Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
* Tim Starling wrote: On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote: This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons. The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode from the server. I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can think of one, please tell me. It seems to me that we all agree it would be nice if people could upload H.264 video to Wikimedia Foundation servers and if people could download H.264 video from Wikimedia servers and possibly even reuse such video. There are efforts underway to try and make some H.264 profile available on a royality-free basis that the Foundation probably should study and possibly support. This RFC however is not going to give people a license to upload or reuse H.264 video by the looks of it. The download Theora approach is already supported, so there is no difference there either. If there is some legal theory by which most people either already have or do not need to be given a license to upload or reuse H.264 video (in- cluding considerations with respect to how such video came to be) then by all means make that part of the RfC and then we could say whether the proposal would actually improve anything. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
Hoi, I am happy for people to upload files when we can convert it to another format. Given that the issue is around the ability to re-use media files in the H.264 format, providing these files to our users is exactly the issue that is being discussed. Consequently it is controversial. Thanks, GerardM On 17 January 2014 14:18, Bjoern Hoehrmann derhoe...@gmx.net wrote: * Tim Starling wrote: On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote: This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons. The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode from the server. I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can think of one, please tell me. It seems to me that we all agree it would be nice if people could upload H.264 video to Wikimedia Foundation servers and if people could download H.264 video from Wikimedia servers and possibly even reuse such video. There are efforts underway to try and make some H.264 profile available on a royality-free basis that the Foundation probably should study and possibly support. This RFC however is not going to give people a license to upload or reuse H.264 video by the looks of it. The download Theora approach is already supported, so there is no difference there either. If there is some legal theory by which most people either already have or do not need to be given a license to upload or reuse H.264 video (in- cluding considerations with respect to how such video came to be) then by all means make that part of the RfC and then we could say whether the proposal would actually improve anything. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Jan 16, 2014 11:05 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote: This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons. The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode from the server. I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can think of one, please tell me. -- Tim Starling ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe If the server does the transcode and ultimately makes available only a video file in a free format, and WMF doesn't have to pay the patent holders to make that happen, then I would have no objection. If, however, the nonfree format is made available for download, or WMF funds would be supporting a software patent, those are clear negatives. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
FYI it's against the bylaws of at least 4 chapters (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela) to promote content in non-free formats. -- Fajro ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On 17 January 2014 14:19, Fajro fai...@gmail.com wrote: FYI it's against the bylaws of at least 4 chapters (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela) to promote content in non-free formats. Do you have the precise wording handy? e.g. What constitutes promotion? - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:24 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 January 2014 14:19, Fajro fai...@gmail.com wrote: Do you have the precise wording handy? e.g. What constitutes promotion? From Wikimedia Argentina bylaws: *The Association's goals are:* To actively contribute to the diffusion, improvement and progress of the knowledge and culture through the development and distribution of encyclopedias, collections of quotes, educational books and other document compilations; the diffusion of information and diverse data bases, especially in the languages spoken in the Argentine territory, which: 1. are available through technologies as Internet or similar, provided that: (a) the source of the data is available (for works resulting from the compilation or processing of other works), (b) are given in a freely available format (defined as those that can be implemented by anyone, are based in publicly available and documented specifications, and whose implementation or use does not require the payment of any royalties), and the availability of the work is not restricted by technical measures. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Bylaws https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chile/Bylaws https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Uruguay/Bylaws/en http://wikimedia.org.ve/wiki/Estatutos_sociales_de_Wikimedia_Venezuela (in spanish) -- Fajro ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats, no patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time. Personally I would support to include MP4 in Wikimedia projects if no patent fee is required, since it's already widely used in user's daily life. Regards, Ted Chien -- Sent from my HTC New One 2014/1/17 下午10:16 於 Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com 寫道： On Jan 16, 2014 11:05 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote: This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons. The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode from the server. I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can think of one, please tell me. -- Tim Starling ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe If the server does the transcode and ultimately makes available only a video file in a free format, and WMF doesn't have to pay the patent holders to make that happen, then I would have no objection. If, however, the nonfree format is made available for download, or WMF funds would be supporting a software patent, those are clear negatives. