Re: [Foundation-l] Commons and The Year of the Picture
Hoi, You forget that as the copyright holder of your picture, you are free to sell copies of your pictures as well. You are even allowed to provide your material under a different license. The only thing you are not allowed is to revoke the license you provided your material to Commons under. Consider, a person decides to buy a printed copy of any picture from Commons, the author can live all over our globe, there is an amount paid of 15 EURO including package and posting there is a margin of 1,50 EURO for the Wiki side of things. The cost of paying the author can be as high as 18 EURO just on banking fees. SO what is to be done? Posting a message,,, it takes 3 minutes to do this. I would consider this spam, I do not want this but you do... A volunteers is supposed to do this ? He does not feel like it... When a print is produced, a true value added service is provided. I do not have a printer that allows me to print poster sized. By providing a service like this, the value to our readers is enhanced. When money is going to the French chapter, they will be able to do more. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/23 Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ru Did actually anybody ever considered paying some part of the profit to the authors of the pictures? Or at least, if this is such a tiny amount that it would not make sense, placing some acknowledgments at their pages? I am sorry to say, now I see quite an opposite attitude: You have put a picture under a free licence, now do not complain. This is fine of course but does not encourage the authors very much. Cheers Yaroslav ___ 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] Re-licensing
On Thursday 22 January 2009 23:23:17 Andrew Whitworth wrote: * I make the blanket assumption that everybody here is being perfectly reasonable. What an unreasonable assumption! :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
2009/1/23 Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com: Anthony writes: A legal right is recognized by law. A moral right may not be. This must be your own idiosyncratic application of the term moral right. In copyright, moral rights refers to inalienable legal rights that are recognized in law. If you are in a jurisdiction that does not recognize moral rights, then you don't have them, by definition. The idea behind moral rights is that they are rights that everyone has automatically and the law is just recognising that. If you are in a jurisdiction that doesn't recognise moral rights then (from that POV) you still have moral rights, the state is just immoral and doesn't enforce them. There is a fundamental difference between a right granted by law and a pre-existing right recognised by law. That difference is irrelevant in a courtroom, which is probably why you dismiss it, but there is a difference. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Thursday 22 January 2009 01:11:15 Erik Moeller wrote: Because I don't think it's good to discuss attribution as an abstract principle, just as an example, the author attribution for the article [[France]] is below, excluding IP addresses. According to the view that attribution needs to be given to each pseudonym, this entire history would have to be included with every copy of the article. I have attempted to do something similar, by using the WikiBlame tool ( http://hewgill.com/~greg/wikiblame/ ) on the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens , that is also fairly large and fairly edited article. The article as of today has 6438 revisions with 2296 distinct contributors (anonymous included) of which 945 are registered Wikipedia users (for comparison, the article [[France]] has 1345 distinct contributors which are registered Wikipedia users). However, according to http://hewgill.com/~greg/wikiblame/Athens.html and to the extent its results are correct, as of sometime in 2008, the article had 480 distinct edits made by 188 distinct contributors (anonymous included) of which 103 are registered Wikipedia users. If all edits shorter than 10 characters are excluded, then the article has 273 distinct edits, 121 distinct contributors (anonymous included) of which 63 are registered Wikipedia users. They are given below: Adam Carr, Aexon79, Alekow, Alx bio, Argos'Dad, Aris Katsaris, AtanasioV, Athinaios, Avg, Bart133, Caponer, Cplakidas, D6, Dakart, Dialectric, Ductus, Edwy, El Greco, Eric82oslo, Eugenio Archontopoulos, Evzone, Grammar7878, Greenshed, Hectorian, Henry Carrington, IRelayer, Jiang, Jmco, Keizuko, Kompikos, Korenyuk, LMB, Makalp, Makedonas, MalafayaBot, Male1979, Markussep, Metallaxis, Michalis Famelis, MJCdetroit, Nasos12, Nikolas Karalis, Nlu, Odysses, Pabouk, Pangrati7878, PHG, Politis, Porfyrios, Pyrate1700, Radiojon, Recury, Rich Farmbrough, RTucker, Sabinpopa, Schizophonix, Sdornan, Sthenel, Tasoskessaris, Theiasofia, WHeimbigner, Zyxw Article length was 82028 bytes, and length of contributors' names is 650 bytes (or 0.8% of the article's length). If that would be printed in an encyclopedic format, the article would take some more than ten pages, and the list of authors would take 10 rows, if printed in a slightly smaller font. To me, this looks reasonable. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/22 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: A vast number of pseudonyms below have no meaning except for their context in Wikipedia. Apropos of which, a thought. We have spilled a good bit of ink over whether or not it is appropriate for the reuser to attribute Wikipedia users either alone or in addition to the usernames - should the project have a right to attribution, etc etc etc. In practice, wouldn't it be almost essential to name the site where the work was done *as well* as the usernames? Many of the pseudonyms, in effect, depend on that context... (Apologies if this was raised before - I don't remember seeing it) An article which has had many developments and been passed on might then wind up with an amalgamated attribution line like: by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (1962), Wikipedia contributors NukeUser, John Smith, Jane Doe and Mike Placeholder (2004-2007), Citizendium contributors Alan White, John Smith and Betty Green (2007-2009), and anonymous contributors. It's not exactly smooth, but it is comprehensible, and it does seem helpful to name the project to give some context to the names. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/23 Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.yu: Article length was 82028 bytes, and length of contributors' names is 650 bytes (or 0.8% of the article's length). If that would be printed in an encyclopedic format, the article would take some more than ten pages, and the list of authors would take 10 rows, if printed in a slightly smaller font. To me, this looks reasonable. It's a lot less unreasonable than many suggestions! :-) I wonder - would it be possible to get some kind of script set up to take, say, a thousand of our most popular articles and tell us what the cite all named authors who make nontrivial contributions result would be like? This might be a useful bit of data... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: 2009/1/23 Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.yu: Article length was 82028 bytes, and length of contributors' names is 650 bytes (or 0.8% of the article's length). If that would be printed in an encyclopedic format, the article would take some more than ten pages, and the list of authors would take 10 rows, if printed in a slightly smaller font. To me, this looks reasonable. It's a lot less unreasonable than many suggestions! :-) I wonder - would it be possible to get some kind of script set up to take, say, a thousand of our most popular articles and tell us what the cite all named authors who make nontrivial contributions result would be like? This might be a useful bit of data... If you define nontrivial for me, that should not be too hard... -- 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] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/23 Andre Engels andreeng...@gmail.com: I wonder - would it be possible to get some kind of script set up to take, say, a thousand of our most popular articles and tell us what the cite all named authors who make nontrivial contributions result would be like? This might be a useful bit of data... If you define nontrivial for me, that should not be too hard... Nikola's cutoff above was If all edits shorter than 10 characters are excluded... - this sounds not unreasonable, since adding three words or more will take you over it. I'm not sure quite how the results were obtained via WikiBlame, but it certainly seems a little more meaningful than just dumping every name which appears in the article history. (Admittedly, that has the advantage of not accidentally excluding anyone...) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons and The Year of the Picture
Hoi, No it is not, and this should be obvious because I never mentioned amazon nor ebay. There is no comparison so do not be daft. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/23 Mark (Markie) newsmar...@googlemail.com so as long as money goes to a chapter your saying it would be fine to say: *Put an amazon or ebay link on every product related page *Use referrer ids on wikis to websites that allow it *and the dreaded advertising as long as the money goes to chapter/WMF is this really what your saying? mark On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, You forget that as the copyright holder of your picture, you are free to sell copies of your pictures as well. You are even allowed to provide your material under a different license. The only thing you are not allowed is to revoke the license you provided your material to Commons under. Consider, a person decides to buy a printed copy of any picture from Commons, the author can live all over our globe, there is an amount paid of 15 EURO including package and posting there is a margin of 1,50 EURO for the Wiki side of things. The cost of paying the author can be as high as 18 EURO just on banking fees. SO what is to be done? Posting a message,,, it takes 3 minutes to do this. I would consider this spam, I do not want this but you do... A volunteers is supposed to do this ? He does not feel like it... When a print is produced, a true value added service is provided. I do not have a printer that allows me to print poster sized. By providing a service like this, the value to our readers is enhanced. When money is going to the French chapter, they will be able to do more. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/23 Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ru Did actually anybody ever considered paying some part of the profit to the authors of the pictures? Or at least, if this is such a tiny amount that it would not make sense, placing some acknowledgments at their pages? I am sorry to say, now I see quite an opposite attitude: You have put a picture under a free licence, now do not complain. This is fine of course but does not encourage the authors very much. Cheers Yaroslav ___ 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 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons and The Year of the Picture
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Mark (Markie) newsmar...@googlemail.comwrote: so as long as money goes to a chapter your saying it would be fine to say: *Put an amazon or ebay link on every product related page *Use referrer ids on wikis to websites that allow it *and the dreaded advertising as long as the money goes to chapter/WMF is this really what your saying? mark To be honest, that link is not that different from what [[Special:Booksources]] does, apart from the fact that for the moment there is only one company offering the service. Nothing prevents other companies to offer something comparable and feature in that link. Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons and The Year of the Picture
*and the dreaded advertising as long as the money goes to chapter/WMF You somewhat lost me here... While I do not hope that there will ever be advertising on a Wikimedia wiki -- where else could money possibly go than either the chapter or the WMF? M. -- Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons and The Year of the Picture
