the shortcomings of the current system are and where any improvements would be felt. This makes it a bit hard to have a firm opinion of the trade-offs involved with changing the system. So what exactly are the problems people are having with the current geolocation system? As the page tries to prove, looks like the current system is completely unreliable and therefore useless for most geonotices in Italy and probably other places. Nemo __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched
Hi Mike, You are going to find it difficult to find people who want to give their time to your project, as the cost benefit ratio is very low. If people had more time, they would be spending it rescuing the articles before deletion (on a non-profit wesbsite), rather than preparing them for rescuing after deletion (on a for-profit website). By reposting the content somewhere else, you are taking responsibility for it. And by hosting it, Wikia is also taking responsibility for it. And that responsibility requires you to work with the existing system, warts and all. Even good changes to the system will take a long time to become standard practise. Before trying to change New Page Patrol, you should try doing New Page Patrol for a few days. On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Mike Dupont jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote: John, and others. I have finally figured out a big problem with my plan. The articles for deletion are not tagged peoperly at all. There are authors who know for a fact that articles are mistagged and have no proper copyvio tagging, and now they are accusing me of hosting copyvio articles. I see this a problem in the wikipedia deletion system, if an editor knows for a fact that an articles is in violation of copyright then they should tag it as Such. I have written scripts to strip out artilces that are properly tagged. Lets sit down and work out a plan for a proper system of sorting out what is not notable, and waht is copyrightvio. I want to host the non notable artilces. My argument is that giving non-notable bands and actors etc an outlet to be hosted will reduce repeated reposting of articles. I have been sorting through all these articles, contacting people and many of them are thankful, I would be suprized if any of them would repost the deleted article, like the Jack Psyco from .au, someone reposted his article many many times. Please support me in cleaning up the deletion and tagging process, I am willing to put some work into this. I can write code as well. Some people have asked me not to use the mailing list, but I wanted to bring up this up in response to your mail. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mdupont/SpeedyDeletionWikia and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mdupont#Speedy_backup_-_copyvios_and_attack_pages.3F thanks mike On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 8:00 AM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: I think we need to ensure that BLP deletions are tagged appropriately. and this wikia needs to err on the side of caution in order to avoid causing subjects further grief in their pursuit to remove problematic content from Wikipedia. i.e. if someone jumps through all the hoops to *help* us remove problematic content from Wikipedia, they are not going to be happy to learn that the same content has appeared on Wikia - its confusing, and they will blame Wikipedia, and IMO they are right to do so as this Wikia is run by people in the Wikimedia community, and due to the overlap in the WMF board and Wikia board, now and historically. e.g. this AFD mentioned WP:BLP1E and was categorised into AfD debates (Biographical) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alexander_Kinyua http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Alexander_Kinyua Until we are confident that BLP problems are not being imported into the wikia, the content shouldnt be indexed. I assume __NOINDEX__ works on Wikia? On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Newyorkbrad newyorkb...@gmail.com wrote: Although I can understand the appeal of this concept, I am concerned that a deleted-articles wiki or site will perpetuate the publicity given to pages that are properly deleted from Wikipedia because they contain offensive personal attacks, harassment, cyberbullying, defamation, and BLP violations. These are not always flagged in the deletion grounds, especially in speedy situations (e.g. if a harassing or defamatory article does not assert the subject's notability, it will often be deleted on that ground without its being tagged as an attack page, etc.). This issue strikes me as extremely serious. How do you plan to address it? Newyorkbrad On 6/10/12, Mike Dupont jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote: 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why is not free?
If wmf has trademarks secured, now is the time to release the copyrights and high res. versions. Idealistic maybe. But when we talk to the public, we talk about ideals. Its odd that community members cant put logos of community-run projects into slides. Its unfortunate that wikipedia doesnt meet the debian definition of 'free'. Etc. On Jul 9, 2012 7:25 AM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 09/07/12 06:17, birgitte...@yahoo.com wrote: The most basic answer (someone form WMF can correct me if I am somehow misled here) is that the logos are not released under a free license because they are trademarks. To be precise, the logos were not released under a free license because it was imagined that some day they would be trademarks. According to the trademark searches I did just now, the Wikipedia logo was only registered as a trademark in 2008, and the other projects as late as May 2012. The WMF felt that trademark licensing would be a useful way to raise money, as a complement to donations. For example, this website has a trademark license: http://wikipedia.wp.pl/ Obviously to support that sort of licensing arrangement, you need at least one sort of protection (copyright or trademark). Also, there was concern that a free license like the GFDL might be argued to be an implicit trademark license. Lawyers tend to be conservative on that type of issue. Currently, WMF does not even publish the 3D source files for the Wikipedia logo, or a high-resolution rendered image. I think that's a bigger problem than the lack of a free license, since it prevents people from improving the current poor-quality 3D rendering and contributing the results back to the project. -- Tim Starling ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!
