Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

2015-02-04 Thread George Herbert
Aubrey - It's not a tools problem, it's a time and number of people problem. It necessarily draws upon the smaller pool of more stable, mature responsible levelheaded good judgement Wikipedians, who are in short supply on-Wiki now much less available for lots of extra off-Wiki, poorly

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

2016-01-02 Thread George Herbert
Could we stop catastrophizing the situation to the extent of open discussion of project forks, boycotts, etc? Even if the board of trustees does turn out to have made a horrible mistake, there are many steps to remedy that short of ending the world. So far the best description I can think of

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

2015-12-31 Thread George Herbert
TLDR version: We are not yet convinced James was not removed for doing what he was elected to do. I have good faith in everyone involved, and the capacity and intent to withhold judgement for a while, but the explanations so far have not helped. This is not transparent enough. As everyone

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

2015-12-29 Thread George Herbert
We need an attorney, but... It looks like Bylaws IV sect 7 *could* override 617.0808 (1) via 617.0808 (2) which says that a IRS 501 (c) organization's bylaws can provide procedures (presumably different than 617.0808 (1) ), but says that you may include 617.0808 (1), and WMF does, explicitly.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

2015-12-29 Thread George Herbert
Bylaws IV Sect 3. (C) says that they're elected by the community then approved by the board subject to other requirements. Starting (first sentence) with "Three Trustees will be selected from candidates approved through community voting." would seem to make them subject to 617.0808 (1) (a) 2.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Transition plans for WMF leadership

2016-02-22 Thread George Herbert
I don't want to suggest the Board resign en masse today or anything like that; that would be overly catastrophic and dramatic, make recovering harder, hurt the people involved all around worse, etc. I think we are getting more about what happened from Board perspectives. That is very much

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Anybody alive?

2016-02-24 Thread George Herbert
There åre nö pröblems in Sän Fränciscö. We äre åll fine. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 24, 2016, at 10:47 AM, Richard Symonds > wrote: > > I'm not actually here, I'm a sockpuppet using my wife's laptop. > > Richard Symonds > Wikimedia

Re: [Wikimedia-l] One Last Ride

2016-02-23 Thread George Herbert
Good luck. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 23, 2016, at 4:01 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote: > > I genuinely misread this as describing my wit as "strange and > wonderful and awful". > > ...actually you know what that still totally works ;p > >> On Tue, Feb

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Transition plans for WMF leadership - Board Reform

2016-02-24 Thread George Herbert
In an organization where the purpose and Bylaws explicitly (Article II) call for it to be supporting the movement, the Board should be balancing that aspect anyways. Yes, the Board cares for the Foundation, but the Foundation cares for the Movement, and if it stops doing that it's off

Re: [Wikimedia-l] My posts going to spam

2016-02-29 Thread George Herbert
Just to confirm, all Jimmy's email in these threads were in my Gmail spam folder when I looked. If you're using Gmail, go look at the spam folder and bring his messages back in... George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 29, 2016, at 5:37 AM, Jimmy Wales

Re: [Wikimedia-l] I am going to San Francisco

2016-02-26 Thread George Herbert
It would be a good thing if the Board and current or expected interim ED loosened up confidentiality on the employees. It helps internal morale and external confidence in reforms. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 26, 2016, at 7:30 PM, Oliver Keyes

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What should happen next? My 5 ideas

2016-02-26 Thread George Herbert
> On Feb 26, 2016, at 6:17 PM, Risker wrote: > > No, I think we've actually done a very superficial identification of the > problems. Some of them are so obvious that they are overwhelming the less > obvious but equally serious issues. > > Honestly, "we need a new

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What kind of ED would you like to see?

2016-02-26 Thread George Herbert
On the Vision thing - There is a leadership vision, and an organizational/movement vision. The leader should articulate theirs. The organizational one needs to come from everyone but would likely be articulated by the ED after that process. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb

[Wikimedia-l] NY Times on Google team dynamics/success research

2016-02-27 Thread George Herbert
Relevant to the discussion on Foundation issues... The NY Times reports on Google's research into what made some teams succeed and some fail. Short answer: Team norms to respect the individual members, for everyone to get a chance to talk and contribute and be heard.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 143, Issue 141

2016-02-22 Thread George Herbert
Ido - That was misattributed to Pine. That's a quote from my 2am Pacific time mail on this thread. The overly long one without a TLDR section at the top. An approximate TLDR of the mail is that Lila's public statement articulates a vision and execution in progress of an intentionally

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Anybody alive?