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On 17 January 2014 15:03, Ted Chien hsiangtai.ch...@gmail.com wrote: From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats, no patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time. So we'd be fine transcoding *from* MPEG4? - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Strainu strain...@gmail.com wrote: 2014/1/16 Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com: As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our lagging video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their case: [snip] I worry more about the no, because that would mean more video content uploaded to commons votes (see Rilke, Turelio). I find it disturbing that we got to a point were we basically *refuse* new contributions. Me too. Anytime I see a but it will enable bad contributions argument for reasons not to do things I get a little sad. Every well-meaning contribution should be valued, IMHO. -Chad ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier
Got your attention? :) Various mass messages are occasionally sent to village pumps in many projects - by the Foundation's community liaisons, by researchers, and others. Sometimes people bother to put them up for translation, which is wonderful, but sometimes it is not practical, for example if the message is urgent. Even if the message is in English, however, you need to do a little thing to make sure that it will be comfortable to read it in a non-English wiki. Put it inside the following HTML tag: div lang=en dir=ltr class=mw-content-ltr Your important notification. /div This will ensure that the message is considered as English and left-to-right. If you don't do this, then in right-to-left wikis it will look like this paragraph - misaligned and with incorrectly placed punctuation. Of course, it's not great to have to remember to write it every time, so if there is a way to automate in MassMessage or EdwardsBot or whatever is used to send these messages, it would be great. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
Given that allowing mp4 would be an act of commercial expedience at the expense of core Wikipedia principles, let me make the modest suggestion of introducing mp4 in concert with a name change to Encarta. On Jan 16, 2014 5:15 AM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote: Great post Manuel, and I wholeheartedly agree, including the final recommendation. I, instead, voted for full MP4 support on the RfC to draw the center of gravity towards accepting MP4, but I would be happy even with a partial solution. Some points: 1. The video project in English Wikipedia is: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video]] We certainly welcome more than just English Wikipedians there! We've had several university classes use this, and I think a pretty good set of example videos and guidelines including many videos shot by journalism and media studies students: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video 2. I talked recently with the Mozilla Popcorn folks, and they seem to have the best OSS, online video editing system today with Popcorn Maker. You can actually paste in URLs of Commons video and start splicing them together. Just make sure to use an Ogg/WebM friendly browser. I encourage you to try it out. https://popcorn.webmaker.org/ They said they would be thrilled if Popcorn became part of the editing solution for Wikimedia. One problem is that they right now only manage an EDL of edits, so embedding an edited video together requires an online Javascript environment -- there is no provision for re-compressing and outputting the video to a standalone Ogg or WebM file. But this is OSS so adding this functionality should be possible with the right resources. 3. Perhaps we should do several sessions at Wikimedia in succession, including a workshop on how to shoot and make video? I teach video shooting and editing to students each year, so this would be quite an easy thing for me to pitch in on. -Andrew On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:54 AM, Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch wrote: Hi Fabrice, interesting question! I'd like to remind of a discussion we had at last year's Wikimania in Hong Kong concerning tools for the video community. Yet we do not really have a video community but scattered small groups or individuals doing some work. I try to coordinate this in the german-speaking world and we do this via Wikipedia, then there are people in the Czech Republic doing videos on national parks, Andrew did some great stuff in the US, there is a british initiative as well. We all face similar challenges. One things - which is off-topic here - is that I have in mind to connect these groups to an internationl video community, maybe by having a WikiVideo (or whatever the name might be) project. But back to the RfC: One of the challenges is that we need a solution for * storing the raw video material allowing people to re-use, re-edit etc., also most volunteers don't have the storage capacity to store all their raw material * collaborative editing - hard to do technically and it mostly implies that raw material is being shared - hard for people that can meet each other as these files are big, fast storage is needed etc. and it is even harder for people working online * upload of high-quality, finished video projects is a pain. They mostly have more than 1 GB, you need to have another server to upload and share it, make a bug report, find a server admin who downloads and imports it etc. My idea which we talked about briefly at Wikimania was a server where people could upload there raw material, it gets transcoded into smaller proxy clips everyone can easily download, edit and then upload the EDL (edit decision list = video editing project file, which just holds the operations). The server would then use the EDL on the raw material stored there and render the final video. The upload process can then be automated between this server and Commons. The reason this idea was dismissed is the core of this RfC: patent trolling etc. on H.264 codecs etc. which we would need to allow as raw material. So my take on this topic is a compromise: * allow MP4 / H.264 as a source codec * deliver everything in WebM / Ogg Theora (or other free codecs) Especially with WebM I see no reason why people really need H.264. Ogg Theora is somewhat exotic but WebM isn't. And once we have solved the legal problem around this RfC nothing is stoping us to implement the video editing server, right? /Manuel -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
