[Foundation-l] Report to the Board August 2009

[Sue Gardner]

Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Covering: August 2009
Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

MILESTONES FROM AUGUST
* Engagement of recruiters to fill new positions and vacancies: Chief
Development Officer, vacant Board “expertise” seat, and Chief
Technical Officer
* Wikimania 2009: scholarships finalization, staff attendance and
presentation preparations, preparations for board meeting
* Soft-launch of the Strategic Planning Project

KEY PRIORITIES FOR SEPTEMBER
* Strategic Development Process
* Communications Campaign Kick-off
* Finalization of Office Move details
* Meetings with donor prospects

THIS PAST MONTH

REACH

In August 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation sites held steady as the
fifth most-popular web property in the world with 307 million global
unique visitors, according to comScore Media Metrix.

WIKIMANIA BUENOS AIRES

The fifth annual Wikimedia conference, Wikimania 2009, took place in
Buenos Aires, Argentina from August 26 to 28. The conference hosted
more than 500 Wikimedians and supporters from around the world. Talks
and workshops gave attendees new insights into the Wikimedia projects,
other free knowledge efforts, and the challenges and opportunities
facing the movement.

Wikimania 2009 was attended by 57 Wikimedians on scholarships funded
by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Wikimedia Germany, the Open
Society Institute and the Wikimedia Foundation. The dollar value of
those scholarships totalled approximately USD 100,000. This
represented huge growth from Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria, which a
total of nine people attended via scholarships, funded by OSI and
totalling USD 10,000. More on the scholarships process later in this
report.

Twenty Wikimedia Foundation staff traveled to Buenos Aires to
participate at Wikimania. Staff who attended were: Brion Vibber, Cary
Bass, Erik Moeller, Erik Zachte, Eugene Eric Kim, Frank Schulenburg,
James Owen, Jay Walsh, Jennifer Riggs, Kul Takanao Wadhwa, Mark
Bersgma, Naoko Komura, Nimish Gautam, Philippe Beaudette, Rand
Montoya, Rob Halsell, Sara Crouse, Sue Gardner, Tim Starling and
Tomasz Finc. Staff participated in the conference as workers (e.g.,
supporting the Board meeting and press conference), as panelists,
workshop leaders and speakers, and as participants. At the close of
the conference, Sue gave a keynote talk on the Wikimedia Foundation:
The Year in Review and The Year Ahead. In it, she focused on some of
the challenges facing Wikimedia, including flagging participation
trends and a need for more openness and friendliness to new people,
and pointed to the strategy project as a way for all Wikimedians to
participate in charting our course for the next five years.

The following presentations were given by Foundation staff members
(see links for videos and, in most cases, slides):

The Year in Review and the Year Ahead - Sue Gardner
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:112

NIH Wikipedia Academy 2009 - Frank Schulenburg and Jay Walsh:
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:334

Wikimedia Technical Infrastructure - Rob Halsell
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:103

Scaling Up the Wikimedia Movement - Erik Moeller
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:298

What can Wikimedia learn from the Red Cross? - Jennifer Riggs
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:207

Wikimedia in Numbers - Erik Zachte
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:144

Collaborative Video on Wikipedia - Michael Dale
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:332

Wikipedia Usability Initiative - Naoko Komura
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:237

Documenting best practices in public outreach - Frank Schulenburg
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:335

The Wikimedia tech community organized a separate "codeathon" running
in parallel to the main event. See the summary provided by Brion
Vibber here:
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:86

Related blog post by Domas:
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/traffic-reduction/

Note the generally excellent video coverage of Wikimania 2009, thanks
to the local team, who received some help from the Wikimedia tech
community to get the videos to Commons. Additional videos can be found
here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania_2009_presentations
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule

The Wikimedia Foundation expresses its heartfelt appreciation to the
local planning team, and everyone else who helped make Wikimania 2009
such a successful and enjoyable event.

STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS

In August, the Strategic Planning Project soft-launched with a Call
For Proposals asking Wikimedians to develop and share proposals aimed
at helping the movement better achieve its goals. Since then, over 350
proposals were submitted on the strategy wiki, all of which have been
cat

Re: [Foundation-l] Alphascript Publishing scam

[Geoffrey Plourde]

Is 19.95 your cost? I'ver mentioned before that this is the best way to 
effectively put them out of business.

 




From: Gregory Kohs 
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Wed, October 14, 2009 10:10:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Alphascript Publishing scam

I wonder what Alphascript will think of this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/6130037589

Americans love a good bargain.  Too bad I don't have the time to
duplicate this effort the 5,000 times to keep up with them.

Greg

___
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] Alphascript Publishing scam

[Gregory Kohs]

I wonder what Alphascript will think of this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/6130037589

Americans love a good bargain.  Too bad I don't have the time to
duplicate this effort the 5,000 times to keep up with them.

Greg

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Office hours tomorrow, Thursday, October 15

[Cary Bass]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Cary Bass wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> This Thursday's office hours will feature Mike Godwin, the
> Wikimedia Foundation's Legal Counsel.  If you don't know Mike
> Godwin, you can read about him at .
>
> Office hours this Thursday are from 1600 to 1700 UTC (9:00AM to
> 10:00PM PDT).
Obviously this should be 10:00AM (not PM)  Thanks, Risker...

