Re: [Foundation-l] A discussion list for Wikimedia (not "Foundation") matters

2012-03-01 Thread Strainu
În data de 1 martie 2012, 11:30, Benjamin Lees  a scris:
> This proposal seems fine to me, but I'm not sure it will address the
> issue you seem to be targeting (that discussions aren't held
> publicly).

I'll go further and say that further splitting the lists will lead to
more cross-posting and questions like "where has this been discussed?"
Also, where does "foundation" stops and "wikimedia" begins?

If names are that important for you, go ahead and rename foundation-l,
but there is really no need for yet another list.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] OSM license change

2012-01-22 Thread Strainu
2012/1/22 MZMcBride :
> Strainu wrote:
>> Has anyone made an analysis on what the license change would mean to
>> Wikipedia? Looking at the ODbL FAQ on the OSM website, it seems that
>> using maps would not be affected. But what about using data from OSM
>> in our articles? Also, my unterstanding is that reverse import of data
>> (that is from Wikipedia to OSM) will be impossible after the change,
>> right?
>
> You really ought to include links or at least spell out what you're talking
> about in (opening) posts. "ODbL FAQ on the OSM website" kind of made my head
> spin, and I knew two of the three.

Sorry about that. :)

I'm assuming the 3rd one is ODbL: Open database license, the new
OpenStreetMap license. The link to the FAQ is:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License_FAQ#How_does_this_affect_Wikipedia_and_other_projects_that_want_to_use_our_maps.3F

Strainu

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[Foundation-l] OSM license change

2012-01-21 Thread Strainu
Hi,

Has anyone made an analysis on what the license change would mean to
Wikipedia? Looking at the ODbL FAQ on the OSM website, it seems that
using maps would not be affected. But what about using data from OSM
in our articles? Also, my unterstanding is that reverse import of data
(that is from Wikipedia to OSM) will be impossible after the change,
right?

Thanks,
   Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Bosnia's Top Cultural Institutions > Shutting Down

2012-01-08 Thread Strainu
2012/1/8 David Gerard :
>
> So it sounds like the first thing we (in this case, local Wikipedians)
> should do is approach them and say "We don't have money, but is there
> anything else we can positively help with? What's the programme?"

It's not so simple - you might very well find that there is no
programme. While Romania's cultural institutions are far from the
desperate situation in Bosnia, they have a tradition of doing just
what the bosses are asking and little more. So if the Ministry of
Culture is saying "create a long term plan for conserving such or such
category of artefacts", they will make and follow such a plan;
otherwise, they will just go along as if degradation never happens.

I expect you might find a somewhat similar situation in Bosnia - there
is no boss (Ministry of Culture) and no money, so why make plans? The
wikimedians willing to help should in this case concentrate on
*creating* the links with institutions able to help the Bosnians
either financially or with know-how. The Wiki Loves Monuments and
other GLAM events showed that we have the contacts and willingness to
make that happen.

Anyhow, we need to consider that we've discussed this quite a lot
already. Perhaps it's time for someone to take the lead on this? My
personal view is that you, David, are a much better candidate than
emijrp :)

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Bosnia's Top Cultural Institutions Shutting Down

2012-01-07 Thread Strainu
2012/1/7 geni :
>> We can't say we care about all human knowledge when we give priority to
>> cases depending on our birthplace.
>
> Yes and I'm British. The reality is that museums and libraries close
> all the time for various reasons. There isn't much we can do about it.
>
> The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina had 1.5
> million books when it was largely destroyed in 1992. The British
> Library has just under 14 million books and 150 million documents
> total. The library of congress is much the same. So as I said slightly
> different league,

That's an awful thing to say, but  so specific to representatives of
anglo-saxon culture (sic!).

Why don't you think of it this way: The National and University
Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina had X million books from Bosnian
authors. How many does the British Library has? I'm guessing much less
than X.

Strainu

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[Foundation-l] External free image repositories

2011-12-16 Thread Strainu
Hi,

Has the foundation ever expressed an opinion on using external free
image repositories in WMF projects? The licensing policy only says
that the content should be free, but without the specific limitations
that are present on Commons. I was wondering if it would be acceptable
for a project to serve (without hosting) content that is PD in another
country (presumably the country with the project's language as an
official language) but not in the US.

And if it would be, how could we ensure that the project would indeed
be for free images only?

Thanks,
  Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] The Mediawiki 1.18 image rotation bug

2011-12-12 Thread Strainu
2011/12/12 Möller, Carsten :
>
>> > It's been a requested feature for a while, Someone finally
>> > got around to writing it
>
> Who has asked for such a silly feature?

Many people indeed. I wanted that since I had my first camera with
rotation exif data.

> Every uploader sees the image he/she is uploading and has made the necessary 
> rotation beforehand.

Not necessarely. An example is the Flickr pictures from "pro"
accounts. Many such users upload their pictures in bulk, but they only
rotate them after upload. This leaves the small, medium and large
previews correctly rotated, but the original (which is uploaded on
commons) remains non-rotated.

>> i.e., was there strong reason to apply it to past images, not
>> just new ones?
>
> Don't ask, you need no reason if you work directly with the WMF.

No, there wasn't. But hey, there is no software without bugs and no
people that never made mistakes.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Meta main page

2011-09-29 Thread Strainu
2011/9/29 Béria Lima :
> As a IP is impossible (at least for me) and before someone complain: Yes,
> I'm sure my IP is identified as been Portuguese.

Wikimedia Commons offers anonymous users the possibility to see the
site in their  (guessed) language AFAIK. I'm sure it's not rocket
science to port that to meta if necessary.

Perhaps you should log a bug on that?

Strainu

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[Foundation-l] Dumps mirroring (was: Request: WMF commitment as a long term cultural archive?)

