Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 22:27 +0100, David Gerard wrote: On 22 October 2011 22:23, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote: I wanted to say this for a long time, and now seems like a good opportunity. I see this as a tyranny of the majority. I understand that a large majority of German Wikipedia editors are against the filter. But even if 99.99% of editors are against the filter, well, it is opt-in and they don't have to use it. But why would they prevent me from using it, if I want to use it? Because a non-neutral filter would have to warp the project around itself to work at all, as has been detailed at length here (and I have to admit I haven't been following the entire discussion, but I don't see why would that have to be the case. Plus, it is my understanding that German Wikipedians are opposed to any implementation of the filter, even if one could be made that wouldn't warp the project around itself. A neutral all-or-nothing image filter would not have such side effects (and would also neatly help low bandwidth usage). And also be completely useless. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 22:56 +0100, David Gerard wrote: And, in detail, why is a hide/show all solution inadequate? What is the use case this does not serve? Are you even trying to pretend to be serious? Use case: me reading an article. It is my impression that you are pushing for this hide/show all solution because you know it will be useless and thus no one will be using it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 23:35 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Am 22.10.2011 23:23, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 21:16 +0100, David Gerard wrote: Both the opinion poll itself and its proposal were accepted. In contrary to the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, personal image filters should not be introduced in German-speaking wikipedia and categories for these filters may not be created for files locally stored on this wikipedia. 260 of 306 users (84.97 percent) accepted the poll as to be formally valid. 357 of 414 users (86.23 percent) do not agree to the introduction of a personal image filter and categories for filtering in German wikipedia. I wanted to say this for a long time, and now seems like a good opportunity. I see this as a tyranny of the majority. I understand that a large majority of German Wikipedia editors are against the filter. But even if 99.99% of editors are against the filter, well, it is opt-in and they don't have to use it. But why would they prevent me from using it, if I want to use it? Why? Because it is against the basic rules of the project. It is intended to discriminate content. To judge about it and to represent you No, it is intended to let people discriminate content themselves if they want, which is a huge difference. this judgment before you have even looked at it. Additionally it can be If I feel that this judgment is inadequate, I will turn the filter off. Either way, it is My Problem. Not Your Problem. easily exploited by your local provider to hide labeled content, so that you don't have any way to view it, even if you want to. Depending on the way it is implemented, it may be somewhat difficult for a provider to do that. Such systems probably already exist on some websites, and I am not aware of my provider using them to hide labelled content. And even if my provider would start doing that, I could simply use Wikipedia over https. And if providers across the world start abusing the filter, perhaps then the filter could be turned off. I just don't see this as a reasonable possibility. If you want a filter so badly, then install parental software, close It is my understanding that parental software is often too overarching or otherwise inadequate. your eyes or don't visit the page. That is up to you. That is your If I close my eyes or don't visit the page, I won't be able to read the content of the page. PS: If it wasn't at this place i would call your contribution trolling. It certainly isn't very helpful to good discussion that now I know you would call it trolling were we discussing it somewhere else. But feel free to read the arguments: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter/en#Arguments_for_the_proposal It seems to me that the arguments are mostly about a filter that would be turned on by default. Most of them seem to evaporate when applied to an opt-in filter. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Am 23.10.2011 08:30, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 22:56 +0100, David Gerard wrote: And, in detail, why is a hide/show all solution inadequate? What is the use case this does not serve? Are you even trying to pretend to be serious? Use case: me reading an article. It is my impression that you are pushing for this hide/show all solution because you know it will be useless and thus no one will be using it. That isn't the case. It was claimed multiple times that reading Wikipedia in front of bystanders can be a problem, since unwillingly some disturbing image might show up. If that is the case, then you can hide the images by default and enable them while you read. There were also thoughts to not hide the images entirely, but to blur them. So you will have glimpse on what it is about and could view it (remove the bluring) by just hovering it. This would satisfy many typical needs and it isn't a thought to make the proposed feature useless. It is the result if you try to react to this problem without the need for categories and that wikipedians would need to play the censor for others. nya~ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] testing
___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
Greetings, I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'. A general question: is there a Wikipedian ideology? What is it? In particular, how does the current ideology, if there is one, compare with the ideology which inspired its founding fathers. And mothers - many of the founding editors of Wikipedia were women, I don't know how many people know that. Edward ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Am 23.10.2011 08:49, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 23:35 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Why? Because it is against the basic rules of the project. It is intended to discriminate content. To judge about it and to represent you No, it is intended to let people discriminate content themselves if they want, which is a huge difference. If I feel that this judgment is inadequate, I will turn the filter off. Either way, it is My Problem. Not Your Problem. It is not the user of the filter that decides *what* is hidden or not. That isn't his decision. If it is the case that the filter does not meet his expectations and he does not use it, then we gained nothing, despite the massive effort taken by us to flag all the images. You should know that we already have a massive categorization delay on commons. easily exploited by your local provider to hide labeled content, so that you don't have any way to view it, even if you want to. Depending on the way it is implemented, it may be somewhat difficult for a provider to do that. Such systems probably already exist on some websites, and I am not aware of my provider using them to hide labelled content. And even if my provider would start doing that, I could simply use Wikipedia over https. If your provider is a bit clever he would block https and filter the rest. An relatively easy job to do. Additionally most people would not know the difference between https and http, using the default http version. And if providers across the world start abusing the filter, perhaps then the filter could be turned off. I just don't see this as a reasonable possibility. Well, we don't have to agree on this point. I think that this is possible with very little effort. Especially since images aren't provided inside the same document and are not served using https. If you want a filter so badly, then install parental software, close It is my understanding that parental software is often too overarching or otherwise inadequate. Same would go for a category/preset based filter. You and I mentioned it above, that it isn't necessary better from the perspective of the user, leading to few users, but wasting our time over it. your eyes or don't visit the page. That is up to you. That is your If I close my eyes or don't visit the page, I won't be able to read the content of the page. That is the point where a hide all/nothing filter would jump in. He would let you read the page without any worries. No faulty categorized image would show up and you still would have the option to show images in which you are interested. But feel free to read the arguments: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter/en#Arguments_for_the_proposal It seems to me that the arguments are mostly about a filter that would be turned on by default. Most of them seem to evaporate when applied to an opt-in filter. None of the arguments is based on a filter that would be enabled as default. It is particularly about any filter that uses categorization to distinguish the good from evil. It's about the damage such an approach would do the project and even to users that doesn't want or need the feature. The German poll made clear, that not any category based filter will be allowed, since category based filtering is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. nya~ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
I completely agree :) On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rswrote: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 21:16 +0100, David Gerard wrote: Both the opinion poll itself and its proposal were accepted. In contrary to the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, personal image filters should not be introduced in German-speaking wikipedia and categories for these filters may not be created for files locally stored on this wikipedia. 260 of 306 users (84.97 percent) accepted the poll as to be formally valid. 357 of 414 users (86.23 percent) do not agree to the introduction of a personal image filter and categories for filtering in German wikipedia. I wanted to say this for a long time, and now seems like a good opportunity. I see this as a tyranny of the majority. I understand that a large majority of German Wikipedia editors are against the filter. But even if 99.99% of editors are against the filter, well, it is opt-in and they don't have to use it. But why would they prevent me from using it, if I want to use it? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote: Edward Is Edward Peter Damian, or someone else? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 23 October 2011 10:01, teun spaans teun.spa...@gmail.com wrote: I completely agree :) So you can address my answer, even as Nikola didn't quite. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
A general question: is there a Wikipedian ideology? What is it? Hmm. Ideologie und Utopie. Don't forget about Mannheim ;) Przykuta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Given that we have won, can we turn Italian Wikipedia back on now?