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com wrote: *and the dreaded advertising as long as the money goes to chapter/WMF You somewhat lost me here... While I do not hope that there will ever be advertising on a Wikimedia wiki -- where else could money For money, read revenue from ads displayed on a Wikimedia wiki -- Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Andrew Gray wrote: 2009/1/23 Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.yu: Article length was 82028 bytes, and length of contributors' names is 650 bytes (or 0.8% of the article's length). If that would be printed in an encyclopedic format, the article would take some more than ten pages, and the list of authors would take 10 rows, if printed in a slightly smaller font. To me, this looks reasonable. It's a lot less unreasonable than many suggestions! :-) I wonder - would it be possible to get some kind of script set up to take, say, a thousand of our most popular articles and tell us what the cite all named authors who make nontrivial contributions result would be like? This might be a useful bit of data... I think it is useful to note that even in countries where moral rights are inalienable, there is a requirement of originality and creative effort. Just recently there was a question put to the Finnish Mr. Intellectual Property law (Jukka Kemppinen, who quite by the by, was one of the speakers at the seminar to mark 100 000 articles in the Finnish language wikipedia) on whether a text message could be considered to be sufficiently original to constitute a work as defined in the authors rights legislation. The situation was related to a tabloid publishing obscene text messages a government minister had sent to an exotic dancer. According to Jukka Kemppinen, a simple two line obscene rhyming text message Älä luota muihin, ota multa suihin. - giving a completely hypothetical example - would be quite sufficient to be a work. (and no, I won't translate the message). But I am sure there are no applicable moral rights to let's say correcting missing space around punctuation. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons and The Year of the Picture
2009/1/23 Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com: To be honest, that link is not that different from what [[Special:Booksources]] does, apart from the fact that for the moment there is only one company offering the service. Nothing prevents other companies to offer something comparable and feature in that link. Yeah; I was writing something about this earlier but never got around to posting it. It's relatively easy to imagine some kind of similar thing for a dozen different image-printing suppliers; obviously you wouldn't be linking to a preexisting sales page, you'd need to create some kind of interface to send the file through, but the basic concept remains. Go to image page, press button, and bang, a list appears. The problem is, it could get massively unwieldy very fast - the frwp booksources list is tidy and clear and has thirty or forty entries, but the enwp list has ballooned to around six hundred! Especially for something like this, we might well have to exert editorial control sooner or later as to who gets listed - I'm all for doing it, of course, but I think we need to be aware from the start that the ideal everyone gets listed might break down in the long run. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/1/23 Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk: 2009/1/23 Andre Engels andreeng...@gmail.com: I wonder - would it be possible to get some kind of script set up to take, say, a thousand of our most popular articles and tell us what the cite all named authors who make nontrivial contributions result would be like? This might be a useful bit of data... If you define nontrivial for me, that should not be too hard... Nikola's cutoff above was If all edits shorter than 10 characters are excluded... - this sounds not unreasonable, since adding three words or more will take you over it. In the vast majority of cases, that will work fine. There will be the odd edit where less than 10 characters is significant (especially is the user has made lots of short edits), but probably not many. It may be reasonable to neglect those few corner cases. Especially if you include a URL to the full detail *as well*. Of course, the tool should be updated as the technology improves. 10 characters or the details of the tool shouldn't be spelled out somewhere irrevocably. And there should probably be some mechanism to manually override it in corner cases. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 5:22 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: I think it is useful to note that even in countries where moral rights are inalienable, there is a requirement of originality and creative effort. snip It is not strictly true that all countries require creativity, some jurisdictions (notably the UK) tend to use copyright to protect the expenditure of effort involved regardless of whether the work is creative. In other words, the rights follow from the fact that someone expended time and effort in creating the publication, and do not necessarily require that the publication contains an original creative expression. This is known as the sweat of the brow doctrine [1] and has been explicitly rejected in US case law. That said, I'm not sure how much effort one would have to expend in making cleanup and formatting edits to a wiki article before it could be considered enough to count. However, I do think we should give some consideration to the wikignomes that beautify and cleanup articles, even if they aren't writing lots of text. Their work, though sometimes formulaic, does improve the overall quality and consistency of the resulting product. -Robert Rohde [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
Hoi, When we were to move away from a set of URL's from et to ekk, a generic redirect from et to ekk will suffice because there will be a one on one relation. The et named articles will never be used for anything else. This is true because this is how the standard works. For those wikis where the code has been squatted, there is no such quarantee. It is also quite clear that these codes have been always wrong. Where we disagree is about the definition of good URL's. We either have our domain structure complying with a framework or we don't. As we DO have a domain structure that complies to a framework, the URL's that do not comply are wrong. Given that the framework allows for the changes to languages, there is nothing wrong with reorganising our domain structure. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/23 Lars Aronsson l...@aronsson.se Kjetil Lenes wrote: If you consider Norwegian nynorsk to be a dialect, you have your facts wrong. It is one of two written forms of norwegian, they have the same legal standing. I'm not talking about dialects or legal standing. I'm talking about renaming thousands of URLs, breaking incoming links from other websites, for no good reason. Once assigned, good URLs such as no.wikipedia.org and et.wikipedia.org should not be changed. ISO can decide tomorrow that English should be xy and French should be ab. We shouldn't follow such changes. It is a totally different issue that we consult ISO when we open a new project. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ 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-l] vro
Lars Aronsson hett schreven: I'm not talking about dialects or legal standing. I'm talking about renaming thousands of URLs, breaking incoming links from other websites, for no good reason. After a rename the old link will stay as a redirect and won't change for a long time (at least several years) to give people time to attune to the new code. I think, everybody agrees on that. For some years 'no' would be a redirect just as 'nb' is a redirect to 'no' now. When in several years the new code is generally accepted and used by everyone only some links from very old webpages will point to 'no'. 'no' could then turn into a page saying Bokmal Wikipedia is hosted under nb, please update your links. You will be redirected in a few seconds. and after yet another year or so it will become a portal linking to all Norwegian projects. It won't be an abrupt or disruptive change. Marcus Buck ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
Thomas Dalton writes: This must be your own idiosyncratic application of the term moral right. In copyright, moral rights refers to inalienable legal rights that are recognized in law. If you are in a jurisdiction that does not recognize moral rights, then you don't have them, by definition. The idea behind moral rights is that they are rights that everyone has automatically and the law is just recognising that. I understand what the *rhetoric* of moral rights is. But in the absence of law establishing and protecting moral rights, you don't have any. If you are in a jurisdiction that doesn't recognise moral rights then (from that POV) you still have moral rights, the state is just immoral and doesn't enforce them. A more nuanced and accurate view of the term moral rights is that it is a term of art relating to copyright and other rights in creative works. There is a fundamental difference between a right granted by law and a pre-existing right recognised by law. Is this difference based on anything in the physical world? That difference is irrelevant in a courtroom, which is probably why you dismiss it, but there is a difference. It's true that religious beliefs don't have great force in Western courtrooms. I dismiss this particular religious belief not because it's irrelevant in a courtroom, however, but because there is no evidence in the physical world that this difference exists. Thomas, you may believe that the longstanding debate between natural law and positivists has been resolved in favor of the former, but there's no sign that this is true with regard to copyright. If what you were saying were widely accepted, it would be odd that moral rights obtain as to copyright/creative expression but not as to things like property ownership and personal liberty. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 9:08 AM, Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 5:22 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: I think it is useful to note that even in countries where moral rights are inalienable, there is a requirement of originality and creative effort. snip It is not strictly true that all countries require creativity, some jurisdictions (notably the UK) tend to use copyright to protect the expenditure of effort involved regardless of whether the work is creative. In other words, the rights follow from the fact that someone expended time and effort in creating the publication, and do not necessarily require that the publication contains an original creative expression. Isn't this just an economic right which can be waived or traded in a broad range of circumstances, though? The individual workers who collected names for the phone book or fixed the typos therein don't get their names listed as authors, do they? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
2009/1/23 Mike Godwin mnemo...@well.com: Thomas Dalton writes: This must be your own idiosyncratic application of the term moral right. In copyright, moral rights refers to inalienable legal rights that are recognized in law. If you are in a jurisdiction that does not recognize moral rights, then you don't have them, by definition. The idea behind moral rights is that they are rights that everyone has automatically and the law is just recognising that. I understand what the *rhetoric* of moral rights is. But in the absence of law establishing and protecting moral rights, you don't have any. [snip] There is a world outside the legal profession, Mike. Either learn that, or restrict the recipients of your emails to other lawyers. I, for one, don't care about your extremely narrow minded views. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
Anthony writes: Anthony writes: Sure, but I'm not in a jurisdiction that indisputably recognizes the right to attribution. Okay, so why are you invoking rights that you don't have? Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_(copyright_law), and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights Please understand that I am entirely familiar with the notions of moral rights and natural rights. (I suspect I am more familiar with this notions than you are.) Just because a right isn't recognized, does not mean that I do not have it. I have a right to your house. Oh, sure, it's not recognized by anyone, but I promise I have it! Sometimes I wonder whether you're being intentionally obtuse. How in the world could a lawyer familiar with constitutional law not know that? Seriously, that's appalling. I suppose it is appalling to anyone who cherishes naive notions about the meaning of a specialized term like moral rights that other people may choose not to employ them naively. To be frank, those of us who actually have to work with such terms don't have the luxury of using them sloppily and naively. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
2009/1/23 Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org: Just because a right isn't recognized, does not mean that I do not have it. I have a right to your house. Oh, sure, it's not recognized by anyone, but I promise I have it! Like I say, there's a world outside the legal profession. Just because something isn't recognised by the law doesn't mean it isn't recognised by anyone. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
