date:20110921

Re: [Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter - magical flying unicorn pony that s***s rainbows

2011-09-21 Thread Kanzlei

Am 21.09.2011 um 22:37 schrieb David Gerard :

> On 21 September 2011 21:20, Kanzlei  wrote:
> 
>> This poll was not representative for wikipedia readers, but only for some 
>> German wikipedia editors.  Scientifically research found that Germa editors 
>> are not representative for German speaking people but far more 
>> environmetal-liberal-leftists than avarage Germans. The poll was even not 
>> representative for German editors because only a few voted.
> 
> 
> 233 would be a *large* turnout on en:wp. What is a large turnout on de:wp?
> 
> Your arguments look to me like fully-general counterarguments against
> *any* on-Wikipedia poll whatsoever, no matter the structure or
> subject. What would you accept as a measure of the de:wp community
> that would actually be feasible to conduct?

233 is a large amount for a poll on de:wp. But it was no democratic poll, 
because the manner by which the poll was conducted was not democratic. A 
democratic and representative poll has to be equal, common and private. The 
poll was not common because not every user entitled to vote was noticed about 
the poll,

(example for a more democratic poll was the poll from the foundation in 
question bildfilter: it was on an anonymous server and I was notified by email 
that I was entitled to vote), 

it was not private, because everybody can see who choose what. And finally it 
was not equal, because there was no means to exclude the possibility of sock 
puppet voting (Which is very common and very easy as far as I know - I know an 
unpunished such voting).

> 
> 
> - d.
> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter - magical flying unicorn pony that s***s rainbows

2011-09-21 Thread Bjoern Hoehrmann

* David Gerard wrote:
>233 would be a *large* turnout on en:wp. What is a large turnout on de:wp?

Most Meinungsbilder have between 100 and 300 editors participating and
the 300s are seen regularily. Participation maxes out at around 500 so
"large" probably begins somewhere in the 300s. This largely matches the
number of participants in admin elections, to offer a comparison.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Scope of this mailing list

2011-09-21 Thread Phil Nash

Carcharoth wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:31 AM, Phil Nash 
> wrote: 
> 
>> Starting at the back, and working forward, my posts are not random.
>> They are carefully selected examples based on my experience as
>> (currently) a reader of Wikipedia and my responses to what I found.
>> I take it as obvious that if I can read these articles, so can their
>> subjects, and if they don't like what they see, making appropriate
>> noises, or (in extreme cases) litigating against the Foundation.
> 
> What you seem to be arguing for is a mailing list dedicated to the
> issues you raise. The point I was making is that re-purposing this
> mailing list (wiki-en-l) for that purpose is unlikely to succeed (or
> be desirable), and that is what I meant by references to this being a
> bit random. In other words, the venue(s) you are chosing for raising
> these matters seem a bit random. What you seem to be looking for is a
> mailing list version of the BLP Noticeboard. I've copied the WMF
> mailing list on this post (as you added that mailing list when you
> replied), but I won't see any replies to that mailing list as I'm not
> subscribed there. I've removed Jimmy from the cc list, as the posts to
> public mailing lists should be sufficient.
> 
> Carcharoth

OK, Chris. Let's see what happens next.


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[Foundation-l] Reminder: IRC office hours with Sue Gardner, Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 17:00 UTC

2011-09-21 Thread Steven Walling

Just a quick reminder that this is tomorrow at 17:00 UTC.

-- Forwarded message --
From: Steven Walling 
Date: Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:42 AM
Subject: IRC office hours with Sue Gardner, Thursday, September 22, 2011 at
17:00 UTC
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Greetings all,

I just wanted to announce that there will be an office hours with Sue
Gardner in #wikimedia-office Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 17:00 UTC.
Likely topics include current events like the image filter referendum and
Sue's new Executive Director's Barnstar, among many other possibilities. As
usual, links to time conversion and other materials are on Meta.[1]

Best regards,

-- 
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org

1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours

-- 
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
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Re: [Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter

2011-09-21 Thread Milos Rancic

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 22:04, David Levy  wrote:
> An alternative proposal (which is *far* simpler and maintains
> neutrality) already has the public backing of WMF trustee Samuel
> Klein:

Oh, I don't read Meta pages related to Image filter. It's definitely
better option!

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Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Scope of this mailing list

2011-09-21 Thread Phil Nash

Carcharoth wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 1:13 AM, Phil Nash 
> wrote:
>
> 
>
>> [[User:Rodhullandemu]] - "still flying the flag for Wikipedia, for
>> some inexplicable reason".
>
> Does this refer to this?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Rodhullandemu&diff=431917947&oldid=431917436
>
> I'm not going to comment further, but I think others who respond to
> your posts should be aware of this.