2016-02-24 Thread George Herbert
I am nöt at WMF HQ but häve line öf sight to töp of building ånd nö UFÖ there nöw nösiree. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 24, 2016, at 10:55 AM, George Herbert <george.herb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > There åre nö pröblems in Sän Fränciscö. &g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Transition plans for WMF leadership - Board Reform

2016-02-24 Thread George Herbert
> On Feb 24, 2016, at 7:01 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: > > George, the WMF, particularly under the Sue/Erik regime - but as best as I > can tell from its very beginning - has had a propensity to privilege its > view of what's best over the community's view. Superprotect.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed

2016-02-22 Thread George Herbert
Thank you, Phoebe. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 22, 2016, at 10:06 AM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.w...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 5:03 AM, George Herbert > <george.herb...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Lila's vision here clea

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed

2016-02-22 Thread George Herbert
Thank you as well, Kat. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 22, 2016, at 10:11 AM, Kat Walsh <k...@mindspillage.org> wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 2:03 AM, George Herbert > <george.herb...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> One phrase I see used

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF trustee Arnnon Geshuri and part in anticompetitive agreements in Google

2016-01-20 Thread George Herbert
There was a finding of civil, not criminal, liability in the case. Against the companies as a whole not individuals. Generally such never becomes individual liability or criminality. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 20, 2016, at 6:12 PM, Ricordisamoa

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed

2016-02-22 Thread George Herbert
I have been letting Lila's mail stew in my brain for a little while, and I am going to respond now having had time to think it over. I apologize in advance for the length. There are three main sections to my analysis and argument, and then some concluding points and implications. First -

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

2016-03-10 Thread George Herbert
> On Mar 10, 2016, at 2:01 AM, jimmy wales wrote: > > > > Indeed George I agree with everything you have said about the internal > effects of lack of transparency and openness. Assuming I and other board > members who continue to press for full openness about the

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

2016-03-10 Thread George Herbert
> On Mar 10, 2016, at 1:25 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote: > ... > Those ideas never got traction > and never made it to the board level. ... I don't think you are lying or being deceptive, but it seems apparent in the various half-explanations that it did, to James, who

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The Case for Federation: Should Parts of WMF Be Spun Off?

2016-03-19 Thread George Herbert
I think these are interesting discussions. My first feedback - Let's get as granular as possible about describing activities undertaken now. Leave out the "by who" and org structure for the moment. For example, I can even see five tech organization activities. Internal IT, website ops, back

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wmfall] Wikimedia Foundation executive transition update

2016-03-10 Thread George Herbert
> On Mar 10, 2016, at 6:59 PM, Katherine Maher wrote: > > Thank you, Patricio. > > I want to thank the Board for this opportunity, and for their confidence in > the Foundation. I also want to thank community members and staff for > continuing to be such committed

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The Case for Federation: Should Parts of WMF Be Spun Off?

2016-03-21 Thread George Herbert
> On Mar 19, 2016, at 8:23 PM, Gnangarra wrote: > > in breaking up (spinning parts off) the WMF we run the risk of creating > silos of information, knowledge and disconnecting one speciality from > another preventing cross pollination of ideas and innovation. It also >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The Case for Federation: Should Parts of WMF Be Spun Off?

