[Foundation-l] What 'movement role' for Esperanto?
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 23:18:04 +0100 From: Ziko van Dijk vand...@wmnederland.nl To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Foundation-l] What 'movement role' for Esperanto? Message-ID: CAGC3U7hJJEHqE3FuZEH+LNQ6eW+EhAEmwRGfKv4T+3KDj=s...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 == What movement role for Esperanto? == So what can the new kinds of Wikimedia organizations, discussed about under the expression ?movement roles?, mean for Esperanto? Actually the Esperantists could become an affiliated in all of the three new kinds: * A thematic organization: E@I, or a newly founded organization, could become a thematic organization of Wikimedia with similar rights and duties as the territorial chapters. * A Wikimedia group: E@I or even just a number of Esperantists listed on Esperanto Wikipedia could form a Wikimedia group. It could get the right to use the logo without especially asking WMF for permission, and ask some money from WMF for a flyer or similar expenses. * An Official Partner of Wikimedia: E@I or the World Esperanto Association could become a partner. I have talked to some Esperanto Wikipedians, some are enthusiast about a thematic organization, others not. One important question is how much (extra) work being a Wikimedia affiliate would cost. Kind regards Ziko I think the best way to proceed is to consider first what they want a do. Then see what tool best fit for the job. All these models are to work offline. For example assumes that they are considering: * Contact networks and organizations around the esperanto and organize workshops on editing Wikipedia. * Contact schools and universities where they teach Esperanto and organize educational activities based on the translation of Wikipedia articles between Esperanto and other languages. * Contact autohors of Esperanto teaching materials. Ask them to release the material they have under free licences and help them to create textbooks in wikibooks in different languages. * Contact foundations and charities that support the esperanto asking them funding to do the activities above. The first step is to see if there is a group of people with time and inclination to do this job. If there is they could start working as a Wikimedia group. To the extent that they grow and get meaningful results then thinking about going for a Thematic Organization can be the next step. My answer about the (extra) work is that if the activities are wel done then the only job is for the program of activities. No (extra) work should apear by being an affiliate because the requested requirements should arise naturally from the activities wel done and well finished: Reports of activities, if handled money transparent information ... Having a recognition more than doing (extra) work should be a recognition of doing (god) work aligned with the mission vision a and values of the movement and granting them tools to facilitate this work. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printing books
From: Keegan Peterzell keegan.w...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printing books Message-ID: CAELXKR+ZfmYr04K=gT_Kwu0SDDp0XTn53XfCY=bg7z2+b0a...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: I don't think that copying articles is the way to go. If the two projects have separate articles on the same subjects that's still a very good thing. They can still maintain their professional standards, whatever that means. The reader can compare the two and draw his own conclusions. I don't agree. Once copied back to Wikipedia the articles are open for continued editing and expanding- for better or worse. Then we have a comprehensive comparison between the article as it was when taken from Wikipedia, what it looked like when rewritten and given back, and the current state. It could make for an interesting paper. I don't think that the Catalan Wikipedia just protects the articles and leaves them as done, do they? Of course not. In addition if a work is in free license every wikipedian can decide whether copy or make a derivative work. The idea is that if they believe (or their marketing studies say) there is a market for an encyclopedia reviewed by professionals I think that this is not incompatible with free license. If it were published under a free license this opens them endless possibilities. Can copy and review articles in the same language version of Wikipedia or possible translations from other languages. Its value does not get lost by free licensing because when someone removes it from their website the content is no longer guaranteed to be controlled by their professional prestige. If we copied to wikipedia part of its content we were not damaging their profitability in the contrary generate traffic to their website that they know how turn in revenue. The Enciclopèdia Catalana case is unique. It was created on 1968 a very difficult historical period for Catalan. It was financed by voluntary contributions from individuals and private entities and they will continue having the support of Catalan society including my personal support if needed nothing farther from my intention than damaging them. In fact they are available for free online from several years ago. Their revenue (including other books and magazines) has fallen from 18 M € in 2003 to 12 M € in 2010 (I don't yet have data for 2011) but have been able to maintain profits around 1M € annually from 2004 instead of 7M € loses on 2003. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printing books
From: Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikipedia list wikipedi...@lists.wikimedia.org, English Wikipedia wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printingbooks Message-ID: caatu9wk4dnyvgphphjsasg8+mxx3pqx5wj08n3n1an45d93...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 2010's 32-volume set will be its last. (Now I want to get one, to replace my old set!) Future versions will be digital only. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/after-244-years-encyclopaedia-britannica-stops-the-presses/?smid=tw-nytimesseid=auto http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/13/encyclopedia-britannica-halts-print-publication Britannica president Jorge Cauz notes that their revenue from the online encyclopedia was already 15x that of the print version -- 15% of their total, compared to 1%. Most of their revenue for years has come from other targeted educational materials. As he says in the Guardian, Today our digital database is much larger than what we can fit in the print set. And it is up to date because we can revise it within minutes anytime we need to, and we do it many times each day. SJ. Unfortunatelly they still not realize that if published using a free licence compatible with Wikipedeia their income would be even 15 times larger. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printing books
From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com On 14 March 2012 09:40, Joan Goma jrg...@gmail.com wrote: Unfortunatelly they still not realize that if published using a free licence compatible with Wikipedeia their income would be even 15 times larger. Would it? Can you explain how that business model would work? There are ways of making money by producing free content, but I can't quite see how it would work in this context. I tried to do the exercise with Enciclopèdia Catalana.[1] I couldn't fine tune the figures because they didn't gave me the details. But some rough calculations came from the following assumptions. Catalan Wikipedia has about 10 times more pageviews than them. If they use a free license and use a wiki then their professionals can copy our best articles and review them and we can copy their content. 7,8% of their page-views go there from Catalan Wikipedia. They have 350.000 articles and Catalan Wikipedia 360.000 but there are about 120.000 articles that are not the same. If we copy from them the articles we don't have then Catalan Wikipedia can grow to 480.000 articles suddenly and page-views can grow about 15%. Copied articles have to contain links to the source and acknowledge authors. Their traffic can easily be duplicated. So their balance is affected by: *Save costs by using free software. *Save costs and grow faster by reusing contents from wikipedia. *More than duplicate income from advertisement. *Possibility to increase their incomes from governmental aids and grants by publishing using free licenses. Summing up all this the impact in profits is huge. I tried to convince them one year ago but until now I have not succeeded. I think the main barrier is fear to some for profit company copying their content and exploiting it commercially like them. But don't worry. I can be very persistent. Sooner or later they will go out from the dark side of force. [1] http://www.enciclopedia.cat/fitxa_v2.jsp?NDCHEC=0030866 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Chapter Selected Board Seats - Time for questions
From: Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Chapter Selected Board Seats - Time for questions Message-ID: caf-odcvqatfofxutfelwhmoly-tau3qa4lvqd6whct7+sod...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 2012/3/2 Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org: On 1 March 2012 18:27, B?ria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote: Hello people, So after receive authorization from all candidates, the list of candidates + statements are in meta, and you can find it here: http':// meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Candidates Until 14 March is time for questions, so if you have any questions to any of the candidates, please put your question in this page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Candidates/Questions(there are already some questions and some answers there) This is great: I am really happy to see this public process. Thank you t o B?ria and the other people coordinating this :-) Sue I am also happy with this - now we can openly make discussion about candidates on our chapter's wiki and e-mail list. + 1000 Today is a great day for chapters and a major step forward in earning trust from everyone. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] My public aplogies to Jan-Bart (was Movement roles letter, Feb 2012)
Jan-Bart, I am sorry. I didn’t know this is your name and present you publicly my more sincere apologies for misstyping it. I personally know the sensitivity about this kind of issues. My name in Catalan sounds completely different with accent than without. “Gomà” is a quite extended and ancient Catalan surname while “goma” in Catalan means rubber. I had to get used with this many years ago because in Spanish they don’t have accents for capital letters that’s how many official documents are written and more recently because in many computer keywords there is no way to write à. I assure you that this mistake has been because I didn’t know and that this won’t happen never again. Béria Lima berialima at gmail.com Thu Feb 16 04:09:27 UTC 2012 Gomà called him Jan at least 3 times today and no one complained. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 61
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:12:46 +0100 From: Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org And -- in the event the OP is still here, Joan Gom?, how are you properly addressed in person? I have heard people say things like When does Gom? arrive in Paris and I have also been using that. But you should presumably be addressed as Joan -- and presumably with the J sound pronounced as a Y? Thanks, Sue Well I am a bit ashamed by all this attentions to this off topic issue. I am used to many changes in my name but if you are curious this is the idea: It is indifferent to use the name or surname. In Catalan it is much more common to use the surname even among friends because the names are repeated a lot but either is correct and usual. J in Catalan is pronounced exactly the same as in English. It is perfectly correct to pronounce Joan as in English. It sounds like if you came from Valencia. In Barcelona it is pronounced Jooan the “o” sounds like “oo” in book. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012