2011-09-21 Thread Strainu
2011/9/21 emijrp :
> Hi all;
>
> Just like the scripts to preserve wikis[1], I'm working in a new script to
> download all Wikimedia Commons images packed by day. But I have limited
> spare time. Sad that volunteers have to do this without any help from
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> I started too an effort in meta: (with low activity) to mirror XML dumps.[2]
> If you know about universities or research groups which works with
> Wiki[pm]edia XML dumps, they would be a possible successful target to mirror
> them.
>
> If you want to download the texts into your PC, you only need 100GB free and
> to run this Python script.[3]
>
> I heard that Internet Archive saves XML dumps quarterly or so, but no
> official announcement. Also, I heard about Library of Congress wanting to
> mirror the dumps, but not news since a long time.
>
> L'Encyclopédie has an "uptime"[4] of 260 years[5] and growing. Will
> Wiki[pm]edia projects reach that?
>
> Regards,
> emijrp
>
> [1] http://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/
> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_project_XML_dumps
> [3]
> http://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/source/browse/trunk/wikipediadownloader.py
> [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptime
> [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die
>
>

Hi emirjrp,

I can understand why you would prefer to have "full mirrors" of the
dumps, but let's face it, 10TB is not (yet) something that most
companies/universities can easily spare. Also, most people only work
on 1-5 versions of Wikipedia, the rest is just overhead to them.

My suggestion would be to accept mirrors of a single language and have
a smart interface at dumps.wikimedia.org that redirects requests to
the location that is the best match for the user. This system is used
by some Linux distributions (see download.opensuse.org for instance)
with great success.

Regards,
   Strainu

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[Foundation-l] Technical aspects of forking (was: 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter)

2011-09-17 Thread Strainu
2011/9/17 David Gerard :
> On 17 September 2011 10:16, John Vandenberg  wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 7:11 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
>
>>> We need people to try the technical basics of a fork, i.e. taking an
>>> en:wp dump, an images dump, ..
>
>> Is there an images dump?
>
>
> If there isn't, there should be.
>
> (I'm now trying to work out how to get the images without using up all
> my bandwidth allowances ever.)

I have no traffic limit on my home connection. Just ship a big enough
storage device and I'll be happy to provide you a full dump :P

Just kidding, of course. On a more serious note, what do you expect
the difficulties to be? I believe the most difficult part would be to
replicate the foundation's "secret sauce", i.e. the configuration
files that are not made public, if such thing exists. Then would come
the whole traffic balancing/caching/optimization settings, which would
greatly depend on the actual traffic a fork would have.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter

2011-09-16 Thread Strainu
2011/9/16 Tobias Oelgarte :
> We (the German authors) are bound to German law, since the page is
> directed at an major German readership (Schutzlandprinzip). But we also
> have to take care of US-law, since the servers are hosted inside the US.
> The later applies for the content the WMF hosts, not for us German
> contributers. But to be nice, we consider US-law as well.
>

Tobias, that I can understand. What I don't understand is why one
should call emijrp stupid instead of explaining that this is a German
Wikipedia rule ment to protect the majority of users users from
inadvertently breaking the law of their country.

And I still don't understand why you called that example "stupid".

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter

2011-09-16 Thread Strainu
German laws matter for german citizend. It's still not clear what that
means for the rest of us (except that de.wp took a decision)

2011/9/16 emijrp :
> Again, who are "we"? And why do German laws matter with USA servers? Why
> does only German Wikipedia exclude that images? Are English Wikipedia or
> Commons blocked in Germany?
>
> By the way, not all German Wikipedians/readers are under German laws.
>
> And I don't remember any Wikipedia removing content to respect Chinese local
> laws when Wikipedia was blocked there.
>
> 2011/9/16 Tobias Oelgarte 
>
>> Very simple: There is the Schutzlandprinzip. [1] To bad that EN has no
>> article for it. But you can read the following articles to understand
>> why this example was stupid, and that we bound to this laws, even if the
>> servers are at nirvana:
>> *
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works
>> *
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_on_Trade-Related_Aspects_of_Intellectual_Property_Rights
>> *
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization_Copyright_Treaty
>> *
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Industrial_Property
>>
>> [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzlandprinzip
>>
>> Am 16.09.2011 13:01, schrieb Strainu:
>> > Not really, no. What does german law have to do with reading or
>> > editing some website in Tampa or Virginia from somewhere in Asia? I
>> > can understand that german nationals cannot use that image, but
>> > whatabout other germen speakers?
>> >
>> > Strainu
>> >
>> > 2011/9/16 Liesel:
>> >> Your stupid!
>> >>
>> >> Am 16.09.2011 12:39, schrieb emijrp:
>> >>> Hi all;
>> >>>
>> >>> There are more issues with images in German Wikipedia.
>> >>>
>> >>> It is funny how German Wikipedia doesn't allow images[1] (image added
>> by
>> >>> me[2] in de:, and later removed by other[3]) because they follow the
>> most
>> >>> restrictive copyright law from Germany, Austria and Switzerland[note
>> 1], but
>> >>> they are now against giving people the choice to hide images.
>> >>>
>> >>> I think that we can do a nice move here. We can enable image filter in
>> >>> German Wikipedia for all those who don't want to see
>> >>> copyrighted-images-for-German-law, meanwhile allowing other people to
>> see
>> >>> all Commons splendour. Using the image filter to improve the rights of
>> >>> readers of German Wikipedia. Very cool, right? ; )
>> >>>
>> >>> Regards,
>> >>> emijrp
>> >>>
>> >>> [1]
>> >>>
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bildrechte#Wikipedia_richtet_sich_nach_DACH-Recht
>> >>> [2]
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexander_Knox&oldid=81377280
>> >>> [3] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Knox
>> >>>
>> >>> [note 1] I heard there are German speaking users outside Europe, right?
>> I
>> >>> heard too that, from Germany, you can follow interwiki and see that
>> images
>> >>> in other Wikipedias, right? So, what is the sense of that policy? Are
>> not
>> >>> the servers in USA?
>> >>>
>> >>> 2011/9/16 Tobias Oelgarte
>> >>>
>> >>>> Dear readers
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Yesterday, on September 15th 2011, the German Wikipedia closed the
>> poll
>> >>>> (Meinungsbild) "Einführung persönlicher Bildfilter". [1] It asked the
>> >>>> question if the personal image filter can be introduced or if it
>> should
>> >>>> not be introduced.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> A strong majority of 86% percent voted to not allow the personal image
>> >>>> filter [2] , despite the fact that the board already decided to
>> >>>> introduce the feature.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The questions are:
>> >>>> * Will the board or the WMF proceed with the introduction of the
>> >>>> personal image filter against the will of it's second largest
>> community?
>> >>>> * If the WMF/board does not care about the first quest

Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter

2011-09-16 Thread Strainu
Not really, no. What does german law have to do with reading or
editing some website in Tampa or Virginia from somewhere in Asia? I
can understand that german nationals cannot use that image, but
whatabout other germen speakers?