Thomas Dalton writes: I understand what the *rhetoric* of moral rights is. But in the absence of law establishing and protecting moral rights, you don't have any. [snip] There is a world outside the legal profession, Mike. Either learn that, or restrict the recipients of your emails to other lawyers. I, for one, don't care about your extremely narrow minded views. I'm sorry, Thomas, but until people learn to use jurisprudential concepts such as moral rights properly, I have a moral obligation to point out where they are used mistakenly. This is not a question of the world outside the legal profession (and, indeed, if you were a member of the legal profession -- or a philosopher -- you wouldn't make the mistake of supposing this). Philosophy of law is accessible to people who aren't lawyers -- even you. But it's clear that the word moral rights is being thrown around here by people who are only casually familiar with the concept. When you have actually given some study to jurisprudential philosophers (see, e.g., H.L.A. Hart and Lon Fuller) and can offer some more sophisticated philosophical analysis than you offer here, I will be able to take your pronunciamentos more seriously. Do you understand what the term term of art means? By the way, most members of the legal profession are not students of the philosophy of law. It is your misfortune that, in me, you have come across someone who is. I'm not disqualified from pointing out philosophical mistakes merely because I can hang out a shingle. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
I'm sorry, Thomas, but until people learn to use jurisprudential concepts such as moral rights properly, I have a moral obligation to point out where they are used mistakenly. This is not a question of the world outside the legal profession (and, indeed, if you were a member of the legal profession -- or a philosopher -- you wouldn't make the mistake of supposing this). Philosophy of law is accessible to people who aren't lawyers -- even you. But it's clear that the word moral rights is being thrown around here by people who are only casually familiar with the concept. When you have actually given some study to jurisprudential philosophers (see, e.g., H.L.A. Hart and Lon Fuller) and can offer some more sophisticated philosophical analysis than you offer here, I will be able to take your pronunciamentos more seriously. Where do you think laws come from? Do you think they appear from nowhere? They are created by politicians (and sometimes judges) based on moral values. Those moral values imply certain moral rights whether they are written down in statute (or case law) or not. Do you understand what the term term of art means? Honestly? No, I'd have to look it up. However, I don't need to know fancy lawyer speak to understand the concept of morality. By the way, most members of the legal profession are not students of the philosophy of law. It is your misfortune that, in me, you have come across someone who is. I'm not disqualified from pointing out philosophical mistakes merely because I can hang out a shingle. Well, maybe when you progress a little further in your studies you'll actually know something about the subject. I'm a mathematician, I am well trained in logic and reasoned argument. That's not dissimiliar to the training philosophers have (well, those that argue about vaguely meaningful things, rather than angels and pins, anyway). While I may not be an expert on the relevant facts, I can follow an argument and see if it makes sense, and yours rarely do. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
2009/1/23 Lars Aronsson l...@aronsson.se Gerard Meijssen wrote: When we were to move away from a set of URL's from et to ekk, a generic redirect from et to ekk will suffice because there will be a one on one relation. The et named articles will never be used for anything else. This is true because this is how the standard works. The very point of the suggestion to change no.wikipedia into nb.wikipedia is that Nynorsk extremists want to *deny* the Bokmål majority the privilege of using the common no code as theirs. The agenda of these extremists has no room for allowing redirects from no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo to nb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo, because that would perpetuate the Bokmål oppression. In the discussions, even the word occupation has been used. In their mind, the no.* URL should force the reader to pick either the Bokmål or Nynorsk article. That is, to stop and consider that there are more versions of Norwegian than Bokmål. There must be no default. If there is a default (a redirect), then today's naming would seem OK. As long as we recognize Nynorsk speakers some right to claim that no is theirs (too), our naming of sites will continue to get hijacked by such extremists. Our only escape is to refuse to recognize the political meaning of language codes in our domain names, and instead treat them as being just domain names that once assigned should not be changed unless for really good reasons. (Changing fiu-vro to the shorter vro can be a good reason, but changing et to ekk is not.) -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se This is a gross misrepresentation, and the summary is very biased. I suggest you read the entire debate on nowp. -- Jon Harald Søby http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
Hoi, Lars, you are talking about Nynorsk and I am talking about Estonian. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/23 Lars Aronsson l...@aronsson.se Gerard Meijssen wrote: When we were to move away from a set of URL's from et to ekk, a generic redirect from et to ekk will suffice because there will be a one on one relation. The et named articles will never be used for anything else. This is true because this is how the standard works. The very point of the suggestion to change no.wikipedia into nb.wikipedia is that Nynorsk extremists want to *deny* the Bokmål majority the privilege of using the common no code as theirs. The agenda of these extremists has no room for allowing redirects from no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo to nb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo, because that would perpetuate the Bokmål oppression. In the discussions, even the word occupation has been used. In their mind, the no.* URL should force the reader to pick either the Bokmål or Nynorsk article. That is, to stop and consider that there are more versions of Norwegian than Bokmål. There must be no default. If there is a default (a redirect), then today's naming would seem OK. As long as we recognize Nynorsk speakers some right to claim that no is theirs (too), our naming of sites will continue to get hijacked by such extremists. Our only escape is to refuse to recognize the political meaning of language codes in our domain names, and instead treat them as being just domain names that once assigned should not be changed unless for really good reasons. (Changing fiu-vro to the shorter vro can be a good reason, but changing et to ekk is not.) -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ 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] Re-licensing
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'm sorry, Thomas, but until people learn to use jurisprudential concepts such as moral rights properly, I have a moral obligation to point out where they are used mistakenly. You have a moral obligation? I thought you dismissed morality as a religious belief for which there is no evidence in the physical world. Or is it merely the concept that we ought to give credit to authors that you deem to be religious in nature? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'm sorry, Thomas, but until people learn to use jurisprudential concepts such as moral rights properly, I have a moral obligation to point out where they are used mistakenly. You have a moral obligation? I thought you dismissed morality as a religious belief for which there is no evidence in the physical world. Or is it merely the concept that we ought to give credit to authors that you deem to be religious in nature? This discussion has descended far below the threshold of usefulness now. If there's nothing else to talk about besides thinly-veiled ad hominems and I know more philosophy then you mental masturbation, could this discussion please go off-list? --Andrew Whitworth ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Anthony wrote: On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org wrote: That said, the GFDL requires authors to be listed in the section entitled History, and it clearly states that a section Entitled XYZ means a named subunit of the Document... So is current Wikipedia practice consistent with the GFDL or not? I believe that Wikipedia practice is not consistent with the GFDL. That's why I notified you that the WMF's right to use my content under the GFDL has been permanently revoked. Considering that Wikipedia practice has not changed since you made those edits, why did you make them in the first place, only to revoke them later? Do you have *any* purpose in participating in this project, and this mailing list discussion, at all, besides trolling? Did you make your edits in bad faith solely to give yourself an alleged cause of action? If you'd like to sue the Wikimedia Foundation, why didn't you: 1) do so years ago, when the alleged wrong transpired; and 2) stop harrassing the mailing list of a project whose aims you clearly oppose and have no interest in participating in. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 5:54 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'm sorry, Thomas, but until people learn to use jurisprudential concepts such as moral rights properly, I have a moral obligation to point out where they are used mistakenly. You have a moral obligation? I thought you dismissed morality as a religious belief for which there is no evidence in the physical world. Or is it merely the concept that we ought to give credit to authors that you deem to be religious in nature? This discussion has descended far below the threshold of usefulness now. If there's nothing else to talk about besides thinly-veiled ad hominems and I know more philosophy then you mental masturbation, could this discussion please go off-list? Hear, hear. I'm glad that I can respond to Andrew's post here, because if I had been replying to either Thomas, Anthony or Mike the following would have seemed to be directed at someone specifically, which it is not: Please Stop It. This thread used to be on the Re-licensing issue, which is an issue many people are interested it. Thus, you can't even bring up the usual Well, it's off-topic, but everyone can filter it out of their inbox by a subject-filter counter-argument, because many people actually *do* care about the Re-licensing and do not intend at all to filter it out of their inbox. What has happened, though, is that the thread has first been hijacked by a discussion about moral rights and other legal and philosophical concepts (which I myself found at least interesting, if completely off-topic) and now, it has gone down to a rather pathetic I have studied philosophy, you have no clue. I don't need to have studied philosophy to have a clue. I have studied Mathematics and you are a bad philosopher type of chat, which is an absolute no-go. Really, take it offlist. I hope I don't need to enforce this plea because I'm not actually in the mood to do so. Michael -- Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
2009/1/23 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: A single URL could point to a list of all contributors for all articles. Not under your proposal attribution via reference to page histories is acceptable if there are more than five authors. I do agree with you, Mike and others who have pointed out that we want to retain flexibility in application. I'm not arguing for absolutely rigid attribution requirements, and to the extent that the current proposal suggests that, it should be revised. I am, however, arguing for articulating principles and demonstrating them through guidelines and examples, so that there's no ambiguity about our general understanding of what we mean with reasonable applications. What we mean? Err we didn't write the license or the laws that it operates under. What we mean isn't relevant. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Andrew Gray wrote: 2009/1/22 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: A vast number of pseudonyms below have no meaning except for their context in Wikipedia. Apropos of which, a thought. We have spilled a good bit of ink over whether or not it is appropriate for the reuser to attribute Wikipedia users either alone or in addition to the usernames - should the project have a right to attribution, etc etc etc. In practice, wouldn't it be almost essential to name the site where the work was done *as well* as the usernames? Many of the pseudonyms, in effect, depend on that context... (Apologies if this was raised before - I don't remember seeing it) An article which has had many developments and been passed on might then wind up with an amalgamated attribution line like: by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (1962), Wikipedia contributors NukeUser, John Smith, Jane Doe and Mike Placeholder (2004-2007), Citizendium contributors Alan White, John Smith and Betty Green (2007-2009), and anonymous contributors. It's not exactly smooth, but it is comprehensible, and it does seem helpful to name the project to give some context to the names. Just saying Wikipedia users wouldn't be a good idea, but I like this way of mentioning it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
