date:20090825

*Jan-Bart de Vreede said:
*
"the next year will be crucial for us as an

organization in determining our long term strategy. But that process
is shaped by YOU. The tremendous strategy project (details at
http://strategy.wikimedia.org
  ) started a month ago is making good first steps. The Board of
Trustees does not own any of the Wikimedia projects, you do.
Participate on the strategy wiki (and encourage others to do so) to
help determine the future direction of our organization, you will
probably have more impace than any single board member ever will..."



I offered a proposal at the Wikimedia Strategy project, with supporting
links to outside, independent documentation.  Within about 40 minutes, the
proposal was removed, and I was indefinitely blocked from that particular
project, including IP address blocking.   This, despite the fact that I
almost single-handedly wrote the sampling design and fine-tuned literally
all of the 2009 Foundation Development Survey for the WMF on the Meta
project.

But, I "own" the Wikimedia projects?  I will have more impact by being
blocked from the Wikimedia Strategy project than any single board member
(including Jimmy Wales?) ever will?

Your pithy inspirational motivations are ringing hollow for me, Mr. de
Vreede.

-- 
Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

Anthony said:

*>> Wales was right when he said that the
*>>* community* *is irrelevant.
*

James Forrester then made a humorous attempt to deflect the possibility that
this might possibly be true.

James, you may benefit from reading (with an open mind, if possible) the
following essay from attorney Alex Roshuk:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Alex756&oldid=105080989

That might give you a clue as to the tack that Anthony was talking about.

-- 
Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar network press release and QA / Board Announcement

2009-08-25 Thread David Gerard

2009/8/25 Jay Walsh :

> This was also somewhat compounded by the considerable media interest
> in coverage of some flagged revisions stories (it's important to
> respond to every request we get - we want to get the story right).


Particularly the flagged revisions story, which has basically started
*completely wrong*. Argh ...


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Anthony  wrote:
>
> Occurring on the same day may imply "related" but it does not, beyond a
> reasonable doubt, equal "sold".  If it did, we'd have a whole lot more
> prostitution convictions.
>

Nevermind:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS157391+18-Mar-2009+PRN20090318

I'm tempted to continue my "prostitution" analogy, but I won't.
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[Foundation-l] Omidyar network press release and QA / Board Announcement

2009-08-25 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all,

It's been an extraordinary day here at Wikimania in several senses of  
the term.  I know there has been some discussion about the perceived  
directions and timing of communications on the list.

At this point the WMF and our latest funding partner, the Omidyar  
Network, have both released the great news about this $2mm, 2 year  
grant.  At the same time I have also released a press release with  
details about the new Board appointments.

The Board Announcement can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Board_Announcements_August_2009

The Omidyar Network press release can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009

And a related Q&A can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA

I can absolutely assure you that our intention from the beginning has  
been to share this great news with the Foundation list before sending  
out publicly - notably in the form of a communication from the Board,  
in this case Michael Snow.  The timing and fairly significant  
circumstances this year (most notably some internet connectivity and  
cellular problems in Buenos Aires) meant that the planned timing of  
our announcement with the Omidyar Network didn't play out as I would  
have hoped.  I've just now been able to get the news out and also  
start taking media calls on both of these announcements.

This was also somewhat compounded by the considerable media interest  
in coverage of some flagged revisions stories (it's important to  
respond to every request we get - we want to get the story right).  We  
were also strongly focussed on the logistics and planning of this  
year's press conference leading up to the beginning of tomorrow's  
events.  And we're a small group of responders here on the ground at  
Wikimania :)

I apologize for any confusion or if the impression was created that we  
were not intending to share this information with the community in our  
normal practice.  It was not so great timing and mostly technology  
hiccups.

The good news is that we're seeing some positive coverage of this  
wonderful and generous grant in the press already - especially as it  
follows the news of last week's Hewlett Foundation grant.  I'm now  
starting to also see coverage of the new Board appointments, which is  
also very exciting news here at Wikimania.

And let's not forget, there is a fairly important event taking place  
in our midst!  We had a wonderful turn-out of press from Argentina and  
from abroad.  There are some amazing sessions planned and I'm  
confident we'll see even more coverage for the good work of Wikimedia  
in the next few days.  I think this is the biggest kind of news week  
we could hope for - and I'm glad we have lots of positive developments  
to share.

Thanks,

Jay


Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Sue Gardner

Sorry to top-post (Blackberry).

Yes, the progress towards the goals will be published to the
community.  Omidyar wants to support us in doing our work, so we
worked together to define what success will look like (as per the Q
and A). Those were very good conversations, in which they essentially
agreed with us on what's important -- overall global reach, overall
global participation, the importance of a broad base of donors
supporting our work, and the successful completion of the strategy
project. That is all good: it's stuff we care about, and would track
and report on anyway. It's a completely unrestricted grant, supporting
our own goals and priorities.

My apologies for the way this information reached you all. (I'm not
criticizing Greg: forwarding the press release was the obvious and
right thing for him to do.)  I'm just sorry that the detailed
information didn't reach foundation-l from the Wikimedia Foundation
itself, first.  Suffice to say that connectivity at both the venue and
hotel has been super-patchy today, and was unexpectedly down all
afternoon :-(

Thanks,
Sue

On 25/08/2009, Nathan  wrote:
> Thanks, Erik and Jan-Bart, for the additional information and the Q & A.
> Appointing board members from donor organizations can be tricksy,
> particularly as the relationships in question evolve. Hopefully it goes
> smoothly.
> On the reporting requirements built into the grant - will the information
> reported to the Omidyar Network be reported to the community as well? I
> think we'd all be interested to read updates on those topics.
>
> Nathan
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-- 
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Michael Snow

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Steven Walling 
> wrote:
>   
>> I think everyone needs to calm down a little.
>> Remember that we just got 2 million dollars to further our mission, and that
>> the board seat appointment (which isn't an unusual practice, at least in my
>> experience) does nothing to impede our work and the positive impact we can
>> have. It's the exact opposite, in fact.
>> 
> Indeed. Per the FAQ — it's a $2m unrestricted grant paid out in four chunks.
>
> Grants that big without specific targeted goals are somewhat unusual.
> Arguably the imposition of goals has a lot more influence on the
> operation of an origination than a simple board seat, even if it's a
> voting seat.
As Gregory points out, it's fairly unusual for foundations to make 
grants of unrestricted money, and we've been quite fortunate to have 
those as we develop our capacity to carry out the sorts of projects that 
they will provide restricted grants for (like the usability initiative). 
The Omidyar Network, in addition to making grants, likes to make itself 
available as a resource for grantees, rather than simply handing out 
money and then disappearing. For one example, their human resources 
executive, also someone with experience as an eBay executive in that 
area, could be a big help for us as we tackle hiring key positions such 
as a CTO. And in a similar fashion we feel that Matt can be a resource 
for us as a board member. He has extensive experience in strategic 
planning processes, at eBay and previously in his consulting work, and 
also has important nonprofit experience, serving on the boards of 
organizations like DonorsChoose.org and the Sunlight Foundation.

As I mentioned earlier, Jay was going to publish the press releases and 
Q&A, but as Erik explained we had some internet problems, so that's why 
some of this was passed through via the external version of the press 
release. I had also intended to write an additional note to the list 
about the grant, but lost my internet connection immediately after I 
sent the first one. The information is all posted on the foundation 
website now that we have connectivity again:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Board_Announcements_August_2009

--Michael Snow


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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
> > Occurring on the same day may imply "related" but it does not, beyond a
> > reasonable doubt, equal "sold".  If it did, we'd have a whole lot more
> > prostitution convictions.
>
> As I've already said, whether or not it was sold is irrelevant, it
> *looks* like it was sold, and that is a big problem.

"How can you have a Q&A on a topic like this that doesn't even address the
matter than you have sold a seat on the board?"

That's the comment I was referring to with my wife beating statement.