2016-03-19 Thread George Herbert
> On Mar 19, 2016, at 7:41 AM, rupert THURNER wrote: > > at the end it all boils down to > money. spending all money available and wanting more money never has > been a problem. if there is dissent it was always about who has the > say what the money is spent on, and

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Source-o-meter

2016-04-22 Thread George Herbert
22verifiable.22_in_practice.3F > > On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 11:31 AM, George Herbert > <george.herb...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Just saw this in The Atlantic. A suggestion Wikipedia implement a source >> verifiability meter for each article. >> >>

[Wikimedia-l] Source-o-meter

2016-04-22 Thread George Herbert
Just saw this in The Atlantic. A suggestion Wikipedia implement a source verifiability meter for each article. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/wikipedia-open-access/479364/ George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone ___

Re: [Wikimedia-l] RFC on wikimedia-l posting limits

2017-08-23 Thread George Herbert
The 15 limit is busted regularly by normal active posters. I disagree with that one. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 22, 2017, at 9:03 PM, John Mark Vandenberg wrote: > > Hi list members, > > The list admins (hereafter 'we', being Austin, Asaf, Shani

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Subject lines for WMF fundraising emails

2018-11-13 Thread George Herbert
I believe that the subject line was a moral and leadership failure. Effective or not, I would respectfully suggest that you stop using it immediately and begin further discussions with the community about the organization's goals and purpose. On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 5:13 PM Joseph Seddon wrote:

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

2019-06-11 Thread George Herbert
?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528 > > < > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard=prev=901300528 > > > > > [2] > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_notice

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

2019-06-13 Thread George Herbert
Quoting seraphimblade onwiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram#Editorial_independence_of_the_English_Wikipedia_community_and_response_to_Jan “Very well, here's the feedback: Don't ever again take an action of this nature. Take

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

2019-06-13 Thread George Herbert
Phillipe wrote in part: I trust the people and the process. I wish I could find a way to share that > trust in such a way that it would be adopted by more. Maybe you have to > live it to develop it, but these are talented staff making hard decisions. > No doubt they will err some - but it’s not

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

2019-06-15 Thread George Herbert
I think the legalities are distracting, but to be more on point and blunt: Wikipedia is a volunteer organization. Wikimedia Foundation is the professional support arm of in some ways the world's largest collection of similar goal volunteer organizations. Volunteer organizations happen because

[Wikimedia-l] Possibly bad template language for context

2020-05-15 Thread George Herbert
https://twitter.com/athertonkd/status/1261397776446812160?s=21 -george Sent from my iPhone ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons

2020-05-18 Thread George Herbert
We have two or three competing reasons to have commons like repositories: 1. Truly fully open content repository for Wikimedia projects and the world as a whole. (Commons now) 2. Truly fully open content repository in general of things which are worthy but not used in projects/articles now.

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Welcoming the new Wikimedia Foundation CEO

2021-09-14 Thread George Herbert
Welcome Maryana! This is a challenging organization but an important one. It sounds like you're leading with an understanding of the importance and context. Good luck. On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 8:36 AM Maryana Iskander wrote: > Dear All, > > Thank you for this opportunity to introduce myself to

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Study: Nobody cares about your copyright

2012-05-23 Thread George Herbert
On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Mike Linksvayer m...@gondwanaland.com wrote: Maximising artistic production is a terrible goal for policy. Why? The whole idea of copyright - as the US started seeing it, in our constitution and thence onwards, is properly rewarding creative people for their

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Update on IPv6

2012-06-03 Thread George Herbert
On Jun 2, 2012, at 6:13, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 8:49 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 2 June 2012 13:44, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 7:27 PM, John Du Hart compwhi...@gmail.com wrote: What personal

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Outage: what I'm telling the press

2012-08-06 Thread George Herbert
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 12:54 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 August 2012 20:43, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: David, the BBC says you told them the following: See, this is where you part ways with how the media works. These days I count it as a win if anything in

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright on Xrays

2012-08-20 Thread George Herbert
Was this long thread launched by an actual on-wiki (or off-wiki) Wikipedia or other WMF project issue with medical imaging images? ... Pardon if it would be obvious should I actually check AN or some such, but I've been busy all weekend and today. -george On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 5:39 PM, Ray

Re: [Wikimedia-l] CNET News: Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia

2012-09-18 Thread George Herbert
I'm curious as to the internal view of the details, but... this is Violet Blue blogging about us. -george On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: Spotted this in my news feed,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] CNET News: Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia

2012-09-19 Thread George Herbert
On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 8:50 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 September 2012 15:36, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 05:19:19PM -0700, George Herbert wrote: I'm curious as to the internal view of the details, but... this is Violet Blue blogging