Hi Jan, It is not a problem of lack of time or lack of communication channels. It is a problem of lack of participation of chapters and fear of change. These proposals have been in meta for months. [1] The answer to many of the questions raised here have been in meta for months. [2] The problem is that it is very difficult to reform a cemetery if you need the participation of inmates and even more if when you're about to decide then all of them suddenly resurrect to oppose. The movement roles group has worked and made his proposal. It has members that also are active in chapters who were well aware of chapter’s needs and sensitivity. I think that from the beginning the chapters have been afraid to change and believed that it was they who had the authority to decide or at least to block any decision. That’s why IMO they have not felt the need to participate and that’s why they now raise their voice with thousand arguments to block the decision. In theory and to some extent I could agree with chapters that creating any new model is their death. (particularly the dead of dorment or inactive chapters) But in practice things are exactly the reverse. Wikimedia Spain [3] is the best evidence that having other organizations in the same territory is highly healthy for chapters. Although while these organizations are not formally recognized and there are no mechanisms for communication and coordination between them and the chapters there will be misunderstandings and inconveniences. I think that many participants in this debate are not grasping what decision we are talking about. We are not proposing the creation of new organizations. We are not deciding whether there will be new organizations that compete with chapters or not. The creation of new models and new organizations is not in our hands. In many countries in the world there is freedom of association and those new models and organizations may perfectly appear. They don’t need our approval. What we are deciding here is whether we want to create channels of communication and cooperation with these new models and encourage them to appear or if we give them back and tries to discourage more people joining to promote free knowledge. I think Florence and Lodewijk have understood. But while the proposal of Florence seems to me that leads us to give them back by creating two sides with the WMF and the new institutions in one and chapters in the other the proposal of Lodewijk leads to create mechanisms to ensure that we have good understanding. I like more the proposal of Lodewijk. I also have given my view to the questions Achal so kindly had the patience to collect in meta. [4] [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Movement_roles/summary/modelsdirection=prevoldid=2979496 [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_roles/models#Partner_organizations_2 [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Espa%C3%B1a [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_affiliation_models#Questions Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:41:49 +0100 From: Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012 Message-ID: 268bd4b0-7e6f-43fe-bcc6-03b486877...@wikimedia.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi Ziko and Lodewijk, Thank you for this feedback. I must say that I was not intimately involved in these recommendations, and my take was that this was something that came out of the MR workgroup, and we had actually waited too long to approve these recommendations. It is clear to me that there is a close link between the fundraising/dissemination discussion and the increased options of organising ourselves. I am also convinced that we need to increase the different kinds of organisation methods that we support. But lets take the time to discuss the content of this proposal. If that means we need to take an extra month, so be it (would be my personal opinion) and make sure that we end up with something that is a marked improvement on the current situation. And we might have to refine it in the coming years (as we will have to do with most of the things we are trying to settle at this point :) Thanks for your constructive feedback! Jan-Bart ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012
Just to provide some background to my previous mail and left clear that there is not offensive intention. In Spanish the cemetery is a well known metaphor for the difficulties of reforming universities and educational systems. For example in Uruguay: http://www.ort.edu.uy/home/rectorado/pdf/vocesrector101209.pdf Headline says: EDUCATIONAL REFORM: ... difficult as reforming cemeteries can not be counted with much help from those inside. I chose this example because I hope somebody will like the picture. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012
From: Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com Regarding Amical my personal opinion is that they are highly flexible. First they proposed a transnational chapter operating in 4 countries, later they sent a mail to the board saying they would have a national chapter for Andorra, later they proposed a sub-national chapter in Spain. Now probably they can fit in the Partner Organization model. You know they are highly thankful to you because you find a place for them to participate in Wikilovemsonuments.[1] I think Partner Organization can be a solution for them like when you invented the therm ?Local area? They were not interested in any name nor position in the list their only interest where participating in Wikilovesmonuments with the same tools and same freedom than any body else. They are not interested in any kind of exclusivity, they are not interested in the name ?National Chapter?, their only interest is being able to support and promote the Catalan projects with the same tools and same freedom you have to promote French ones. I am surprised by your use of they This is just an old trick to make you do this question and have opportunity of saying that if you where so kind of accepting being a honorary member of Amical then I could use “we”. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012
From: Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012 Message-ID: jhar77$4kl$1...@dough.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 2/13/12 8:45 AM, Mathias Damour wrote: Why would both Associations and Affiliates both need to use Wikimedia marks ? Does OpenStreetMap need it if it gets some grants from the WMF ? I hope that these models won't be used to softly downgrade (or threaten to downgrade) chapters that would be said not having their bylaws and mission aligned with Wikimedia's. Very likely. But it is does not really matter actually because this decision is a clear sign that Chapters do not really exist anymore except on the paper. Chance is that the concept will disappear within the next couple of year, simply because it will become a concept redondant with partner organizations. I think you (and many other people expressing concerns about those new models) are too optimistic about them and too pessimistic about Chapters. I wish we had a lot of problems because there where lots of people wiling to join new chapters ans new models. I would be extremely happy to help unfolding that kind of mess. But my immediate concern is that hummm I fail to really see the difference between the 4 cases. Could we have some examples of each to better see what the difference is ? I think nobody can give examples because there are not cases yet. But from my participation in movement roles group I understand that the differences come from 3 parameters: a)Registered organizations / Informal groups b)Geography focused / Non geography focused c)Their main goal is Wikimedia Projects / They have other goals that benefit us. Then the classification comes like this: 1)Chapters: Registered / Geography / Wikimedia 2)Partner Organizations: Registered / Non Geography / Wikimedia 3)Associations: Informal / Geography or not / Wikimedia 4)Affiliated: Registered / Geography or not / Other So in Associations we can have Chapters to be and Partner Organizations to be. And some may be Associations for ever not reaching the status of a registered entity if they don’t feel the need. (Perhaps the term Association is not the best and something like “Wiki-Group” would be better) For example, since you mention OpenStreetMap would that rather be a partner or an affiliate ? Or, Amical, would that rather be a partner or an affiliate ? Regarding Amical my personal opinion is that they are highly flexible. First they proposed a transnational chapter operating in 4 countries, later they sent a mail to the board saying they would have a national chapter for Andorra, later they proposed a sub-national chapter in Spain. Now probably they can fit in the Partner Organization model. You know they are highly thankful to you because you find a place for them to participate in Wikilovemsonuments.[1] I think Partner Organization can be a solution for them like when you invented the therm “Local area” They were not interested in any name nor position in the list their only interest where participating in Wikilovesmonuments with the same tools and same freedom than any body else. They are not interested in any kind of exclusivity, they are not interested in the name “National Chapter”, their only interest is being able to support and promote the Catalan projects with the same tools and same freedom you have to promote French ones. [1] Before this change there was an edit war with people erasing their participation because they were not a chapter and others including them. Then Floence created a place for them and from then everybody was happy: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AWiki_Loves_Monuments_2011action=historysubmitdiff=49614457oldid=49607752 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012
From: Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012 Message-ID: CACf6Bev=Wv-N89LB4b3DAY05RDYp9qhd4UVTGZeX3u=hvvh...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hiya all, It would be great if we can have this discussion without making sarcastic remarks like this - I know it is a sensitive topic, but I also know that we're in a suboptimal situation here right now. In the past discussions we have talked about how we should try to engage volunteers and let them do what they are best at - I still stand behind that. That however also means that we should recognize that the chapters model will not work for every single person or group of persons. This does not necessarily have to correlate with a 'shift of power' or disengaging chapters - it *should* be about engaging more volunteers, and allowing them to do great work with the best tools available. So let us focus on that. I think there are two types of organizations within the Wikimedia movement relevant here besides the chapters and the WMF: 1) Organizations that will ideally grow into a chapter some day 2) Organizations that explicitely do not want to or cannot grow into a chapter The group 1) will probably mainly be the case because of either legal reasons or because there is not enough critical mass yet. I don't think anyone disagrees we should give them the space they need. This includes for example Wikimedia Croatia, Kazachstan and Georgia. The group 2) will in my expectation consist of groups that are indeed more aligned along cultural ideas. To mind come Amical (as discussed) and Esperantists. Now this is where things apparently become complicated, because somehow things can get conflicting when they start to compete with chapters. There are a few things relevant here in the recognition process by X-committee: * What will be the rights will determine to large extent how high the threshold will be * If there is a geographical component (explicit or not) there should, imho, be a consultation with the relevant other organizations overlapping with that component. I don't know if it is realistic to go as far as a veto, but it should definitely be a very serious part of the process. This should probably be reciprocal - if a chapter is to be recognized other groups in that area should be consulted, too. * We should have clear to what extent trademarks and fundraising rights go - both for chapters and non-chapter organizations. * We have to remain very careful about