Thomas Dalton writes: I have a right to your house. Oh, sure, it's not recognized by anyone, but I promise I have it! Like I say, there's a world outside the legal profession. Just because something isn't recognised by the law doesn't mean it isn't recognised by anyone. So you recognize my right to your house? Cool! Where is it? When can I get the keys? Where do you think laws come from? Do you think they appear from nowhere? They are created by politicians (and sometimes judges) based on moral values. Those moral values imply certain moral rights whether they are written down in statute (or case law) or not. Oh, so you're creating a special Thomas Daltonian definition of the word moral rights. Cool! Do you understand what the term term of art means? Honestly? No, I'd have to look it up. However, I don't need to know fancy lawyer speak to understand the concept of morality. So you're under the impression that term of art is fancy lawyer speak? By the way, most members of the legal profession are not students of the philosophy of law. It is your misfortune that, in me, you have come across someone who is. I'm not disqualified from pointing out philosophical mistakes merely because I can hang out a shingle. Well, maybe when you progress a little further in your studies you'll actually know something about the subject. I'm a mathematician, I am well trained in logic and reasoned argument. This underscores your problem, perhaps. Many mathematicians are under the impression that reasoning from first principles is a substitute for actually doing the necessary reading and learning. The notion that one can argue without knowledge of the relevant facts is one that is common, all by no means universal, among my friends who are mathematicians. While I may not be an expert on the relevant facts, I can follow an argument and see if it makes sense, and yours rarely do. I can understand why arguments based on reading you have not done and facts you do not have wouldn't make sense to you. I'll make allowances. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
Anthony writes: Maybe you could explain the etymology of that term for us, Mike. Your last paragraph seems to imply that you understand it. Thanks. But surely you don't expect me to tutor you on moral rights jurisprudence when the materials you need are widely available elsewhere. In any case, how do you propose that we can continue in a way that doesn't confuse you with sentences like moral rights are a type of moral rights? I don't feel confused -- it seems to me quite clear where you've gone wrong. There is a fundamental difference between a right granted by law and a pre-existing right recognised by law. Is this difference based on anything in the physical world? Sure, it's based on whether or not the jurisdiction recognizes the right. Oh, you're using fundamental in a way I wasn't expecting. I thought you meant to be understood as saying that the pre-existing right had an independent existence, outside of jurisprudence. It's true that religious beliefs don't have great force in Western courtrooms. I dismiss this particular religious belief not because it's irrelevant in a courtroom, however, but because there is no evidence in the physical world that this difference exists. In what way is the concept of moral rights a religious belief? It's invisible, unanalyzable, and an article of faith among believers. Thomas, you may believe that the longstanding debate between natural law and positivists has been resolved in favor of the former, but there's no sign that this is true with regard to copyright. You could have saved us a lot of time by saying that instead of pretending you didn't know what I was talking about. I actually didn't know what you were talking about, since you use language so imprecisely. If what you were saying were widely accepted, it would be odd that moral rights obtain as to copyright/creative expression but not as to things like property ownership and personal liberty. That would be odd if it were true. But it isn't. Theft and slavery are morally wrong, in addition to (and regardless of) being illegal. I happen to agree that they are morally wrong, but not as a function of natural-rights jurisprudence. I don't, however, believe abridgement of rights in copyright is morally wrong (although of course I don't approve of it). There's a distinction between malum prohibitum and malum in se. I have a right to your house. Oh, sure, it's not recognized by anyone, but I promise I have it! Why would you call it *my* house, then? Convention. In any case, moral rights are recognized by many people, just not indisputably under Florida law. Florida law? I thought we were talking about copyright. I see, so you *were* being intentionally obtuse. To try to teach me a lesson. I have to admit I'm glad that's what it was. To have to conclude that you were a complete dolt would have been much more shocking than the conclusion that you're a troll. And I did learn a lesson. I learned about your ignorance of right and wrong, and got a glimpse of the nihilism it stems from. You seem confused here. Sometimes you want to attribute ignorance to me, and sometimes you think I'm intentionally pretending to be ignorant in order to teach you a lesson. I don't think you can consistently hold both views with regard to the same subject matter. Next time you should reflect a little and review your posting before you hit the Send button. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
All this comparing, ahem, brain sizes is very interesting - but ultimately not useful, and detrimental to the ideal tone and purpose of this list. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
Michael Bimmler writes: Please Stop It. Sure, Michael. I confess it sometimes amuses me to argue with trolls, but I have no interest in continuing to argue publicly when it ceases to amuse anyone else but me. My apologies. I'll try to keep things more in hand in the future. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
I was very surprised to read on the Wikimedia blog a post from Naoko Komura, the WMF program manager heading up the Wikipedia Usability Initiative, funded by the Stanton Foundation. Post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/21/a-note-on-the-wikipedia-usability-initiative/ To quote Komura, On the space front, we had outgrown our current space in the South of Market area of San Francisco, and we were in search of space specifically for this project. I am happy to announce that Wikia has agreed to sublease two of their conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the project duration (Jan'09-Mar'10). Daniel [Phelps] collected a dozen bids for the space in SOMA, and Wikia matched the best offer. I submitted a comment to the blog, but over seven hours later, it is still not published, and there is a history of my questions to that blog being ignored or censored. So, I'm going to ask here, and I'll also advise the list moderators that this message is being copied to members of the press. Could we have more detail, please, on the note that Wikia matched the best offer? Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a second and adjusted offer basis, rather than choosing the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer initially? Was the first low bidder given the chance to further discount their rate? If so, what was their response? If not, why not? I have to agree with Steven Walling's comment on the blog. He said, I find the idea of the Foundation working that closely with Wikia, literally and figuratively, discomforting. We already have enough people confused about the difference between the two organizations, and to be honest, this feels like nepotism. Actually, it's not nepotism. And, there are no uniform laws regarding nepotism. It's potentially worse. Self-dealing, which is what this really smacks of, is covered in case law, judicial opinions, and some statutes. I have been assured in countless places that Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation are complete separate organizations and that there were no business relationships between the members of a past WMF Board that was 60% comprised of Wikia employees/owners. Considering the past Wikia/Wikipedia fiasco of Ryan Essjay Jordan, I would have thought the WMF would be hyper-sensitive to working in concert yet again with their neighbor down the street. In summary: We know Wikia was recently laying off workers in the economic downturn. Presumably, Wikia now has excess office space per employee. WMF gets a grant, presumably funded by tax-deductible dollars. Expending that grant on office space is served up to an ostensibly open and fair competitive search among 12 candidate landlords. A lowest bid is received. However, a bidder who happens to have strong personnel ties to the Board of WMF and the Advisory Board of WMF, is given the opportunity to match the lowest bid, which they do, since they have empty office space doing them no good empty. Net result: Tax-advantaged dollars will be transferred to a for-profit corporation with an inside track to the decision-making body of the non-profit organization. It strikes me as fishy, to use a gentle word. -- Gregory Kohs Cell: 302.463.1354 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Could we have more detail, please, on the note that Wikia matched the best offer? Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a second and adjusted offer basis, rather than choosing the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer initially? Was the first low bidder given the chance to further discount their rate? If so, what was their response? If not, why not? I'd appreciate answers to those questions as well. I have to agree with Steven Walling's comment on the blog. He said, I find the idea of the Foundation working that closely with Wikia, literally and figuratively, discomforting. We already have enough people confused about the difference between the two organizations, and to be honest, this feels like nepotism. It does seem likely to confuse. Only a couple of days ago I had to explain to someone that we had nothing to do with Wikia and had to qualify that by mentioning that there was some sharing of personnel, in future I'll have to qualify it even more. Considering the past Wikia/Wikipedia fiasco of Ryan Essjay Jordan, I would have thought the WMF would be hyper-sensitive to working in concert yet again with their neighbor down the street. I don't see the connection there, I'm afraid. Essjay's employment at Wikia had nothing to do with WMF, it just happened to be how we all found out about his true identity. In WMF's defence, this sentence from the blog may at least partly explain the decision: Wikia has been doing intensive work on the usability front and making the code available to public, so I look forward to collaborating with the Wikia technical and product teams to exchange ideas and learn from their work. There is a certain amount of logic in working with one of the biggest non-WMF MediaWiki users on this project. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com wrote: I'll also advise the list moderators that this message is being copied to members of the press. Thanks for the heads-up, now I'm frightened... Seriously, I have nothing against you raising these questions, but sentences like the above won't help your cause and will just allow other people to dismiss your arguments more quickly. M. -- Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