So, the law was finally rejected or it was not voted yet? 2011/10/6 Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com Not so easy. Yesterday an amendment has been officially proposed, not approved. It will be discussed into the parliament camera, then into the parliament senate. Only if both will accept it without modifications it'll be valid. Also, the government may ask for trust at the parliament about this law, and in the case it will be approved in its original form, without amendments. Maybe your countries are more slender, but in Itlay we are very very burocratics. That's simply a step, not the goal I agree with this. It's very easy for politicians to say Yes, we've heard what you have said and your views are very important to us. We'll definitely think very hard about taking your views into account. - and then completely ignore you. Don't trust them :-) Chris ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 22/10/11 22:56, David Gerard wrote: On 22 October 2011 22:51, Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com wrote: What approaches do you have in mind, that would empower the editors and the readers, aside from an hide/show all solution? And, in detail, why is a hide/show all solution inadequate? What is the use case this does not serve? The board have not detailed what arguments unanimously convinced them, both for the original resolution and, even after all the debate, to uphold it unanimously again after months of acrimonious objection. If restarting communication with people who no longer trust them is considered important, then, if they could please each (individually) do so, in as much detail as possible, that would help a *lot*. - d. I agree. A cookie-based hide all images/show all images toggle clearly visible in the toolbar at the top of pages. together with click-to-reveal for individual images when in the hide all mode should be all that is needed to deal with the various cultural concerns regarding images, as well as concerns about censorship. It would also be very easy to implement. Perhaps an exception might be made for images displayed at less than, say, 30x30, to allow for icons and things like small embedded symbols within text -- although small nav images could conceivably be used for image-trolling, I would imagine that just about any WP community would regard that as unencylopedic, and block any attempts to do so. I'd be interested in any arguments that might be made against such a proposal. - Neil ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 10:16 AM, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.comwrote: A general question: is there a Wikipedian ideology? What is it? In particular, how does the current ideology, if there is one, compare with the ideology which inspired its founding fathers. And mothers - many of the founding editors of Wikipedia were women, I don't know how many people know that. I think I'll quote Jimmy on that: *Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.* That's what we're doing. All knowledge should be available freely to everyone. That's the Wikipedian ideology, I say. -- André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
A cookie-based hide all images/show all images toggle clearly visible in the toolbar at the top of pages. together with ... I'd be interested in any arguments that might be made against such a proposal. How about the fact that newspaper websites regularly include shocking images of violence and death on their main pages and have few complaints as they rely on editorial control rather than built-in software tricks? This is a solution looking for a problem, the key argument has always been that there is scant evidence that the public are asking for these options and our beloved projects already have a great reputation for good editorial judgement/consensus. If any person, institution, ISP or country wished to control images on Wikipedia they can use readily available add-ons or filters, most for free, without the Foundation having to use charitable funds to build it in as a controversial default and take legal responsibility when it fails. Cheers, Fae ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 23 October 2011 11:50, Fae f...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: How about the fact that newspaper websites regularly include shocking images of violence and death on their main pages and have few complaints as they rely on editorial control rather than built-in software tricks? This is a solution looking for a problem, the key argument has always been that there is scant evidence that the public are asking for these options and our beloved projects already have a great reputation for good editorial judgement/consensus. The Foundation considers de:wp's careful and thoughtful decision to put [[:de:vulva]] on the front page of de:wp with a picture was a clear failure of community judgement sufficient to justify the imposition of a filter from outside. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Given that we have won, can we turn Italian Wikipedia back on now?
On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 12:26 PM, emijrp emi...@gmail.com wrote: So, the law was finally rejected or it was not voted yet? It hasn't been voted yet. Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 23 October 2011 12:02, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 October 2011 11:50, Fae f...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: The Foundation considers de:wp's careful and thoughtful decision to put [[:de:vulva]] on the front page of de:wp with a picture was a clear failure of community judgement sufficient to justify the imposition of a filter from outside. One can draw a parallel with press regulatory bodies who have a role in interpreting legislative requirements or responding to significant numbers of public complaints. This does not mean that the regulatory body interferes with editorial control, policies or in any other way claims operational responsibility for the content of newspapers. If the WMF wishes to control content, then the role of the Foundation moves from operational support to all content control and hence liability. By increasing the cases where the Foundation makes such decisions, it would be hard to continue to use the rationale that the Foundation does not control content and a host of new and painful legal issues arise. PS clear failure looks like an opinion, not a statement of fact. Presumably this relates to an official position of the WMF? Cheers, Fae ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 23 October 2011 12:30, Fae f...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: PS clear failure looks like an opinion, not a statement of fact. Presumably this relates to an official position of the WMF? An opinion held by several staff on the matter, including the Executive Director. I consider this significant, you may not. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 23 October 2011 12:38, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 October 2011 12:30, Fae f...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: ... PS clear failure looks like an opinion, not a statement of fact. Presumably this relates to an official position of the WMF? An opinion held by several staff on the matter, including the Executive Director. I consider this significant, you may not. David, your statement confirms that this was an opinion, and based on your wording I have to assume that this was not an official position of the WMF but the personal opinion of some of the staff. As for significance, I made no claim either way in my email, for some reason you seem to be reading my text negatively as if I was attacking the WMF or Sue personally. I apologise if I have used some offensive language or phrasing that gave you such a perception but I would like to point out that I did not mention staff or individuals, only the organization. I think that the opinions of the Executive Director of the WMF should be considered significant, so we are in agreement. Cheers, Fae ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Public domain Mickey Mouse. At last.
I agree. There is no way a derivative work being PD invalidates the underlying copyright. That would be ridiculous. It would undermine the whole concept of derivative works. The deletion discussion on commons seems to have been closed prematurely. There was hardly any discussion at all. I'm not sure a consenus of wikimedians is the best way to make legal decisions anyway, shouldn't we consult an expert? On Oct 23, 2011 2:01 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 8:35 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 8:29 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 October 2011 01:21, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On what grounds is it out of copyright? Doesn't a derivative work carry (at least) two copyrights, the one on the original work, and the one on the derivative (which extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work)? Read the deletion discussion. I read the deletion discussion before I posted that. It does not address the copyright on the original work (Steamboat Willie), only the copyright on the derivative work. Just found a cite. Nope, the underlying work is still copyright, and a copy of the poster infringes on the underlying work. See Filmvideo Releasing Corp. vs David R. Hastings II: The principal question on this appeal is whether a licensed, derivative, copyrighted work and the underlying copyrighted matter which it incorporates both fall into the public domain where the underlying copyright has been renewed but the derivative copyright has not. We agree with the Ninth Circuit, Russell v. Price, 612 F.2d 1123, 1126-29 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 952 , 100 S.Ct. 2919, 64 L.Ed.2d 809 (1980), that the answer is No. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Public domain Mickey Mouse. At last.