Re: [Wikimedia-l] OT / Fwd: [STS-L] FINAL TERMINATION OF THE NBII on September 30, 2012

2012-09-20 Thread George Herbert
Query - would making this on-topic for the Foundation be appropriate? I.e., is the Foundation perhaps hosting and curating these apps and data a reasonable project for us to take on? Even if it took some time to return some of the apps to usable, bringing over the data sets and software to an

Re: [Wikimedia-l] (semi-OT) Open access catastrophic for Elsevier

2012-09-24 Thread George Herbert
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Richard Farmbrough rich...@farmbrough.co.uk wrote: On 24/09/2012 03:49, Risker wrote: the costs of peer review I have academics complaining to me that they don't get paid for peer review, so I'm not sure what these costs are. Someone has to edit the

Re: [Wikimedia-l] (semi-OT) Open access catastrophic for Elsevier

2012-09-25 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 2:12 PM, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 9/25/12 12:32 AM, George Herbert wrote: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Richard Farmbrough rich...@farmbrough.co.uk wrote: On 24/09/2012 03:49, Risker wrote: the costs of peer review I have academics complaining to me

Re: [Wikimedia-l] (semi-OT) Open access catastrophic for Elsevier

2012-09-26 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 3:08 PM, emijrp emi...@gmail.com wrote: Coordinating people to write encyclopedias was expensive. Well, until 2001. eventualism and our reliable sources model are probably a very poor match to time-sensitive original research in the sciences or engineering, which is what

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Bon voyage, Jay

2012-10-31 Thread George Herbert
Does that mean we should cancel the cake and WikiDancers? On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 5:56 PM, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks - I'm happy to report that there's been a beneficial turn of events from the original announcement a few weeks ago. Apologies for the delay in getting back

Re: [Wikimedia-l] FreeBSD fate and the lesson for Wikimedia movement

2012-12-09 Thread George Herbert
The CIA version added ACLs. Never say never... George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone On Dec 9, 2012, at 10:29 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 December 2012 05:17, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: Wordpress' strong card is its rather stable

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices)

2013-01-02 Thread George Herbert
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 8:16 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 02/01/13 09:33, ENWP Pine wrote: Hi Pine, It might be because of the alcohol I've ingested these last days, but - what are you proposing exactly? Hapy new year, strainu I wasn't proposing any specific

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices)

2013-01-02 Thread George Herbert
Yes. Big data is neither the problem nor the solution here. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone On Jan 2, 2013, at 10:38 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 03/01/13 16:09, George Herbert wrote: Laugh all you want, but the best man at my wedding's scalable P2P

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

2013-01-04 Thread George Herbert
On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:05 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 4 January 2013 17:56, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: 1a. Do *not* pick a source that you have a particularly close personal or emotional connection to: it is not good to start with your own research, your supervisor's

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

2013-01-04 Thread George Herbert
On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote: On Jan 5, 2013 12:51 AM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:05 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 4 January 2013 17:56, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: 1a. Do

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

2013-01-04 Thread George Herbert
On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 1/4/13 5:51 PM, George Herbert wrote: On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:05 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 4 January 2013 17:56, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: 1a. Do *not* pick a source that you have a particularly

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

2013-01-08 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 4:09 PM, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: On Fri, Jan 04, 2013 at 04:48:57PM -0800, George Herbert wrote: I almost wonder if having a warning flag for highly sensitive or contentious article, encouraging editors without some threshold of edits (500? ... some

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: Big data benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

2013-01-08 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 4:23 PM, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 04:13:20PM -0800, George Herbert wrote: Note: Adds a threshold, thus negatively influences editor retention. But we need to understand what's wrong with the current way of doing things

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Longest living hoax?