Anyway, I'd be much more concerned if the money had gone not to the
foundation, but to a board member's for-profit corporation.  Even if it is
quid-pro-quo, so what?  This ain't a community run foundation, people.

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 6:02 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Anthony wrote:
> > Occurring on the same day may imply "related" but it does not, beyond a
> > reasonable doubt, equal "sold".  If it did, we'd have a whole lot more
> > prostitution convictions.
>
> ... it could be reliably determined, but I don't think anyone is going
> to give Kohs 2million dollars to spend on a seat.

 You really think they'd give it to him?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Anthony :
> Occurring on the same day may imply "related" but it does not, beyond a
> reasonable doubt, equal "sold".  If it did, we'd have a whole lot more
> prostitution convictions.

As I've already said, whether or not it was sold is irrelevant, it
*looks* like it was sold, and that is a big problem.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:48 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Thomas Dalton  >wrote:
> >
> >> 2009/8/25 Erik Moeller :
> >> > More importantly, please review the questions and answers page about
> the
> >> grant.
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA
> >>
> >> How can you have a Q&A on a topic like this that doesn't even address
> >> the matter than you have sold a seat on the board?
> >
> >
> > I notice it doesn't address the matter that they have stopped beating
> their
> > wives, either.
>
> Someone gives $2m to the WMF and gets a seat on the board on the same
> day. I think I can conclude, beyond reasonable doubt, that those are
> not unrelated events.

Occurring on the same day may imply "related" but it does not, beyond a
reasonable doubt, equal "sold".  If it did, we'd have a whole lot more
prostitution convictions.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Steven Walling wrote:
> I think everyone needs to calm down a little.
> Remember that we just got 2 million dollars to further our mission, and that
> the board seat appointment (which isn't an unusual practice, at least in my
> experience) does nothing to impede our work and the positive impact we can
> have. It's the exact opposite, in fact.

Indeed. Per the FAQ — it's a $2m unrestricted grant paid out in four chunks.

Grants that big without specific targeted goals are somewhat unusual.
Arguably the imposition of goals has a lot more influence on the
operation of an origination than a simple board seat, even if it's a
voting seat.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Nathan

Thanks, Erik and Jan-Bart, for the additional information and the Q & A.
Appointing board members from donor organizations can be tricksy,
particularly as the relationships in question evolve. Hopefully it goes
smoothly.
On the reporting requirements built into the grant - will the information
reported to the Omidyar Network be reported to the community as well? I
think we'd all be interested to read updates on those topics.

Nathan
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Steven Walling :
> I think everyone needs to calm down a little.
> Remember that we just got 2 million dollars to further our mission, and that
> the board seat appointment (which isn't an unusual practice, at least in my
> experience) does nothing to impede our work and the positive impact we can
> have. It's the exact opposite, in fact.

It is not unusual for many charities. It is unusual for a community
driven charity like the WMF.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Anthony :
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/25 Erik Moeller :
>> > More importantly, please review the questions and answers page about the
>> grant.
>> >
>> >
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA
>>
>> How can you have a Q&A on a topic like this that doesn't even address
>> the matter than you have sold a seat on the board?
>
>
> I notice it doesn't address the matter that they have stopped beating their
> wives, either.

Someone gives $2m to the WMF and gets a seat on the board on the same
day. I think I can conclude, beyond reasonable doubt, that those are
not unrelated events.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Steven Walling

I think everyone needs to calm down a little.
Remember that we just got 2 million dollars to further our mission, and that
the board seat appointment (which isn't an unusual practice, at least in my
experience) does nothing to impede our work and the positive impact we can
have. It's the exact opposite, in fact.

Steven Walling

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Anthony  wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Thomas Dalton  >wrote:
>
> > 2009/8/25 Erik Moeller :
> > > More importantly, please review the questions and answers page about
> the
> > grant.
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA
> >
> > How can you have a Q&A on a topic like this that doesn't even address
> > the matter than you have sold a seat on the board?
>
>
> I notice it doesn't address the matter that they have stopped beating their
> wives, either.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/8/25 Erik Moeller :
> > More importantly, please review the questions and answers page about the
> grant.
> >
> >
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA
>
> How can you have a Q&A on a topic like this that doesn't even address
> the matter than you have sold a seat on the board?

I notice it doesn't address the matter that they have stopped beating their
wives, either.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Erik Moeller :
> More importantly, please review the questions and answers page about the 
> grant.
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA

How can you have a Q&A on a topic like this that doesn't even address
the matter than you have sold a seat on the board? Has the WMF
completely lost touch with the community? It should be obvious that
this is going to be a highly controversial decision and yet you can't
even get the basic announcement right and don't even try and answer
the obvious question the community is going to ask. This is
ridiculous.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Ziko van Dijk

> Not the advisory board, the real one.
>
> _

Oh! Even better.

Kind regards
Ziko



-- 
Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Erik Moeller

2009/8/25 Gregory Maxwell :
> Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

Thanks Greg. Our official press release, as well as a Q&A on the grant
and Board appointment, can be found here:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009

More importantly, please review the questions and answers page about the grant.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA

The network here in Buenos Aires has been a bit flaky, so we haven't
been able to post this in a fully time-synchronized manner.
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Ziko van Dijk :
> That evil man gets into the Advisory Board without having made one
> single edit, by paying simply a lousy 2 million bucks. How terrible.
> :-)

Not the advisory board, the real one.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Ziko van Dijk

That evil man gets into the Advisory Board without having made one
single edit, by paying simply a lousy 2 million bucks. How terrible.
:-)

Great achievement of our folks, congratulations!

By the way, the Wikimania speeches, will they be to see on the internet?

Kind regards
ZIko



2009/8/25 James Forrester :
> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
>> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:57 PM, James Forrester 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
>>> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton >> >wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> > membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the
>>> >> community
>>> >> > is irrelevant.
>>> >>
>>> >> When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
>>> >> said out of context...
>>> >
>>> > Many years ago, but my source is confidential.
>>>
>>> I've heard that you frequently post claims that you fail to back up,
>>> but my source is confidential.
>>>
>>> Please.
>>>
>>> Oh, and someone told me to do this, but unfortunately I'm not allowed
>>> to say who instructed me so to do.
>>>
>>
>> Huh?
>
> As you already asked me about this off-list, and didn't like my
> response, I'm happy to give it here:
>
> Sure, but whether or not I believe you, my point is that it's not
> really helpful to make comments in a forum in which you can't - or
> won't - back them up. It doesn't add light, only heat, and doesn't
> achieve anything except damage the movement.
>
> James.
> --
> James D. Forrester
> jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
> [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:18 PM, James Forrester wrote:
>
> As you already asked me about this off-list, and didn't like my
> response, I'm happy to give it here:

Can you prove that I asked you about this off-list?

> Sure, but whether or not I believe you, my point is that it's not
> really helpful to make comments in a forum in which you can't - or
> won't - back them up. It doesn't add light, only heat, and doesn't
> achieve anything except damage the movement.
>

I'm not going to pretend that something isn't true just because I can't
prove it to you.  Many people on this list know that I am not making this
up.  My comment was directed at them, not at you.  If you want to put your
head in the sand, that is your right.