Reopened (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:%22Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam%22_(Mickey_Mouse)%22_-_NARA_-_513869.tif#File:.22Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam.22_.28Mickey_Mouse.29.22_-_NARA_-_513869.tif) Though I agree with you that a deletion discussion among non-professionals is not the proper way to determine the law. On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 8:12 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I agree. There is no way a derivative work being PD invalidates the underlying copyright. That would be ridiculous. It would undermine the whole concept of derivative works. The deletion discussion on commons seems to have been closed prematurely. There was hardly any discussion at all. I'm not sure a consenus of wikimedians is the best way to make legal decisions anyway, shouldn't we consult an expert? On Oct 23, 2011 2:01 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 8:35 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 8:29 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 October 2011 01:21, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On what grounds is it out of copyright? Doesn't a derivative work carry (at least) two copyrights, the one on the original work, and the one on the derivative (which extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work)? Read the deletion discussion. I read the deletion discussion before I posted that. It does not address the copyright on the original work (Steamboat Willie), only the copyright on the derivative work. Just found a cite. Nope, the underlying work is still copyright, and a copy of the poster infringes on the underlying work. See Filmvideo Releasing Corp. vs David R. Hastings II: The principal question on this appeal is whether a licensed, derivative, copyrighted work and the underlying copyrighted matter which it incorporates both fall into the public domain where the underlying copyright has been renewed but the derivative copyright has not. We agree with the Ninth Circuit, Russell v. Price, 612 F.2d 1123, 1126-29 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 952 , 100 S.Ct. 2919, 64 L.Ed.2d 809 (1980), that the answer is No. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Given that we have won, can we turn Italian Wikipedia back on now?
very often in italian history, italian politicians use to postpone votings. This is tactics: when people gets angry for a law proposal, they delay its approval saying we trust you, with the hope that later people wouldnt notice the law proposal. About this law this has already happened: it was originally proposed in 2009 then delayed, now proposed then delayed because of our protest. Il giorno domenica 23 ottobre 2011, Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com ha scritto: On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 12:26 PM, emijrp emi...@gmail.com wrote: So, the law was finally rejected or it was not voted yet? It hasn't been voted yet. Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering
-- Message: 3 Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:57:51 +0200 From: Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4ea3668f.5010...@googlemail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Am 23.10.2011 01:49, schrieb WereSpielChequers: Hi Tobias, Do youhave any problems with this category free proposal http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/filter WereSpelChequers The idea isn't bad. But it is based on the premise that there are enough users of the filter to build such correlations. It requires enough input to work properly and therefore enough users of the feature, that have longer lists. But how often does an average logged in user find such an image and handle accordingly? That would be relatively seldom, resulting in a very short own list, by relatively few users, which makes it hard to start the system (warm up time). Since i love to find ways on how to exploit systems there is one simple thing on my mind. Just login to put a picture of penis/bondage/... on the list and than add another one of the football team you don't like. Repeat this step often enough and the system will believe that all users that don't like to see a penis would also not like to see images of that football team. Another way would be: I find everything offensive. This would hurt the system, since correlations would be much harder to find. If we assume good faith, then it would probably work. But as soon we have spammers of this kind, it will lay in ruins, considering the amount of users and corresponding relatively short lists (in average). Just my thoughts on this idea. Greetings nya~ Hi Tobias, Yes if it turned out that almost no-one used this then only the Hide all image - recommended for users with slow internet connections and the Never show me this image again options would be effective. My suspicion is that even if globally there were only a few thousand users then it would start to be effective on the most contentious images in popular articles in the most widely read versions of wikipedia (and I suspect that many of the same image will be used on other language versions). The more people using it the more effective it would be, and the more varied phobias and cultural taboos it could cater for. We have hundreds of millions of readers, if we offer them a free image filter then I suspect that lots will signup, but in a sense it doesn't matter how many do so - one of the advantages to this system is that when people complain about images they find offensive we will simply be able to respond with instructions as to how they can enable the image filter on their account. I'm pretty confident that huge numbers, perhaps millions with slow internet connections would use the hide all images option, and that enabling them to do so would be an uncontentious way to further our mission by making our various products much more available in certain parts of the global south. As far as I'm concerned this is by far the most important part of the feature and the one that I'm most confident will be used, though it may cease to be of use in the future when and if the rest of the world has North American Internet speeds. I'm not sure how spammers would try to use this, but I accept that vandals will try various techniques from liking penises to finding pigs and particular politicians equally objectionable. Those who simply use this to like picture of Mohammed would not be a problem, the system should easily be able to work out that things they liked would be disliked by another group of users. The much more clever approach of disliking both a particular type of porn and members of a particular football team is harder to cater for, but I'm hoping that it could be coded to recognise not just where preferences were completely unrelated, as in the people with either arachnaphobia or vertigo, or partially related as in one person having both arachnaphobia and vertigo. Those who find everything objectionable and tag thousands of images as such would easily be identified as having dissimilar preferences to others, as their preferences would be no more relevant to another filterer as those of an Arachnaphobe would be to a sufferer of vertigo. Of course it's possible that there are people out there who are keen to tag images for others not to see. In this system there is room for them, if your preferences are similar to some such users then the system would pick that up. If your preferences are dissimilar or you don't opt in to the filter then they would have no effect on you. The system would work without such self appointed censors, but why not make use of them? I used to live with an Arachnaphobe, if I was still doing so I'd have no problem creating an account and tagging a few hundred images of spiders so that they and other
Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering
Am 23.10.2011 15:46, schrieb WereSpielChequers: -- Message: 3 Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:57:51 +0200 From: Tobias Oelgartetobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID:4ea3668f.5010...@googlemail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Am 23.10.2011 01:49, schrieb WereSpielChequers: Hi Tobias, Do youhave any problems with this category free proposal http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/filter WereSpelChequers The idea isn't bad. But it is based on the premise that there are enough users of the filter to build such correlations. It requires enough input to work properly and therefore enough users of the feature, that have longer lists. But how often does an average logged in user find such an image and handle accordingly? That would be relatively seldom, resulting in a very short own list, by relatively few users, which makes it hard to start the system (warm up time). Since i love to find ways on how to exploit systems there is one simple thing on my mind. Just login to put a picture of penis/bondage/... on the list and than add another one of the football team you don't like. Repeat this step often enough and the system will believe that all users that don't like to see a penis would also not like to see images of that football team. Another way would be: I find everything offensive. This would hurt the system, since correlations would be much harder to find. If we assume good faith, then it would probably work. But as soon we have spammers of this kind, it will lay in ruins, considering the amount of users and corresponding relatively short lists (in average). Just my thoughts on this idea. Greetings nya~ Hi Tobias, Yes if it turned out that almost no-one used this then only the Hide all image - recommended for users with slow internet connections and the Never show me this image again options would be effective. My suspicion is that even if globally there were only a few thousand users then it would start to be effective on the most contentious images in popular articles in the most widely read versions of wikipedia (and I suspect that many of the same image will be used on other language versions). The more people using it the more effective it would be, and the more varied phobias and cultural taboos it could cater for. We have hundreds of millions of readers, if we offer them a free image filter then I suspect that lots will signup, but in a sense it doesn't matter how many do so - one of the advantages to this system is that when people complain about images they find offensive we will simply be able to respond with instructions as to how they can enable the image filter on their account. I'm pretty confident that huge numbers, perhaps millions with slow internet connections would use the hide all images option, and that enabling them to do so would be an uncontentious way to further our mission by making our various products much more available in certain parts of the global south. As far as I'm concerned this is by far the most important part of the feature and the one that I'm most confident will be used, though it may cease to be of use in the future when and if the rest of the world has North American Internet speeds. I'm not sure how spammers would try to use this, but I accept that vandals will try various techniques from liking penises to finding pigs and particular politicians equally objectionable. Those who simply use this to like picture of Mohammed would not be a problem, the system should easily be able to work out that things they liked would be disliked by another group of users. The much more clever approach of disliking both a particular type of porn and members of a particular football team is harder to cater for, but I'm hoping that it could be coded to recognise not just where preferences were completely unrelated, as in the people with either arachnaphobia or vertigo, or partially related as in one person having both arachnaphobia and vertigo. Those who find everything objectionable and tag thousands of images as such would easily be identified as having dissimilar preferences to others, as their preferences would be no more relevant to another filterer as those of an Arachnaphobe would be to a sufferer of vertigo. Of course it's possible that there are people out there who are keen to tag images for others not to see. In this system there is room for them, if your preferences are similar to some such users then the system would pick that up. If your preferences are dissimilar or you don't opt in to the filter then they would have no effect on you. The system would work without such self appointed censors, but why not make use of them? I used to live with an Arachnaphobe, if I was still doing so I'd have no problem creating
Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering
On 23 October 2011 15:36, Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com wrote: One open problem is the so called logic/brain of the system. Until we have an exact description on how it will exactly work, we know neither it's strong points nor it's weak spots. Until i see an algorithm that is able to solve this task, i can't really say, if I'm in favor or against the proposal. Yes. It's not a proposal at all until we have an actual algorithm for the magic bit, not just a box marked magic bit goes here. It's always easy to shift the hard part. (You can always add another layer of indirection.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sun, 2011-10-23 at 10:31 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Am 23.10.2011 08:49, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 23:35 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Why? Because it is against the basic rules of the project. It is intended to discriminate content. To judge about it and to represent you No, it is intended to let people discriminate content themselves if they want, which is a huge difference. If I feel that this judgment is inadequate, I will turn the filter off. Either way, it is My Problem. Not Your Problem. It is not the user of the filter that decides *what* is hidden or not. That isn't his decision. If it is the case that the filter does not meet his expectations and he does not use it, then we gained nothing, despite the massive effort taken by us to flag all the images. You should know Who is this we you are talking about? No one is going to force anyone to categorize images. If some people want to categorize images, and if their effort turns out to be in vain, again that is Their Problem and not Your Problem. easily exploited by your local provider to hide labeled content, so that you don't have any way to view it, even if you want to. Depending on the way it is implemented, it may be somewhat difficult for a provider to do that. Such systems probably already exist on some websites, and I am not aware of my provider using them to hide labelled content. And even if my provider would start doing that, I could simply use Wikipedia over https. If your provider is a bit clever he would block https and filter the rest. An relatively easy job to do. Additionally most people would not know the difference between https and http, using the default http version. If my provider ever blocks https, I am changing my provider. If in some country all providers block https, these people have bigger problems than images on Wikipedia (that would likely be forbidden anyway). And if providers across the world start abusing the filter, perhaps then the filter could be turned off. I just don't see this as a reasonable possibility. Well, we don't have to agree on this point. I think that this is possible with very little effort. Especially since images aren't provided inside the same document and are not served using https. Images should be served using https anyway. If you want a filter so badly, then install parental software, close It is my understanding that parental software is often too overarching or otherwise inadequate. Same would go for a category/preset based filter. You and I mentioned it above, that it isn't necessary better from the perspective of the user, leading to few users, but wasting our time over it. I believe a filter that is adjusted specifically to Wikimedia projects would work much better than parental software that has to work across the entire Internet. Anyway, I don't see why would anyone have to waste time over it. your eyes or don't visit the page. That is up to you. That is your If I close my eyes or don't visit the page, I won't be able to read the content of the page. That is the point where a hide all/nothing filter would jump in. He would let you read the page without any worries. No faulty categorized image would show up and you still would have the option to show images in which you are interested. If I would use a hide all/nothing filter, I wouldn't be able to see non-offensive relevant images by default. No one is going to use that. But feel free to read the arguments: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter/en#Arguments_for_the_proposal It seems to me that the arguments are mostly about a filter that would be turned on by default. Most of them seem to evaporate when applied to an opt-in filter. None of the arguments is based on a filter that would be enabled as default. It is particularly about any filter that uses categorization to distinguish the good from evil. It's about the damage such an approach would do the project and even to users that doesn't want or need the feature. That is absolutely not true. For example, the first argument: The Wikipedia was not founded in order to hide information but to make it accessible. Hiding files may reduce important information that is presented in a Wikipedia article. This could limit any kind of enlightenment and perception of context. Examples: articles about artists, artworks and medical issues may intentionally or without intention of the reader lose substantial parts of their information. The aim to present a topic neutral and in its entirety would be jeopardized by this. This is mostly true, but completely irrelevant for an opt-in filter. The German poll made clear, that not any category based filter will be allowed, since category based filtering is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. Who the hell are you to forbid me or allow me to
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 8:27 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: A neutral all-or-nothing image filter would not have such side effects (and would also neatly help low bandwidth usage). It would also make the project useless. I don't want to see the 0.01% (yes, rhetorical statistics again) images of medical procedures, and I'd avoid seeing the (much higher) X% of images that are NSFW while in public. That does not mean that I want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and not see any images whatsoever. Given the choice, I would not use such a filter. We have the technology and the capacity to allow users to make nuanced decisions about what they do and don't want to see. Why is this a problem? -- Andrew Garrett Wikimedia Foundation agarr...@wikimedia.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2011 12:58:03 -0700 From: Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The vote in German Wikipedia, and most of the discussions to date, have focused on the specific ideas and mock-ups that were presented as part of the referendum. Erik, You are wrong. The vote in the German Wikipedia was against _any_ imagefilter. The mockups are considered just as part of the general plan to keep the communities quiet and dilute the resistance into as much aspects as possible. The other idea put forward was to run the fundraiser with slogans like: Your money for imagefilters or We have to pay the Harris report in the German wikipedia. As that is what the foundation wants to do with the money, nobody can argue against that. Carsten -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 4088 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
From: Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The literal translation of what was being voted on: Pers?nliche Bildfilter (Filter, die illustrierende Dateien anhand von Kategorien der Wikipedia verbergen und vom Leser an- und abgeschaltet werden k?nnen, vgl. den vorl?ufigen [[Entwurf]] der Wikimedia Foundation) sollen entgegen dem Beschluss des Kuratoriums der Wikimedia Foundation in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia nicht eingef?hrt werden und es sollen auch keine Filterkategorien f?r auf dieser Wikipedia lokal gespeicherte Dateien angelegt werden. Personal image filters (filters, which hide illustrating files based on categories and which can be turned on and off by the reader, see the preliminary [[draft]] by the Wikimedia Foundation) should, contrary to the Board's decision, not be introduced in the German Wikipedia, and no filter categories should be created for locally uploaded content. Erik, I dont think you are stupid, but the ( ) clearly indicates that the main wording is the outer text. But in order that you a understand it better, i have reformated it for you. I know that, the German wikipedia knows that and the voters have known that. It is time, that everyone with a wikimedia.org email accepts that fact that there is no way to go forward with this image filter nonsense if you dont realise the general opposition and the still growing distrust. You are still try to march forward, not knowing where to go. I still think ist the way to content censorship. Carsten -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 4088 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Fae f...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: A cookie-based hide all images/show all images toggle clearly visible in the toolbar at the top of pages. together with ... I'd be interested in any arguments that might be made against such a proposal. How about the fact that newspaper websites regularly include shocking images of violence and death on their main pages and have few complaints as they rely on editorial control rather than built-in software tricks? This is a solution looking for a problem, the key argument has always been that there is scant evidence that the public are asking for these options and our beloved projects already have a great reputation for good editorial judgement/consensus. Media like the recent videos of Gaddafi's death customarily come with an explicit warning that they include graphic content, and that viewer discretion is advised. Such warnings are also given before such images are broadcast. Viewer discretion is what the image filter is about. Incidentally, the referendum results by project were posted yesterday, and can be viewed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Results/Votes_by_project/en http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Results/Votes_by_project/de Andreas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Public domain Mickey Mouse. At last.