2013-03-05 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On 5 March 2013 16:42, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.comjavascript:; wrote: It's also telling that the longest hoax was about ancient history: it matches the popular belief that history is by far the biggest

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment

2013-03-15 Thread George Herbert
On Mar 14, 2013, at 10:57 PM, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: Aside from that, it's only recently that Wikimedia sites have approached having the kind of redundancy and failover capabilities we've talked about needing for a long time. That's at least one example of something

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment

2013-03-18 Thread George Herbert
On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 9:53 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I continue to think that we (as a community) are still not at a place where we can make good judgments about whether to set up an endowment. There simply isn't enough information available to make a sound decision, in my

Re: [Wikimedia-l] French intelligency agency forces removal of a Wikipedia article

2013-04-05 Thread George Herbert
This is seeming a little silly; it's just a big communications station. It's got huge radio towers and is very visible on the skyline for a distance. It's got a civilian radio/TV tower colocated with it. I can't see what would be sensitive in the article.. On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:12 PM,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] French intelligency agency forces removal of a Wikipedia article

2013-04-08 Thread George Herbert
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Romaine Wiki romaine_w...@yahoo.com wrote: On Fri, 5 Apr 2013 12:31:29, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: I can't see what would be sensitive in the article.. I think that the existence of the article is considered too sensitive for them, not

Re: [Wikimedia-l] French intelligency agency forces removal of a Wikipedia article

2013-04-08 Thread George Herbert
Wikipedia articles which the government thought included classified information? And because the pages were already public uploaders assumed they were unclassified, but because the government is nuts, they were wrong. On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 3:06 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com

Re: [Wikimedia-l] French intelligency agency forces removal of a Wikipedia article

2013-04-08 Thread George Herbert
much has been published in public reliable sources, although it showed up today in the NYT. Fred. On 8 April 2013 20:06, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: He was talking about challenges. The code certification was interesting. The Wiki project getting in trouble for having

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The case for supporting open source machine translation

2013-04-24 Thread George Herbert
Leslie Carr wrote (personally, not officially): I think that while supporting open source machine translation is an awesome goal, it is out of scope of our budget and the engineering budget could be better spent elsewhere, such as with completing existing tools that are in development, but not

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The case for supporting open source machine translation

2013-04-25 Thread George Herbert
This subthread seems headed out into practical / applied epistemology, if there is such a thing. I am not sure if we can get from here to there; that said, a new structure with language independent facts / information points that then got machine-explained or described in a local language would

Re: [Wikimedia-l] evaluation of electronics articles

2013-05-28 Thread George Herbert
...and engineering (theory ok to good, practical often very weak). And varies across fields radically... On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 3:18 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ruwrote: On 28.05.2013 19:40, phoebe ayers wrote: I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book

Re: [Wikimedia-l] NSA

2013-08-01 Thread George Herbert
The letters must be sent to the organization rather than an individual. The idea of going to an individual employee and strongarming them may happen, but the law around NSLs is specific. The court cases to date indicate that if an individual employee got a US NSL and sued over it, the judge

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why the WP will never be a real encyclopaedia

2013-08-01 Thread George Herbert
Let me pose a set of questions - 1; Do you feel this is systemic bias in people not wanting some articles? 2; and/or, do you feel this is systemic bias in people not having yet reached creating some articles? 3; and/or,!do you feel this is systemic bias in lack of depth of coverage in

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why the WP will never be a real encyclopaedia

2013-08-01 Thread George Herbert
be provided by doing an analysis of articles with a high rate of reversals, undoings, 3Rs etc and what the POV are that lead to that behavour. Rui On 1 August 2013 23:38, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: Let me pose a set of questions - 1; Do you feel this is systemic bias

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Disinformation regarding perfect forward secrecy for HTTPS

2013-08-02 Thread George Herbert
On Aug 1, 2013, at 10:07 PM, Ryan Lane rl...@wikimedia.org wrote: Also, our resources are delivered from a number of urls (upload, bits, text) making it easier to identify resources. Even with padding you can take the relative size of resources being delivered, and the order of those sizes

Re: [Wikimedia-l] is wikipedia zero illegal because it violates net neutrality?

2013-08-26 Thread George Herbert
It was not rhetorical, but you missed the point. Net neutrality is an issue because service providers (can / may / often do) become a local monopoly of sorts. Monopilies are not necessarily bad (how many water and natural gas line providers can you choose from? how many road networks?) but are

Re: [Wikimedia-l] is wikipedia zero illegal because it violates net neutrality?