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Thomas Dalton 
 wrote:

> I'm pretty sure that last paragraph was sarcasm.
>

Sarcasm generally has a valid point, or else it'd be called nonsense.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Brian

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Anthony  wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:57 PM, James Forrester  >wrote:
>
> > 2009/8/25 Anthony :
> > > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton <
> thomas.dal...@gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> > >>
> > >> > membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the
> > >> community
> > >> > is irrelevant.
> > >>
> > >> When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
> > >> said out of context...
> > >
> > > Many years ago, but my source is confidential.
> >
> > I've heard that you frequently post claims that you fail to back up,
> > but my source is confidential.
> >
> > Please.
> >
> > Oh, and someone told me to do this, but unfortunately I'm not allowed
> > to say who instructed me so to do.
> >
>
> Huh?
>

It reminds me of this article I read in the NYT yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/health/policy/25zeke.html

Dr. Emanuel has written over a million words on health care and somewhere,
in one of his papers, its possible to twist his words into making him sound
like he's saying something that he doesn't actually believe. Except in your
case you don't even have actual source material to twist about so its much,
much worse.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Anthony :
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:57 PM, James Forrester wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
>> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton > >wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the
>> >> community
>> >> > is irrelevant.
>> >>
>> >> When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
>> >> said out of context...
>> >
>> > Many years ago, but my source is confidential.
>>
>> I've heard that you frequently post claims that you fail to back up,
>> but my source is confidential.
>>
>> Please.
>>
>> Oh, and someone told me to do this, but unfortunately I'm not allowed
>> to say who instructed me so to do.
>>
>
> Huh?

I'm pretty sure that last paragraph was sarcasm.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread James Forrester

2009/8/25 Anthony :
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:57 PM, James Forrester wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
>> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton > >wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the
>> >> community
>> >> > is irrelevant.
>> >>
>> >> When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
>> >> said out of context...
>> >
>> > Many years ago, but my source is confidential.
>>
>> I've heard that you frequently post claims that you fail to back up,
>> but my source is confidential.
>>
>> Please.
>>
>> Oh, and someone told me to do this, but unfortunately I'm not allowed
>> to say who instructed me so to do.
>>
>
> Huh?

As you already asked me about this off-list, and didn't like my
response, I'm happy to give it here:

Sure, but whether or not I believe you, my point is that it's not
really helpful to make comments in a forum in which you can't - or
won't - back them up. It doesn't add light, only heat, and doesn't
achieve anything except damage the movement.

James.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:57 PM, James Forrester wrote:

> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton  >wrote:
> >>
> >> > membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the
> >> community
> >> > is irrelevant.
> >>
> >> When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
> >> said out of context...
> >
> > Many years ago, but my source is confidential.
>
> I've heard that you frequently post claims that you fail to back up,
> but my source is confidential.
>
> Please.
>
> Oh, and someone told me to do this, but unfortunately I'm not allowed
> to say who instructed me so to do.
>

Huh?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

Hoi,
There is no reason to not publish it I am aware off. It is not for me to
decide what is published but as I am one of the people who was interviewed I
may and I do object when any publication is not public.

As to something being hidden. You were at the interview so you know there is
nothing that needs hiding. So suggest all you like, we both were there and
now the suggestion of something that cannot meet the public eye is
rediculous..

Your suggestions that it has anything to do with the WMF the WMF Office is
ridiculous and again you know it. When you need assurances that nothing
underhand has gone on, I am certainly not as charming as Sue, but I am
equally willing to assure you and anything interested that this is the
question.
Thanks,
 GerardM

2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs 

> " The data of the Wikivoices interviews were never lost. It was not given
> to
> Gregory on his request. It will be either published publicly or not
> published at all. This has been said before and it is now said again.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM "
>
>
> Gerard, do you know the reason why the recording would be "not published at
> all"?  What is the fear of posting the raw audio file?
>
> What is being hidden?  Which person or persons are in possession of the raw
> audio file?
>
> I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of disrepute.
> Is that the problem?  With no other data or logic to support any theory
> here, I have to only assume that the Foundation is involved in this
> suppression of the recording.  I do note that nobody OFFICIALLY from the
> Foundation board or staff has publicly assured us that no board or staff
> member has acted to suppress publication of Episode # 45.
>
> At least when Jimmy Wales was accused by Danny Wool of some questionable
> Muscovite receipts, Sue Gardner got on CNET video news to assure us that
> "Jimmy has never done anything wrong."  We have no similar assurances
> regarding Wikivoices Episode # 45.  All we have are the e-mails which I
> hold
> that support a strong degree of fishy business going on behind the scenes.
> This hasn't been said before, but I'll be happy to say it again, if
> repetition will help it sink into any particularly thick skulls.
>
> Greg
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Jan-Bart de Vreede

Hi All,

Little note from Argentina. Both Jay and most members of the board  
have been wrapped up in a two hour press conference for Wikimania 2009  
over here. It does come down to a timing issue. I expect Michael will  
post on Foundation-l about this in the next hour or so.  Also as  
announced earlier today Jay will post a Q&A on some of this material  
later today.

Please don't let the human timing issue influence your thinking on  
this issue, and hold on a little while longer until the Q&A has been  
posted, as it will probably answer most of your questions. Short  
summary from where I am sitting: I am very grateful that Omidyar is  
willing to offer us not only a large grant but is also willing to  
donate advice and expertise to us on how to reach out strategic goals.

As you may recall: the next year will be crucial for us as an  
organization in determining our long term strategy. But that process  
is shaped by YOU. The tremendous strategy project (details at 
http://strategy.wikimedia.org 
  ) started a month ago is making good first steps. The Board of  
Trustees does not own any of the Wikimedia projects, you do.  
Participate on the strategy wiki (and encourage others to do so) to  
help determine the future direction of our organization, you will  
probably have more impace than any single board member ever will...

Jan-Bart de Vreede
Vice Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees

On 25 aug 2009, at 17:41, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Nathan wrote:
>> One thing I'm curious about... Why did this announcement come from  
>> Greg?
>
> I simply saw it on PRNewswire and figured folks here would  
> appreciate seeing it.
>
> I have no clue why it wasn't already posted here but the coordination
> of press-releases can be a tricky thing especially when most of the
> staff and the board is in Buenos Aires. Do they do siesta in
> Argentina? :)
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread James Forrester

2009/8/25 Anthony :
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>
>> > membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the
>> community
>> > is irrelevant.
>>
>> When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
>> said out of context...
>
> Many years ago, but my source is confidential.

I've heard that you frequently post claims that you fail to back up,
but my source is confidential.

Please.

Oh, and someone told me to do this, but unfortunately I'm not allowed
to say who instructed me so to do.

James.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
> > membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the
> community
> > is irrelevant.
>
> When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
> said out of context...

Many years ago, but my source is confidential.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Anthony :
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/25 Nathan :
>> > This is good news. It doesn't seem strange to me at all that a major
>> donor
>> > gains a limited voice on the Board, particularly when the donor can offer
>> > expertise and connections in addition to funding. It also serves as a
>> more
>> > plausible explanation for Halprin's appointment than the conspiracy
>> theory
>> > about Wikia, corrupt practices and misuse of tax-free funds.
>>
>> The cash is obviously useful, and I think this kind of arrangement is
>> fairly common in the charity world, but it will inevitably cause drama
>> in the community.
>
>
> That fight was lost years ago when the Wikimedia Foundation became a
> non-membership organization.  I doubt this is "fairly common" among
> membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the community
> is irrelevant.

When did Jimmy say that? I rather suspect you are taking something he
said out of context...

>> We voted for these Board members, in most cases repeatedly; it does them a
>> > disservice to essentially accuse them of abusing the trust granted them
>> by
>> > the community.
>>
>> I don't recall an intention to sell seats on the board being mentioned
>> in any of their candidate statements...
>
>
> We don't even know (yet?) which board members voted for and which voted
> against this arrangement.

We may yet find out. Minutes of board meetings are being published
again (after a period of secrecy).

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Nathan wrote:
> One thing I'm curious about... Why did this announcement come from Greg?

I simply saw it on PRNewswire and figured folks here would appreciate seeing it.

I have no clue why it wasn't already posted here but the coordination
of press-releases can be a tricky thing especially when most of the
staff and the board is in Buenos Aires. Do they do siesta in
Argentina? :)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/8/25 Nathan :
> > This is good news. It doesn't seem strange to me at all that a major
> donor
> > gains a limited voice on the Board, particularly when the donor can offer
> > expertise and connections in addition to funding. It also serves as a
> more
> > plausible explanation for Halprin's appointment than the conspiracy
> theory
> > about Wikia, corrupt practices and misuse of tax-free funds.
>
> The cash is obviously useful, and I think this kind of arrangement is
> fairly common in the charity world, but it will inevitably cause drama
> in the community.