On 23 October 2011 13:12, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I agree. There is no way a derivative work being PD invalidates the underlying copyright. That would be ridiculous. It would undermine the whole concept of derivative works. The deletion discussion was reopened by Anthony and is still in progress as I write this, dive in as appropriate: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:%22Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam%22_%28Mickey_Mouse%29%22_-_NARA_-_513869.tif My derivative was also nominated, and that discussion was closed within hours: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:%22Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam%22_%28Mickey_Mouse%29%22_-_NARA_-_513869_-_cropped_and_tidied.png It's a very tricky one. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Am 23.10.2011 17:19, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sun, 2011-10-23 at 10:31 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Am 23.10.2011 08:49, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 23:35 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Why? Because it is against the basic rules of the project. It is intended to discriminate content. To judge about it and to represent you No, it is intended to let people discriminate content themselves if they want, which is a huge difference. If I feel that this judgment is inadequate, I will turn the filter off. Either way, it is My Problem. Not Your Problem. It is not the user of the filter that decides *what* is hidden or not. That isn't his decision. If it is the case that the filter does not meet his expectations and he does not use it, then we gained nothing, despite the massive effort taken by us to flag all the images. You should know Who is this we you are talking about? No one is going to force anyone to categorize images. If some people want to categorize images, and if their effort turns out to be in vain, again that is Their Problem and not Your Problem. It is wasted time for them as well as for us, since they are most likely editors that are part of us. If they waste their time on categorization then it is lost time that could be spend on article improvement or invested in better alternatives that are illustrative as well as not offending. easily exploited by your local provider to hide labeled content, so that you don't have any way to view it, even if you want to. Depending on the way it is implemented, it may be somewhat difficult for a provider to do that. Such systems probably already exist on some websites, and I am not aware of my provider using them to hide labelled content. And even if my provider would start doing that, I could simply use Wikipedia over https. If your provider is a bit clever he would block https and filter the rest. An relatively easy job to do. Additionally most people would not know the difference between https and http, using the default http version. If my provider ever blocks https, I am changing my provider. If in some country all providers block https, these people have bigger problems than images on Wikipedia (that would likely be forbidden anyway). You can do that. But there are many regions inside the world that depend on one local provider that is even regulated by the local goverment/regime/... . Since the filter was proposed as a tool to help expanding Wikipedia inside this weak regions, it could be as well counterproductive. For the weak regions as also for stronger regions. Are you willed to implement such a feature without thinking about possible outcome? And if providers across the world start abusing the filter, perhaps then the filter could be turned off. I just don't see this as a reasonable possibility. Well, we don't have to agree on this point. I think that this is possible with very little effort. Especially since images aren't provided inside the same document and are not served using https. Images should be served using https anyway. It isn't done for performance reasons. It is much more expansive to handle encrypted content, since caching isn't possible and Wikipedia strongly depends on caching. It would cost a lot of money to do so. (Effort vs Result) If you want a filter so badly, then install parental software, close It is my understanding that parental software is often too overarching or otherwise inadequate. Same would go for a category/preset based filter. You and I mentioned it above, that it isn't necessary better from the perspective of the user, leading to few users, but wasting our time over it. I believe a filter that is adjusted specifically to Wikimedia projects would work much better than parental software that has to work across the entire Internet. Anyway, I don't see why would anyone have to waste time over it. That is a curious point. People that are so offended by Wikipedia content, that they don't want to read it, visit the WWW with all it's much darker corners without a personal filter software? Why does it sound so one-sided? your eyes or don't visit the page. That is up to you. That is your If I close my eyes or don't visit the page, I won't be able to read the content of the page. That is the point where a hide all/nothing filter would jump in. He would let you read the page without any worries. No faulty categorized image would show up and you still would have the option to show images in which you are interested. If I would use a hide all/nothing filter, I wouldn't be able to see non-offensive relevant images by default. No one is going to use that. It is meant as a tool that you activate as soon you want to read about controversial content. If you have arachnophobia and want to inform yourself about spiders, then you would activate it. If you have no problem with other topics (e.g. physics, landscapes,...) then you could
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Am 23.10.2011 17:24, schrieb Andrew Garrett: On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 8:27 AM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: A neutral all-or-nothing image filter would not have such side effects (and would also neatly help low bandwidth usage). It would also make the project useless. I don't want to see the 0.01% (yes, rhetorical statistics again) images of medical procedures, and I'd avoid seeing the (much higher) X% of images that are NSFW while in public. That does not mean that I want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and not see any images whatsoever. Given the choice, I would not use such a filter. We have the technology and the capacity to allow users to make nuanced decisions about what they do and don't want to see. Why is this a problem? At some time i should set up an record player, looping the same thing over and over again, or set up a FAQ. We don't have a technology to do this. It comes down to personal preferences of some editors that do the categorization. Some might agree with their choice, others won't. But who are we to judge about content or over other people and their personal preferences and taste? Thats what we start to do, as soon we introduce controversial/offensive-category based filtering. That was never the mission of the project and hopefully it will never be. nya~ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 23/10/11 16:24, Andrew Garrett wrote: On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 8:27 AM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: A neutral all-or-nothing image filter would not have such side effects (and would also neatly help low bandwidth usage). It would also make the project useless. I don't want to see the 0.01% (yes, rhetorical statistics again) images of medical procedures, and I'd avoid seeing the (much higher) X% of images that are NSFW while in public. That does not mean that I want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and not see any images whatsoever. Given the choice, I would not use such a filter. We have the technology and the capacity to allow users to make nuanced decisions about what they do and don't want to see. Why is this a problem? I think this has been dealt with before. Firstly, images should only be in articles to which they are directly relevant -- we should be able to rely on the community to remove images which are irrelevant to articles. This is no more, but also no less, reasonable an expectation than to expect them to keep images correctly categorized in sufficient detail to allow your personal preferences to be catered for. Secondly, the title and context alone is usually enough to suggest what topic an article is about. Just to give an example: I'm pretty convinced that if I click on, say, the article for [[Stoke Poges]], that I will not be presented with an image that offends my personal sensibilities. Likewise with [[Calcium]] or [[Astrolabe]]. On the other hand, if I were offended by medical images, I might think twice about viewing [[Splenectomy]] or [[Autopsy]]. (Note that all of these examples are sight-unseen -- if I'm wrong about any of this, and, say, [[Calcium]] contains an unpleasant image, please let me know.) Given that, if you are concerned about distressing medical images, it seems obvious to me that you can get almost 100% effectiveness at preventing this by just turnin on the