political statements. I am personally a bit hesistant with recognizing any organization which is politically oriented. Hence, this analysis should also be part of the recognition process of any movement organization. To give an entirely obvious example: I would not feel comfortable if any organization would be founded based on ethnically oriented principles, or would be discriminating in its membership based on principles that would be considered illegal in most countries (even if it is not illegal in that specific country). Another obvious example: I would feel extremely uncomfortable if any of these organizations would only allow men to vote in their assemblies or if there are religious requirements. * In general I would like to find a way to ensure that relations are good between the organization and the communities and relevant other organizations. I doubt we ever can formalize that into a demand, but all efforts should go into this of course. Probably there are some more criteria which are currently already checked upon (although not formally in a checklist) by the recognition of chapters that should be part of this. I think it would be helpful if chapcom can tackle that issue in it's berlin meeting. Anyway, just some thoughts. As a final remark, I sincerely hope that we will not fall in the trap of building policies around a single case - but rather focus on the big picture and then afterwards test that picture on the single scenario. +1 Amical is a complicated case, and it would be very easy to loose ourselves in who's at fault, the details and what solutions do not work in their case. You are disappointing me Lodewijk. You are a man who always find the way to say things without offending but without hiding the problems. If Amical has done something you believe is wrong please go ahead and complain. Up to now our discussion page is empty.[1] It is not fair to say in a public list that we are a complicated case and insinuate that somebody is at fault without explaining which complications we have created to you. [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Associaci%C3%B3_Amical_Viquip%C3%A8diaaction=editredlink=1 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
[Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees
Hi Bence I did my own non official statistics about voters and candidates by language. Here you are: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gom%C3%A0/Elections_2011 en-wiki presented 39% of the candidates, casted 30% of the votes and obtained 66% of the members. de-wiki presented 18% of the candidates, casted 14% of the votes and obtained 33% of the members. The next languages casting most votes where French (8,5%) Spanish (6%) and Catalan (4,9%) . None of them obtained any seat although the candidate who were native speaker of French and Catalan (Claudi Balaguer) was very close to be elected together with two very well known members of the community Milos and Lodewijk, with about 30 votes of difference among those 3 candidates. In those elections more than 60% of Catalan editors with right to vote participated while percentage of participation in English was ridiculous. My conclusion was that for even relatively big languages like Catalan it is impossible to get representation in community elections unless you start writing in English Wikipedia. The Situation of countries without a chapter is a problem but situation of languages without a country is a disgrace. The problem can be solved by setting up a chapter but the disgrace has no solution they will never be able to be represented in the board. Board cannot be widened to an unbearable number of members but if we increased the number of community elected board members to 6 by transforming chapter selected members and by picking one from board selected (or perhaps having a board of 11 members as even numbers are always more advisable for decision bodies than odd) then: 1) Communities could have the feeling that Foundation is an organization at their service because the majority of the governing body is elected by them. 2) Chapters doesn’t lose their capability to participate and influence in elections if they where able to mobilize their affiliates. 3) Candidates of languages able to mobilize around 5% of the votes could have some chances to be elected opening doors to more diversity. Anyway it seems to me that we should find mechanisms to allow participation in governance to editors of those projects that neither have a chapter nor is likely that can have influence in community elections. Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 01:46:12 +0100 From: Bence Damokos bdamo...@gmail.com I think the community elections are sometimes perceived as en.wikipedia centric, even if the actual voter turnout could suggest otherwise. (I haven't been able to find voter statistics per project, so the perception might actually be correct even if the people who win are at least partially international.) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 3
This procedure is unfair for some candidates and is sowing suspiciousness against chapters. Last elections I nominated a candidate and also sent questions to be passed to all candidates. The situation was absolutely crazy. Some candidates had access to chapters wiki and could have feedback from the answers of other candidates while others like the one I nominated didn't. One candidate, Phoebe, published her answers which honors her and the others not. When the election process finished nobody told the candidates without access to internal wiki the results. Still today nobody has told anything to them. And ofcourse I don't know the answers to my questions. Chapters elected board members means that the chapters are who have to appoint them but doesn't mean that this doesn't affect and is of interest of the entire community. Chapters would do a favor to themselves if they publish the candidatures, and keep questions to candidates and discussion publicly. Otherwise this is only creating division and suspiciousness among chapters and communities and among communities with chapters and communities without chapters. If someone want to have private conversations everybody has freedom of speach to talk to everybody trough private means. But WMF means belong to a common, free and open project and must not be transformed in a privative asset. I think that we must try to keep everything free and open by default. Only kept private when there are very strong reasons like legal requirements and this is not the case. It is ridiculous that we have gone to strike against SOPA and we are accepting to transform in privative the informations about a process that affects all the movement. Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 13:21:14 -0200 From: B?ria Lima berial...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees Message-ID: caa2xhjdsoth2v+bnn7xwbnn-m91gxwohlpmtnxypfa-0yum...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hello, I will (try to) answer everyone - so I will send several mails in a row... please stick with me during the process. *Excellent; I am pleased to see that the chapters are becoming more transparent in this respect. However, if the plan is to mirror the discussion on Meta, why not just have it there in the first place?* Because not all the discussion will be in meta. Some parts are confidential and will not be disclose in Meta. I know you people might start scream: CABAL! but that is a chapters decision, not a community one. We do need to give them a safe space to work and get a consensus. And some people might feel better asking some questions in a private wiki. *I assume that all candidates must identify with the WMF before their candidacy is accepted, is that correct? * According with the meta page ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Process) : *All candidate statements will have to supply the following information: * 1. *The name of the nominee* 2. *The name of the nominating chapter (if applicable)* 3. *A statement from the chapter in support of the nominee (if applicable)* 4. *A statement from the nominee in support of themselves, accompanied by a short CV and confirming they are willing and eligible to take a seat on the WMF board. Any candidates with Chapters wiki accounts will have those accounts disabled for the duration of the selection process.* So, no, they don't need to send their document to Phillipe. * As well, will candidates who are chapter executive members be required to take a leave of absence or to resign from their executive position during their Board candidacy? * Another question already answered in a document, this time in the Resolution ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Bylaws_amendments_and_board_structure ): *Chapter-selected Trustees must resign from any chapter-board, governance, chapter-paid, or Foundation-paid position for the duration of their terms as Trustees, but may continue to serve chapters in informal or advisory capacities.* *One more question, this time about who will actually be doing the voting. Can you clarify exactly who will be voting in this selection process? Will it be one representative for each of the 38 chapters, or will more than one representative be participating?* Who will vote? Everyone here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Chapters Each chapter has a vote, and how they decide their candidates is up to them. Some held a internal vote, some decide in General Assembly, some have an internal discussion in ML... you would need to ask each one of the 38 to know the exact process. _ *B?ria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484 *Imagine um mundo onde ? dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso
Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees
Yo are right but those figures tell us that chapters are in a very strong position if they where able to mobilize their 4000 affiliates in the community board elections. I wonder how many of the 3400 participants in the community elections were also affiliated to some chapter. * * *John Vandenberg* jayvdb at gmail.com foundation-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BFoundation-l%5D%20Call%20for%20nominations%3A%20chapter-appointed%20seats%20on%0A%20the%20WMF%20Board%20of%20TrusteesIn-Reply-To=%3CCAO9U_Z56154XQMhH4PO1SEmq6Yv1y6P_c3L0rVU%2BcXsc3X5rUA%40mail.gmail.com%3E *Wed Feb 1 22:38:29 UTC 2012* In the 2011 community board election, less than 3400 users voted.[1] In the 2012 chapter board election, 39 chapters consisting of more than 4000 identified people will be voting.[2] Unfortunately neither process captures a large percentage of the active Wikimedian community. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Resolution:Developing Scenarios for future of fundraising
From: Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com Why does the Board of Trustees think that WMF should raise the ?maximum possible amount of money?? Why not ask for what is needed and nothing more? I agree. A no profit association should raise the opportune amount otherwise there a profit. Ilario Non profit means that the raised money will go to develop the mission of the organization not to the pockets of its owners. From a mathematical point of view you can maximize the funds raised while keeping constant the disruption or you can minimize the disruption for a given amount of funds to be raised. But you cannot do both simultaneously. But this is not a mathematical statement I think it transmits well the idea of balancing both effects keeping in mind that the disruption caused is of high importance and that the money raised is needed because we have many ideas and opportunities to do things that need not only volunteer effort but also some money. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:12:42 + From: B?ria Lima berial...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust *The way I see is India is a land of immense potential for the Wikimedia Movement. IMHO, There is enough space of 10 chapters and Wikimedia offices to co-exist and work together in India.* Did you ever read the Chapter Agreement you signed with WMF? That document states that WMIN is the ONLY chapter of WMF in India, and that any one organization must have their approval to work in Indian soil (I'm saying that based in WMPT agreement, WMIN one might be different.) I think that the spirit of an agreement is more important than its wording but I would like to comment both. Regarding the wording, in my opinion what the contract says can be interpreted exactly the other way around. It says that to create another chapter in the same geographical area WMIN will be consulted. [1] It doesn’t say that the approval of WMIN is needed. Furthermore to create an organization different than chapters not even that consultation is foreseen. As for the spirit I feel that the impression that chapters have private ownership of land is a big mistake that can leads us to a situation contrary to our values. This exclusivity is contrary to the spirit of sharing. We are not cultivating potatoes where the owner of the land keeps the potatoes. We give the potatoes away. The more and better people working the land more potatoes can give away. We don’t need land owners, what we need are people working the land. I think these organizations should be happy of having there each other andsee a chance that what one of them can’t do, perhaps will be done by the other. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Agreement_between_chapters_and_Wikimedia_Foundation#3.%20Geographic_limits ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 92, Issue 29