Actually, you did comment further, and on a personal level; see below. And 
the lack of response in nearly nine hours to your post amply demonstrates, 
to me at least, how you seems to have missed the point.

> What the scope of this mailing list should be (given your recent posts
> on BLP matters, all copied to Jimmy Wales), is something I'd like to
> see discussed by the list moderators and those posting here. If there
> is a reason or rationale behind the posts, attempting to demonstrate
> something, then fine, but it would be courteous to state that rather
> then just post randomly like this.

Starting at the back, and working forward, my posts are not random. They are 
carefully selected examples based on my experience as (currently) a reader 
of Wikipedia and my responses to what I found. I take it as obvious that if 
I can read these articles, so can their subjects, and if they don't like 
what they see, making appropriate noises, or (in extreme cases) litigating 
against the Foundation.

We have BLP policies for that reason, and while I see editors on Wikipedia 
competing to provide articles about bacon(!), fiddling about with templates 
that are ostensibly fit for purpose as they are[1], and still arguing about 
trivial issues, nobody seems to be committed to clearing backlogs of 
articles that actually provide legal, if not journalistic, risk for WP and 
its parent. And there are myriad similar examples.

My personal reasons are less important than making sure that this project 
does, and can, continue without unnecessary diversions into legalities- 
perhaps I've been spending too much time reading up Commons policies of 
late, one of which (to paraphrase) says that "just because nobody will 
notice a copyright violation is no reason to ignore policy"- and so it 
should be with any policy on any WMF project that may have consequences for 
the Foundation. I am available to discuss any non-apparent personal 
motivations PRIVATELY by email rather than on a public list. But don't 
assume that I don't have our project's viability at heart.

As a lawyer by training, qualifications, experience, and observation, I've 
seen many operations thought to be acting blithely within the law crumble to 
the ground when the courts have upheld unexpected, but valid challenges. I'm 
not suggesting this is likely in our case; but neither is it beyond the 
bounds of possibility, and at least if I bring risks to the attention of 
others, my hands are clean.

Hope that helps.

[1] and consuming unnecessary resources in TfDs

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Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked

2011-09-21 Thread John Vandenberg

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 2:25 AM, Samuel Klein  wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Mike  Dupont
>  wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:57 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>>
>>> From Wikimedia's perspective, I think this is "one down, several hundred to 
>>> go."
>>> Wikimedia has made it clear that its singular focus is the English 
>>> Wikipedia.
>>> All other Wikipedias are peripheral; all other project types are abandoned.
>
>> oh that is alarming. can you tell me more?
>
> That is alarming because it is MZM's fear, but it does not represent
> the views of the Foundation.
>
> (MZM, would you mind finding a more accurate way to express your
> observations, hopes and frustrations on this subject?)
> ...
> All sister projects are able to pull in grant money if it is pursued.
> There are a variety of major foundations devoted to, or prioritizing,
> curation and access to {primary source materials, language and
> literacy materials, civic journalism,  free textbooks, open
> educational resources, biology and species data, oral histories, &c.}.
>  I would love to see us attract more of that sort of interest.  Even
> projects that we worry about and say "did not achieve critical mass"
> are often significant successes by the standards of existing
> grant-supported work elsewhere in the world.

Sam,

While it is nice to say that the other projects can request grants
from other organisations, MZM's point is that the WMF is focusing on
English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

The strategic plan mentions Wikipedia an awful lot, and the WMF does
appear to be focusing on English Wikipedia and Commons.  Of course
WMF's investment in the mediawiki platform and innovation helps the
sister projects, but the sister projects continue to struggle because
they haven't had the same amount of support as Wikipedia over the
years.  The sun does not shine directly on them.  Have I told you
about the time that the WMF told a journo that it was OK to use
"Wikipedia" instead of "Wikisource" in an magazine article about a
Wikisource project?

I'm having a hard time remembering when a WMF led a project that had a
primary stated objective to meet a need of a sister project.  It would
be good to compile a list of any WMF projects of this kind.  maybe the
WMF can have _one_ "sister projects support officer" (think how many
dedicated _English_Wikipedia_ support staff the WMF has).