Strainu

2011/9/16 Liesel :
> Your stupid!
>
> Am 16.09.2011 12:39, schrieb emijrp:
>> Hi all;
>>
>> There are more issues with images in German Wikipedia.
>>
>> It is funny how German Wikipedia doesn't allow images[1] (image added by
>> me[2] in de:, and later removed by other[3]) because they follow the most
>> restrictive copyright law from Germany, Austria and Switzerland[note 1], but
>> they are now against giving people the choice to hide images.
>>
>> I think that we can do a nice move here. We can enable image filter in
>> German Wikipedia for all those who don't want to see
>> copyrighted-images-for-German-law, meanwhile allowing other people to see
>> all Commons splendour. Using the image filter to improve the rights of
>> readers of German Wikipedia. Very cool, right? ; )
>>
>> Regards,
>> emijrp
>>
>> [1]
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bildrechte#Wikipedia_richtet_sich_nach_DACH-Recht
>> [2] http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexander_Knox&oldid=81377280
>> [3] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Knox
>>
>> [note 1] I heard there are German speaking users outside Europe, right? I
>> heard too that, from Germany, you can follow interwiki and see that images
>> in other Wikipedias, right? So, what is the sense of that policy? Are not
>> the servers in USA?
>>
>> 2011/9/16 Tobias Oelgarte 
>>
>>> Dear readers
>>>
>>> Yesterday, on September 15th 2011, the German Wikipedia closed the poll
>>> (Meinungsbild) "Einführung persönlicher Bildfilter". [1] It asked the
>>> question if the personal image filter can be introduced or if it should
>>> not be introduced.
>>>
>>> A strong majority of 86% percent voted to not allow the personal image
>>> filter [2] , despite the fact that the board already decided to
>>> introduce the feature.
>>>
>>> The questions are:
>>> * Will the board or the WMF proceed with the introduction of the
>>> personal image filter against the will of it's second largest community?
>>> * If the WMF/board does not care about the first question. Will it
>>> affect the way the personal image filter will be implemented? For
>>> example: Not for all projects. A different implementation as suggested
>>> inside the "image filter referendum".
>>> * Will there be an attempt to follow this example and to question other
>>> communities the same question?
>>>
>>> Greetings from
>>> Tobias Oelgarte
>>>
>>> [1]
>>>
>>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter
>>> [2]
>>>
>>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter#Auswertung
>>>
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>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

2011-09-14 Thread Strainu
2011/9/14 Andre Engels :
> On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Marcin Cieslak  wrote:
>> I am especially interested in
>> countries where access to information is restricted by the environment,
>> for example by governments, whether the same reasoning applies to them
>> as to less restrictive regions.
>>
>
> Probably, although there might be additional cases where they want to block
> images, not because they themselves disagree with them, but because
> possession on their computer might be illegal for them.

My understanding is the images WILL be downloaded, just as collapsed
tables are downloaded. So with or without the filter would not make
much of a difference for the people Saper is talking about.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wiki Loves Monuments (Was: On curiosity, cats and scapegoats)

2011-09-13 Thread Strainu
Hi Naoko,

Thanks for your pointers. What I'm seeing this year is that in order
to go global, we'll probably need around 10 people to coordinate the
event (I'm thinking that this year there were only 2 people involved
in all the steps and a few more that helped in different areas).

This means that it's not too early to start talking about WLM2012, but
perhaps a better place for this is the WikiLovesMonuments lists. We
would like to see you participate in discussions there :)

Thanks,
Strainu

2011/9/13 KIZU Naoko :
> Hello there,
>
> Japan has a such (thanks Yaroslave for your concern) and iirc Taiwan
> has too. Perhaps other countries.
>
> If people are ambition enough to spread coordination efforts to the
> large international orgs, I'd point out not only UNESCO but also
> International Society of Aesthetics would be a good candidate to
> contact. In particular where the government doesn't provide such a
> list. ISA itself won't be so excited but you could ask them to have
> you contact to the local appropriate associations which are keen and
> open to collaborate with guys coming outsides from adacemia.
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter  wrote:
>>> @Yaroslav: the main reason to focus on Europe this year was the large
>>> concentration, intergovernmental support (European Commission & Council
>> of
>>> Europe) and lack of resources (mainly man power). If there are next year
>>> enough people to carry on the idea, I'm sure we can include more
>> countries,
>>> *if* the concept works for them.
>>>
>> <...>
>>
>>> Finally a note about chapters. Yes, having a chapter is very helpful -
>>> usually it is a group of organized volunteers who has existing
>> experience
>>> with media and volunteer coordination (because some coordination is
>>> necessary) and they have access to some kind of budgeting / bank
>> accounts.
>>> But also this is very practical - this year four countries without any
>>> chapter participated: Andorra (with the help of Amical), Belgium &
>>> Luxembourg (with a lot of dedicated volunteers, mostly in Belgium) and
>>> Romania (with the help of a local pro-linux association and local
>>> volunteers). So there is definitely no rule against chapters without a
>>> chapter to participate, but it does require a steeper learning curve,
>> and
>>> some extra dedication.
>>>
>>
>> Well, as one example, we had some private correspondence about involvement
>> of Russia: The chapter failed to organize anything, mostly because they
>> failed to realize that the database they were pointed out to is workable,
>> they did not want or dis not manage to contact other people who understand
>> the subject, and there was no way for any other group of people to organize
>> the contest. As the result, I just had to fill up the (previously empty)
>> category "WLM 2011 in Russia" myself single-handedly, not obviously
>> expecting any credit for this, but just to avoid creating an impression
>> that there are no monuments in Russia.
>>
>> Also, if there was no group let us give a random example - in Macedonia -
>> who wanted to organize the contest, still it would be a good idea to open a
>> category for WLM in Macedonia, just to get a chance to indeed involve new
>> people and to possibly get a number of good quality image previously
>> missing. Especially if people would know this in advance and could take
>> pictures for instance during the summer holidays.
>>
>> Just to be understood correctly, I think WLM is in general a good idea,
>> and my criticism is not to undermine it is any way, but to possibly create
>> some input for the next time. (I am a WLM supporter and I uploaded so far I
>> believe about 1% of the total amount of images).
>>
>> Cheers
>> Yaroslav
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子
> member of Wikimedians in Kansai  / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

2011-09-09 Thread Strainu
2011/9/9 FT2 :
> No. Same as you can't tell most preferences a user has set, or which
> articles they watch. In simple terms, the filter code only filters content
> when user prefs say so, and other users can't tell what filter prefs a user
> has or what code is executed client-side (ie in their browser not at the
> server) without actual access to their computer.
>
> FT2

That is not entirely true. It is theoretically feasible to get the
categories from the api and then call the code that "hides" the images
for the images that match a category. How practical it is remains to
be seen.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

2011-09-09 Thread Strainu
2011/9/9 Jimmy Wales :
> If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.