He wasn't assuming bad faith; he was accurately describing the situation without ascribing intent. On Jan 16, 2014 7:36 AM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: There aren't two principles in conflict here. This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that change, but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As such it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a question about format support. As much as I hate how MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 creates a non-free climate for our video, it's unfair to use backdoor to characterize intent of either community members or WMF employees in this area. Video has been a big shortcoming in Wikipedia and in the FLOSS community in general. Overcoming means we need to consider the unique nature of the problem with some possible new solutions. That's not backdooring -- that's directly addressing the needs of content creation given the current legal and IP situation. Let's debate the merits of the case and not assume bad faith of the folks putting it forward. -Andrew ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
There's an article about the debate up from yesterday on Ars: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/wikimedia-considers-supporting-h-264-to-boost-accessibility-content/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
A pile of press is linked at the top of the talk page. - d. On 17 January 2014 16:43, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: There's an article about the debate up from yesterday on Ars: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/wikimedia-considers-supporting-h-264-to-boost-accessibility-content/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
* Andrew Lih wrote: BTW, Luis from WMF has put a very lengthy and detailed analysis of the legal issues that does help quite a bit, at the end of the RFC: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#Commercial_use_and_h264 I note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not really have to obtain a license to use H.264 encoders and decoders, users could do the format conversions elsewhere and the Wikimedia Foundation could then merely distribute the files. As the RfC notes, Merely distributing MP4 files never requires a patent license. That would spare us problems like the secret contract issue. Why does the proposal, instead, suggest the Foundation should engage in the practise of, not just mere distribution, but Internet Broadcasting? That apparently requires a patent license. For that matter, would users who download video automatically obtain Internet Re-Broadcasting rights? I do note that according to MPEG LA there are only about 1300 entities with relevant license agreements, if putting a H.264 video on my web site whether people can download it is Internet Broadcasting and I do not obtain an Internet Broadcasting license by pressing the record button on my camera, or some other automatic process, then that figure is several orders of magnitude too small, or patent holders tolerate a lot of infringement (for the moment). Would it really make sense to label video files as freely shareable if forms of sharing like Internet Broadcasting need additional licenses? -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving Wikimedia's mission? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving Wikimedia's mission? Actually it did come up, allow me to reproduce the comment in a vote posted by Brad Patrick (former WMF general counsel): I agree that the dominant file format means we need to be able to comprehend what is ingested. But it is not okay to ingest and spew using that file format if it means we are putting on someone else's intellectual property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion, license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David Gerardhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no guiding principal or idea that WMF is intended to be an *exclusive* repository of anything. Others do nothing but video, and that's great. I want there to be video, *but it is not part of a grant vision to out-YouTube YouTube, or Vimeo, or any other huge site with billions of hours of video*. User:Fuzheadohttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fuzheado is right - we lack the present toolset to be able to address such volumes of video, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.--BradPatrickhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:BradPatrick (talk https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BradPatrick) 14:45, 16 January 2014 (UTC) Emphasis is mine. I'm sure smart people have debated this before, can anyone point me to it? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Extensive feedback from WMDE to the FDC process