That fight was lost years ago when the Wikimedia Foundation became a
non-membership organization.  I doubt this is "fairly common" among
membership organizations.  Wales was right when he said that the community
is irrelevant.

> We voted for these Board members, in most cases repeatedly; it does them a
> > disservice to essentially accuse them of abusing the trust granted them
> by
> > the community.
>
> I don't recall an intention to sell seats on the board being mentioned
> in any of their candidate statements...

We don't even know (yet?) which board members voted for and which voted
against this arrangement.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Nathan :
> This is good news. It doesn't seem strange to me at all that a major donor
> gains a limited voice on the Board, particularly when the donor can offer
> expertise and connections in addition to funding. It also serves as a more
> plausible explanation for Halprin's appointment than the conspiracy theory
> about Wikia, corrupt practices and misuse of tax-free funds.

The cash is obviously useful, and I think this kind of arrangement is
fairly common in the charity world, but it will inevitably cause drama
in the community.

> We voted for these Board members, in most cases repeatedly; it does them a
> disservice to essentially accuse them of abusing the trust granted them by
> the community.

I don't recall an intention to sell seats on the board being mentioned
in any of their candidate statements...

> One thing I'm curious about... Why did this announcement come from Greg?

That bit I have to agree with you on, I was very curious about it. It
seems the press release was issued, Greg found it and realised it
hadn't been posted here so did so. Why it wasn't announced here at the
same time the press release was sent out, I don't know...

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Robert Rohde

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Nathan wrote:

> One thing I'm curious about... Why did this announcement come from Greg?

It appears to be an Omidyar press release (not a WMF one) issued
during just the last hour.

Beyond that I won't try and speculate on why the Board didn't say
anything sooner.

-Robert Rohde

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Chad

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Gregory Kohs wrote:
> Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
> +++
>
> Ah, yes... the other shoe drops.  This is similar to the time when Amazon
> invested $10 million in Wikia, Inc., but they insisted on installing Jeffrey
> Blackburn from Amazon (
> http://www.muckety.com/Query?SearchResult=30740&SearchResult=97356&graph=MucketyMap?_r=2D)
> onto the Wikia board of directors.  You don't want to throw $10
> million at
> something without having someone on the "inside" to pull a few strings.
>
> Thus, we see why Halprin now sits on the WMF board.  It's to keep an eye on
> the $2 million.  And all "transparently" announced on the very same day!
> Bonus that Halprin also probably oversees the part of the $4 million that
> Omidyar invested in Wikia, whose co-founder (Jimmy Wales) might be sitting
> next to Halprin at the next board meeting, or whose OTHER co-founder (Angela
> Beesley) might be found "advising" the WMF board from the position of chair
> of the WMF Advisory Board.
>
> If you're having trouble envisioning a Venn diagram of this arrangement, let
> me try to help you.  Imagine a few grains of rice (Jimbo and the WMF
> board).  Then imagine the color white (Halprin).  Imagine some tasty
> flavored sauce (Beesley).  Then visualize a guy lining up the yummy rice on
> his fork (Omidyar Network).
>
> --
> Gregory Kohs
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Wow. Justwow. Wikimedia, this really really doesn't look good. Regardless
of how it's intended, it REALLY doesn't look good.

-Chad

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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009-08-25 Thread Nathan

This is good news. It doesn't seem strange to me at all that a major donor
gains a limited voice on the Board, particularly when the donor can offer
expertise and connections in addition to funding. It also serves as a more
plausible explanation for Halprin's appointment than the conspiracy theory
about Wikia, corrupt practices and misuse of tax-free funds.
We voted for these Board members, in most cases repeatedly; it does them a
disservice to essentially accuse them of abusing the trust granted them by
the community. In fact I think the Board and the development people have
been doing a great job - with the credibility of a professional organization
and talented slate of directors, they've brought in a great deal of funding
for specific initiatives and operating costs. There are areas for continued
improvement, of course, but no basis for the unrelenting and accusatory
sniping.
One thing I'm curious about... Why did this announcement come from Greg?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

By the way, has Batzel v. Smith been overturned?  If so, maybe I'll
reconsider.  If not, bring it on.  Maybe I can even get the EFF to defend
me.

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Anthony  wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
>> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Thomas Dalton > >wrote:
>> >
>> >> 2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
>> >> > I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of
>> >> disrepute.
>> >> > Is that the problem?
>> >>
>> >> If you said anything that could be libellous then that could be a
>> >> problem. Whoever did the publishing would be liable.
>> >
>> >
>> > I'll do the publishing, if that's the problem.  I'm in the United
>> States, so
>> > I'm protected by Section 230 of the CDA.
>>
>> I suggest you run that by a lawyer, my understanding of the CDA is
>> that is isn't that broad.
>>
>
> Nah, I promise, I'll publish it.  I've read enough case law to be confident
> that I couldn't be successfully sued for publishing that audio recording.  I
> also trust Greg not to engage in slander, frankly.  And I'm pretty much
> judgement-proof anyway.
>
> "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as
> the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information
> content provider."
>
> I'm a user of an interactive computer service, and the information was
> provided by another information content provider.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation


+++

Ah, yes... the other shoe drops.  This is similar to the time when Amazon
invested $10 million in Wikia, Inc., but they insisted on installing Jeffrey
Blackburn from Amazon (
http://www.muckety.com/Query?SearchResult=30740&SearchResult=97356&graph=MucketyMap?_r=2D)
onto the Wikia board of directors.  You don't want to throw $10
million at
something without having someone on the "inside" to pull a few strings.

Thus, we see why Halprin now sits on the WMF board.  It's to keep an eye on
the $2 million.  And all "transparently" announced on the very same day!
Bonus that Halprin also probably oversees the part of the $4 million that
Omidyar invested in Wikia, whose co-founder (Jimmy Wales) might be sitting
next to Halprin at the next board meeting, or whose OTHER co-founder (Angela
Beesley) might be found "advising" the WMF board from the position of chair
of the WMF Advisory Board.

If you're having trouble envisioning a Venn diagram of this arrangement, let
me try to help you.  Imagine a few grains of rice (Jimbo and the WMF
board).  Then imagine the color white (Halprin).  Imagine some tasty
flavored sauce (Beesley).  Then visualize a guy lining up the yummy rice on
his fork (Omidyar Network).

-- 
Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

2009/8/25 Gregory Maxwell :
> Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
> SAN FRANCISCO and REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ --
> Omidyar Network today announced a grant of up to $2 million over two
> years to the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that
> operates Wikipedia, one of the world's top 5 most visited websites.
> The Wikimedia Foundation has also appointed Matt Halprin, a partner at
> Omidyar Network, to its Board of Trustees.

Hmmm... I'm not sure the community will be very happy with the idea of
selling seats on the board (which is what this looks like, however
good a board member he may be).

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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/8/25 Anthony :
> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Thomas Dalton  >wrote:
> >
> >> 2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
> >> > I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of
> >> disrepute.
> >> > Is that the problem?
> >>
> >> If you said anything that could be libellous then that could be a
> >> problem. Whoever did the publishing would be liable.
> >
> >
> > I'll do the publishing, if that's the problem.  I'm in the United States,
> so
> > I'm protected by Section 230 of the CDA.
>
> I suggest you run that by a lawyer, my understanding of the CDA is
> that is isn't that broad.
>

Nah, I promise, I'll publish it.  I've read enough case law to be confident
that I couldn't be successfully sued for publishing that audio recording.  I
also trust Greg not to engage in slander, frankly.  And I'm pretty much
judgement-proof anyway.