Every single proposal I've seen on this feature from the staff assumed
that the filter will be enabled by default and could (perhaps) be
disabled. Did I miss something?

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Chapters

2011-08-30 Thread Strainu
2011/8/30 Ilario Valdelli :
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 1:04 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
>>
>> But then, central planning is famous for its notable successes in economics.
>>
>
> Ok, but is WMF an economic institution?

As a "neutral" observer (i.e. not a member of any chapter) I can
honestly say it's beginning to act as one.

>
> Are chapters branches of WMF?

Apparently they will become just that from what I understand from this thread

>
> The notable successes should be in no profit organizations.

I think David made an ironic reference to communism here :)

The thing is, central planning works well for small-size entities. But
is the WMF still a "small size entity"? They say they are, cos' their
budget is so tiny etc., etc., but I think you can't expand worldwide
and still call yourself small. It just doesn't make sense.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] How to free something from Wikipedia in the public domain?

2011-08-26 Thread Strainu
2011/8/26 Strainu :
> Assumptions: we are talking about a single version of the page with
> only one or just a few authors, and all authors have accepted to
> release the data in the public domain.

As I said before, I am targeting only a very specific subset of pages,
where contacting the authors won't be a problem.

2011/8/26 WereSpielChequers :
>
> It might be easier to persuade whatever the organisation it is that insists
> on PD to broaden their stance and become compatible with us.

Actually, this is about handling the import of Wiki Loves Monuments
data in OSM. Kolossos raised this on a OSM list:
http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/OSM-legal-talk-license-for-quot-Wiki-Loves-Monuments-quot-td6363317.html

OSM is currently trying to get away from CCBYSA. :) I'm inssiting on
PD instead of ODBL because I find it easier to explain the concept to
the other contributors that send them to read the text of yet another
license.

2011/8/26 Fae :
> Sounds a little problematic depending on the details. If the text was
> released on Wikipedia first, then the contributors agreed "to release
> your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License". If the all the
> authors of the article can identify themselves as the same people who
> contributed under the named accounts for the original Wikipedia
> article then release to PD is no problem, in practice few articles
> only have a history of contributors who are using accounts associated
> with their legal identities.

That's precisely why I asked the question. The WMF have a procedure
for that, but other entities don't (or I'm not aware of it).

Strainu

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[Foundation-l] How to free something from Wikipedia in the public domain?

2011-08-26 Thread Strainu
Hi,

I was wondering if there is any way to "officially" free Wikipedia
content under PD/CC-0? What procedure should one follow to use that
data on another website with an incompatible license?

Assumptions: we are talking about a single version of the page with
only one or just a few authors, and all authors have accepted to
release the data in the public domain.

Possible answers I have considered:
 - a message from each author in the talk page of the article (pros:
easy to implement, wiki-based; cons: language barrier)
 - a message to OTRS (cons: afaik, OTRS messages to WMF are only
considered "official" by the WMF itself)

Thanks,
  Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] The Signpost – Volume 7, Issue 32 – 08 August 2011

2011-08-08 Thread Strainu
Forgot to change the content? :P

2011/8/9 jarry :
> News and notes: Wikimania; why Board of Trustees elections attract few votes; 
> brief news
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-01/News_and_notes
>
> In the news: Consensus of Wikipedia authors questioned about Shakespeare 
> authorship; 10 biggest edit wars on Wikipedia; brief news
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-01/In_the_news
>
> Research interview: The Huggle Experiment: interview with the research team
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-01/Research_interview
>
> WikiProject report: Little Project, Big Heart — WikiProject Croatia
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-01/WikiProject_report
>
> Featured content: Featured pictures is back in town
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-01/Featured_content
>
> Arbitration report: Proposed decision submitted for one case
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-01/Arbitration_report
>
> Technology report: Developers descend on Haifa; wikitech-l discussions; brief 
> news
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-01/Technology_report
>
>
> Single page view
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single
>
> PDF version
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-07-25
>
>
> http://identi.ca/wikisignpost / https://twitter.com/wikisignpost
> --
> Wikipedia Signpost Staff
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] en.wp HACKED?

2011-06-18 Thread Strainu
2011/6/18 Peter Gervai :
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:13, Domas Mituzas  wrote:
>>> What was it that lasted only a minute, Chris?
>> Vandalism, probably. I've read an article that vandalism lasts about a 
>> minute!
>
> Impossible. I'm sure one minute has passed but I still see vandalism
> occasionally. :-)

:))) Can you please license that with CCBYSA so we can make it a tagline? :D

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects

2011-06-17 Thread Strainu
2011/6/17 Strainu :
> Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one
> could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been
> written.

Actually, I'm not even sure you could add content to articles on a
CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Would have to check with a lawyer...

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects

2011-06-17 Thread Strainu
2011/6/17 Amir E. Aharoni :
> 2011/6/17 Strainu :
>> I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in
>> other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the
>> wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot
>> consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA
>> license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control
>> offered by copyright laws.
>
> It's not so much about CC-BY-SA as it is about the fact that it's a
> wiki, where content is constantly changed by different people. This
> breaks the usual idea of authorship and makes quite a lot of people
> terribly uncomfortable and sometimes even violent. It's unpleasant,
> but i understand how their feel and i want to find a way to work with
> them.
>

Well, a wiki promotes a certain way of collaborating, but that is not
always sufficient. Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one
could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been
written. Also, there are many © wikis, used only as CMSs, not to
collaborate. That's why I believe that WP:OWN would be much harder to
justify if we wouldn't be using CC-BY-SA.

Anyhow, my previous email presents a problem seen in many policies on
multiple languages. Experienced wikimedians refer to policies with
ease, by using shortcuts and assuming that the discussion partner
knows what the policy is about. More often than not, this is not the
case. This problem has been raised many times before and will probably
be raised again in the future. It is in no way specific to WP:OWN.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects

2011-06-17 Thread Strainu
I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in
other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the
wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot
consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA
license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control
offered by copyright laws. And this is not only from a legal POV, this
is also true from a common sense perspective: more people approaching
a problem often lead to better result than a single individual trying
to solve that problem.