>
> The IRC channel that will be hosting Mike's conversation will be
> #wikimedia-office on the Freenode network.
>
> If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come
> chat using a web browser:  First is using the Wikizine chat gateway
> at .  Type
> a nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and
> #wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join.
>
> Also, you can access Freenode by going to
> http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice
> and choosing wikimedia-office as the channel.   You may be prompted
> to click through a security warning. It should be all right.
>
> Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any
> other relevant email lists you happen to be on.
>

- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAkrWAv4ACgkQyQg4JSymDYnFbwCfZdlIAXYsU/rW5W0NYuggegcx
1p0AoOFyK8pXfC813FGa+jOANp6GGKm5
=mFKs
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] Office hours tomorrow, Thursday, October 15

[Cary Bass]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Hi everyone,

This Thursday's office hours will feature Mike Godwin, the Wikimedia
Foundation's Legal Counsel.  If you don't know Mike Godwin, you can
read about him at .

Office hours this Thursday are from 1600 to 1700 UTC (9:00AM to 10:00PM
PDT).

The IRC channel that will be hosting Mike's conversation will be
#wikimedia-office on the Freenode network.

If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat
using a web browser:  First is using the Wikizine chat gateway at
.  Type a
nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and
#wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join.

Also, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/,
typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as
the channel.   You may be prompted to click through a security warning.
 It should be all right.

Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other
relevant email lists you happen to be on.

- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

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

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAkrV/lMACgkQyQg4JSymDYm30gCdFxjC2OrTnbGM5IK2xB4tRxOP
xyYAoKrhmfM71IUrx5RIJsco1FkoIc8q
=nADF
-END PGP SIGNATURE-

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Alphascript Publishing scam

[Gregory Kohs]

I have submitted the following to GNU.org, to Amazon, to Alphascript
Publishing, and the FTC, so maybe they can professionally sort it out.
 I may not have legal footing, but if not, it still stinks:

Amazon.com is allowing the fraudulent marketing of published content
by Alphascript Publishing.

The materials in these books:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=John%20McBrewster

...was not authored "by" John McBrewster.  It was authored and edited
by several editors on Wikipedia.org who claim copyright to the
material and released it under the terms of the GFDL and the CC-by-SA
licenses.  As you can see, Alphascript is making no attempt in its
marketing to inform the buyer that the material is freely licensed,
that it has merely been re-packaged (not "edited"), and that the
listing of these ancillary editors does NOT fulfill the attribution
terms on the free licenses which transport this media.

I have multiple expectations:

(1) That the GNU.org and the FTC will act to the best of their abilities to work
with both Alphascript Publishing and Amazon to inform their course of
action to help assure that proper attribution and sourcing does come
into effect, or simply to advocate removal of these publications from
the marketing database hosted by Amazon until they are made compliant.

(2) That Amazon more effectively address its few publishers who are
brazenly violating American licensing laws, even if they are offshore
companies.

We need go no further than Amazon's own terms of service to read:

Intellectual Property

   * Recopied media. Recopied media infringe upon copyrights and
trademarks and are illegal to sell. Unauthorized copies, dubs, and
duplicates of any copyrighted material are prohibited on Amazon.com.
This includes:
 o Books - Unauthorized copies of books are prohibited.

The content published by Alphascript is authorized if and only if the
terms of the original licenses have been met, and I assuredly believe
they have not been so met.

Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.

CC: FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection
 (Case number: 24307600)

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Alphascript Publishing scam

[Anthony]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Gregory Kohs  wrote:
> Look, if the license is itself a feeble instrument that almost begs to
> be mocked, then I guess the "caveat emptor" applies not only to the
> stooges who might buy these books (is there any evidence that anyone
> is actually purchasing them?), but also to the content generators who
> release their work under licenses they (falsely) think will carry some
> oomph in the marketplace.

Yes, you shouldn't submit anything to Wikipedia that you're not
comfortable basically releasing into the public domain.  The GFDL
offered little protection, CC-BY-SA offers even less, and the WMF's
interpretation of CC-BY-SA offers basically no protection (the only
entity that the WMF says has to be given credit is "Wikipedia", and
they can't even sue if that credit isn't given, so basically you've
got a catch-22 situation where the people who could potentially sue
aren't the people who are harmed).

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Alphascript Publishing scam

[Gregory Kohs]

Robert Rohde said:

+
At its core though, the fact that Wikipedia works can be repackaged
and sold is a feature of the free content movement.
+

Via trickery?  Some accomplishment.


Andrew Gray says:

=
this may be a failing of Amazon
=

Amazon...  Where have I heard that name?  Oh, yes!  They invested $10
million in Wikia, Inc., didn't they?  Sorry to see that they don't
help to respect the licenses that Wikipedia and Wikia are both built
upon.