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as
the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information
content provider."

I'm a user of an interactive computer service, and the information was
provided by another information content provider.
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[Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation


SAN FRANCISCO and REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ --
Omidyar Network today announced a grant of up to $2 million over two
years to the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that
operates Wikipedia, one of the world's top 5 most visited websites.
The Wikimedia Foundation has also appointed Matt Halprin, a partner at
Omidyar Network, to its Board of Trustees.

The grant will support Wikimedia's key goals: to bring free
educational content to every person on the planet, to engage and
empower more people to author that content and to continually increase
the quality and breadth of the information provided through
Wikimedia's projects.

"We are very grateful for Omidyar Network's support. I am also
delighted to have Matt joining us," said Michael Snow, chair of the
Wikimedia Foundation Board. "His extensive experience with online
communities, trust, and reputation, will make him an excellent
addition to our Board. Matt also has a background in strategy
development, which will be particularly useful for us as we embark on
the collaborative strategy development project, Wikimedia's top
priority for the coming year."

"The Wikimedia Foundation is a critical player in the growing social
movement toward greater transparency and openness. I am honored to be
serving on the Foundation's board," said Matt Halprin, Partner,
Omidyar Network. "Wikipedia reaches and engages millions of people
every day, enabling information sharing in a collaborative, online
platform. Omidyar Network sees great potential in Wikipedia as it
continues to expand in emerging geographies, where this social impact
will be magnified even further."

Before joining Omidyar Network, Halprin was most recently Vice
President of Global Trust and Safety at eBay. Prior to eBay, Halprin
served as a Partner and Vice President at the Boston Consulting Group,
where he worked with technology clients on strategy issues.

In addition to direct financial support, Omidyar Network will dedicate
internal resources and engage its network to support Wikimedia's
strategic planning process, communications work, and recruiting.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> I'm not an expe[r]t on libel law,
> but I think, at least in some jurisdictions, a publisher can be held
> responsible even for things that clearly aren't their own words.

Absolutely they can, in traditional publishing media.  Over the Internet, in
the US, given Section 230 of the CDA...  Well, I'm not going to give out
legal advice, but I personally would be willing to fight that fight.

So, basically, bad excuse.  Give me the audio, and I'll publish it.  Or give
it to the Internet Review Corporation, and we'll publish it on Akahele.  Or
if the only potentially slanderous content is that of Kohs, give it to Kohs,
and he'll publish it.
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Re: [Foundation-l] New board members and officers

Geni said:

" Omidyar Network? They were involved with a 4 million funding round for
wikia back in 2006 no?

http://web.archive.org/web/20060422054638/http://www.americanventuremagazine.com/news.php?newsid=941

Appointing yet another person with wikia links looks kinda dicey no?

-- 
geni "




Matt Halprin only joined the Omidyar Network in July 2008, long after the
Omidyar money was shuttled off to Wikia, Inc.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-halprin/4/791/490

So, it's doubtful that Matt Halprin had any close ties personally to having
made the decision to fund Wikia, Inc.; however, he is now a Partner at
Omidyar, charged with a team that "pursues investments in Social Media" (
http://www.omidyar.com/team/matt-halprin )... so, he's almost undoubtedly on
top of the Wikia return on investment, since Wikia is a Top 100 social media
website.  Being that we're all friends here, maybe Halprin could let us know
if Omidyar has yet recouped its capital outlay in Wikia?

Still, I have to agree with Geni -- it does indeed look very fishy to have a
new WMF board member who's a partner at a firm that invested some portion of
$4 million into the $14 million privately-held firm of the "Emeritus Chair"
of the WMF.  In fact, you'd be hard pressed to explain how this is just a
"coincidence", being that there were probably more than a thousand other
equally-qualified stars of social media who could have been selected, who
have not a single tie back to funding Wikia, Inc.

-- 
Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

2009/8/25 Anthony :
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
>> > I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of
>> disrepute.
>> > Is that the problem?
>>
>> If you said anything that could be libellous then that could be a
>> problem. Whoever did the publishing would be liable.
>
>
> I'll do the publishing, if that's the problem.  I'm in the United States, so
> I'm protected by Section 230 of the CDA.

I suggest you run that by a lawyer, my understanding of the CDA is
that is isn't that broad.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
> Thomas Dalton:
>
> If you said anything that could be libellous then that could be a
> problem. Whoever did the publishing would be liable. That may be why
> they want to edit it before publishing - to remove anything
> potentially libellous, as a TV company would do.
>
>
> It would be impossible for anything on the audio recording to be taken as
> libel, as there were no written words.  Slanderous?  Possibly.

I'm pretty sure that is incorrect. Any form of publishing is
sufficient for it to be libel, it doesn't have to be written.

> However, I was particularly careful to choose my words.  I am a believer in
> the legal doctrine that "truth" is the best defense against a prosecution
> for defamation.  The broadcaster in this case would be largely immune to
> prosecution, anyway, as my words were presented as my own, and it would be
> extremely difficult to present legally that my words reflected the opinion
> of the broadcaster.

While you may be confident what you said is true, the publisher might
not be, so would want to be cautious. I'm not an expect on libel law,
but I think, at least in some jurisdictions, a publisher can be held
responsible even for things that clearly aren't their own words. By
choosing the publish them, they are in a sense endorsing them.

> Thomas, weak as your argument may be, it does kind of underscore my point.
> Slanderous speech "could be a problem" -- but how will we ever know, if no
> concrete reason has ever been presented for the deliberate suppression of
> the raw audio file, and refusal to turn it over to any of a number of
> independent audio technicians who could do the job in 24 hours?

An independent technician may not know what parts need to be edited
out. They may not want to openly say anything that could be
interpreted as accusing you of libel, so are keeping quiet (although
they could easily tell you what was going on in private, so my
explanation isn't perfect).

I don't know if this has anything to do with the real reason, I'm just
giving an example of how they could have a legitimate reason.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
> > I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of
> disrepute.
> > Is that the problem?
>
> If you said anything that could be libellous then that could be a
> problem. Whoever did the publishing would be liable.

I'll do the publishing, if that's the problem.  I'm in the United States, so
I'm protected by Section 230 of the CDA.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

Thomas Dalton:

If you said anything that could be libellous then that could be a
problem. Whoever did the publishing would be liable. That may be why
they want to edit it before publishing - to remove anything
potentially libellous, as a TV company would do.


It would be impossible for anything on the audio recording to be taken as
libel, as there were no written words.  Slanderous?  Possibly.

However, I was particularly careful to choose my words.  I am a believer in
the legal doctrine that "truth" is the best defense against a prosecution
for defamation.  The broadcaster in this case would be largely immune to
prosecution, anyway, as my words were presented as my own, and it would be
extremely difficult to present legally that my words reflected the opinion
of the broadcaster.

Thomas, weak as your argument may be, it does kind of underscore my point.
Slanderous speech "could be a problem" -- but how will we ever know, if no
concrete reason has ever been presented for the deliberate suppression of
the raw audio file, and refusal to turn it over to any of a number of
independent audio technicians who could do the job in 24 hours?

-- 
Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] New board members and officers

2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
> This sounds rather familiar. Let's see... When was the last time that the
> Wikimedia Foundation might have been caught red-handed, putting itself into
> a situation that favored Wikia in a financial manner, using tax-advantaged
> funds, in a way that was not entirely open to public scrutiny, but was then
> poo-poohed as insignificant and trivial by those who trust implicitly that
> Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation are "entirely separate" and that there
> couldn't POSSIBLY be any appearances of self-dealing?
>
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-January/049340.html
>
> Oh, yeah, that's it.
>
> How are you feeling about this, now, Mr. Dalton, given that the evidence
> just seems to keep piling up?