From what I see, presenting the rule, but not the reasons behind it,
is the main problem of the English version of WP:OWN.

Strainu

2011/6/17 Amir E. Aharoni :
> The problem of content ownership hits any wiki at some point.
>
> In the English Wikipedia it is governed by a policy called "WP:OWN"
> [1]. There's a similar policy in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Is this policy
> any different in other projects?
>
> I am asking, because i agree with the English Wikipedia's policy in
> principle, but the reality is that sometimes instead of helping people
> write together, this policy drives people away from the project -
> people who could be very positive contributors, but who don't like
> their contributions edited by others without being asked. So i am
> wondering: maybe en.wp and he.wp can learn something from other
> languages here?
>
> Thank you,
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> "We're living in pieces,
>  I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikis and the direction hardware is taking

2011-06-14 Thread Strainu
2011/6/14 Tomasz Finc :
> As always .. come by to our mobile project pages on meta at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects and let us know how we
> can best iterate and improve.

I see no mention there of a roadmap for mobile editing, which I think
was the main issue BirgitteSB raised. Do you have a plan for that in
the future?

Thanks,
  Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Elections email

2011-06-10 Thread Strainu
I think the system did NOT work for you :) It seems strange to send
the same email in several languages. I only received it in Romanian. I
think this is taken based on your language preferences (on meta?)

Strainu

2011/6/10 Amir E. Aharoni :
> Hallo,
>
> I just received an email (see below) that invites me to participate in
> the elections.
>
> There are several technical issues with it:
>
> 1. I already voted. It may be a good idea to send this only to people
> who didn't.
>
> 2. The subject says "2009".
>
> 3. The email is sent in English and Hebrew. I don't know how did the
> system find out that that is my preferred language, so it's a bit
> weird, but in general i'm happy about this localization. There is
> still a problem, however: since the text is bidirectional and this
> email is sent in plain text, the Hebrew text is garbled and hardly
> readable. One way to solve this is to send the email as HTML and to
> define the Hebrew part as dir="rtl". This is relevant for all RTL
> languages - Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashto, Divehi and many others.
>
> Thank you,
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> "We're living in pieces,
>  I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
>
>
> ‎הודעה שהועברה‎
> מאת: Wikimedia Board Elections Committee 
> ‎‎
> תאריך: 10 ביוני 2011 14:56
> נושא: Wikimedia Foundation Elections 2009
> אל: Amire80 ‫amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il‬
>
>
> Dear Amire80,
>
> You are eligible to vote in the 2011 elections for the Board of
> Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates projects such as
> Wikipedia. The Board of Trustees is the decision-making body that is
> ultimately responsible for the long term sustainability of the
> Foundation, so we value wide input into its selection.
>
> For more information, please see
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/en . To remove
> yourself from future notification, please add your user name at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_nomail_list .
> 
>
> 
> שלום Amire80,
>
> הנך זכאי להשתתף בבחירות 2011 לחבר הנאמנים של קרן ויקימדיה, המפעילה
> מספר מיזמים כגון Wikipedia.
> חבר הנאמנים הוא הגוף המחליט הנושא באחריות הכוללת לקיומה של הקרן בטווח
> הארוך, ולכן אנו מקבלים בברכה השתתפות רחבה בבחירתו.
>
> למידע נוסף, אנא ראו please see
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/he . להסרת שמך
> מקבלת הודעות דומות בעתיד, אנא צרפו את שמכם בדף
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_nomail_list .
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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia Editor and Google Chrome

2011-06-08 Thread Strainu
You should probably add a bug at bugzilla.wikimedia.org and cross-post
this to wikitech-l.

2011/6/8 James Heilman :
> We need to make sure that people using Google Chrome are able to
> edit seamlessly. Currently this is not the case. Extra spaces are added. And
> when the "Cite" tool built into the browser is used it deletes text. Would
> love to see the foundation direct more resources to improving the editing
> tools. Not sure to whom this should be directed.
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
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Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?

2011-06-03 Thread Strainu
2011/6/3 David Gerard :
> I suspect there is more than a little of that in current local wiki
> defiance of global bans. And it's really, really not a good idea.

Please argument that position David. Has this person abused his
checkuser status?

I personally think project independence is a "sine qua non" condition
for recruiting a certain class of contributors (for instance,
academia). We have enough conspiracy theories  without the foundation
enforcing another rule over the head of the communities.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Scheduled intermittent downtime on all Wikimedia projects on May 24

2011-05-25 Thread Strainu
2011/5/25 Tim Starling :
> On 25/05/11 22:27, Strainu wrote:
>> What I understood from this thread is: if you have a planned
>> maintenance windows between 13 and 14 GMT, it would be appreciated if
>> you could:
>> - create a simple page that says: "We are working on our servers
>> between 13 and 14 GMT and Wikipedia might be unavailable during that
>> time"
>> - replace the usual error message with the newly created page as close
>> as possible to 12:59
>> - reinstate the usual error message at 14:01 (or whenever the maintenance 
>> ends)
>
> There are dozens of places where error messages are generated. It's
> not trivial to replace them all. Some of them are hard-coded in
> compiled binaries, some are on the client side.
>
[...]

I kind of anticipated that response, but it's nice to have it written
somewhere. I think it is now clear for everybody why there is a need
for more sysadmins and/or developers to handle such issues.

I believe much of this thread could have been avoided (and this means
less time wasted writing emails for you guys) if you had stated that
in your first email.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Scheduled intermittent downtime on all Wikimedia projects on May 24

2011-05-25 Thread Strainu
What I understood from this thread is: if you have a planned
maintenance windows between 13 and 14 GMT, it would be appreciated if
you could:
- create a simple page that says: "We are working on our servers
between 13 and 14 GMT and Wikipedia might be unavailable during that
time"
- replace the usual error message with the newly created page as close
as possible to 12:59
- reinstate the usual error message at 14:01 (or whenever the maintenance ends)

Nobody (of the millions of anonymous users) really cares about whether
a certain db server is down or up at 13:49, or some router is
rebooting at 13:23. They just wanna know when they can come back to
read about spark plugs (sic!).

AFAIK, this is the way big websites like Yahoo do it.

It seems like a simple thing to do, so perhaps you could explain
calmly and without ironies where is the difficulty?