When I explain Wikipedia I hear the same comments everyday. Who is in charge for each article? If everybody can edit ‘’my’’ article how can I control its contents? What happens if we have an overlap between editors in the same article and we can’t explain the exact role of everyone? I don’t understand why even wikimedians when going to organize things outside wikipedia are very reluctant to give some opportunities to try with new models of organization that we have discovered in wikipedia that can working very well. They tend to stick with old organizational models that we know they work well with structures and principles not very well matching with wikimedia values like hierarchy, exclusivity … From: WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 92, Issue 29 Europe is a big culturally diverse subcontinent of Eurasia with many different Wikimedia organisations. So is India. India could organise itself similarly to Europe with chapters following Political boundaries, or you could do it by language instead, or perhaps by function - I've been involved in charities where the fundraising organisation was quite distinct from the volunteering fundspending organisation. Or maybe there would be some other way that would work for Indian Wikimedians. My advice as a complete outsider is that there are many ways that India could choose to structure itself; but if you come up with a structure that leaves Wikimedians from outside India suspecting there would be an overlap, then don't be surprised if Indians who are not Wikimedians are similarly confused. If Wikimedia in India emerges with a structure that only people who are both Indians and also Wikimedians understand then you risk confusing the press complicating things for yourselves. If remits are clear and minimally overlapping then 1, 5 or 50 organisations might be sensible. If remits substantially overlap and you can't clearly explain the different roles then its probably best to just have the one organisation. WereSpielChequers ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 03:30:06 -0800 From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4ebe58be@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Thank you Liam for using the term, organisational roles, instead of the more pretentious, movement roles. I find the whole thread disturbing. I am and have always been a strong supporter of the autonomy of both projects and chapters, and from that vantage point it is difficult to see this initiative as leading to anything other than the undermining of a chapter. I am also in favor of the autonomy of the projects and the chapters but autonomy does not mean autism. Whether we like it or not, there is a relationship between the chapters and projects. We can create channels to vehiculate it or we can ignore it and go to have conflicts one after another. It is all proceeding in a predictable pattern. It pits young amateurs who have embraced an ideal as a labour of love and who have a na?vet? about the ways of the world against goal-oriented professionals well schooled in the sophisms that produce success. This does not establish intent or malice; it's just the way things develop unless someone is willing to step away and recognize the process for what it is. And the way things develop lead to a series of values that are good to grow and prosper trading companies: selfishness, envy, private property, exclusivity, greed ... The values of our edditing community are completely opposed to those. I think we need to establish channels for the values and motivations of the edditing communities be moved to chapters. I am an amateur. I am not motivated by dreams of a sinecure or reveries of prestige. I don't care if anything that I do becomes a polished feature articles. I don't care if the site has a professional appearance with consistent format throughout. I am not obsessed by growth, or by leading the global south by the hand into salvation. It's nice if that can happen, and nicer if they can figure it out for themselves. My bottom line remains a commitment to share the sum of the world's knowledge. Not more, not less. When I hear of things like these Indian developments, I start to get the impression that we have lost our way. As much as the organizers may deny, it's as plain as day that these two organizations are being set up to compete. That alienates people. Ray If members of these organizations were like you it would be impossible to compete in the worst sense of the word. I also think that we have begun to lose out way but not by establishing two organizations in the same territory and that this will necessarily lead to a savage competition among them but because of the risk that these organizations and the individuals that compose them were not imbued enought with the values and the mechanisms that would make this result impossible. I think there is no reason to believe that we will have more problems by having 2 organizations in India thant those we have by having 20 organizations in Europe. In fact to go for a similar proportion we should have 50 organizations in India. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Election results?
Congratulations to Ting Chen, Samuel Klein, and Kat Walsh on your reelection you have gained again the confidence of the editors so they are reasonably happy whit things as they are I wish you continue doing this great job and keeping their confidence. Thanks to all the other candidates for making innovative and interesting proposals it seems that we have not been able to offer alternatives attractive enough but I have had a lot of fun in the process and I hope all of you too. Finally thank you to Abbas, Jon, Mardetanha, Mantaya, and Ryan for your job. I would like to ask for the full pairwise results. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 86, Issue 11
Happy birthday. If you read carefully the mail you are pointing to there it says: Toan and I added 9 new other-language wikis to the mix. But in the list there are 11 languages. The difference is because it was not the first group of non-English Wikipedias coming online. Message: 4 Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 16:13:55 -0700 From: phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] happy birthday, Wikipedias To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTi=butczycpv589iorjqjp1wkvv...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Tomorrow (May 11) is another anniversary date: it's been 10 years since the first group of non-English Wikipedias came online. Originally with spelled-out names rather than language codes, these sites were: catalan.wikipedia.com chinese.wikipedia.com esperanto.wikipedia.com french.wikipedia.com deutsche.wikipedia.com hebrew.wikipedia.com italian.wikipedia.com japanese.wikipedia.com portuguese.wikipedia.com spanish.wikipedia.com russian.wikipedia.com (from http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-May/000116.html) The idea of having Wikipedias in multiple languages came from Jimbo in March 2001 ( http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-March/48.html); note that the original German Wikipedia was actually set up at that time, making it the second-oldest Wikipedia. Though the idea of using two-letter domain codes was first raised then, after the above sites were brought online in May there was further discussion, and the sites were switched to two-letter codes a few days later: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-May/000132.html. Happy tenth birthday, Wikipedias! (and many more!) May all of our language editions flourish. -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 85, Issue 52
-- Message: 9 Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:46:41 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 85, Issue 52 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4db66a51.8090...@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Assuming that your analysis is perfectly correct what then? Informal opinions from lawyers are still nothing more than opinions. Even a fully researched legal opinion won't help much; that kind of legal research may be too subtle for the average Wikipedian's simplistic conception of law. The court's opinion is the only one that matters, and even then only in that court's country. Who is going to test the law? Who is going to bear the expense of taking all this to court when the damages are so very small? What is the pragmatic solution? Ray I don’t know but I only see two possibilities: A) We find a way to enforce the re-licensing of the derivative works under the same license. B) We change the license to a none-commercial one and issue a commercial license only to WMF. I don’t feel very happy by releasing my works under a free license if in practice everybody can reuse my work and exploit it in under a privative license. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 85, Issue 52
My interest in a legal opinion is not to know if what they do is legal or not. My interest is to know for example what can they do if I copy the content they previously have translated from an English Wikipedia article I have previously written. How do they put a dollar figure on the damages suffered if the income they get from that content is obtained from my work they have translated without my permission? They only have my permission to publish derived works under same license. Then I have the right to copy the derived works back. So any damage they could claim is exactly the same damage I suffer for not being able to do those copies. Message: 5 Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:11:25 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Turn the things the other way around Baidu Baike copies content from Wikipedia without attribution To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4db52cad.8010...@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed On 04/24/11 11:45 PM, Joan Goma wrote: As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other way around. I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without going to court. They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what they say. What about creating a bot to copy from Baidu all the articles not yet existing in Chinese wikipedia. Could Geoff Brigham provide us his legal advice? Getting a legal opinion that what they are doing is illegal would be the easy part. The challenge is what can you do with that opinion once you have it. Copyright, and least in common law countries, is primarily an economic right. In that context courts would be more concerned with the measure of economic damage. How do you put a dollar figure on the damages suffered when the original authors weren't seeking to make money from it? Whoever starts the fight still needs to fund prosecuting the battle, and that could be very expensive. Ray ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 84, Issue 79
Hi Amir.