2013-08-27 Thread George Herbert
Andreas: The most obvious benefits of the arrangement to the Wikimedia Foundation are increased page views, an enhanced Alexa ranking, enhanced worldwide brand name recognition, and an even more dominant role in the global information market place. Is this not our organizaitonal goal being

Re: [Wikimedia-l] is wikipedia zero illegal because it violates net neutrality?

2013-08-27 Thread George Herbert
, I disagree. On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 10:13 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: It was not rhetorical, but you missed the point. Net neutrality is an issue because service providers (can / may / often

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia and the politics of encryption

2013-09-05 Thread George Herbert
Theo: They even have a Key recovery service and it's been going on for a long while apparently, to the point that the NSA has been steering the release of encryption standards and tools. I suppose that should make the politics of encryption a bit less relevant? No; with Perfect Forward

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New access to non-public information policy, re-ID requirements and data retention

2013-10-23 Thread George Herbert
, short of a vault, is adequate. When crazies go crazy about Wikipedia, they go *very *crazy, and breaking a padlock in an office isn't that outlandish for some of them. -Fluff On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 7:21 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: Going back to the 2011 discussions

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New access to non-public information policy, re-ID requirements and data retention

2013-10-25 Thread George Herbert
security audit to a plan, if there is a detailed plan to audit. And do so under confidentiality agreement if you need that, as long as you let me share a non-exploitable summary with the community... On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 4:21 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: Going back

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New access to non-public information policy, re-ID requirements and data retention

2013-10-26 Thread George Herbert
Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc On Oct 25, 2013, at 9:19 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: Again I ask: Can the WMF either publicly or privately provide enough detailed assurance as to the digital medium storage plan for these IDs

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

2013-11-13 Thread George Herbert
On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:48 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: ... PS with regard to OTRS verification, we could do with better standards for verification, We are not attempting to perform a complete and unassailable verification; imagining that we can is folly. The point is, we need someone

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread George Herbert
On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 4:55 AM, 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.:

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Statement for the police about the fundraising?

2014-02-07 Thread George Herbert
Most importantly for all this, the SERVERS are not hosted in Finland (unless something snuck in there behind my back). Under US and EU laws, I would think there's no Finnish jurisdiction over where the servers are located. If the Finnish Police are asserting authority over any website written in

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please welcome Lila Tretikov, the Wikimedia Foundation's new ED

2014-05-01 Thread George Herbert
Ah, bravo. Welcome, Lila! There is much work to be done! On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi All FYI Jan-Bart Begin forwarded message: From: Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org Subject: Please welcome Lila Tretikov, the

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Metrics - accuracy of Wikipedia articles

2014-05-08 Thread George Herbert
I would like to make a couple of contradictory points... One, WMF and the editing communities should seek more, better *external* reviews with some preference ... What we ourselves find and decide about our content is less valuable than unbiased external reviews. That doesn't mean external

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

2014-06-17 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: Can you clarify -- who do you intend by we? If your answer is English Wikipedia, I think we already have a somewhat workable solution to this complex problem: fair use is permitted in certain cases.[2] Of course, you

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

2014-06-17 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: If we don't maintain the focus on free media, we may as well direct people to a web image search, all of which is use at your own risk anyway, just like our proposed new repository. Being free content is the Commons value

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

2014-06-17 Thread George Herbert
Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:12 AM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: Can you clarify -- who do you intend by we? If your answer is English Wikipedia, I think

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

2014-06-17 Thread George Herbert
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think the concept of the project is the problem. I'm skeptical that an Uncommons project built around fair use could be workable, considering that the validity of a fair use claim is context-specific and no cross-wiki

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The tragedy of Commons

2014-06-17 Thread George Herbert
And yet we have a global, and in many cases (and specifically, en.wp) local Fair Use policy, which is quite actively and productively used, and has been since around day one of the first Wikipedia. Uncommons is not a change in policy. It is ultimately a technical matter; a software and project

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Universal forced HTTPS backdoor in Kazakhstan

2019-07-22 Thread George Herbert
Browser vendors could revoke the root that Kazakh authorities are using for the scheme. On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 5:35 AM Yuri Astrakhan wrote: > I don't think browser vendors will block the ability to install a custom > root certificate because some corp clients may use it for exactly the same >