I don't see any evidence of bad faith. I see evidence of people doing
deals with those they know well in a manner that is commonplace in
business without realising that it isn't appropriate for a charity.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New board members and officers

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/8/25 geni :
> > Omidyar Network? They were involved with a 4 million funding round for
> > wikia back in 2006 no?
> >
> >
> http://web.archive.org/web/20060422054638/http://www.americanventuremagazine.com/news.php?newsid=941
> >
> > Appointing yet another person with wikia links looks kinda dicey no?
>
> I have to agree. I'm sure [...] any conflicts of interest will be dealt
> with
> appropriately []

I'm not.  Did Wales recuse himself from the discussion and vote?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
> I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of disrepute.
> Is that the problem?

If you said anything that could be libellous then that could be a
problem. Whoever did the publishing would be liable. That may be why
they want to edit it before publishing - to remove anything
potentially libellous, as a TV company would do.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New board members and officers

2009/8/25 geni https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l>>:
>* Omidyar Network? They were involved with a 4 million funding round for
*>* wikia back in 2006 no?
*>*
*>*
http://web.archive.org/web/20060422054638/http://www.americanventuremagazine.com/news.php?newsid=941
*>*
*>* Appointing yet another person with wikia links looks kinda dicey no?
*
*" Thomas Dalton*
thomas.dalton at gmail.com
*Tue Aug 25 17:48:53 UTC 2009*

I have to agree. I'm sure everyone involved is acting with the best of
intentions and that any conflicts of interest will be dealt with
appropriately, but it doesn't look good. It is really important to
consider the PR impact of decisions like this. "

This sounds rather familiar. Let's see... When was the last time that the
Wikimedia Foundation might have been caught red-handed, putting itself into
a situation that favored Wikia in a financial manner, using tax-advantaged
funds, in a way that was not entirely open to public scrutiny, but was then
poo-poohed as insignificant and trivial by those who trust implicitly that
Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation are "entirely separate" and that there
couldn't POSSIBLY be any appearances of self-dealing?

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-January/049340.html

Oh, yeah, that's it.

How are you feeling about this, now, Mr. Dalton, given that the evidence
just seems to keep piling up?

--
Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

2009-08-25 Thread Chad

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Gregory Kohs wrote:
> " The data of the Wikivoices interviews were never lost. It was not given to
> Gregory on his request. It will be either published publicly or not
> published at all. This has been said before and it is now said again.
> Thanks,
>       GerardM "
>
>
> Gerard, do you know the reason why the recording would be "not published at
> all"?  What is the fear of posting the raw audio file?
>
> What is being hidden?  Which person or persons are in possession of the raw
> audio file?
>
> I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of disrepute.
> Is that the problem?  With no other data or logic to support any theory
> here, I have to only assume that the Foundation is involved in this
> suppression of the recording.  I do note that nobody OFFICIALLY from the
> Foundation board or staff has publicly assured us that no board or staff
> member has acted to suppress publication of Episode # 45.
>
> At least when Jimmy Wales was accused by Danny Wool of some questionable
> Muscovite receipts, Sue Gardner got on CNET video news to assure us that
> "Jimmy has never done anything wrong."  We have no similar assurances
> regarding Wikivoices Episode # 45.  All we have are the e-mails which I hold
> that support a strong degree of fishy business going on behind the scenes.
> This hasn't been said before, but I'll be happy to say it again, if
> repetition will help it sink into any particularly thick skulls.
>
> Greg
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I'm pretty sure the reason it hasn't been released has nothing to do with malice
or officially suppressing the record. I think it has more to do with
laziness (or lack
of time) on part of those who do possess the recording. Unprofessional? Sure.
Would I want them to handle an election debate again? Nope. Do I think they're
purposefully suppressing release of this? Probably not.

-Chad

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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

" The data of the Wikivoices interviews were never lost. It was not given to
Gregory on his request. It will be either published publicly or not
published at all. This has been said before and it is now said again.
Thanks,
   GerardM "


Gerard, do you know the reason why the recording would be "not published at
all"?  What is the fear of posting the raw audio file?

What is being hidden?  Which person or persons are in possession of the raw
audio file?

I said a few things that brought the Foundation into a light of disrepute.
Is that the problem?  With no other data or logic to support any theory
here, I have to only assume that the Foundation is involved in this
suppression of the recording.  I do note that nobody OFFICIALLY from the
Foundation board or staff has publicly assured us that no board or staff
member has acted to suppress publication of Episode # 45.

At least when Jimmy Wales was accused by Danny Wool of some questionable
Muscovite receipts, Sue Gardner got on CNET video news to assure us that
"Jimmy has never done anything wrong."  We have no similar assurances
regarding Wikivoices Episode # 45.  All we have are the e-mails which I hold
that support a strong degree of fishy business going on behind the scenes.
This hasn't been said before, but I'll be happy to say it again, if
repetition will help it sink into any particularly thick skulls.

Greg
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

Hoi,
The data of the Wikivoices interviews were never lost. It was not given to
Gregory on his request. It will be either published publicly or not
published at all. This has been said before and it is now said again.
Thanks,
   GerardM

2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs 

> I wonder what takes so long to upload a small data file?
>
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Board_elections/2009/Votes&oldid=1606753
>
> Let's see... August 25 minus August 12 equals nearly two weeks of delay
> (and
> subterfuge?)...
>
> It only took three days to post the ballots in 2008:
>
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Board_elections/2008/Votes/en&oldid=1062980
>
> What's different about 2009?  I mean, other than the fact that the
> Wikivoices interview tape #45 of the Board candidates was mysteriously
> "lost", and that the WMF staff budget is about three times larger now than
> it was then.  This must be the professionalism and efficiency we were
> expecting from all of the added money being thrown at the Foundation.
>
> --
> Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Gregory Kohs wrote:
> I wonder what takes so long to upload a small data file?
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Board_elections/2009/Votes&oldid=1606753
>
> Let's see... August 25 minus August 12 equals nearly two weeks of delay (and
> subterfuge?)...

Not much room for subterfuge once they are posted: You'll be able
compute the full pair-wise table and confirm that it produces the same
results. Voters will be able to look through and identify that at
least one ballot identical to theirs made it in.

Since the officials can't know who will and who won't go checking for
their own ballots in the pile the only real avenue open for election
rigging is through sock/meatpuppet accounts. The edit count and
activity requirements mean that there should be sufficient public
information available on each of the voters for anyone to go sniffing
around for funny business.  Since making a meaningful impact on the
election would require on the order of 100 accounts concealing that
kind of activity would be difficult.

The voting process could be improved — but I think it's one of the
most resistant to outright manipulation of any online voting system
I've seen.

Though this level of confidence is predicated on the raw ballots being
available, at least eventually.

I provided the election committee with a sorting script on August
10th.  This script addresses Thomas' "anonymising and randomising"
concern and does so better than actually randomizing[*] because
sorting is deterministic.

---cut here---

#!/usr/bin/python
#Raw ballot information leak remover
#input is ballots, one per line, I.e.
#O,NHKCJILMGBFEDA
#OMN,GBLKIJADFC,E,H

import sys
for ballot in sorted([",".join(["".join(sorted(x)) for x in
y[:-1].split(',')]) for y in sys.stdin]):
 print ballot

---cut here---

[*] 
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027002011/http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2001182781025.gif

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Re: [Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

2009/8/25 Gregory Kohs :
> I wonder what takes so long to upload a small data file?

It needs anonymising and randomising first, so it isn't just
uploading. It seems an unnecessary delay, though, I agree. The
pairwise results are all up on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Results

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[Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

I wonder what takes so long to upload a small data file?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Board_elections/2009/Votes&oldid=1606753

Let's see... August 25 minus August 12 equals nearly two weeks of delay (and
subterfuge?)...

It only took three days to post the ballots in 2008:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Board_elections/2008/Votes/en&oldid=1062980

What's different about 2009?  I mean, other than the fact that the
Wikivoices interview tape #45 of the Board candidates was mysteriously
"lost", and that the WMF staff budget is about three times larger now than
it was then.  This must be the professionalism and efficiency we were
expecting from all of the added money being thrown at the Foundation.