We used Lime survey in Catalan Wikipedia for our last regular survey.
According to the answer to the question about if you are editing Wikipedia
or just reading it different sets of questions were deployed.
Perhaps this could be used to handle different question spelling according
to the gender.
If you want more info you can talk to Marc Miquel.
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:17:27 +0200
From: Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il
Subject: [Foundation-l] Editors survey and gender
To: foundation-l foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
AANLkTi=6-fXCKsCNRoXnSBd-4cjdKiOR0z=fSAp66pY=@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
What i say here about Hebrew may be useful for many other languages, too.
I am translating the Editors survey into Hebrew. The survey is written
as a long series of questions in the second person (you). In Hebrew
the second person is very gender-dependent - the wording is
significantly different for women. When translating MediaWiki
messages, we more or less manage to avoid it and though it's not
perfect and we should use {{GENDER}} more, it's not a disaster. In the
survey, however, it would be very, very bad with all the personal
questions about family life etc.
It's not just a matter of being politically correct and welcoming -
the language simply doesn't natural.
Would it be possible to have the Hebrew translation in the feminine
gender, too? The default can be masculine, but putting a button at the
beginning that opens another form in the feminine would be really
great. In the Meta talk page Casey said that it's not possible with
LimeSurvey, but i nevertheless want to try asking it again: Can i
write two versions of the survey, for example Hebrew-masculine and
Hebrew-feminine and let the reader switch it? The results can be
combined later.
Thanks a lot for the understanding.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni ? ?? ? ??
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
We're living in pieces,
?I want to live in peace. - T. Moore
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Re: [Foundation-l] multilingual mailing list
That sounds interesting. Biligual people would act as bridges among languages in a natural way without any effort in translating just participating simultaneously in several sublists. Is this feature available in foundation-l? On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.comwrote: Joan Goma, 15/03/2011 14:59: If we could filter the noise, in each monolingual list and then record the signal and translate it to the other languages this could enrich the conclusions and make all the people feel part of the global project. But I don’t know how to do this. Perhaps a single multilingual list could efficiently work as a bunch of monolingual lists if we used mailman topics to label messages by language; each user could then set in its preferences which languages he wants to receive (only the languages he understands well, or also some related languages, or every language because he's willing to use machine translators or is not annoyed by non-understandable messages). In this manner, you could avoid fragmenting foundation-l (and other similar lists) but each subset of users could avoid being overwhelmed by messages in a foreign and not wanted language. But I've never seen mailman topics in use and I don't know how and if they work. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Gift from Barcelona Castellers to Wikipedia 10th anniversary.
Today is the 10th anniversary of Catalan Wikipedia. Barcelona Castellers sent us this gift. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castellers-Barcelona-Viquipedia-10anys.ogv http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Castellers-Barcelona-Viquipedia-10anys-2.jpg This is a bottom up raised pillar as Wikipedia is bottom up raised. And this is the reproduction of the first construction they did 41 years ago: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitxer:Primera_actuacio_castellers_de_barcelona.jpg They wish us we can continue growing Wikipedia as they have done reaching bigger and stronger constructions: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitxer:4d9f_c_Castellers_de_Barcelona.jpg http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellers_de_Barcelona http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitxer:4d9f_c_Castellers_de_Barcelona.jpg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 84, Issue 38
We have to thank Góngora for the report. He did the hard job of translating it into English and sending it. The merit is outstanding if we take into account that he comes from Uruguay and his mother tongue is Spanish neither Catalan nor English. Regarding the strategic plan 2011 2013 for Catalan Wikipedia and sister projects it has been discussed and consensuated in Catalan Wikipedia also with the participation of users of the sister projects. It was started as a follow up of the global Wikimedia strategic plan: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Pla_estrat%C3%A8gic_2011_-_2013 The aid is to develop 3 of the actions planed for 2011. * Several improvements to de tools we have to facilitate translations. Here you have a sample of what it does: http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tribunal_de_Just%C3%ADcia_de_Primera_Inst%C3%A0ncia_de_la_Uni%C3%B3_Europeaoldid=6973987 (By the way, perhaps some day we cold exchange experiences and ideas with the people of the COSYNE project in WM NL). * Tools to improve content from statistical data. Sample: http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=La_Celle-sur-Loirediff=nextoldid=7005585 * Extension of the project http://www.viquibalear to schools outside Balearic Islands. (the Balearic Islands version was explained last year in Wikimania): http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikipedia_at_schools._The_Catalan_experience. * Creation of a network of points (libraries, cultural organizations...) where they have brochures “Welcome to wikipedia” and printed copies of the book “Wikipedia” and help people wiling to start editing wikipedia. Message: 9 Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 11:34:34 +0100 From: Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Amical: December-February Report To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: J. G. G?ngora ganasto...@hotmail.com Message-ID: AANLkTikZ+76mWPX2+or=seblyjm3jkvge4x+dktyb...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Thank you Goma for this report! Always nice to hear so much is going on everywhere on the world and I am glad you are reporting about your part. Could you perhaps share more detailed information/links about the 20k grant you received? And how you plan to create a Strategic plan of Wikipedia ? Thanks! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Amical:December-February Report
Sorry I forgot to edit the subject. I post it again with the right subject. On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 3:56 PM, Joan Goma jrg...@gmail.com wrote: We have to thank Góngora for the report. He did the hard job of translating it into English and sending it. The merit is outstanding if we take into account that he comes from Uruguay and his mother tongue is Spanish neither Catalan nor English. Regarding the strategic plan 2011 2013 for Catalan Wikipedia and sister projects it has been discussed and consensuated in Catalan Wikipedia also with the participation of users of the sister projects. It was started as a follow up of the global Wikimedia strategic plan: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Pla_estrat%C3%A8gic_2011_-_2013 The aid is to develop 3 of the actions planed for 2011. * Several improvements to de tools we have to facilitate translations. Here you have a sample of what it does: http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tribunal_de_Just%C3%ADcia_de_Primera_Inst%C3%A0ncia_de_la_Uni%C3%B3_Europeaoldid=6973987 (By the way, perhaps some day we cold exchange experiences and ideas with the people of the COSYNE project in WM NL). * Tools to improve content from statistical data. Sample: http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=La_Celle-sur-Loirediff=nextoldid=7005585 * Extension of the project http://www.viquibalear to schools outside Balearic Islands. (the Balearic Islands version was explained last year in Wikimania): http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikipedia_at_schools._The_Catalan_experience. * Creation of a network of points (libraries, cultural organizations...) where they have brochures “Welcome to wikipedia” and printed copies of the book “Wikipedia” and help people wiling to start editing wikipedia. Message: 9 Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 11:34:34 +0100 From: Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Amical: December-February Report To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: J. G. G?ngora ganasto...@hotmail.com Message-ID: AANLkTikZ+76mWPX2+or=seblyjm3jkvge4x+dktyb...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Thank you Goma for this report! Always nice to hear so much is going on everywhere on the world and I am glad you are reporting about your part. Could you perhaps share more detailed information/links about the 20k grant you received? And how you plan to create a Strategic plan of Wikipedia ? Thanks! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser
I totally agree with Gerard. And what Gerard says is just a small example. I think we are raising much less funds than what we need. But this is only one half of the problem. The other half is that we are spending much less than what we raise: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/d5/Jul-Dec%2710_Mid-year_financials.pdf Perhaps there is something I don't understand. It seems strange to me that having 24M$ of current assets we don't have any financial income but 0,5M$ bank fees. Message: 2 Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2011 13:56:42 +0100 From: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTim-fcUyLt4GNfxJW0nLE84=f59i8NjjB25bNt=6...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hoi, So far the balance has been seriously wrong. Because of the underinvestment many of our Wikipedias are not doing as well as they should. There are for instance technical solutions to give many of the Indian language Wikipedias the traffic back they lost. As this is not considered as a problem/priority, as we do not have developers dealing with this we are seriously underachieving. The notion that we are raising more funds then we need is therefore obviously flawed. Thanks, GerardM On 7 March 2011 13:11, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 March 2011 11:44, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:50 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 March 2011 10:14, Pavel Richter pavel.rich...@wikimedia.de wrote: But who says that the sole purpose of the WMF is to keep Wikimedia wikis running? I don't think many people would say that's the sole purpose of the WMF, but I think most would agree that it is the primary purpose. The amount of other work the WMF does in addition to that should be balanced by the harm caused by the extra fundraising required. I think this articulates the issue very well. Except that what I've actually written is that the WMF must, under no circumstances, do any other work unless they do an equal amount of harm by fundraising for it. That's not exactly what I meant! Balanced by in the last sentence should be in balance with! ___ 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] Proposed Wikimedia Project in Kenya