I'm glad someone is concerned about this issue. Wikia has always smacked of they wouldn't let us show ads on Wikipedia, so here is the for-profit branch of Wikipedia with ads. There are potential conflicts of interest at nearly every level of the Wikia/Wikipedia relationship. On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com wrote: I was very surprised to read on the Wikimedia blog a post from Naoko Komura, the WMF program manager heading up the Wikipedia Usability Initiative, funded by the Stanton Foundation. Post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/21/a-note-on-the-wikipedia-usability-initiative/ To quote Komura, On the space front, we had outgrown our current space in the South of Market area of San Francisco, and we were in search of space specifically for this project. I am happy to announce that Wikia has agreed to sublease two of their conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the project duration (Jan'09-Mar'10). Daniel [Phelps] collected a dozen bids for the space in SOMA, and Wikia matched the best offer. I submitted a comment to the blog, but over seven hours later, it is still not published, and there is a history of my questions to that blog being ignored or censored. So, I'm going to ask here, and I'll also advise the list moderators that this message is being copied to members of the press. Could we have more detail, please, on the note that Wikia matched the best offer? Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a second and adjusted offer basis, rather than choosing the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer initially? Was the first low bidder given the chance to further discount their rate? If so, what was their response? If not, why not? I have to agree with Steven Walling's comment on the blog. He said, I find the idea of the Foundation working that closely with Wikia, literally and figuratively, discomforting. We already have enough people confused about the difference between the two organizations, and to be honest, this feels like nepotism. Actually, it's not nepotism. And, there are no uniform laws regarding nepotism. It's potentially worse. Self-dealing, which is what this really smacks of, is covered in case law, judicial opinions, and some statutes. I have been assured in countless places that Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation are complete separate organizations and that there were no business relationships between the members of a past WMF Board that was 60% comprised of Wikia employees/owners. Considering the past Wikia/Wikipedia fiasco of Ryan Essjay Jordan, I would have thought the WMF would be hyper-sensitive to working in concert yet again with their neighbor down the street. In summary: We know Wikia was recently laying off workers in the economic downturn. Presumably, Wikia now has excess office space per employee. WMF gets a grant, presumably funded by tax-deductible dollars. Expending that grant on office space is served up to an ostensibly open and fair competitive search among 12 candidate landlords. A lowest bid is received. However, a bidder who happens to have strong personnel ties to the Board of WMF and the Advisory Board of WMF, is given the opportunity to match the lowest bid, which they do, since they have empty office space doing them no good empty. Net result: Tax-advantaged dollars will be transferred to a for-profit corporation with an inside track to the decision-making body of the non-profit organization. It strikes me as fishy, to use a gentle word. -- Gregory Kohs Cell: 302.463.1354 ___ 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] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com wrote: I submitted a comment to the blog, but over seven hours later, it is still not published, and there is a history of my questions to that blog being ignored or censored. So, I'm going to ask here, and I'll also advise the list moderators that this message is being copied to members of the press. I don't mean to be pugilistic here, but...so? A blog isn't really a publicly accessible forum, even if some people choose to open theirs as such. Also, which members of the press are you forwarding the traffic to? Could we have more detail, please, on the note that Wikia matched the best offer? Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a second and adjusted offer basis, rather than choosing the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer initially? Was the first low bidder given the chance to further discount their rate? If so, what was their response? If not, why not? I'm not sure it matters, the deal with Wikia provides an interesting opporty for a number of reasons, not just the bottom-line financial ones. Wikia has been doing a lot of work with MediaWiki, especially concerning usuability. Also, there is a location issue that's worth considering too. Close proximity to the WMF headquarters, an as-good-as-best cost, and an opportunity to work near other engineers on a similar project is quite a good package deal that isn't really worth second-guessing. Even if the next 10 closest bidders all matched or beat that same price when given a second chance, they probably could not have matched the other benefits of the Wikia offer. Actually, it's not nepotism. And, there are no uniform laws regarding nepotism. It's potentially worse. Self-dealing, which is what this really smacks of, is covered in case law, judicial opinions, and some statutes. It's like when companies hire new people, they like people with significant experience in the same industry. It's not nepotism to say that you want to work with, and to work near, people who are doing similar work as what you are doing. It's also not nepotism if you aren't showing undo favoritism: Wikia matched the best offer and brings additional value to the deal in a number of other ways that I doubt could be matched by any of the other bidders. We know Wikia was recently laying off workers in the economic downturn. Presumably, Wikia now has excess office space per employee. WMF gets a grant, presumably funded by tax-deductible dollars. Expending that grant on office space is served up to an ostensibly open and fair competitive search among 12 candidate landlords. A lowest bid is received. However, a bidder who happens to have strong personnel ties to the Board of WMF and the Advisory Board of WMF, is given the opportunity to match the lowest bid, which they do, since they have empty office space doing them no good empty. Net result: Tax-advantaged dollars will be transferred to a for-profit corporation with an inside track to the decision-making body of the non-profit organization. It strikes me as fishy, to use a gentle word. It's fishy that the WMF choose a bid that was equal to the best bid financially, and had additional non-financial value as well? That's not fishy, that's good business. Fishy would be if the WMF choose to accept Wikia's bid if it was not equal to the lowest bid on the table (and even then, it might still make sense considering the added value of the Wikia bid). That Wikia may be struggling financially is not surprising in this economy either, so I don't know why you even bring that up. --Andrew Whitworth ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On 1/23/09 11:49 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: Could we have more detail, please, on the note that Wikia matched the best offer? Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a second and adjusted offer basis, rather than choosing the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer initially? Was the first low bidder given the chance to further discount their rate? If so, what was their response? If not, why not? I'd appreciate answers to those questions as well. Wikia's space is physically closer to WMF's main office than the best other bid, making it easier for the project team to work with the main office. (We'd much rather keep them *in* our main office, but we're simply out of room!) The fact that Wikia also has software developers working on MediaWiki usability is a big plus as well -- being physically close to Wikia's office makes technical collaboration with their team easier, which translates directly to benefiting end users. These benefits would be present even if the price didn't match the best other offer, but would have been outweighed by a significant price difference (or being able to increase our primary space at an effective cost, say by taking over the space next door which is alas not currently available). Wikia has been doing intensive work on the usability front and making the code available to public, so I look forward to collaborating with the Wikia technical and product teams to exchange ideas and learn from their work. There is a certain amount of logic in working with one of the biggest non-WMF MediaWiki users on this project. Bingo. -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
The Foundation was searching for rooms because the current rooms are already quite crowded (everyone who had visited the office can confirm this) and because we will start the usability project we are going to hire three more developers. Thus the Foundation has either to lease offices in the vincinity or have to move completely into a new, bigger site. The Foundation has set up a list of criterias in search: First of all, move to a new site is more costly than lease additional office. Second the office that are searched should be near the main office, for better communication and tech supports. Third the office must have sufficiant tech infrastructures. And naturally it should be of a convinient price. After checking many possibilities at last the Foundation had decided to lease the offices from Wikia, mainly because all criterias above fills at best by the Wikia site. The lease contract is a standard contract with no additional terms. The lease price is average SF lease price. It is directly beside the main office and it provides the infrastructure we need. That's all. There are no other things running here. The board was informed about the searching of additional or new office while its October 2008 meeting and was informed about the leasing of the Wikia office in its January meeting. And if someone is interested in this: I am told that Jimmy is not involved in this matter, neither on the WMF side nor on the Wikia side. Ting ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
(We'd much rather keep them *in* our main office, but we're simply out of room!) I'm curious, how did that happen exactly? You didn't get the office that long ago and most of the recent hires have been planned a fair amount of time in advance. Why did you get a bigger office to start with? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Out of curiosity, will the cost of leasing the space be deducted from the usability grant funds? Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Wikia has been doing intensive work on the usability front and making the code available to public, so I look forward to collaborating with the Wikia technical and product teams to exchange ideas and learn from their work. There is a certain amount of logic in working with one of the biggest non-WMF MediaWiki users on this project. Bingo. -- brion It would appear that nobody is concerned about giving the landlord a leg up on ITS for-profit competitors by supplying them in particular with a ready feed of intellectual capital in the form of the friendly Stanton-funded developers? Lucky for Wikia, Inc.! I mean, assume good faith all you want, but if I were a biotech firm trying to develop a synthetic blood plasma, boy would I love to have the Red Cross' top research scientists parked in my meeting rooms every day. And PAYING me for the privilege, to boot? That's just gravy. It sounds to me that the (reasonable) criteria that ranked proximity to WMF and cognate activities as high as, or higher than, monthly rental rate rather wired this contract to Wikia, Inc. from the get-go. Kudos for putting on the dutiful show of obtaining 12 separate bids, but the outside world is seeing this for what it is -- a show of equanimity to gloss over a pre-determined outcome. As for Master Bimmler's concerns about the fear imposed by mention of the media watching, it's only natural for someone who has recently and historically been censored for asking pertinent questions, to want some sort of back up to assure him he is not living in a digital version of a Kafkaesque nightmare. If your team would stop censoring WP:BADTHOUGHTS, maybe there wouldn't be such a rush to the media? Gregory Kohs ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com wrote: It would appear that nobody is concerned about giving the landlord a leg up on ITS for-profit competitors by supplying them in particular with a ready feed of intellectual capital in the form of the friendly Stanton-funded developers? All the changes are going to be open-source, and the development process will be open. I can't see why you would object to Wikimedia collaborating with one of the largest end-users of MediaWiki on improving the software. I can't see what the claimed conflict of interest is, either. Did anyone involved in the decision, from Wikimedia's side, have any connections to Wikia? So far both Brion Vibber and Ting Chen have said that it was the best offer, and neither of them is or ever has been affiliated with Wikia in any way to my knowledge. If there's no conflict of interest, then what grounds are there for suggesting any wrongdoing? If the deal is good for Wikia, why should Wikimedia care one way or the other, if it was the best offer from their perspective? So good for Wikia, they offered the best terms and might get better access because of it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Nathan wrote: Out of curiosity, will the cost of leasing the space be deducted from the usability grant funds? Normal overhead costs were budgeted into the grant from the beginning. That's one of the reasons we're not using it to hire 30 developers at $30,000 a year, but setting more realistic goals for it. While I can't say exactly offhand what the accounting mechanics will be, the lease should have no negative effect, either on our ability to execute the usability grant as intended, or on the use of unrestricted donations for the normal purposes of the foundation. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