global image filter before browsing Wikipedia on medical topics. If you believe the pictures are safe to view, based on the image captions, one click turns them back on again. The same applies to browsing Wikipedia for articles that might contain images that might offend your religious sensibilities, or non-work-safe images. If you're not sure about the topic of an article (what's an [[Ursprache]]? Could it be some kind of nasty-looking injury?), you can play safe and turn the filter on, and be absolutely 100% sure of not being offended, or leave it off and still be _almost_ sure of not being offended because most articles do not contain images that offend anyone. The rest of the time, just leave it turned off -- which is also one click. Where would the difficulty be in that? - Neil ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On 23.10.2011 19:05, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: The German poll made clear, that not any category based filter will be allowed, since category based filtering is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. Who the hell are you to forbid me or allow me to use a piece of software? I want to use this category based filter, even if it is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. And now what? We are the majority of the contributers that make up the community. We decided that it won't be good for the project and it's goals. We don't forbid you to use an *own* filter. But we don't want a filter to be imposed at the project, because we think, that it is not for the benefit of the project. Point. nya~ Which project? de.wikipedia or Commons? If the filter will be applied to Commons, I assume that de.wikipedia must be conform with the decision of the other communities. Ilario ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
Peter Damian wrote: I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'. A general question: is there a Wikipedian ideology? What is it? In particular, how does the current ideology, if there is one, compare with the ideology which inspired its founding fathers. And mothers - many of the founding editors of Wikipedia were women, I don't know how many people know that. What license(s) will the book be released under? MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Am 23.10.2011 19:32, schrieb Ilario Valdelli: On 23.10.2011 19:05, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: The German poll made clear, that not any category based filter will be allowed, since category based filtering is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. Who the hell are you to forbid me or allow me to use a piece of software? I want to use this category based filter, even if it is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. And now what? We are the majority of the contributers that make up the community. We decided that it won't be good for the project and it's goals. We don't forbid you to use an *own* filter. But we don't want a filter to be imposed at the project, because we think, that it is not for the benefit of the project. Point. nya~ Which project? de.wikipedia or Commons? If the filter will be applied to Commons, I assume that de.wikipedia must be conform with the decision of the other communities. Ilario That does not mean that the German community is willed to show a button on it's pages to enable it. It will just be disabled and all flagged/marked/categorized/discriminated/... images will be copied from commons to the local project to remove the flagging, if necessary. Alternatively the project could think about forking, which would remove the yearly hassle from the German verein to calculate the spendings and to give away the corresponding money to the foundation... But it's nice to see that the per project-results of the filter are released. It is as expected. The average for importance reaches from 3,34 to 8,17 on a scale from 0 to 10. That means, that single projects have a very different viewpoint on this topic and a very different kind of need. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Results/en#Appendix_2 There is no way that this result could justify the approach to impose an global image filter on all projects. We also have to ask the question: What will happen to commons, which is shared by all projects? nya~ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
David Gerard wrote: On 22 October 2011 23:36, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: With that said, the mobile site already has a generic Disable images view and something similar would definitely make sense on the main site as well. I just tried it. It lacks the click to show feature. Add that and I'll start using the mobile interface by default at work immediately. Have you filed a bug in Bugzilla? If not, where's the current ticket? :-) If both options were available (marking images as collapsible in a standard way, show/hide all for all media), communities could evolve standards and practices within that framework as they see fit. Collapsibility, and various variants on a per-image show/hide filter, was rejected on en:wp in 2005 or 2006 when the [[autofellatio]] controversies were at their height. (I went looking for the link recently and couldn't find it, but it ran for quite a while and got quite a lot of votes - anyone?) Making it available will require a proper on-wiki poll on each project, rather than imposition from above. I don't have a link, but the autofellatio discussion is mentioned at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Timeline. If anyone finds a link, please post it there. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Erik Moeller wrote: With that said, I also think it's important to remember that Sue has explicitly affirmed that the development of any technical solution would be done in partnership with the community, including people who've expressed strong opposition to what's been discussed to date. [1] [...] [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-October/069472.html What does partnership with the community mean here? In a subsequent mailing list post to this list, you propose a detailed solution: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-October/069909.html Some might think, given your position, that this is what the engineering department will soon start working on. Is this the case? Was there any partnership with the community on this idea? I think any serious consultation with the community starts and ends on-wiki. If only there were some sort of meta-wiki where people from the Wikimedia projects could come together and discuss brainstorming ideas for a workable filter... https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Brainstorming MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Grant agreements
MZMcBride wrote: Sue Gardner wrote: Oh. I can speak to this, at least a little. The Wikimedia Foundation has a policy of publishing our grant applications when the grantmaking institution is okay with it. We don't do a lot of grant applications, and of the ones we do, I am guesstimating that two-thirds of the grantmakers have said it's fine with them for us to publish, and about a third have asked us not to. Some grantmaking institutions are very happy to publish, because they believe the sector as a whole benefits from transparency about how things work. (IIRC Hewlett is an example of that.) I do not know where they get published: I'll ask. But, some of the grant we receive are unsolicited gifts, in which case there is no application, and nothing to publish. I think for example that our recent grant from the Indigo Trust in the UK is an example of that. I assume, MZ, that you're mostly interested in the Stanton grant, and I don't remember their position on this issue. I do know they're not publicity-seeking, and they don't welcome grant applications that they haven't solicited. So they might be an example of a foundation that doesn't want its agreements publicized: I don't remember. We can find out :-) That would be great. Thanks. :-) It's mostly the large grants that I'm interested in, the ones that have the power to shape a significant portion of Wikimedia's short-term future. Personally, the applications (assuming there are any) are completely unimportant to me. I can't imagine they're much more than we'd like X money to fulfill Y portions of our mission, though perhaps I'm wrong. But the grant agreements (we'll give you X money over Y months to do Z) are the piece that has me curious. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. There's no rush on this, but I'd most certainly appreciate it if you could take a look or ask someone to. Bumping this, so I don't forget. I think having public grant agreements wherever possible is critically important, particularly with large grants that have the potential to drastically (or dramatically) shape the future of Wikimedia, at least short-term. Is there a particular staff member that I can talk to about this? There are some grant-specific people, aren't there? MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering
Message: 2 Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:36:37 +0200 From: Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4ea42675.9070...@googlemail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Am 23.10.2011 15:46, schrieb WereSpielChequers: -- Message: 3 Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:57:51 +0200 From: Tobias Oelgartetobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID:4ea3668f.5010...@googlemail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Am 23.10.2011 01:49, schrieb WereSpielChequers: Hi Tobias, Do youhave any problems with this category free proposal http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/filter WereSpelChequers The idea isn't bad. But it is based on the premise that there are enough users of the filter to build such correlations. It requires enough input to work properly and therefore enough users of the feature, that have longer lists. But how often does an average logged in user find such an image and handle accordingly? That would be relatively seldom, resulting in a very short own list, by relatively few users, which makes it hard to start the system (warm up time). Since i love to find ways on how to exploit systems there is one simple thing on my mind. Just login to put a picture of penis/bondage/... on the list and than add another one of the football team you don't like. Repeat this step often enough and the system will believe that all users that don't like to see a penis would also not like to see images of that football team. Another way would be: I find everything offensive. This would hurt the system, since correlations would be much harder to find. If we assume good faith, then it would probably work. But as soon we have spammers of this kind, it will lay in ruins, considering the amount of users and corresponding relatively short lists (in average). Just my thoughts on this idea. Greetings nya~ Hi Tobias, Yes if it turned out that almost no-one used this then only the Hide all image - recommended for users with slow internet connections and the Never show me this image again options would be effective. My suspicion is that even if globally there were only a few thousand users then it would start to be effective on the most contentious images in popular articles in the most widely read versions of wikipedia (and I suspect that many of the same image will be used on other language versions). The more people using it the more effective it would be, and the more varied phobias and cultural taboos it could cater for. We have hundreds of millions of readers, if we offer them a free image filter then I suspect that lots will signup, but in a sense it doesn't matter how many do so - one of the advantages to this system is that when people complain about images they find offensive we will simply be able to respond with instructions as to how they can enable the image filter on their account. I'm pretty confident that huge numbers, perhaps millions with slow internet connections would use the hide all images option, and that enabling them to do so would be an uncontentious way to further our mission by making our various products much more available in certain parts of the global south. As far as I'm concerned this is by far the most important part of the feature and the one that I'm most confident will be used, though it may cease to be of use in the future when and if the rest of the world has North American Internet speeds. I'm not sure how spammers would try to use this, but I accept that vandals will try various techniques from liking penises to finding pigs and particular politicians equally objectionable. Those who simply use this to like picture of Mohammed would not be a problem, the system should easily be able to work out that things they liked would be disliked by another group of users. The much more clever approach of disliking both a particular type of porn and members of a particular football team is harder to cater for, but I'm hoping that it could be coded to recognise not just where preferences were completely unrelated, as in the people with either arachnaphobia or vertigo, or partially related as in one person having both arachnaphobia and vertigo. Those who find everything objectionable and tag thousands of images as such would easily be identified as having dissimilar preferences to others, as their preferences would be no more relevant to another filterer as those of an Arachnaphobe would be to a sufferer of vertigo. Of course it's possible that there are people out there who are keen to tag images for others not to
Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering
And after this procedure, we all expect, that some readers may become edtitors? Good Luck! I hope and expect, that wikipedia could help, that people become more educated. The more educated people are, the less important this filters will be. this should be our goal. not patronizing readers in advance. h. Am 23.10.2011 20:58, schrieb WereSpielChequers: Message: 2 Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:36:37 +0200 From: Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4ea42675.9070...@googlemail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Am 23.10.2011 15:46, schrieb WereSpielChequers: -- Message: 3 Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:57:51 +0200 From: Tobias Oelgartetobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] category free image filtering To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID:4ea3668f.5010...@googlemail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Am 23.10.2011 01:49, schrieb WereSpielChequers: Hi Tobias, Do youhave any problems with this category free proposal http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/filter WereSpelChequers The idea isn't bad. But it is based on the premise that there are enough users of the filter to build such correlations. It requires enough input to work properly and therefore enough users of the feature, that have longer lists. But how often does an average logged in user find such an image and handle accordingly? That would be relatively seldom, resulting in a very short own list, by relatively few users, which makes it hard to start the system (warm up time). Since i love to find ways on how to exploit systems there is one simple thing on my mind. Just login to put a picture of penis/bondage/... on the list and than add another one of the football team you don't like. Repeat this step often enough and the system will believe that all users that don't like to see a penis would also not like to see images of that football team. Another way would be: I find everything offensive. This would hurt the system, since correlations would be much harder to find. If we assume good faith, then it would probably work. But as soon we have spammers of this kind, it will lay in ruins, considering the amount of users and corresponding relatively short lists (in average). Just my thoughts on this idea. Greetings nya~ Hi Tobias, Yes if it turned out that almost no-one used this then only the Hide all image - recommended for users with slow internet connections and the Never show me this image again options would be effective. My suspicion is that even if globally there were only a few thousand users then it would start to be effective on the most contentious images in popular articles in the most widely read versions of wikipedia (and I suspect that many of the same image will be used on other language versions). The more people using it the more effective it would be, and the more varied phobias and cultural taboos it could cater for. We have hundreds of millions of readers, if we offer them a free image filter then I suspect that lots will signup, but in a sense it doesn't matter how many do so - one of the advantages to this system is that when people complain about images they find offensive we will simply be able to respond with instructions as to how they can enable the image filter on their account. I'm pretty confident that huge numbers, perhaps millions with slow internet connections would use the hide all images option, and that enabling them to do so would be an uncontentious way to further our mission by making our various products much more available in certain parts of the global south. As far as I'm concerned this is by far the most important part of the feature and the one that I'm most confident will be used, though it may cease to be of use in the future when and if the rest of the world has North American Internet speeds. I'm not sure how spammers would try to use this, but I accept that vandals will try various techniques from liking penises to finding pigs and particular politicians equally objectionable. Those who simply use this to like picture of Mohammed would not be a problem, the system should easily be able to work out that things they liked would be disliked by another group of users. The much more clever approach of disliking both a particular type of porn and members of a particular football team is harder to cater for, but I'm hoping that it could be coded to recognise not just where preferences were completely unrelated, as in the people with either arachnaphobia or vertigo, or partially related as in one person having both arachnaphobia and vertigo. Those who find everything objectionable and tag thousands of images as such would easily be identified as having
Re: [Foundation-l] Public domain Mickey Mouse. At last.