From my experience the key of success is giving good courses for teachers. Apart of that by only reading Wikipedia you loss a lot of pedagogical advantages you get in editing. I think providing an offline wiki sandbox and later uploading the best contributions to Wikipedia could be a goog idea. You also could promote English - Swahili translations. These activities are always a plus by learning simultaneously languages and other topics. I look forward to meet you soon in Drumbeat Festival in Barcelona and talk more in detail. Message: 5 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2010 14:00:29 + From: Abbas Mahmoud abbas...@hotmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] Proposed Wikimedia Project in Kenya To: Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: blu116-w263245ce61ff1cdcb0da9ca...@phx.gbl Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Hi folks, As some of you may know, there exists a small bunch of Wikipedians in Kenya. In the last couple of months, we have been discussing ways in which we might increase Wikip\media awareness within Kenya. We then decided to experiment by starting by using offline Wikipedia in primary secondary schools. We still are at a very early stage: the framework/proposal is still sketchy. Please check it out at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Kenya/Project_for_Kenyan_Schoolsand give us your feedback. Feel free to edit, redaft or whatever you may call it so that we can come up with a more concrete proposal. Looking forward to getting your collaboration. Yours, m|Abbas. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] chapter board seats (was: Greg Kohs and Peter Damian)
Message: 3 Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:52:11 +0200 From: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 79, Issue 65 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: aanlktiksvkmvg302trra8hqx6=6pevxcfwrgytfk1...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hoi, The fact that nobody informed the losers that they had lost wins definitely not the price for best practices. I know for a fact that the person involved in the election process has been suggested to do so. People do appreciate a word of thanks for being a candidate and a good loser. We can improve and we have a good example to copy from. I was a candidate for Chapters committee and Lodewijk sent me a mail telling I had failed that made me feel very comfortable. (Thanks again Lodewijk). Then I sent personal mails to each one of the winners congratulating them. As far as I know only winners have been announced. It is not clear even to participants in the election how many votes they got. A thick veil of secrecy hung over this election. I was warned that by posting my candidacy I might no longer be eligible ... So yes, there is room for improvement in the procedure. In the end good people were elected. People with a long track record in our movement. As far as I am concerned all is well that ends well. grin it could have been better /grin Thanks, GerardM I only can agree with you partially. I think we are not in the end. We are still on time to publish the candidates and the related information not only for the board candidates but also for the Chapters Committee candidates. You, me, and many people can believe that the outcome has been good. But there is no need to ask anybody to believe if they can see. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 79, Issue 65
I think you are very generous saying “chapter selection process is not very transparent”, saying absolutely opaque outside the chapters perhaps is a bit more realistic. I have to say that according to the rules of the call in last election I presented a candidate to the chapter’s board selected members. He devoted his time to write the candidacy and answer the questions made by the chapters. The process is so opaque that nobody contacted him after the elections. Officially he doesn’t know yet if he has been elected or not. Of course nobody has thanked him his effort for participating in the process. We don’t know neither who else participated in the process nor the answers given by the other participants. I have done my proposals at movement roles page but it seems to me that it is difficult to understand why this information is not publicly available. By the way, I have to say thanks to you, Phoebe. You published your candidacy and your answers which honours you. Message: 8 Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:52:46 -0700 From: phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] chapter board seats (was: Greg Kohs and Peter Damian) To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: aanlktinkydzbsouims+4dw2s9cd3m1vmxjecsjtaa...@mail.gmail.comaanlktinkydzbsouims%2b4dw2s9cd3m1vmxjecsjtaa...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 October 2010 16:47, Muhammad Yahia shipmas...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 1:03 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: The board defines both community and chapter. I'm not sure that the board does ultimately answer to the community; there's nothing in the bylaws to indicate that. Section (G) states: Board Majority. A majority of the Board Trustee positions, other than the Community Founder Trustee position, shall be selected or appointed from the community and the chapters. I think this directly says that the board ultimately answers to the community. Now you may say that the definition of community is not as broad as you may like given that some seats go to the chapters , but that still means that our community -as organized in a certain form given the chapters are all community controlled AFAIK- holds power to elect the board majority. Three board positions (30% of the board) are elected by the community at large. They are the only members of the board who have a direct responsibility to the community, and there is no method for the community to revoke their representation. Two board members (20% of the board) are elected by a tiny number of representatives of chapters (the chapter representative election process is very opaque). I can't find any numbers that confirm exactly how many people belong to chapters, and whether or not all of their members would otherwise meet the definition of community member, but it is widely acknowledged that only a small percentage of Wikimedians (i.e., those who would meet the definition of community member) are members of chapters. ?I have a hard time understanding why people think chapters are representative of the community. ?They're representative of people who like to join chapters. Risker/Anne changing the subject line because I think we've ranged pretty far away from the original subject of moderation As the person who was selected via this process I feel the need to jump in :) I agree that the chapter selection process is not very transparent, or very clear (to the people inside as well as the people outside!) and could have been improved. However, this time around was also only the second time chapters have selected seats (by contrast, last year was our 6th community election) ... so I hope that we will continue to improve on that front and the next selection process, year after next, will be better. That's something we all want to see. Others can speak to this better than I can, but part of the rationale behind chapter-selected seats was to help even out representation -- to make sure that the elected seats on the board were not entirely dominated by candidates from those communities that have lots of voting editors, like the English Wikipedia. If you are from a smaller language project, or a smaller chapter, the chances of getting name recognition and a seat in the community elections is much harder. Additionally, the chapters *are* a part of the greater Wikimedia movement, and selecting seats via chapters helps ensure that those chapters get a place at the table. In the U.S. there has not been a chapter presence until WM-NYC was founded, but that's not true in other places -- Wikimedia Deutschland was of course founded before the WMF itself was founded, and many of the other chapters are well established too. Now,
[Foundation-l] Chapters and more
I would like to raise your attention on a topic related to movement roles. It seems that activities of movement roles working group has not raised high interest at meta probably because it is a one year term job. One week ago I wrote a list of comments and proposals at talk page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_roles_working_group Those proposals are addressed to improve the Chapters, the Chapters committee and relationship between chapters and projects. They are mainly focused in giving transparency to the activities of Chapters and Chapters Committee, and giving voice to the projects in important decisions related to chapters. I think there are issues that should be solved without waiting for one year until movement roles working group has his job done. In particular chapters like the Catalan one that according to the interpretation the ChapCom gives to the Board resolutions they don’t recommend its approval. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Page views
What worries me is that in Catalan Wikipedia we were expecting to beat the page views record this month with around from 18MM to 19 MM. We have a press release ready to be launched as soon as the final results of the month are known. But if the data is not reliable we don’t dare to spread that press note even if we are sure we have beaten the record. Message: 6 Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:29:15 +0200 From: Erik Zachte erikzac...@infodisiac.com Subject: [Foundation-l] Page views To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 001e01cb6e4a$bc2a86d0$347f94...@com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I also think the seemingly extraordinary increase in page views in October is most likely a glitch. Compare this chart which shows long term trends in page (and image) requests per second. http://www.nedworks.org/~mark/reqstats/reqstats-yearly.pnghttp://www.nedworks.org/%7Emark/reqstats/reqstats-yearly.png http://www.nedworks.org/~mark/reqstats/reqstats-yearly.pnghttp://www.nedworks.org/%7Emark/reqstats/reqstats-yearly.png No sudden peak in October here. There are several steps involved in producing page view stats. What we can say so far is the anomaly happens before or during data aggregation on our squid log post-processing server. Erik Zachte ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Page views
Is there any explanation for the extraordinary jump in page views this month? http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Kosovo Chapter?