-- 
Gregory Kohs
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Re: [Foundation-l] New board members and officers

2009/8/25 geni :
> Omidyar Network? They were involved with a 4 million funding round for
> wikia back in 2006 no?
>
> http://web.archive.org/web/20060422054638/http://www.americanventuremagazine.com/news.php?newsid=941
>
> Appointing yet another person with wikia links looks kinda dicey no?

I have to agree. I'm sure everyone involved is acting with the best of
intentions and that any conflicts of interest will be dealt with
appropriately, but it doesn't look good. It is really important to
consider the PR impact of decisions like this.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New board members and officers

2009-08-25 Thread David Gerard

2009/8/25 geni :

> Omidyar Network? They were involved with a 4 million funding round for
> wikia back in 2006 no?
> http://web.archive.org/web/20060422054638/http://www.americanventuremagazine.com/news.php?newsid=941
> Appointing yet another person with wikia links looks kinda dicey no?


Oh come on, someone has to entertain Mr Kohs. I am 100% certain that
was the actual reason.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New board members and officers

2009-08-25 Thread geni

2009/8/25 Michael Snow :
> We also appointed someone to one of the vacant expertise seats appointed
> by the board. His name is Matt Halprin, and in brief, Matt is with the
> Omidyar Network and a former eBay executive who was in charge of trust
> and safety there. Matt has met with a number of us over the past several
> months, and I invited him to join us in Buenos Aires and meet the entire
> board. The Omidyar Network is very interested in supporting our strategy
> development discussions, and I look forward to having Matt's experience
> and insight as we continue with the process. Matt's initial appointment
> is for a term until December 31, at which time it will be reviewed like
> the other appointed seats.

Omidyar Network? They were involved with a 4 million funding round for
wikia back in 2006 no?

http://web.archive.org/web/20060422054638/http://www.americanventuremagazine.com/news.php?newsid=941

Appointing yet another person with wikia links looks kinda dicey no?

-- 
geni

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[Foundation-l] New board members and officers

2009-08-25 Thread Michael Snow

We're in the middle of our board meeting and a great discussion about 
the strategy development process, but I wanted to share some news with 
you about the Board of Trustees itself. We welcomed Sam Klein (better 
known as Sj) as a new community-elected board member, with many thanks 
to Domas for his service. In addition, we're grateful to the candidates 
who participated in the election, everyone who voted, and the election 
committee for facilitating the process.

We also appointed someone to one of the vacant expertise seats appointed 
by the board. His name is Matt Halprin, and in brief, Matt is with the 
Omidyar Network and a former eBay executive who was in charge of trust 
and safety there. Matt has met with a number of us over the past several 
months, and I invited him to join us in Buenos Aires and meet the entire 
board. The Omidyar Network is very interested in supporting our strategy 
development discussions, and I look forward to having Matt's experience 
and insight as we continue with the process. Matt's initial appointment 
is for a term until December 31, at which time it will be reviewed like 
the other appointed seats.

Jay will be putting out press releases and a Q&A with some more details 
about all of this. We still have one more vacant seat we hope to fill in 
time, and we have a search consultant who is working with the Nominating 
Committee to identify and recommend candidates for that position. The 
Nominating Committee also continues to have the role of reviewing 
appointed board members for renewal.

Finally, as we normally do at Wikimania, we chose board officers for the 
coming year. I will be continuing as chair, with Jan-Bart as vice chair 
and Stu as treasurer. Since Domas, who was our executive secretary, is 
leaving us, Kat was chosen for that role. I'm excited about working with 
them and the rest of the board over the coming year.

--Michael Snow

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Re: [Foundation-l] Closure of projects

2009-08-25 Thread Robin P.

2009/8/24 Andrew Turvey 

> First, if the conclusion is that no procedure exists, a notice should be
> put on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projectsstating 
> this so that peoples' expectations are appropriately managed.


Good idea, I added a note on the top of the page "Apart from the common
practices below, there is no official policy on closing projects".

Second, is that correct? Looking at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Herero_Wikipediait
>  seems that there certainly was a procedure in the past where articles
> were shifted back into the Incubator.
>

There is no procedure in the sense of how to reach a consensus to close the
wiki.
Moving pages to Incubator is what comes *after* the wiki is closed, to give
a future community the chance to build a new wiki at the Incubator. Imagine
if you work on a small project knowing that if the project is closed, all
your work is gone (until the wiki is opened again - which has never happened
before afaik).

Most importantly, should there be a procedure? Keeping projects open is a
> drain on resources, such as removing vandalism. There is a level of activity
> below which the positive benefits of the project are outweighed by the
> drain, although it's clearly not worth closing a project if the effort to do
> this is not a worthwhile investment.
>

When looking at the recent changes and logs of several wikis proposed to be
closed, the amount of vandalism in the past year was very low.
I guess vandalism on big projects requires much more work than all those
small wikis together.


Overall, I agree with Gerard.

What I don't like is that proposals stay open for years without even being
closed as "inactive proposal for closure" (ironically).
Or, the opposite, a lot of discussion to close a relatively low-active
project in a major language. In this case, Dutch Wikinews.

- "Gerard Meijssen"  wrote:
> > From: "Gerard Meijssen" 
> > To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, 20 August, 2009 19:01:39 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland,
> Portugal
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Closure of projects
> >
> > Hoi,
> > There is no procedure because what comes closest to a consensus amount to
> a
> > lot of work. Work that does not forward our mission one iota. The fact
> that
> > people vote and comment is not that special, people do ... if they vote
> that
> > I will wear a tutu at Wikimania and a consensus says that I should, I
> still
> > have to volunteer to wear that tutu. It is the same as voting for a bug
> in
> > bugzilla. The votes are not considered so why bother ?
> >
> > As to the language committee, it does only consider new requests for
> > projects ... if it were to expand its services it would be in indicating
> > what issues exist that deal with language support that would make a
> > difference to the usability of our software. It would not be drinking
> from
> > the poisoned chalice that is closing projects. The closest we came to
> > expressing an opinion is that we would prefer the content of a to be
> closed
> > project to be imported into the Incubator. This is a not good for
> Incubator
> > because they get dead wood loaded into their project 
> >
> > So all in all in my opinion it is best to leave these things as is and
> > ignore requests for closure.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > 2009/8/20 Huib! 
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I noticed that there are still a lot of open request for closure on
> Meta
> > > so I decided to contact a LangCom member (Robin) asking him about how
> > > and when the projects will be closed or when the requests will be
> > > closed, but I recieved a answer I didn't expected.
> > >
> > > Robin told me there was no policy (
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Closure_of_WMF_projects ) about the
> > > closure of projects so the request can stay open for always.
> > >
> > >
> > > I think its kind of strange that we people can make a request, that
> > > there are people who are voting and spending there time commenting on
> > > the request or even worse have stress because there project could be
> > > closed but the request will never be closed.
> > >
> > >
> > > Is there a way to change this with a new policy, or with a different
> com
> > > for the closure, because this seems to me a waste of time for a lot of
> > > people, people can stop editting projects just because the think the
> > > project will be closed.
> > >
> > > At this moment there are 27 request for projects to be closed, (
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects ) I
> think
> > > 50% is a easy closure for keep or close. The oldest project is from
> 2007
> > > that would mean its still open after 2 years :/
> > >
> > > --
> > > *Huib Laurens*
> > >
> > > Web: Forgotten-beauty.com 
> > > Email: abi...@forgotten-beauty.com  >
> > >

Re: [Foundation-l] Lack of research on Wikipedia

2009-08-25 Thread Nikola Smolenski

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> The other is write what people want. We do not know what people want. If we
> did we had a list of most looked for articles that could not be found for
> each project. Now THAT would be user driven and THAT would motivate people
> to write not only the article but possibly also the wiki network around such
> articles.