On 23 October 2011 17:59, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: It's a very tricky one. Yes and no. However regardless of its complexity (which isn't that bad compared to some) it is how most real work copyright cases that people actually care about work. Rather than single the single copyright we might recognize on say a photo of some flowers you tend to get whole bundles of IP rights. In some ways mickey mouse isn't too bad since Disney have kept such a tight grip on him. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
* Erik Moeller wrote: With that said, I also think it's important to remember that Sue has explicitly affirmed that the development of any technical solution would be done in partnership with the community, including people who've expressed strong opposition to what's been discussed to date. There was a plan for that, The Wikimedia Foundation, at the direction of the Board of Trustees, will be holding a vote to determine whether members of the community support the creation and usage of an opt-in personal image filter. Pretty logical question to ask, if a majority opposes the feature there is not much point in developing it, and when a majority supports it, development would be much easier. The community would likely have rejected the proposal if it had been given the chance to do so and had been properly informed of criticism, so the community was instead told the matter is already decided, was not informed of any criticism as part of the referendum, and wasn't given the option to clearly express opposition. That's how Sue Gardner understands partner- ship with the community. I don't think the community wants more of it. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
Erik Moeller wrote: On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 2:56 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 22 October 2011 22:51, Tobias Oelgarte And, in detail, why is a hide/show all solution inadequate? What is the use case this does not serve? Clearly Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedia found a show/hide all solution inadequate. Are folks from those communities on the list? It would be interesting to hear from them as to why they ended up with the collapsing approach they took. Clearly nothing, Erik. You know not to make irrational and unfounded jumps like this when examining a phenomenon. You're a programmer, FFS. There's nothing to suggest that the Hebrew or Arabic Wikipedias found a show/hide solution inadequate. There's quite a bit to suggest that such a solution is much more difficult to (decently) implement, though. There's also quite a bit to suggest that wiki-editors work with the tools available to them generally, not the tools that could be available to them. Collapsing has been used in navboxes at the bottom of the page for ages. I'm not sure if it's the German Wikipedia or the English Wikipedia that started it, but the history is surely in MediaWiki:Common.js or MediaWiki:Monobook.js, for those who are interested. In any case, the English Wikipedia, at least, used to do the exact same with certain images. There were even a few helper templates. I think Template:Linkimage was one; Template:PopUpImage appears to be another, looking through the revision history of Autofellatio on the English Wikipedia. I don't believe any such templates are used (legitimately) to obscure or obfuscate images on the English Wikipedia today. They were tossed out some time ago. This was the technology available to wiki-editors, so this is what they chose to use. Necessity and opportunity are the parents of all hacks, surely. Drawing a conclusion such as Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedia found a 'show/hide all' solution inadequate from the historical evidence doesn't make any sense to me. If there's evidence of this conclusion (beyond relying on the absence of implementation), I'm sure many people on this list would be interested in it. It should be noted that there are also on-wiki resources for plotting actions and events related to controversial content: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Timeline. I strongly urge you and others to add information (with cites, as necessary and appropriate). :-) MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote: Greetings, I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'. You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
* Nikola Smolenski wrote: Who is this we you are talking about? No one is going to force anyone to categorize images. If some people want to categorize images, and if their effort turns out to be in vain, again that is Their Problem and not Your Problem. When your filtering or categorization choices affect others in any way then your choices have moral and ethical implications that people find it hard to ignore. Few people would stand idle by when they learn you flag images they find very appropriate as inappropriate. You can claim not standing idle by is their choice; and you would be mistaken. Who the hell are you to forbid me or allow me to use a piece of software? I want to use this category based filter, even if it is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. And now what? Nobody is arguing that you shouldn't be able to use some software. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Translations of September 2011 Wikimedia Highlights available in العربية (Arabic), Deutsch (German), Italiano (Italian), 日本語 (Japanese)
So cool! Thank you, WMF reports team! I look forward to hearing how the experiment works :) Phoebe On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 2:45 AM, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, as mentioned in last week's announcement of the September 2011 Wikimedia Foundation report, this time we published a separate Highlights summary, combining excerpts from the general report and the engineering report. It's an experiment, a format which might be useful for those who might find the full reports long to read, and it facilitates translations. Several translations are now available (help is welcome in spreading them): مجموعة من أهم ما جاء في تقرير مؤسسة ويكيميديا وتقرير هندسة ويكيمييديا لشهر سبتمبر 2011 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Highlights,_September_2011/ar Höhepunkte aus dem Monatsbericht und dem technischen Bericht der Wikimedia Foundation für September 2011 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Highlights,_September_2011/de I punti salienti presi dal Wikimedia Foundation Report e dal Wikimedia engineering report del mese di Settembre 2011 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Highlights,_September_2011/it 2011年9月のウィキメディア財団報告書及びウィキメディア技術報告より抄録 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Highlights,_September_2011/ja Thanks to all translators! Translations can still be added at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Highlights,_September_2011 As said above, this is an experiment, so it would be nice to hear how useful the result is to people, and what could be improved. I would also like to take the occasion to draw attention to Wikimedia:Woche, an new weekly newsletter run by the German Wikimedia chapter, summarizing news from the whole movement in German language (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/vereinde-l/2011-September/005121.html ). To my knowledge it is the first initiative of its kind by a chapter (of course there are already volunteer-run publications such as the Signpost, Wikizine and Kurier). -- Tilman Bayer Movement Communications Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Grant agreements
It's Lisa Gruwell, MZ. Last I heard, she has been waiting to hear back from a couple of foundations about recent agreements. Thanks, Sue Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate On 23 October 2011 11:05, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: MZMcBride wrote: Sue Gardner wrote: Oh. I can speak to this, at least a little. The Wikimedia Foundation has a policy of publishing our grant applications when the grantmaking institution is okay with it. We don't do a lot of grant applications, and of the ones we do, I am guesstimating that two-thirds of the grantmakers have said it's fine with them for us to publish, and about a third have asked us not to. Some grantmaking institutions are very happy to publish, because they believe the sector as a whole benefits from transparency about how things work. (IIRC Hewlett is an example of that.) I do not know where they get published: I'll ask. But, some of the grant we receive are unsolicited gifts, in which case there is no application, and nothing to publish. I think for example that our recent grant from the Indigo Trust in the UK is an example of that. I assume, MZ, that you're mostly interested in the Stanton grant, and I don't remember their position on this issue. I do know they're not publicity-seeking, and they don't welcome grant applications that they haven't solicited. So they might be an example of a foundation that doesn't want its agreements publicized: I don't remember. We can find out :-) That would be great. Thanks. :-) It's mostly the large grants that I'm interested in, the ones that have the power to shape a significant portion of Wikimedia's short-term future. Personally, the applications (assuming there are any) are completely unimportant to me. I can't imagine they're much more than we'd like X money to fulfill Y portions of our mission, though perhaps I'm wrong. But the grant agreements (we'll give you X money over Y months to do Z) are the piece that has me curious. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. There's no rush on this, but I'd most certainly appreciate it if you could take a look or ask someone to. Bumping this, so I don't forget. I think having public grant agreements wherever possible is critically important, particularly with large grants that have the potential to drastically (or dramatically) shape the future of Wikimedia, at least short-term. Is there a particular staff member that I can talk to about this? There are some grant-specific people, aren't there? MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
- Original Message - From: geni geni...@gmail.com On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote: Greetings, I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'. You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned. -- geni geni: I think what you're thinking of is ethics. I'm a bit old fashioned, myself. -kc- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
I'm assuming that this is the Peter Damian who is also knol.google.com/k/edward-buckner/edward-buckner/2u2a5qlvdgh8h/1# since he signs as Edward, rather than a troll seeking to impersonate the banned Wikipedia editor of the same name, for nefarious purposes. In either case, I have little confidence that this book would achieve an audience sufficient to make the effort worthwhile, except on an extremely personal basis. Sometimes it's good to write things down if only to let off steam, but to expect an audience in this case seems to be a triumph of hope over experience. By all means, write your book. But don't expect Wikipedia to crash to the ground as a result of your revelations. I, for one, have no interest in participating, not least because the OP wasn't to wp-en-l but to the Foundation list, and that smacks of a desperate, if limp, attempt at some sort of improper meta-leverage. KillerChihuahua wrote: - Original Message - From: geni geni...@gmail.com On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote: Greetings, I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'. You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