Message: 4 Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:40:30 +0100 From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Kosovo Chapter? To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: aanlkti=mfcofcdcd8bnh5crlrum5ai5h7u3scqv9v...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 27 September 2010 21:02, Joan Goma jrg...@gmail.com wrote: We are here to promote Wikimedia projects not to promote Serbia union nor Kosovo independence. Very true, but allowing separate Kosovan and Sebian chapters (which is probably best for the WM movement, since the Serbian chapter presumably can't operate effective runs the risk of appearing to promote Kosovan independance. I would love it if we could stay out of the dispute entirely, but it isn't easy to do. It seems to me that doing the best for the WM movement only appears to promote the best for the WM movement. Doing the worst for the WM movement is what not only appear but is a clear proof of political bias. I only can agree in preferring an imaginative solution to stay out of the dispute. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Kosovo Chapter?
Think big Milos. Wikimedia Germany is even better organized than Kosovo. Let Kosovo alone and put Germany in Serbia. Now seriously: Who do you think can succeed better promoting the projects in Kosovo, Wikimedia Serbia, Wikimedia Kosovo, or both? We are here to promote Wikimedia projects not to promote Serbia union nor Kosovo independence. Message: 2 Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:09:02 +0200 From: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Kosovo Chapter? Re: Fwd: SFK100 Press Release To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: aanlktimp3k4t04rruwsdikmbzok=az5dy3ryy2ve7...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 14:06, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 11:14, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: I doubt very much that political considerations should be part of the set up of a chapter. Asking the Serbian chapter for an opinion is fine. Giving them a vote on this is not. Given that Kosovo is a separate jurisdiction means that it fulfils the basic requirement. Given that Hong Kong and New York have chapters the case for Kosovo to have a chapter is at least as strong if not stronger. In fact, they are better organized than Wikimedia Serbia, which is partially my fault. And, in fact, they are the reason why I want Kosovo in Serbia ;) Their organization is strong and their potentials are stronger. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Local Chapter definition.
Yesterday at wikimania panel: “Allow, Invite, Encourage: Growing Wikipedia in the World” Several members of ChapCom and Board recognized they don’t know what a Chapter is. I think we should help in clarifying ideas. I just created this draft: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_a_Local_Chapter_is%3F Please help to improve it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 75, Issue 64
This is would be very interesting but usefulness will be a bit limited because people use Google to search instead of Wikipedia. Probably we will get a list of read links clicked by readers they don’t know there is not an article yet. A complementary approach could be having a list of most viewed articles in large wikipedias from IPs of geographic areas where the small language is spoken. This could tell us what those people is searching for when Google sends them to large wikipedias. Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:26:17 -0700 From: Mark Williamson node...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Creating articles in small wikipedias based onuser requirement To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: aanlktilx08paxltdky9ypeixlzsdhhbupqahgs73q...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 +1. This would be a SUPER useful tool for all Wikis. -m. On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 3:54 AM, Shiju Alex shijualexonl...@gmail.com wrote: Recently I had a discussion with one of my fellow Malayalam wikipedian ( http://ml.wikipedia.org) about the creation of new articles in small wikipedias like ours. He is one the few users who is keen on creating new articles *based on the requirement of our readers*. (Of course we have many people who only reads our wiki) During discussion he raised this interesting point: Some feature is required in the MediaWiki software that enable us to see a list of keywords used most frequently by the users to search for non-exist articles. If we get such a list then some users like him can concentrate on creating articles using that key words. Of course, I know that this feature may not be helpful for big wikis like English. But for small wikis (especially small non-Latin language wikis), this will be of great help. It is almost like* creating wiki articles based on user requirement*. I would like to know your opinion regarding the same. Shiju ___ 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] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2
Hiding interlanguage links will worse the effect of Google search on some small language projects. See this previous thread: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-January/056671.html Present situation isn’t much better because intrelanguage links are at the end of a long list of things on the left side of the screen. It is not clear what they do, users only see a list of language names. From my point of view the “ideal” situation would be: 1) Hide the interlanguage links. 2) Guess if the user is multilingual and then highlight links to their languages. Saying clearly: You also can read this article in xxx and yyy language. There are several ways to guest the user languages: 1) Using IP address 2) History about previously visited language projects from same user or same IP 3) Allowing several languages in user preferences 4) Using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_negotiation … But if we can’t go to the “ideal “situation I think that for small language projects it is better left things as they are than hiding interlanguage links. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikidata
I see the highest interest in statistical data that can be automatically updated from official sources. Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 16:51:27 +1000 From: John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] Wikidata To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: peter...@gmail.com, Wikimedia Commons Discussion List common...@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: aanlktikq7kmy4d9hvkb3hia51zrs3hmvlrxumncna...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 It looks like a solution to bug 4547 is on the horizon. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4547 See also [Wikitech-l] Reasonably efficient interwiki transclusion http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/wikitech/197322 This will be very useful for templates which Commons has developed, especially language related templates, however I am concerned that people are also planning on using Commons as a repo for Wikipedia infoboxes, and including the *data* on Commons rather than just the template code. e.g. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Peter17/GSoc_2010#Interest This centralisation of data makes sense on many levels, however using Commons as the host of this data will result in many edit wars moving to the Commons project, involving people from many languages. Even the infobox structure can be the cause of edit wars. I think it is undesirable to have these Wikipedia problems added to Commons existing problems. ;-) Tying Wikipedia and Commons closer together is also problematic when we consider the differing audience and scope of each project, especially in light of the recent media problems. If the core templates and data used by Wikipedia are hosted/modified on Commons, it will be more difficult to justify why Commons accepts content which isn't appropriate on Wikipedia. A centralised data wiki has been proposed previously, many times: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/historical http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata_%282%29 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiDatabank Non-WMF projects, such as freebase, dbpedia, etc., have been exploring this space. Isn't it time that we started a new project!? ;-) A wikidata project could use semantic mediawiki from the outset, and be seeded with data from dbpedia. A lot of existing proposed projects would benefit from a centralised wikidata project. e.g. a genealogy wiki could use the relationships stored on the wikidata project. wikisource and commons could use the central data wiki for their Author and Creator details. -- John Vandenberg * ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
*The roots of the problem* Michael, if the Board is analyzing the issue then it should address the roots of the problem. The fact that recent discussion has taken place around sexual images has the advantage that sex raises a lot of interest from everybody. But from my point of view the issue is grounded in two deeper problems: 1) what happens if the board takes a decision against the community consensus? 2) What happens if the community of a project rejects discussing deeply an issue up to finding a consensus, if they simply vote and applies the majority decision? It seems to me that this is what happened. The community defined a policy without analyzing the issue deeply enough, they didn’t reached a consensus. The board decided that this should addressed and Jimbo actuated. Perhaps this is a caricature of what happened. Surely the real story is far more complex. There was an open debate in the community, the board resolution was more or less ambiguous, and the actions of Jimbo could have been more polite. But I believe that the roots of the problem are more or less there. *Proposed changes in the system* From my point of view the system should be changed in two ways: First Wikimedia Foundation (and its governing body, the Board) should have a mechanism to force the community to debate and search for a consensus. Call it founder’s flag or voice of conscience flag or whatever you want. This is exactly what Jimbo did. He didn’t impose his will although founder’s flag gave him the power to do it. Secondly it should be stated clearly that once a true consensus is reached, the community is sovereign in developing the project. The duty of the Foundation is providing the means to put in practice those decisions. To put a humoristic example, if the law of some state says that the value for number pi is mandatorily 3.2 [1] and the community reaches the consensus that we must explain clearly that the law is wrong, then if necessary the Foundarion must avoid being under the rules of that state. Perhaps some other hygienic measures should be taken. By example perhaps stewards should hold only rights to change user’s status but not to act as sysop of any project. *The case of Images and other “sensible” material* Going to the images with sexual content I think that this should be addresses in a parallel way as other sensible issues like: 1) Images that could offend people of some religion. 2) Images in fair use. 3) Statements in biographies of living people. 4) Statements that can harm the image of products or companies. 5) Naming the articles when the name can carry a biased point of view. By example naming the articles of small towns in Spain using the name imposed by fascist dictatorship instead of the official Spanish name. 6) Contents possibly infringing copyrights. 