I hear that this might be available in the future.

In the meantime portals such as www.wikipedia.fr or www.wikipedia.de 
might do it too.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Lack of research on Wikipedia

2009-08-25 Thread Ziko van Dijk

Yes indeed. I have left something on that subject on
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal_talk:Reach_out_by_active_promotion_of_content_in_wiki-weak_large_languages

By the way, we have come a little bit far away from the original
thread, isn't it? :-)

Kind regards
Ziko

2009/8/25 Gerard Meijssen :
> Hoi,
> How does a list of most read articles on any Wikipedia give a clue on what
> is of interest in the Swahili Wikipedia ??? Would they really be interested
> in subjects like "Sarah Palin" ?? If the idea is to have user driven
> content, let it be driven by the community it is written for. It is more
> likely that they are interested in an article about Mwai Kibaki or Raila
> Odinga and sure enough both gentlemen have their sw.wp article.
>
> The only way in which you infer information about what might be of interest
> for another language is when you look at the articles read from the area
> where the language for a particular language is spoken. Another approach to
> our data that would be beneficial.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> 2009/8/25 Jonathan Hall 
>
>> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 09:26:18AM +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> 
>> > For the second there are two approaches. We create a 100/1000 list of
>> must
>> > have articles. While there is merit in many of the subjects selected, do
>> you
>> > really think American Football is relevant in Upper Volta (I do not
>> know).
>> > The other is write what people want. We do not know what people want. If
>> we
>> > did we had a list of most looked for articles that could not be found for
>> > each project. Now THAT would be user driven and THAT would motivate
>> people
>> > to write not only the article but possibly also the wiki network around
>> such
>> > articles.
>> Actually, there are no sportspeople and very few sports articles in
>> [[meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have]]. That said, some of
>> the articles in the philosophy section do tend a little towards the
>> abstract - an article on the concept of beauty is all well and good, but
>> how often will it actually be looked up.
>>
>> Maybe we could gain an idea of the sort of articles that are wanted by
>> looking at which articles are accessed in other languages with larger
>> Wikipedias (en, simple, fr, maybe de would probably be the best ones to
>> start with) from IPs in the areas where the language in question is
>> spoken.
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan G Hall 
>> OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB3D66A8C
>>
>> -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
>>
>> iEYEARECAAYFAkqTotEACgkQb6WEh7PWaozODACaA슀꛴憀藤灦땊�
>> RBsAniDlg2QSDUoOUgLPVxNubrF3DAB/
>> =UW1I
>> -END PGP SIGNATURE-
>>
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-- 
Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde

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Re: [Foundation-l] Lack of research on Wikipedia

2009-08-25 Thread Jonathan Hall

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 07:53:49AM -0300, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> How does a list of most read articles on any Wikipedia give a clue on what
> is of interest in the Swahili Wikipedia ??? Would they really be interested
> in subjects like "Sarah Palin" ?? If the idea is to have user driven
> content, let it be driven by the community it is written for. It is more
> likely that they are interested in an article about Mwai Kibaki or Raila
> Odinga and sure enough both gentlemen have their sw.wp article.
> 
> The only way in which you infer information about what might be of interest
> for another language is when you look at the articles read from the area
> where the language for a particular language is spoken. Another approach to
> our data that would be beneficial.
That's what I meant when I said "from IPs in the areas where the
language in question is spoken". Of course I didn't mean to say we could
infer what Swahili speakers wanted from sw.wp by looking at the total
statistics for other Wikipedias. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough with that.

J

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OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB3D66A8C


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Re: [Foundation-l] Lack of research on Wikipedia

Hoi,
How does a list of most read articles on any Wikipedia give a clue on what
is of interest in the Swahili Wikipedia ??? Would they really be interested
in subjects like "Sarah Palin" ?? If the idea is to have user driven
content, let it be driven by the community it is written for. It is more
likely that they are interested in an article about Mwai Kibaki or Raila
Odinga and sure enough both gentlemen have their sw.wp article.

The only way in which you infer information about what might be of interest
for another language is when you look at the articles read from the area
where the language for a particular language is spoken. Another approach to
our data that would be beneficial.
Thanks,
  GerardM

2009/8/25 Jonathan Hall 

> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 09:26:18AM +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> 
> > For the second there are two approaches. We create a 100/1000 list of
> must
> > have articles. While there is merit in many of the subjects selected, do
> you
> > really think American Football is relevant in Upper Volta (I do not
> know).
> > The other is write what people want. We do not know what people want. If
> we
> > did we had a list of most looked for articles that could not be found for
> > each project. Now THAT would be user driven and THAT would motivate
> people
> > to write not only the article but possibly also the wiki network around
> such
> > articles.
> Actually, there are no sportspeople and very few sports articles in
> [[meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have]]. That said, some of
> the articles in the philosophy section do tend a little towards the
> abstract - an article on the concept of beauty is all well and good, but
> how often will it actually be looked up.
>
> Maybe we could gain an idea of the sort of articles that are wanted by
> looking at which articles are accessed in other languages with larger
> Wikipedias (en, simple, fr, maybe de would probably be the best ones to
> start with) from IPs in the areas where the language in question is
> spoken.
>
> --
> Jonathan G Hall 
> OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB3D66A8C
>
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iEYEARECAAYFAkqTotEACgkQb6WEh7PWaozODACaA슀꛴憀藤灦땊�
> RBsAniDlg2QSDUoOUgLPVxNubrF3DAB/
> =UW1I
> -END PGP SIGNATURE-
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] New projects opened

Hoi,
Google Wave is not a finished product at this moment.. The intention is to
make it available by the end of September. While Wave is developed it is not
stable and this is understood by the people who develop in it. When one
robot, in this the translation robot, you cannot infer anything from it.
When Wave is demoed you cannot even expect that all the robots that are
being developed can be demoed.

I am sure that they did not and could not demo the "MediaWiki Wave"
functionality.. for that you have to be at Wikimania Buenos Aires 2009.
Thanks,
  GerardM

2009/8/23 Michael Peel 

>
> On 23 Aug 2009, at 09:50, Bod Notbod wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Milos Rancic
> > wrote:
> >
> >> There won't be new lingua franca. ~30 years is now very small amount
> >> of time for changing behavior of the global society, while it is very
> >> large amount of time for machine translators. (Translation engines
> >> between similar languages are very very good now.)
> >
> > The Google Wave demo shows real time translation as things are typed.
> > I'm sure you'll inevitably end up with some of the very strange
> > sentence constructions you get whenever you do an online translation
> > but it's still quite a remarkable feat.
>
> I was at a demonstration of Google Wave yesterday, and someone asked
> for a demo of the live translation robot. They weren't able to demo
> it; apparently it's been decommissioned by Google.
>
> Mike
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Lack of research on Wikipedia

2009-08-25 Thread Jonathan Hall

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 09:26:18AM +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> For the second there are two approaches. We create a 100/1000 list of must
> have articles. While there is merit in many of the subjects selected, do you
> really think American Football is relevant in Upper Volta (I do not know).
> The other is write what people want. We do not know what people want. If we
> did we had a list of most looked for articles that could not be found for
> each project. Now THAT would be user driven and THAT would motivate people
> to write not only the article but possibly also the wiki network around such
> articles.
Actually, there are no sportspeople and very few sports articles in
[[meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have]]. That said, some of
the articles in the philosophy section do tend a little towards the
abstract - an article on the concept of beauty is all well and good, but
how often will it actually be looked up.

Maybe we could gain an idea of the sort of articles that are wanted by
looking at which articles are accessed in other languages with larger
Wikipedias (en, simple, fr, maybe de would probably be the best ones to
start with) from IPs in the areas where the language in question is
spoken. 

--
Jonathan G Hall 
OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB3D66A8C


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Re: [Foundation-l] Lack of research on Wikipedia