Look, if the license is itself a feeble instrument that almost begs to
be mocked, then I guess the "caveat emptor" applies not only to the
stooges who might buy these books (is there any evidence that anyone
is actually purchasing them?), but also to the content generators who
release their work under licenses they (falsely) think will carry some
oomph in the marketplace.  I do agree with Mr. Gray that Amazon has
made a poor corporate judgment in not demanding more straightforward
attribution of its publishers.  I guess Amazon makes a number of bad
judgments.  Their stock is up less than 9% over 10 years, with no paid
dividends.

Greg

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

[Andrew Gray]

2009/10/13 Gregory Kohs :

> These people are not Wikipedia editors.  Is it appropriate and/or
> legal under the terms of the GFDL or the CC-by-SA for a
> freely-licensed work to be "claimed" with a preposition such as "by",
> which by any interpretation of the English language in this usage,
> would connote authorship?  Personally, I don't think it is appropriate
> (thus that nauseous feeling I mentioned earlier).  But, I'm not a
> highly-paid lawyer, so maybe I just don't know better.  I've been in
> situations before where I know I am ethically correct, but helpless in
> the light of the law.

I think, from past experience, this may be a failing of Amazon (etc)
and not necessarily the result of any malfesance on the part of the
publishers, annoying little sods though they are.

The title page - I haven't seen one, I confess - probably has
something like "edited by Smith, Jones, etc." under the title. Here,
they're just stating the defensible (if, as we've discussed, somewhat
misleading) claim of editorship. In cataloguing parlance, this is the
"statement of responsibility" - the verbose description of who's
responsible and what they did. When you properly catalogue a book, you
would make two entries; one is the statement of responsibility, and
one is simply a list of named individuals in that statement.

a) edited by Susan Smith, with foreword by Charles Clark.

b) Smith, Susan / Clark, Charles

Bookseller data tends to be of the form of (b) - a list of entries in
a field - and not verbose like (a), though it's common to have them
expanded with notes like (editor) (translator) etc.

So, Amazon would take b), and turn it into:

"by Susan Smith (editor), Charles Clark (foreword)"

simply by tidying the list up and putting "by" at the front to make it
human-readable They're the ones interpolating the "by" here; the
original data probably never had it.

[It's actually worse on the main search, incidentally - there, it's
just "by X", and the (editor) note is dropped entirely]

This is, annoyingly, one of those things that it would probably be
relatively easy for Amazon to fix - code the system up so that "by X,
Y, Z" becomes "edited by X, Y, Z" when all of X, Y and Z are noted as
editors. Beats me where you file a bug report with them, though...

-- 
- 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] (no subject)

[Robert Rohde]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Gregory Kohs  wrote:
> To me, this smacks of an utter disregard for the intent and spirit of
> the free license.   It's the same sort of flippant administrative
> attitude that (nearly) allowed Guy "JzG" Chapman to grossly plagiarize
> my original, freely-licensed work, delete mine from the edit history,
> then prance about claiming that the work was his own, written "ab
> initio".  That made me want to vomit, and now I feel like vomiting
> again.
>
> Sorry to resurrect a thread like this, but I only became aware of the
> phenomenon recently.
>
> To give an example of how such a book is marketed on Amazon:
>

> History of Buddhism (Paperback)
>
> by Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John
> McBrewster (Editor)

>
> These people are not Wikipedia editors.  Is it appropriate and/or
> legal under the terms of the GFDL or the CC-by-SA for a
> freely-licensed work to be "claimed" with a preposition such as "by",
> which by any interpretation of the English language in this usage,
> would connote authorship?  Personally, I don't think it is appropriate
> (thus that nauseous feeling I mentioned earlier).  But, I'm not a
> highly-paid lawyer, so maybe I just don't know better.  I've been in
> situations before where I know I am ethically correct, but helpless in
> the light of the law.
>
> It strikes me that this is something that Creative Commons or other
> organizations with Godwin-like attorneys should be aggressively
> pursuing, but we didn't hear from any of them in the original thread,
> did we?  Mike, could you illuminate this conversation with your
> professional opinion?

My gut reaction is that the copyright holders don't have an effective
case here.  Or more precisely, what defects may exist with respect to
licensing compliance are sufficiently minor that they could be
remedied by cosmetic changes that would not materially impact
Alphascript's apparent business model.

The marketing of these books is perhaps deceptive, even sleazy, but
the copyright licenses are essentially mute on marketing.  The only
substantive copyright issue is whether the named individuals can claim
to be "editors" for the assembled collection of articles used to
create the book.  My reading is that they almost certainly can as long
as the interior of the "book" acknowledges individual authorship for
each article.  Rather than turning to copyright law, one might
actually have a better chance of effecting change by complaining to
the FTC (or similar organizations) and trying to build a case for
deceptive business practices.  Even then, they could pretty much avoid
the deception charge just by updating their marketing to clearly
attribute Wikipedia as the source of their books, and then continue as
is.

At its core though, the fact that Wikipedia works can be repackaged
and sold is a feature of the free content movement.  If the
implications of that are sometimes disturbing then either we need
accept the unintended consequences as a necessary evil, or we need to
think of ways to tweak future editions of the license to address
problems that were not previously anticipated.

-Robert Rohde

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l