7) Etc. I think that in those cases we should not change our policies to make happy the affected people but we should create mechanisms to guarantee we are in the safe side: Not publish or publish only the safe official version until we have enough evidences that the sensible material is right, legal, relevant, and has educational purposes. Perhaps we must strength some policies; perhaps to call somebody “thief” in their biography we can’t accept any kind of reference but a reference providing clear evidences that this is true. We also must give to the world clear evidences that we are extremely serious and careful with this issues if we decide to put an image “sensible” there must be clear evidences that we have done our best to guarantee that this image has educational content, that this image is required for the project, that this image accomplish with the law. We can’t make happy everybody; our goal of providing the sum of all human knowledge is above the interest of reaching a broader public or making happy some kind of readers. But we can make everybody agree with us that in “sensible issues” we have strong reasons to say every thing we say and to provide every image we have. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill Message: 9 Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 23:42:44 -0700 From: Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4bee4264.9020...@verizon.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed On 5/7/2010 5:30 PM, Sue Gardner wrote: On 7 May 2010 16:07, Kim Bruningk...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 12:30:18PM -0700, Michael Snow wrote: announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: Just to be sure: Are there no other statements that have been made by the board or are being planned to be made by the board on this subject? sincerly, Kim Bruning Kim, the board (and I) have been talking about this for the past couple of days, and we'll
Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion
The founder’s flag give to a single man a huge power. I can’t trust on almost anybody to hold that power. But In less than two days Jimbo has resigned of this power. By doing this he has proven that he is one of the sparse people we can trust. Wikimedia movement is a complex system. Capacity to take decisions is distributed among a lot of stakeholders. Up to now it has worked pretty well. Along all this discussions I think several weaknesses of Wikimedia movement arisen: This power on single man hands, the foundation need for money, the power concentration in the hands of the board, the feeling that the members of the project can’t do anything, the possibility of forking and creating a project ruled by the chapters… And I could add more, by example: the flags system is organized in a pyramidal way. I think that removing a single piece of this system instead of solving any problem can unbalance the whole. More if this piece has proved extraordinary good results in the past and extraordinary positive attitude in the present. Please give Jimbo those flags back. And start altogether a process of rethinking the whole Wikimedia governance. Improve the system as a whole; find the mechanisms allowing that it is not needed that anybody holds this power. I have opened this page on meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Give_funders_flag_back On 5/9/10 4:18 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote: I notice you have kept protect and undelete. Is that intentional? If so, can you explain your thinking behind that decision? I just removed undelete, manage global groups, and edit membership to global groups. I did that before I saw your note, so I missed protect. It's not important one way or the other. My purpose here is for us to stop chattering about this aspect of things - which I don't care about. People seem to want to fight me on it, perhaps expecting me to dig in my heels. Everyone loves a good fight, even me, but this is not a fight that we need to have. --Jimbo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
I can’t imagine virtual reality playing a main role in an encyclopedia. But I see a lot of possibilities in creating learning materials. When people enroll a real live learning program they are paying for 3 things: For acquiring knowledge; for somebody (or some process) guiding and motivating them; and for a certificate crediting the knowledge they have acquired. Virtual reality certainly could help in creating virtual environments guiding and motivating people in the process of acquiring knowledge. Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 16:36:06 +0200 From: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: j2x846221521005060736g98d23555g73f6c0465b08b...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our future. Wikimedia should join FSF and Winch Gate Properties in shaping the future. [1] - http://dev.ryzom.com/news/13 -- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from? QA
There are 3 phenomena acting simultaneously against the number of visits to small projects: The bilingual effect, the size effect, and the Google effect. For Catalan case we estimate a penalization factor of 8.3 (that means that visits are 8.3 times less that what they should be). It comes from: 1.2 bilingual factor (visits lost because people also understand other languages, even if they have the opportunity to read the article in their mother tongue, they also read it in others). 2.5 size factor (visits to other projects because readers don’t find what they were looking for in their mother tongue). And 2,77 Google factor. (Visits lost because Google directs people to other tongues projects). The only positive factor is the bilingual one. We are working hard to correct the others. For other projects those factors can be very different but the concept can be there. Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:40:06 -0700 From: Mark Williamson node...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from? QA To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 849f98ed1001160140h20c69f6fxa5a7a22d4b81e...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sociolinguistic situations around the world are very complex I think. In especially former European colonies, of which Kenya is but one example, the language of the former colonial power often has a unique position in society. It is not surprising to me that the English Wikipedia is so popular compared to any other in Kenya, but it is quite a bit more surprising that Korean, Romanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Iranian, etc. users prefer the English Wikipedia. Mark On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 2:25 AM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com wrote: Dear Erik, Maybe there is a dirty Polish word looked up by many Polish pupils, and when they Google it they come to eu.WP because a Basque word accidentally is alike? :-) I am looking now for the interest in the native / the English Wikipedia in specific countries. It might be important how localized the software in general is. If you live in, say, Kenya, and your computer has Windows in English, the Internet Explorer and everything is oriented to English, and you google your home town in an English language Google, it is probable that you will get the Wikipedia article in English and not in Swahili. Kind regards Ziko ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from? QA
Details on how to measure it are relatively complex. We can make a guess because of data collected from sources available for Catalan. My mail was just to explain the phenomena. Figures results from: a) Surveys. Last one answered by 400 Catalan Wikipedia readers. We use results from answer to question about other language versions frequently used. [1] b) Most viewed pages in Spanish, French and English not yet existing in Catalan.[2] c) % of visitors to web pages exclusively in Catalan using web browser configured in other languages [3]. D) Own experiments with common searches in Google configuring the browser in Catalan, French, Spanish, and English, and some final cooking. Result is very approximate but gives us an idea about what is happening. The bilingual factor is not negative. It apparently reduces hits to Catalan pages but really it increases hits to non Catalan pages. The factor due to inexistent or not well developed articles has to be improved by growing the project. The more frustrating one is the Google Factor, You can Google “Integral” even with a Catalan configured navigator and you will get the English version first, then the Spanish one (witch is a translation from an old Catalan version) both in first page but not find the Catalan one witch is the larger of all before page 10. This article is a very special case due to specific factors. A technical solution would be great. And perhaps it is not of high difficulty. We could guess languages from IP address and highlight interwiki links to those languages. [1] http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Segon_sondeig_dels_usuaris/4._Utilitzeu_amb_freq%C3%BC%C3%A8ncia_alguna_altra_edici%C3%B3_de_la_Viquip%C3%A8dia%3F [2] http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuari:Meldor/Top_visites_2009#Mes_visitats_a_can_.28castell.C3.A0.29_que_no_tenen_link_al_catal.C3.A0 [3] http://www.eines.cat/?p=804 From: Marcus Buck m...@marcusbuck.org Joan Goma hett schreven: There are 3 phenomena acting simultaneously against the number of visits to small projects: The bilingual effect, the size effect, and the Google effect. For Catalan case we estimate a penalization factor of 8.3 (that means that visits are 8.3 times less that what they should be). It comes from: 1.2 bilingual factor (visits lost because people also understand other languages, even if they have the opportunity to read the article in their mother tongue, they also read it in others). 2.5 size factor (visits to other projects because readers don?t find what they were looking for in their mother tongue). And 2,77 Google factor. (Visits lost because Google directs people to other tongues projects). The only positive factor is the bilingual one. We are working hard to correct the others. For other projects those factors can be very different but the concept can be there. Interesting. What's the math behind that numbers? Or the source? Marcus Buck Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:58:20 -0800 From: William Pietri will...@scissor.com On 01/18/2010 09:29 AM, Joan Goma wrote: There are 3 phenomena acting simultaneously against the number of visits to small projects: The bilingual effect, the size effect, and the Google effect. For Catalan case we estimate a penalization factor of 8.3 (that means that visits are 8.3 times less that what they should be). In the long term, it seems like we could compensate for all of these effects in software. I'm imagining a user experience where we make it easy for multilingual users to switch back and forth. That would include passive detection of multilingual users, hinting when good content is available in other languages, and making it easy for multilingual users to help translate content. It might also be worth looking at URL schemes that are not 100% language-specific, to focus the Google effect more usefully. That would require a lot of technical work, and would raise a number of non-technical issues, but I don't see any insurmountable barriers to a more fluid experience for multilingual users. William ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