Strainu

2011/5/25 Domas Mituzas :
> Hi!
>
>> That's... completely missing the point. Yes the specific errors faced were
>> unexpected or unforseen, BUT they were a* direct result* of the maintenance
>> between 13:00 and 14:00. I am simply passing on the feeling of our
>> readership; which was that the situation was badly communicated to them.
>
> As majority of our users are anons, who visit us once a day or two, we should 
> probably have started a communication campaign at least two months before the 
> maintenance.
> We practice a lot during fundraisers :-)
>
> OTOH, if there's no downtime, maybe we're causing quite some frustration with 
> superfluous communication? :-)
>
>> I am trying to share my experience here as a sysadmin and website operator;
>
> Oh, finally we got some sysadmins and website operators here.
> As a sysadmin you sure understand that in larger distributed systems which 
> are not all built on a set of SPOFs there can be various failure modes, 
> happening at various layers and various fuzziness.
> As a website operator you sure know that it is lots of effort to prepare 
> boilerplates for every possible situation :-)
>
>> users hate downtime/maintenance, and will complain about it endlessly.
>
> You have some annoying users, our users are awesome and don't complain 
> endlessly!
>
>> Improving our communication of planned maintenance is definitely a good idea.
>
> So is curing cancer.
>
> Marcus Buck wrote:
>> Domas, what are you trying to achieve with your comments on Tom's
>> suggestions?
>
>
> Put some clue in?
>
>> The sensible reaction (from a person who is involved in the maintenance) 
>> would be:
>
> I know nobody likes this, but sensible reaction is to work on good operation 
> rather than standing in front of a mirror and trying five hundred different 
> "I'm sorry" phrases.
> You look too much from that single position, that "communication is good", 
> without weighting costs or other options.
>
> Cheers,
> Domas
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Re: [Foundation-l] CentralNotice use

2011-05-19 Thread Strainu
2011/5/19 church.of.emacs.ml :

> 2. Reduce weight - don't display a banner on every page view, but only
> on one in ten. (We have to use blank banners to do that, right?[3])
> 3. Reduce duration. (e.g. Don't display banners for a month, only a week)

I think such measures would bring more complaints like the ones we've
had for the survey in late April., where people complained they did
not have a chance to respond to the survey because they hadn't noticed
the banner.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Copyright problems of images from India

2011-05-10 Thread Strainu
2011/5/10 Sreejith K. :
> I wonder how the citizenship of the author helps. The only thing that is of
> importance in a PD claim is the date of first publishing.

Not really. For instance, in Europe the copyright protection runs for
70 years from the DEATH of the author, not the first publish date. So
if the author is European (or American, for that matter), the picture
might not yet be PD. I don't know the rules in India, but perhaps
there the protection period runs from the publication date, in which
case the citizenship of the author is important.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Editor survey - finished?

2011-04-28 Thread Strainu
2011/4/27 church.of.emacs.ml :
> On 04/27/2011 04:54 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
>> Now people are complaining that they can't see the banner. I tried
>> telling them to clean the cookies and it didn't help; i tried it
>> myself, and it doesn't help me either.
>
> BTW, next time a static link to the survey would be useful. Some
> Wikipedians had problems seeing the banner. Either they missed it or
> they disabled banners via vector.css (and forgot about it). Deleting
> cookies isn't easy for everyone as well.
>
> I suggest making a mini-Extension with a special page that automatically
> redirects to the survey (or alternatively lists all surveys and links to
> them).
>
> Then we (the unofficially appointed "Editor Survey ambassador") could
> just point people to that page.
>
> Regards,
> Tobias

That's a great idea! I've seen the same problem you describe (although
after the survey had ended).

Strainu

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[Foundation-l] How to get past a decision that nobody can take

2011-03-25 Thread Strainu
Hi,

I personally enjoy the independence that each project has in the
Wikimedia universe. Therefore, I've given much thought on wether I
should write this email.  Bun in the situation I will present below, I
really don't know what more can be done according to the current
policies in effect on my home wiki (ro.wikipedia). I ask your help in
finding a path to follow.

One of our users has created a page for tracking "mistakes" made by
other users [1], which propted protests from other users, including
myself [2]. Eventually, I asked for the deletion of the page at the
Romanian equivalent of [[WP:AFD]] on 20th of February [3]. The rules
for deleting the pages are very much the same as on en.wp (see
[[:en:WP:NotEarly]]), however the user page rules are not quite the
same as on en.wp. There is an ongoing debate on ro.wp on using en.wp
rules when missing an equivalent policy. this was used by the user who
created the page in his defense.

On ro.wp it sometimes happens that decisions on deleting pages take
much longer than a week, so I would expect a decision to be made
sometime soon. However, this request is special because all the active
sysops are either present in the page in question or were involved in
the discussions about it, so it would be unfair of them to close it.

What do you think the following steps should be? Should we call some
of the other sysops from "retirement"? Should we appeal to someone
from the arbcom on en.wp?

Thanks,
   Strainu


[1] http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilizator:Turbojet/Gre%C8%99eli
[2] http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reclama%C8%9Bii#Utilizator:Turbojet
[3] 
http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pagini_de_%C8%99ters#Utilizator:Turbojet.2FGre.C8.99eli

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Re: [Foundation-l] Changes to the identification policies and procedures

2011-02-09 Thread Strainu
2011/2/5 Steven Walling :
> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 3:22 PM, Birgitte SB  wrote:
>
> My real, huge, jaw-hitting-the-floor, issue with your response is that you
>> preferred "the news about an upcoming change trickl[e] out into the
>> community
>> prior to an official announcement" (gossip) over a posting to foundation-l.
>>  You
>> just don't get it.
>>
>
> I do not mean that gossip should be preferred over public announcements as
> standard operating procedure. Considering that I've made numerous
> announcements about my work to this very list (IRC office hours, 10th
> anniversary organizing etc.) I think that's clear.
>
> What I meant is that there is no way to prevent informal discussion about
> something that has yet to be announced, so there's no reason to fret over
> it. What I *do *find unhelpful is publicly posting about sensitive topic
> when you know in advance that people aren't prepared to answer questions
> about it yet.

How about giving up the whole "announcing" thing that seems to become
the norm lately and going with "redacting the policy with the
community"?