The issue is pretty plain and simple: * Our Office Manager explored several options, including Wikia; * We've suggested to Wikia a fair market rate based on the average of the other options we obtained; * After some negotiation, Wikia accepted. Weighing other pros and cons of the space against other options, we decided to go with Wikia; * Neither Jimmy Wales nor anyone else involved with both WMF and Wikia was involved in this decision-making process, to avoid any conflict of interest. I know that Wikia/WMF related stuff is pretty exciting, but really, we have work to do. We're not going to not make a decision that is right just because it creates fodder for trolling. (And I hope that if this turns into a troll-fest, the list moderators will take appropriate action.) -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Erik Moeller wrote: [snip] * We've suggested to Wikia a fair market rate based on the average of the other options we obtained; * After some negotiation, Wikia accepted. Weighing other pros and cons of the space against other options, we decided to go with Wikia; To clarify, did Wikia match the lowest bid? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: I'm curious, how did that happen exactly? You didn't get the office that long ago and most of the recent hires have been planned a fair amount of time in advance. Growth can be unpredictable for a number of reasons - changing assumptions about capacity needs, revenue, etc.; the normal unpredictable factors in any hiring process, etc. This is all expected and normal for an organization that was, last year, essentially in start-up mode. The Stanton usability grant, specifically, was not a planned or anticipated opportunity: we always expected that we'd be doing significant work in that area, but we were lucky to find a funder whose goals were lined up with ours to allow this to happen on a larger scale and sooner than we expected. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com wrote: It would appear that nobody is concerned about giving the landlord a leg up on ITS for-profit competitors by supplying them in particular with a ready feed of intellectual capital in the form of the friendly Stanton-funded developers? Lucky for Wikia, Inc.! I mean, assume good faith all you want, but if I were a biotech firm trying to develop a synthetic blood plasma, boy would I love to have the Red Cross' top research scientists parked in my meeting rooms every day. And PAYING me for the privilege, to boot? That's just gravy. Wikia didn't make the decision, the WMF did. The WMF decided to accept Wikia's bid because of the benefits that the deal brought to the WMF. The fact that Wikia also happens to benefit from the arrangement (while, at the same time, receiving the lowest financial compensation of any of the bidders), is just a nice coincidence for them. You're ignoring the fact that this arrangement is the best deal for the WMF, and is the most efficient and most responsible use of it's funds. Of course, If the WMF instead used their money in a less responsible manner by going with a higher bidding landlord, you'd find fault with that too, wouldn't you Greg? It sounds to me that the (reasonable) criteria that ranked proximity to WMF and cognate activities as high as, or higher than, monthly rental rate rather wired this contract to Wikia, Inc. from the get-go. Kudos for putting on the dutiful show of obtaining 12 separate bids, but the outside world is seeing this for what it is -- a show of equanimity to gloss over a pre-determined outcome. Let's recap: Wikia submitted the LOWEST bid. The deal with Wikia is saving the WMF money, and bringing the WMF additional benefits as well. I don't mind people crying wolf when a real misdeed has been committed, but no such misdeed has occured here. The WMF solicited bids, there were two bids that tied for lowest price, and the WMF selected the option that brought the most value with it. This is good business and responsible use of tax-advantaged dollars. As for Master Bimmler's concerns about the fear imposed by mention of the media watching, it's only natural for someone who has recently and historically been censored for asking pertinent questions, to want some sort of back up to assure him he is not living in a digital version of a Kafkaesque nightmare. If your team would stop censoring WP:BADTHOUGHTS, maybe there wouldn't be such a rush to the media? So all this time it's been our fault that we get trolled? Shame on the victim! --Andrew Whitworth ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: * We've suggested to Wikia a fair market rate based on the average of the other options we obtained; Average, or cheapest? If it really was average, then you're going to have need to justify precisely how the added bonuses from Wikia are worth whatever the difference was between the cheapest and the average. You need to use an abundance of caution when you're a charity doing business dealings with a company whose board overlaps with yours. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com: Erik Moeller wrote: [snip] * We've suggested to Wikia a fair market rate based on the average of the other options we obtained; * After some negotiation, Wikia accepted. Weighing other pros and cons of the space against other options, we decided to go with Wikia; To clarify, did Wikia match the lowest bid? No, and we didn't ask them to. We obtained about a dozen bids, ranging from about $150 to $565 per person/month. Obviously all those spaces had different characteristics. Wikia was in the running because it had desirable characteristics from the start (high proximity, shared kitchen access, shared speakerphone use, shared Internet connection, etc.). We used averaging as a way to arrive at a fair market rate to neither advantage nor disadvantage Wikia when suggesting a rate. The averaging also resulted in a rate that was roughly equivalent to the most comparable space in the running. Wikia, too, looked at different potential tenants for the space. The final rate we negotiated was slightly higher than the most comparable option we looked at (and considered very seriously, including a site visit). However, the relative advantages of the Wikia space compensated for that. We were quite careful not to draw any special advantages from our relationship to Wikia, and Wikia was careful to treat us in our negotiations like any other tenant. While we're likely to work with them on technical aspects of the projects, we were also careful to keep that completely separate. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: 2009/1/23 David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com: Erik Moeller wrote: [snip] * We've suggested to Wikia a fair market rate based on the average of the other options we obtained; * After some negotiation, Wikia accepted. Weighing other pros and cons of the space against other options, we decided to go with Wikia; To clarify, did Wikia match the lowest bid? No, and we didn't ask them to. We obtained about a dozen bids, ranging from about $150 to $565 per person/month. Obviously all those spaces had different characteristics. Wikia was in the running because it had desirable characteristics from the start (high proximity, shared kitchen access, shared speakerphone use, shared Internet connection, etc.). We used averaging as a way to arrive at a fair market rate to neither advantage nor disadvantage Wikia when suggesting a rate. The averaging also resulted in a rate that was roughly equivalent to the most comparable space in the running. Is that common practice for US charities? I'm not sure that would cut it in the UK... Wikia, too, looked at different potential tenants for the space. The final rate we negotiated was slightly higher than the most comparable option we looked at (and considered very seriously, including a site visit). However, the relative advantages of the Wikia space compensated for that. We were quite careful not to draw any special advantages from our relationship to Wikia, and Wikia was careful to treat us in our negotiations like any other tenant. While we're likely to work with them on technical aspects of the projects, we were also careful to keep that completely separate. You don't just need to avoid a COI, you need to avoid the perception of one. This deal will, undoubtedly, be interpreted by many as an inside job. I'm sure it isn't, but that's how a lot of people will see it. Did you consider the PR cost when weighing it all up? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Erik Moeller wrote: I know that Wikia/WMF related stuff is pretty exciting, but really, we have work to do. We're not going to not make a decision that is right just because it creates fodder for trolling. (And I hope that if this turns into a troll-fest, the list moderators will take appropriate action.) Mailing-list controversy is hardly the main PR problem here; the continuing confusion this creates in the wider world about the extent to which Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation are entangled is a bigger one. It certainly *looks* suspicious. I know if something like this happened at some other organization I wasn't involved in---say, the Sierra Club was leasing space from a for-profit environmental lobbying firm founded by a Sierra Club board member---I would certainly raise my eyebrows, and I'd be skeptical when they assured me that there really weren't any shenanigans going on. There's a reason organizations that depend on public goodwill try to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in this sort of respect, and auditors usually suggest avoiding those sorts of entanglements. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Delirium delir...@hackish.org writes: There's a reason organizations that depend on public goodwill try to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in this sort of respect, and auditors usually suggest avoiding those sorts of entanglements. Could you please keep the amount of crackpotish kookery at a minimum at this list? -- /Wegge ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com writes: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Anders Wegge Keller we...@wegge.dk wrote: Could you please keep the amount of crackpotish kookery at a minimum at this list? I'm somewhat confused - Delirium's comment here is reasonable, accurate, and a legitimate concern, as opposed to some of the rest of the thread. Not to me, and it just happened to be the one that tripped my trigger setting. -- /Wegge ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Anders Wegge Keller wrote: Delirium delir...@hackish.org writes: There's a reason organizations that depend on public goodwill try to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in this sort of respect, and auditors usually suggest avoiding those sorts of entanglements. Could you please keep the amount of crackpotish kookery at a minimum at this list? In what respect is it crackpottish or kookery to suggest that even appearance of impropriety, even where none exists, is damaging to nonprofit organizations that depend on public goodwill? I'm not alleging that any actual impropriety took place, and I believe Erik's explanations. But that's only because I know several of the board members and believe they have Wikimedia's best interests in mind---heck, I recall publicly campaigning for Erik's election to the board some time ago. Most people, however, neither know the board nor have any particularly great knowledge of Wikimedia's internals. Were it any other organization, as in my Sierra Club example, I wouldn't believe the explanation, so I wouldn't blame non-Wikimedians who read about this in the newspaper if they were a bit skeptical. That seems like it'll inevitably be damaging from a PR and fundraising perspective. I believe Erik's explanation of the space's benefits, I just think the Board is underestimating the negative effects to the Foundation's reputation. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Hoi, Having an office close to the main office, having an environment that is shared with colleagues who way are sharing their impressive usability improvements are tangible benefits. I agree, the issue is with how much you value them. They definitely have a value, but I haven't, as yet, seem any attempt to quantify that. The cost of the office space conforms to market rates. Sure, but they don't conform to the cheapest rate. Any decision by a charity to spend more money than is strictly necessary needs to be justified. I'm not saying that it's unjustifiable, it just hasn't been justified yet. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Anders Wegge Keller we...@wegge.dk wrote: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com writes: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Anders Wegge Keller we...@wegge.dk wrote: Could you please keep the amount of crackpotish kookery at a minimum at this list? I'm somewhat confused - Delirium's comment here is reasonable, accurate, and a legitimate concern, as opposed to some of the rest of the thread. Not to me, and it just happened to be the one that tripped my trigger setting. I respectfully request that you review it and reconsider. There have been plenty of what I would consider to be hostile or kookish comments by those who do not wish the Foundation well in this thread. Delirium's comments seem to me to clearly be those of a concerned but constructively engaged community member. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Delirium delir...@hackish.org writes: Anders Wegge Keller wrote: Could you please keep the amount of crackpotish kookery at a minimum at this list? In what respect is it crackpottish or kookery to suggest that even appearance of impropriety, even where none exists, is damaging to nonprofit organizations that depend on public goodwill? Except for being the umpteent person to continue the line of aggressive questioning, none. You just happened to be the unlucky roll of the dice. -- /Wegge ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Anders Wegge Keller wrote: Delirium delir...@hackish.org writes: Anders Wegge Keller wrote: Could you please keep the amount of crackpotish kookery at a minimum at this list In what respect is it crackpottish or kookery to suggest that even appearance of impropriety, even where none exists, is damaging to nonprofit organizations that depend on public goodwill? Except for being the umpteent person to continue the line of aggressive questioning, none. You just happened to be the unlucky roll of the dice. I'd like to respectfully ask the participants of this fork of the thread to immediately cease responding to it. Thanks. Cary ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