--
John Vandenberg

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[Foundation-l] Wikizine News - Year: 2011 Week: 39 Number: 129

2011-09-21 Thread EN Wikizine

Wikizine.org's __
/\ \ \ ___ __ __ ___
/ \/ // _ \\ \ /\ / // __|
/ /\ /| __/ \ V V / \__ \
\_\ \/ \___| \_/\_/ |___/
EDITION
Year: 2011 Week: 39 Number: 129

An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community

=== Technical news ===

[Babel on all Wikis] - There are a great deal of templates and signs
that one can put on there user page. One of the most useful are the
Babel-templates that indicate the knowledge of different languages.
Now is there an extension active on all wikis for that. No need to
manually setup all those templates on all wikis. The structure is
easy; see the excellent blog posting of Mister Internationalisation
himself - Gerard Meijssen.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/21/babel-extension-live-on-the-wmf-projects/

[New mobile gateway] - There is a new mobile gateway active for the
Wikipedias. The the other projects will follow. This is provided by
new extension of MediaWiki 1.17, the software our wikis are using.
This replaces the old mobile gateway.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/14/new-mobile-site-launched-on-wikipedia-soon-for-sister-wikis-too/
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend

[MediaWiki 1.8] - As announced in the TechFlash upgrade of the wikis
is in progress. New functions in MediaWiki 1.8 include;
- Support for gender-specific user pages: languages that have
different words for User whether the user is male or female will be
able to show the male or the female version, if the user has specified
their gender in their preferences.
- MediaWiki 1.18 will make it easier for left-to-right and
right-to-left text to coexist on the same page.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/16/mediawiki118iscomin/

[Fundraiser-time?] - You could encounter the well known gigantic
donation banner "personal appeal by ...". But no, it is not again the
big fundraiser event. But only a banner test. If you see it then you
where lucky. It is only at EN Wikipedia for anonymous users and
generally only in certain countries. The tests are currently being
conducted for 1 hour once a week. The real fundraiser will proably be
in November. But, test or not, donations are welcome.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011

[Techs share knowledge] - Running a massive infrastructure like the
WMF is using also mean that collect knowledge how to do that. In line
with the mission of the WMF detailed information about the
configuration of the system has been released so that others can learn
from it.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/19/ever-wondered-how-the-wikimedia-servers-are-configured/

[Operations Engineer goals] - In another post, Ryan Lane gives a
longer story about his goals for the past year.
http://ryandlane.com/blog/2011/09/19/ive-been-with-the-wikimedia-foundation-for-a-year-have-i-met-my-goals/

=== Request for help ===

[Petition to UNSECO] - Wikimedia Foundation, with full support of
founder Jimmy Wales, is asking to support the request to the UNESCO to
recognize Wikipedia as the first "digital World Cultural Heritage
Site". Over 51,000 people have signed the petition already. Your are
suggested to spread the word of this petition (after you signed) by
all the communication channels of the modern day. If you sign the
petition need to confirm by a link send by e-mail
http://wikipedia.de/wke/Main_Page

[Sign-up for translation] - Frequently there are messages that need to
be translated in, if possible, all the languages of the projects. If
you like to volunteer to be a translator you can register yourself
(see link) so when you are needed you can be contacted.
https://sugar.corp.wikimedia.org/translators/translators.php?referrer=wikizine

=== Bureaucracy ===

[Stewards election] - You can vote in the election for new stewards
until 6 October. According to the present situation, 9 Wikimedians
have a good chance to become stewards: Axpde, Bencmq, Bennylin,
Quadell, Quentinv57, Teles, Trijnstel, Vituzzu and Wikitanvir.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2
http://toolserver.org/~stewardbots/elections.php

=== Movement ===

[German Wikipedia] - On 15 September a poll on the German Wikipedia
questioning participants about the proposed image filter was closed.
German Wikipedians rejected implementation of an image filter on the
German Wikipedia by a 86.23% majority (430 votes, 357 against, 57 in
favour, 16 neutral).
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068502.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter
(proposal, argument

Re: [Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter - magical flying unicorn pony that s***s rainbows

2011-09-21 Thread David Levy

Andrew Gray wrote:

> People are saying we can't have the image filter because it
> would stop us being neutral. If we aren't neutral to begin
> with, this is a bad argument.

An image filter feature isn't inherently non-neutral, but one reliant
upon special categories (as described in the WMF outline) would be.

Unlike our normal categories (which objectively and non-exclusively
describe images' subjects in great detail), a manageable setup would
require broad, objection-based (i.e. extremely subjective)
classifications.

Additional non-neutrality enters the equation when we provide
categories for some "potentially objectionable" images and not others
(implicitly validating belief x and discriminating against holders of
belief y).  As previously discussed, this isn't realistically
avoidable.

Even if it were feasible to include an "unveiled women" category, who
would analyze the millions of images (with thousands more uploaded
every day) to tag them accordingly?  That's merely a single example.

David Levy

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