I second fully what Aaron Adrignola said above. I could find no
discussion about this on the OTRS wiki, and the otrs-en list is not
for every OTRS volunteer. I personally do not feel willing to give up
my private data to WMF or any other organisation in the US for that
matter, and there is no chapter in my country. It's more than enough
that I gave my real name. Imposing this decision without consultation
with the whole community, or AT LEAST with all the OTRS volunteers is
very poor judgement from the Foundation.

Anyway, was there an event prompting this change or you just thought
it was a great idea to get some IDs from the volunteers?

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Translatewiki illustrates how low internationalisation is in the priorities of the Wikimedia Foundation

2011-01-28 Thread Strainu
2011/1/28 MZMcBride :
> Strainu wrote:
>> These messages can be improved by introducing internal links and references 
>> to
>> wiki* policies.
>
> Why do you hate Wiktionary? ;-)
>
> MZMcBride
>

Nice one :) Actually I could go on for ages on "why wiktionary is bad"
, but that would be disrespectful to the people working on it and
simply not the reason I said "wiki*". If you want, we can take this
off-list.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Translatewiki illustrates how low internationalisation is in the priorities of the Wikimedia Foundation

2011-01-27 Thread Strainu
2011/1/27 Amir E. Aharoni :
> 2011/1/27 Teofilo :
>> Before Translatewiki existed it was possible for Wikimedia/Wikipedia
>> users to improve the translation of the Mediawiki software's message
>> used on their project into their own language.
>>
>> It is no longer possible now,
>
> As Chad said, it's still possible and it's often done in many wikis.

It's even recommendable to do it. The messages on TranslateWiki should
be generic and without internal links, because they might be used on
different websites. These messages can be improved by introducing
internal links and references to wiki* policies.

>> * Or open an account on a non-Wikimedia project, which means providing
>> non-Wikimedia managers access to your personal data. That means you
>> are loosing the guarantees of
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy (the guarantee that
>> your data are accessed only exceptionally and in such exceptional
>> cases, always handled by people trusted by the Wikimedia Foundation)
>
> Translatewiki.net has a privacy policy, too.

That's one of the reasons I proposed the implementation of an open-id
provider using the Wikimedia login (i.e. being able to login to
translatewiki and other websites using your wikipedia password)

>
>> I ask the Wikimedia Foundation to support people involved in
>> translation work, rather than expell them to non-Wikimedia projects.
>
> I do hope that the collaboration between Translatewiki.net and the WMF
> will become tighter, but there's nothing terribly broken in the way
> things work now.

Still, it would make sense to allow some trusted user svn access to
the translations. Bug 24951 is open for 6 months now because some of
the translations aren't automatically updated and the review backlog
hasn't reached the relevant revision.

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Again: January 15 retro?

2011-01-11 Thread Strainu
2011/1/11 Casey Brown :
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 6:41 AM, Lodewijk  wrote:
>> so... to conclude the discussion on this topic, which went rather sideways,
>> there seems to be a broad support for the retro logo - also at least in the
>> local nlwiki community. What would be the steps to take to make this happen?
>
> You would have to make sure that there was strong community consensus
> for the places you wanted to enable this.  Then, to enable it, you
> would either have to ask a sysadmin to set the wiki's logo path to the
> old logo (create a bug and say when you need this done) or you would
> have to add something like this to the wiki's Common.js:
>
> #p-logo a {
>  background: url(path) 35% 50% no-repeat !important;
> }
>
Doesn't replacing File:Wiki.png work on every wiki?

Strainu

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[Foundation-l] Wikipedia 10 - press release

2011-01-10 Thread Strainu
Hi,

I suppose there is (or will be) a press release prepared for the 15th,
marking Wikipedia's tenth anniversary. I was wondering if the
community could get the text a little earlier, so we can translate it?
I'm sure there will be some articles on the subject in every country
and it would be good to have a localized version sent to press
organizations.

Thanks,
  Strainu

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[Foundation-l] How to contact the foundation's legal department?

2010-12-16 Thread Strainu
Hi,

How can one contact the Foundation's legal department nowadays? I can
find no contact email address, just the "WMF Legal" user account and I
would rather not leave a message on the talk page.

Thanks,
  Strainu.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Downtime error message turned into monolingual

2010-12-13 Thread Strainu
Or rather drop the JS and just put links to static pages in other
languages. A single language is definitely a big step back.

Strainu

2010/12/13 Thomas Dalton :
> On 13 December 2010 12:27, Tim Starling  wrote:
>> In principle, it would be possible to have a short error message with
>> a 

[Foundation-l] The OpenStreetMap license change will impact data imports?

2010-12-10 Thread Strainu
Hi all,

I'm analyzing the OSM license change [0] and the effects it will have
on data interchange between Wikipedia and OSM. At [1] they say that
there should be no change for maps, but I'm not clarified on how (and
if) will I be able to import batches of OSM data in Wikipedia after
the license change (for instance add the postal codes of all the
villages in a country to an Infobox template). Can someone clarify
this and the reverse case (import data from Wikipedia in OSM) please?

Thanks,
  Strainu

[0] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License
[1] 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License_FAQ#How_does_this_affect_Wikipedia_and_other_projects_that_want_to_use_our_maps.3F

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wiki[p/m]edia

2010-12-10 Thread Strainu
At first thought, this proposal seemed like a "branding suicide", but
considering the enormous difference in awareness between Wikipedia and
the other brands, it could be a subject worth discussing. It would
also help avoid composed word that sometimes sound strange or are just
plain weird in languages other than English.

Strainu


2010/12/10  :
> I was about to write a suggestion similar to the one indicated by Ziko
> van Dijk. I second it and recommend that the following be given serious
> consideration:
>
> Change as soon as practically possible the naming of the Foundation to
> the "Wikipedia Foundation" and the naming of the projects to Wikipedia,
> Wikipedia Commons, Wikipedia Books, Wikipedia Wiktionary etc. That would
> simplify matters enormously while at the same time broadening the
> Wikipedia brand to all projects in a much more effective and
> comprehensible way.
>
> "We" would of course still talk internally about Commons, Wikibooks,
> Wiktionary and so on for the sake of brevity.
>
> It is never too late...
>
> Regards,
> Sir48/Thyge, da:wiki
>
>
> - Original meddelelse -
>
>> Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com [mailto:zvand...@googlemail.com]
>> wrote:
>> 
>
>> Whether the names amplify the problem, whether "Wikimedia" was a good
>> name choice - maybe WMF should rename itself "The Wikipedia
>> Foundation" and call Wiktionary "The Wikipedia Dictionary" and so on.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

2010-11-18 Thread Strainu
2010/11/18 Ryan Kaldari :
> So for 200 years it's OK to classify anyone with a drop of African blood
> as "black" (and subject them to all forms of racism and discrimination),
> but once a 1/2 African is elected president, he can't be called "black"
> all the sudden?
>
> References:
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
>
> Ryan Kaldari

My mail was not about whether calling Obama black is OK or not OK.
What's OK in the US might not be OK in Europe and vice-versa. I've
made the point that different cultures have a different vision of
races and especially about people of mixed origin.