I find it interesting that critics of the Foundation are necessarily either a troll, crackpot or kook, and yet, by my estimation, each one of these critics has been around longer than the Foundation and wishes to make sure that it develops in a manner consistent with the much older philosophy surrounding the projects. Here's a criticism the foundation really ought to consider: Quit calling us trolls, crackpots and kooks and simply address the matters in a factual way. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Anders Wegge Keller we...@wegge.dk wrote: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com writes: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Anders Wegge Keller we...@wegge.dk wrote: Not to me, and it just happened to be the one that tripped my trigger setting. I respectfully request that you review it and reconsider. Request denied. I stand by what I said, and you can be polite from here to eternity, but I consider Delerium a kook in his own right, nonwithstanding a seemingly thin veneer of civility in this case. .okay, and at this point I think that this thread becomes a certain waste of bits, no offense to anyone in particular ;-) May I recommend a few breathes of fresh air for everyone or, alternatively, a strong cup of tea? Michael -- Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: . Did you consider the PR cost when weighing it all up? Of course. It's a normal transaction and any noise about it is likely going to be ephemeral. We will continue to calmly and sensibly explain it to reasonable people, and that's all there is to it. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Delirium wrote: Most people, however, neither know the board nor have any particularly great knowledge of Wikimedia's internals. Were it any other organization, as in my Sierra Club example, I wouldn't believe the explanation, so I wouldn't blame non-Wikimedians who read about this in the newspaper if they were a bit skeptical. That seems like it'll inevitably be damaging from a PR and fundraising perspective. I believe Erik's explanation of the space's benefits, I just think the Board is underestimating the negative effects to the Foundation's reputation. Anyone familiar enough with the background to understand why the lease might be an issue has probably formed their opinion about the potential for conflicts already. So I don't believe it will have a negative impact outside of people who have already made up their minds and won't reconsider. This discussion itself is evidence of that, as it seems the only person who thinks the lease is actually bad, as opposed to possibly looking bad, has a long history of finding fault with us no matter what. With regard to any impact on public relations or fundraising generally - if there are donors or media professionals who don't believe Erik's explanation (even without any evidence to the contrary), I'll be happy to discuss it with them. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Sounds good. Could you calmly and sensibly explain it to me, then? How did you come to decide that the addition benefits of working in Wikia's offices were worth the extra money? (I'm willing to accept that there could be a good explanation, I'd just like to see it.) I already named some of them - greater proximity, shared kitchen use, shared speakerphone use, established Internet connectivity. The other space we were looking at also had noise issues: open concept with two other tenants, and some noise every day at 6PM due to music lessons in the same building. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com The natural state of these discussions is that there are always people pissing in the wind. That spoils things somewhat. Hear hear, true words in a typical Dutch wording. :-) I am amazed about the transparency and openess the staff members are giving here, and I am looking forward to the results of these splendid work conditions. Kind regards Ziko Wer durch des Argwohns Brille schaut, sieht Raupen selbst im Sauerkraut. Wilhelm Busch -- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 20:53, Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: I'm glad someone is concerned about this issue. Wikia has always smacked of they wouldn't let us show ads on Wikipedia, so here is the for-profit branch of Wikipedia with ads. There are potential conflicts of interest at nearly every level of the Wikia/Wikipedia relationship. I never thought I would say what comes next. As much as I have been a fierce defender of a clear cut between Wikia and Wikimedia, I must admit that I find this solution to be one of the best things that has happened to the usability project. About space: been there, and yes, Wikia's headquarters are a street away, so really easy to plan meetings and make sure things happen in coordinated fashion between the Wikimedia office and the Usability project. About working near Wikia: Wikia, as was said elsewhere, is one of the biggest Mediawiki users out there and therefore has, in my opinion, probably the best incentive to make sure that Mediawiki develops in a way that makes sense for the users. They already have a pretty big developper team, and having them at hand will definitely broaden the usability project vision on what a wiki can/should do to be more user friendly. Who more than a commercial user of Mediawiki has an interest in its evolution _for the best_ of users? I see absolutely no conflict of interest. Where? Seriously? Wikia is renting walls, tables and chairs to the Wikimedia Foundation, that's all. And on top of that, they bring to the coffee machine talks tons of ideas and experience in the daily use of the software. And frankly, without this thread, everyone would have forgotten the move two days from now and seen nothing in it. Gee, it's time to grow up and stop seeing the cabal everywhere. Cheers, Delphine -- ~notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost. Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: 2009/1/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Sounds good. Could you calmly and sensibly explain it to me, then? How did you come to decide that the addition benefits of working in Wikia's offices were worth the extra money? (I'm willing to accept that there could be a good explanation, I'd just like to see it.) I already named some of them - greater proximity, shared kitchen use, shared speakerphone use, established Internet connectivity. The other space we were looking at also had noise issues: open concept with two other tenants, and some noise every day at 6PM due to music lessons in the same building. I was looking for something a little more quantitative. I know it is difficult to quantify these things, which is why, in my experience, charities usually err on the side of caution. In fact, the model governing documents for the UK Charities Commission explicitly forbids any such dealings with companies that share directors with the charity (I'm not sure the law requires such strict rules, but they are certainly recommended). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
2009/1/23 George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com: This is a discussion about copyright law and licenses under / related to it, is it not? And not philosophy writ large? It was, I think we drifted a little off-topic. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
George Herbert writes: There was a slight danger in the Foundation chosing to hire Mike as counsel, that he has a long-established tendency to poke fun at people ( cf. Godwin's Law, and more long painful Usenet discussions from 20 plus years ago than I care to remember at the moment...). This is going over rather badly with some people's sense of moral indignation over licensing and copyright issues. I confess it is a vice, although better for my liver than alcohol or cocaine. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: 2009/1/24 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Delphine Ménard notafi...@gmail.comwrote: My reply isn't specific to what Thomas wrote; this is a general comment on this thread. I've been reading it with a lot of interest, and there are a couple of things I'd like to add to what's already been said. First, I want to be clear – it was my decision to sublet the space from Wikia. I believe it's the right thing for Wikimedia :-) It's the right decision from a practical standpoint, for the reasons outlined earlier by Erik and others. And beyond that, I also believe it is appropriate and reasonable for the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia to have a normal working relationship – one that is neither overly entangled, nor exaggeratedly distant. Wikia does not do exactly what we do, but it does similar work. It makes sense for us to have a collegial, friendly relationship with Wikia, exactly as we do with dozens of other organizations who do work that is similar to ours, or aligned with it. I would also say that I am happy we're talking about this, and I hope the people asking questions are finding the answers reasonably reassuring :-) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
2009/1/24 Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org: I would also say that I am happy we're talking about this, and I hope the people asking questions are finding the answers reasonably reassuring :-) Depends. The wikia is a large user therefor we should work with them argument is somewhat worrying because well we know the CIA is also a large user. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 5:13 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: Used relative to copyright law, the term unambiguously means what Mike is saying, the rights that Europe (and others) have assigned to actual authors distinct from copyright owners etc. If you look at the context in which I used the term moral rights, I think you will agree that I used the term properly to mean rights which are not based on social conventions. Mike said (I ask for the legal distinction because you are articulating your concern in terms of what you purport to be violations of your legal rights.) I replied: Actually, I'm purporting them to be violations of my moral rights. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 9:47 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/1/24 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Delphine Ménard notafi...@gmail.com wrote: Wikia, as was said elsewhere, is one of the biggest Mediawiki users out there and therefore has, in my opinion, probably the best incentive to make sure that Mediawiki develops in a way that makes sense for the users. And what better way to do that then to have people come down to the Wikia office and work on improving Wikia's software, while the Wikimedia Foundation pays for not only the developers, but rent on the space they use while developing! Who cares if Wikia benefits? It's the benefit to WMF that matters. As long as it is an undeniably good business decision for WMF, the fact that it's also a good deal for Wikia doesn't factor into it. It doesn't factor into it? You'd make a terrible used car salesman! Anyway, I think you're reading more into what I wrote than I intended. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 7:07 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/1/24 Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org: I would also say that I am happy we're talking about this, and I hope the people asking questions are finding the answers reasonably reassuring :-) Depends. The wikia is a large user therefor we should work with them argument is somewhat worrying because well we know the CIA is also a large user. What the CIA has admitted doing to Mediawiki (adding in the classification levels and more robust audit trail stuff, etc) is consistent with increasing usability for some commercial environments, where current access control / management features are somewhat marginal. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Mr Kohs; Some of your points have merit as there are many areas in which we can and should improve. However, I must respectfully note that your comments here serve only to divide a already fractured community even further. As a Californian, I disagree with your assertions of nepotism and favoritism most vehemently. Since you live in Pennsylvania, you may not be aware of this but rents in California tend to be fairly exorbitant. San Francisco is no exception. Office space has always been at a premium. When looking at bids, I assume that our hard working staff took many factors into consideration, as price is one out of many important items. One major factor would be the working dynamic and utilization. Wikia and Wikimedia, although different types of corporations, utilize the same software for similar purposes. This means that the Wikia office space would be usable by Foundation staff, as it would already be designed for those working with wikis. With another landlord, the Foundation might need to reconfigure the space, which costs time and money. Also, Wikia staff would be competent enough to assist with problems and capable of making changes. Another landlord might be difficult to reach or unable to work with staff to alleviate problems. Also they might not be able to understand what staff would need and be difficult to work with. The real cost is never just the sticker price, its all the hidden surprises. Renting from a similar organization eliminates these hidden surprises and makes for a smooth transition. You also make the assertion of nepotism and impropriety. I fail to see why this is improper. Big whoop, Jimbo owns Wikia. Everybody knows it and it has never been hidden. He isn't going to profit from a simple subletting deal. Wikia has bills too and I assume has to pay rent. This makes the transfer of money moot, as money goes into private coffers all the time to keep nonprofits going. There is nothing wrong with this agreement, and it in no way means that Wikia and Wikimedia are joined. My final point is that you have made these allegations without access to Board and staff documents. You therefore do not have the whole picture and have no standing to criticize those who do. This attempt to create division has no place and distracts us from the Foundation's goal. Sincerely; Geoffrey Plourde From: Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 11:37:37 AM Subject: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF I was very surprised to read on the Wikimedia blog a post from Naoko Komura, the WMF program manager heading up the Wikipedia Usability Initiative, funded by the Stanton Foundation. Post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/21/a-note-on-the-wikipedia-usability-initiative/ To quote Komura, On the space front, we had outgrown our current space in the South of Market area of San Francisco, and we were in search of space specifically for this project. I am happy to announce that Wikia has agreed to sublease two of their conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the project duration (Jan'09-Mar'10). Daniel [Phelps] collected a dozen bids for the space in SOMA, and Wikia matched the best offer. I submitted a comment to the blog, but over seven hours later, it is still not published, and there is a history of my questions to that blog being ignored or censored. So, I'm going to ask here, and I'll also advise the list moderators that this message is being copied to members of the press. Could we have more detail, please, on the note that Wikia matched the best offer? Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a second and adjusted offer basis, rather than choosing the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer initially? Was the first low bidder given the chance to further discount their rate? If so, what was their response? If not, why not? I have to agree with Steven Walling's comment on the blog. He said, I find the idea of the Foundation working that closely with Wikia, literally and figuratively, discomforting. We already have enough people confused about the difference between the two organizations, and to be honest, this feels like nepotism. Actually, it's not nepotism. And, there are no uniform laws regarding nepotism. It's potentially worse. Self-dealing, which is what this really smacks of, is covered in case law, judicial opinions, and some statutes. I have been assured in countless places that Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation are complete separate organizations and that there were no business relationships between the members of a past WMF Board that was 60% comprised of Wikia employees/owners. Considering the past Wikia/Wikipedia fiasco of Ryan Essjay Jordan, I would have thought the WMF would be hyper-sensitive to working in concert yet again with their neighbor
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Wikia is a way to utilize MediaWiki for profit. The United States is a capitalist society, and this should be encouraged. Also Wikia hosts many fansites and I don't hear them complaining about people playing ball. From: Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 11:53:59 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF I'm glad someone is concerned about this issue. Wikia has always smacked of they wouldn't let us show ads on Wikipedia, so here is the for-profit branch of Wikipedia with ads. There are potential conflicts of interest at nearly every level of the Wikia/Wikipedia relationship. On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com wrote: I was very surprised to read on the Wikimedia blog a post from Naoko Komura, the WMF program manager heading up the Wikipedia Usability Initiative, funded by the Stanton Foundation. Post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/21/a-note-on-the-wikipedia-usability-initiative/ To quote Komura, On the space front, we had outgrown our current space in the South of Market area of San Francisco, and we were in search of space specifically for this project. I am happy to announce that Wikia has agreed to sublease two of their conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the project duration (Jan'09-Mar'10). Daniel [Phelps] collected a dozen bids for the space in SOMA, and Wikia matched the best offer. I submitted a comment to the blog, but over seven hours later, it is still not published, and there is a history of my questions to that blog being ignored or censored. So, I'm going to ask here, and I'll also advise the list moderators that this message is being copied to members of the press. Could we have more detail, please, on the note that Wikia matched the best offer? Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a second and adjusted offer basis, rather than choosing the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer initially? Was the first low bidder given the chance to further discount their rate? If so, what was their response? If not, why not? I have to agree with Steven Walling's comment on the blog. He said, I find the idea of the Foundation working that closely with Wikia, literally and figuratively, discomforting. We already have enough people confused about the difference between the two organizations, and to be honest, this feels like nepotism. Actually, it's not nepotism. And, there are no uniform laws regarding nepotism. It's potentially worse. Self-dealing, which is what this really smacks of, is covered in case law, judicial opinions, and some statutes. I have been assured in countless places that Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation are complete separate organizations and that there were no business relationships between the members of a past WMF Board that was 60% comprised of Wikia employees/owners. Considering the past Wikia/Wikipedia fiasco of Ryan Essjay Jordan, I would have thought the WMF would be hyper-sensitive to working in concert yet again with their neighbor down the street. In summary: We know Wikia was recently laying off workers in the economic downturn. Presumably, Wikia now has excess office space per employee. WMF gets a grant, presumably funded by tax-deductible dollars. Expending that grant on office space is served up to an ostensibly open and fair competitive search among 12 candidate landlords. A lowest bid is received. However, a bidder who happens to have strong personnel ties to the Board of WMF and the Advisory Board of WMF, is given the opportunity to match the lowest bid, which they do, since they have empty office space doing them no good empty. Net result: Tax-advantaged dollars will be transferred to a for-profit corporation with an inside track to the decision-making body of the non-profit organization. It strikes me as fishy, to use a gentle word. -- Gregory Kohs Cell: 302.463.1354 ___ 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] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Mr Kohs; You are beating on a dead horse. Mr. Vibber has brought forth a list of perfectly valid reasons why this space was taken. LET ME REITERATE THE COST OF REWIRING/RECONFIGURING SPACE IN CALIFORNIA. Why should a taco stand use a dry cleaning shop when it can get another taco shop? From: Gregory Kohs thekoh...@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 12:31:33 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF Wikia has been doing intensive work on the usability front and making the code available to public, so I look forward to collaborating with the Wikia technical and product teams to exchange ideas and learn from their work. There is a certain amount of logic in working with one of the biggest non-WMF MediaWiki users on this project. Bingo. -- brion It would appear that nobody is concerned about giving the landlord a leg up on ITS for-profit competitors by supplying them in particular with a ready feed of intellectual capital in the form of the friendly Stanton-funded developers? Lucky for Wikia, Inc.! I mean, assume good faith all you want, but if I were a biotech firm trying to develop a synthetic blood plasma, boy would I love to have the Red Cross' top research scientists parked in my meeting rooms every day. And PAYING me for the privilege, to boot? That's just gravy. It sounds to me that the (reasonable) criteria that ranked proximity to WMF and cognate activities as high as, or higher than, monthly rental rate rather wired this contract to Wikia, Inc. from the get-go. Kudos for putting on the dutiful show of obtaining 12 separate bids, but the outside world is seeing this for what it is -- a show of equanimity to gloss over a pre-determined outcome. As for Master Bimmler's concerns about the fear imposed by mention of the media watching, it's only natural for someone who has recently and historically been censored for asking pertinent questions, to want some sort of back up to assure him he is not living in a digital version of a Kafkaesque nightmare. If your team would stop censoring WP:BADTHOUGHTS, maybe there wouldn't be such a rush to the media? Gregory Kohs ___ 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] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Mr. Levy; I respectfully believe that you are asking the wrong question. Rent is only a small part of cost. The whole cost should have been the arbiter in this matter, and I suspect it was from the posts by personnel. From: David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 1:05:22 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF Erik Moeller wrote: [snip] * We've suggested to Wikia a fair market rate based on the average of the other options we obtained; * After some negotiation, Wikia accepted. Weighing other pros and cons of the space against other options, we decided to go with Wikia; To clarify, did Wikia match the lowest bid? ___ 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] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
Beating on a dead horse is not a valid point. From: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 1:47:54 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Anders Wegge Keller we...@wegge.dk wrote: Delirium delir...@hackish.org writes: There's a reason organizations that depend on public goodwill try to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in this sort of respect, and auditors usually suggest avoiding those sorts of entanglements. Could you please keep the amount of crackpotish kookery at a minimum at this list? I'm somewhat confused - Delirium's comment here is reasonable, accurate, and a legitimate concern, as opposed to some of the rest of the thread. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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] Wikia leasing office space to WMF
On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.p...@yahoo.comwrote: Its the same software for both parties, and its open source. Please just drop it. If you would please be so kind as to summarize your viewpoints in fewer messages. The past 10 to this thread have all been by you. -Chad ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