Or a template at the top. 'This article relies on newspaper sources...please contribute better sources or tag with notability if you cant find any better sources.' P.s. This offtopic thread should be on Wikipedia lists as its not about the movement in general. On Jul 4, 2012 6:13 PM, Svip svi...@gmail.com wrote: On 4 July 2012 01:38, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: Well, if I were suddenly named dictator of Wikipedia, I'd probably suggest that a recent event namespace be created, where popular media were acceptable sources, and make them verbotten in mainspace. Mainspace articles might have a hatnote with a link to the other namespace along the lines of for recent, less authoritative coverage. You could avoid the whole namespace issue by simply highlighting articles or parts of article that are based on popular media. Like non-canon stuff on fiction wikis. Highlight its background in blue or something. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia founder's petition: Stop extradition of O'Dwyer
On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: Evolution of political battles (this one on piracy). http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/24/richard-o-dwyer-my-petition This is currently first on http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (UK news but I've seen it on TV while they were showing headlines on Euro 2012...). The petition text is at http://www.change.org/petitions/ukhomeoffice-stop-the-extradition-of-richard-o-dwyer-to-the-usa-saverichard Richard O'Dwyer is a 24 year old British student at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He is facing extradition to the USA and up to ten years in prison, for creating a website – TVShack.net – which linked (similar to a search-engine) to places to watch TV and movies online. O'Dwyer is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil. The internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online. When operating his site, Richard O'Dwyer always did his best to play by the rules: on the few occasions he received requests to remove content from copyright holders, he complied. His site hosted links, not copyrighted content, and these were submitted by users. Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should be unlimited. It does not mean that we should abandon time-honoured moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood. Richard O'Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public. Earlier this year, in the fight against the anti-copyright bills SOPA and PIPA, the public won its first big victory. This could be our second. This is why I am petitioning the UK's Home Secretary Theresa May to stop the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer. I hope you will join me. - Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder We only have an English Wikipedia article about O'Dwyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright information not digitised?
There are scans of most of the relevant records, and the records for books are also transcribed by Project Gutenberg and searchable at a stanford uni website. See en.ws template PD-US-no-renewal. The scans need to be transcribed to increase accessibility. On Jun 24, 2012 3:50 AM, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: According to: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120330/12402418305/why-missing-20th-century-books-is-even-worse-than-it-seems.shtml a lot of books have an uncertain copyright status, because the Copyright Office records have not been digitized yet. Is this true? Would offering to help digitize these records fit in our mission (especially wrt WikiSource) ? sincerely, Kim Bruning ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Study: Nobody cares about your copyright
On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On Monday, 21 May 2012, Samuel Klein wrote: O'Reilly is offering works under 14 years (c), thence CC-by Campaign idea: set up a named class of license for friendly groups like O'Reilly that are committing to 14 years, which are defined by terming out in no more than 14 years to CC0 or equivalent PD declarations. A thought on naming. The obvious way to badge such a license is through Creative Commons; but we've spilled vast amounts of metaphorical ink over is NC free? and is ND free?, and one of the results is a good deal of confusion over what a free license is, what we should campaign for, etc etc etc. If we throw into the mix *another* license from the same stable, the situation gets even more muddled. The inevitable vague descriptions (this work is under a creative commons license with no definition or link is surprisingly common) will encompass a much wider range of use cases - do what you like, just credit me and all rights utterly reserved until 2025 will be under the same umbrella. - Andrew. I'd love to see -NC and -ND dropped from the CC catalog, but I doubt its going to happen. It would be nice if -NC and -ND had a time limit on them, after which the work becomes CC-BY or CC-BY-SA. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Watchlist email notifications enabled on all wikis
On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 8:51 AM, Victor Vasiliev vasi...@gmail.com wrote: Please, do not enable this feature by default. A lot of people do not like 10 emails/day in their mailbox, and I have such amount of watchlisted edits even in smaller projects like Meta. A daily digest would be cool. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30187 -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Harvard Library releases 12M bibliographic records under CC0
On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Lydia Pintscher lydia.pintsc...@wikimedia.de wrote: On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andre...@gmail.com wrote: 2012/4/25 emijrp emi...@gmail.com: Perhaps it is OK for Wikidata. I think it's perfectly OK with Wikidata, and it would be with Wikisource (if we had a metadata management system :-). As far as I understood, Wikidata will engage sister projects data in 2015 (i'm gonna cry). This isn't clear yet. It's unlikely to happen before the end of the initial development in a year. We still have to see what happens after that. It might happen before 2015 or not. Andrea will run out of tears by 2015. ;-( Could we have one sister-projects IRC session in the near future? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Pedro Sanchez pdsanc...@gmail.com wrote: .. It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc). And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios. And how about one of the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is anyone working on a solution for this? Good governance is not built on blind trust. It is important to be able to periodically check that there hasnt been abuse. The OTRS admins are doing great work, and enwp oversight and arbcom have moved under OTRS despite the lack of an audit trail, but I will continue to ask for one because I believe it is important. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org wrote: On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonew...@gmail.com wrote: You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets have been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins are technically able to view all the emails in any queues - so that would be another 12ish people plus devs that would be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that they would, but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be some issues with using OTRS. Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets. This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they needed to for some reason. Is there an auditable log of these actions? i.e. one that OTRS admins cant doctor? -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