What is not OK from my POV is people finding offensive to call him
"almost black" or anything else than black, as Steven Walling
suggested, that I don't really understand. It seems to me like the
fact (anthropological fact, that is) is skewed to...what purpose
exactly? But again, this is a European's POV, perhaps in the States it
really is necessary to call Barack Obama black.

Strainu

>
> On 11/17/10 2:18 PM, Strainu wrote:
>> 2010/11/17:
>>
>>> In a message dated 11/17/2010 1:23:04 PM Pacific Standard Time,
>>> steven.wall...@gmail.com writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Also, point of quibbling as an American: not looking to argue about it,
>>>> but
>>>> Obama is generally thought of as African American, as it says in the
>>>> second
>>>> sentence of his en.wiki article. It might offend people if you try and say
>>>> our President isn't black.>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Obama is exactly half-black and half-white.
>>> Funny how he is "African American" but of course he is equally "Caucasian
>>> American"
>>>
>> Which shows only hot dangerous "political correctness" can get. I
>> wonder if in 2050, when the white population will no longer be be in
>> majority, such a person will be called an European-American...
>>
>> For those of you who speak other languages than English, I suggest
>> reading the English, French, Spanish, Italian and/or German versions
>> of en:Mulatto. You will get an extraordinary glimpse of what different
>> groups consider relevant about this subject - the French have an
>> interesting comparison of the term in several languages.
>>
>>
>>> I suppose it's intellectually dishonest to claim that "most American blacks
>>> are part white", since it's possibly also true that "most American whites
>>> are part black"
>>>
>> Citation needed?:P
>>
>> Strainu
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

2010-11-17 Thread Strainu
2010/11/18 Strainu :
> 2010/11/17  :
>> In a message dated 11/17/2010 1:23:04 PM Pacific Standard Time,
>> steven.wall...@gmail.com writes:
>>
>>
>>> Also, point of quibbling as an American: not looking to argue about it,
>>> but
>>> Obama is generally thought of as African American, as it says in the
>>> second
>>> sentence of his en.wiki article. It might offend people if you try and say
>>> our President isn't black. >>
>>>
>>
>> Obama is exactly half-black and half-white.
>> Funny how he is "African American" but of course he is equally "Caucasian
>> American"
>
> Which shows only hot dangerous "political correctness" can get. I
> wonder if in 2050, when the white population will no longer be be in
> majority, such a person will be called an European-American...

I meant to say "how dangerous"...should have read the email before
sending it. :(

>
> For those of you who speak other languages than English, I suggest
> reading the English, French, Spanish, Italian and/or German versions
> of en:Mulatto. You will get an extraordinary glimpse of what different
> groups consider relevant about this subject - the French have an
> especially interesting comparison of the term in several languages.
>
>>
>> I suppose it's intellectually dishonest to claim that "most American blacks
>> are part white", since it's possibly also true that "most American whites
>> are part black"
>
> Citation needed?:P
>
> Strainu
>

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Re: [Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

2010-11-17 Thread Strainu
2010/11/17  :
> In a message dated 11/17/2010 1:23:04 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> steven.wall...@gmail.com writes:
>
>
>> Also, point of quibbling as an American: not looking to argue about it,
>> but
>> Obama is generally thought of as African American, as it says in the
>> second
>> sentence of his en.wiki article. It might offend people if you try and say
>> our President isn't black. >>
>>
>
> Obama is exactly half-black and half-white.
> Funny how he is "African American" but of course he is equally "Caucasian
> American"

Which shows only hot dangerous "political correctness" can get. I
wonder if in 2050, when the white population will no longer be be in
majority, such a person will be called an European-American...

For those of you who speak other languages than English, I suggest
reading the English, French, Spanish, Italian and/or German versions
of en:Mulatto. You will get an extraordinary glimpse of what different
groups consider relevant about this subject - the French have an
interesting comparison of the term in several languages.

>
> I suppose it's intellectually dishonest to claim that "most American blacks
> are part white", since it's possibly also true that "most American whites
> are part black"

Citation needed?:P

Strainu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation switching to Google Apps?

2010-10-27 Thread Strainu
2010/10/27 Erik Moeller :
> 2010/10/27 John Vandenberg :
>> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Strainu  wrote:
>>> ..
>>> What does that mean exactly? Does it contain sensitive information or
>>> what? It could really be of interest to other organizations to see
>>> this information, even if it's not really well organised.
>>>
>>> P.S. I think "Orientation 101" at WMF should begin with: "anything
>>> you'll do will be of interest to lots and lots of curious and
>>> potentially tech-savy people, so document it properly" :P
>>
>> " ... and their collective mind is probably better than your own, so
>> invite comments before you make decisions."
>
> "... and their willingness to second-guess everything you do has no
> boundaries, so exercise discretion and good judgment about the extent
> of your overall engagement, lest you find yourself absorbed into a
> collaborative process that more closely resembles an H.R. Giger
> painting than good faith collaboration."
>

Let's not get carried away here. I am always interested to seeing
alternatives to the tools I use myself and I'm willing to dig through
some not-so-clear notes or whatever to find information, if that
spares me some testing time. That was the sole reason I insisted for
the release of the information.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation switching to Google Apps?

2010-10-27 Thread Strainu
2010/10/27 Jon Davis :
> Sorry, not this time.  What I've got off hand isn't in a publicly usable
> format.  I didn't think it would be of interest to the public.  Now I know
> and next time I will make sure the info is public friendly, should it be
> desired.
>

What does that mean exactly? Does it contain sensitive information or
what? It could really be of interest to other organizations to see
this information, even if it's not really well organised.

P.S. I think "Orientation 101" at WMF should begin with: "anything
you'll do will be of interest to lots and lots of curious and
potentially tech-savy people, so document it properly" :P

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