My five cents here would be that how about considering longer time frames for grants, like 2-3-5 years (I was too tired to understandably explain this yesterday to Anasuya) Here in Hungary individuals can offer 1% of their income tax to nonprofit organizations (these are accounted and transferred to the nonprofits by the state) These funds must be spent within 3 years (so not 1 but 3) from their reception (unused funds has to be transferred back at the end of the 3rd year). Cheers, Vince *Balazs Viczian* Executive Vice President *Wikimédia Magyarország Egyesület* Tel: +36 70 633 6372 Mail: balazs.vicz...@wikimedia.hu Web: www.wikimedia.hu Blog: Magyar Wikipédia Magazinhttp://huwiki.blogspot.hu Facebook: Magyar Wikipédia https://www.facebook.com/hu.wikipedia 2014/1/17 Anders Wennersten m...@anderswennersten.se While I believe the FDC process by now is well understood and communicated, I feel the understanding of the actual group, FDC and the deliberation we perform is less well understood (and communicated) And if WMDE feedback will be elaborated upon, I think it will be of value understanding FDC and the deliberation process and I have therefor put down a short description of this on the talkpage, based on my own experience as one of its member (1) I see very much in this feedback related to the prerequisites to the FDC, not how we have implemented our inputs into recommendations. Also I think some of the wanted more detailed feedback and interaction with the FDC as a group is very hard to implement considering how our deliberation process for now is set up . But feedback is always a good thing and hopefully this feedback can be processed to improve the process and give all involved a happier feeling of the funds dissemination in the future. Anders (1) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/FDC_ portal/Comments/Extensive_feedback_from_WMDE_to_the_FDC_ process#FDC_as_a_group Pavel Richter skrev 2014-01-15 17:36: Hello everybody, I have just posted an extensive feedback from WMDE on the FDC process here on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/ Comments/Extensive_feedback_from_WMDE_to_the_FDC_process The statement was drafted by WMDE's Supervisory Board and myself. We are very much looking forward to a discussion and I would like to encourage everybody to share their thoughts. At the same it would be great if we could keep the discussion on meta so that we have everything in one place. All the Best, Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Pavel Richter Vorstand Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tel.: +49 - 30 - 219 158 260 Twitter: @pavel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On 17 January 2014 17:12, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion, license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David Gerardhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no Note that my favoured option is actually ingestion of MP4 (and of anything, really), but not serving it. Ideally you should be able to get a video on your phone of that UFO that just flew by and upload it in your Wikimedia Commons uploader app without having to faff around with dodgy shareware wrappers around FFmpeg on a computer first, or attempt to run a slow and battery-hungry conversion on your phone itself. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] 2014 Ombudsman Commission
Hello, everyone. I'm writing with information about the Ombudsman Commission (OC), the small group of volunteers who investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, and in particular concerning the use of CheckUser tools, on any Wikimedia project for the Board of Trustees. I apologize for the length of the announcement. :) The application period for new commissioners for 2014 has recently closed. The Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work. Last year, the WMF made a change to the number of the OC on a trial basis. Although the OC is kept intentionally small due to the high level of trust required of its members, we expanded the commission from five members to seven. This expansion had two primary purposes. First, the commission bears a heavy responsibility of ensuring that users are granted the privacy that is their due under the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy. We hoped that an expansion of the commission would help them remain swiftly responsive to issues sent to them even when some of the commissioners had pressing matters beyond their volunteer work. Second, commissioners had traditionally been asked to surrender their checkuser functions on their home wikis during their term on the commission, a request that helped to reduce the potential for conflict of interest between the roles but which we also believed placed an undue burden on smaller projects that had fewer checkusers to assist. With a larger commission, commissioners were able to continue in that also critical function, only recusing if issues were raised relating to their direct colleagues. At the beginning of this application period, we polled the current Ombudsman Commission, and their consensus is that the seven number functions very well for the role. We share that view. We believe that the benefit the additional two members brought to those areas is sufficient to the functioning of the OC to warrant the growth. However, since we believe it is important to carefully balance the need to keep this group small against the requirements that they remain flexible and available, we will continue to monitor this need going forward. With this in mind, I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2014 OC. Returning to the commission are two members who joined in 2013: *User:Huji, who primarily edits Farsi Wikipedia, where he is an administrator, bureaucrat and former CheckUser. He has also contributed substantially to Simple Wikipedia, English Wikipedia and Meta and is a Wikimedia developer. *User:Levg, who primarily edits Russian Wikipedia, where he is an administrator, oversighter and bureaucrat and where he has twice served as an arbitrator. Their willingness to remain, to bring their familiarity with processes and their experience to the new arrivals, is greatly appreciated! Joining them are: *User:Avraham, who primarily edits English Wikipedia, where he is a CheckUser, oversighter, admin and bureaucrat. He also serves on Commons as an admin and oversighter and is a steward. *User:Gnom, Lukas Mezger, who primarily edits German Wikipedia. Lukas, a licensed attorney, has previously served Wikimedia as a legal intern for the Wikimedia Foundation. *User:M7, Mario Benvenuti, who primarily edits Italian Wikipedia, where he is also known as M/. Mario is also an admin and bureaucrat on Meta and a steward. He is a former CheckUser. *User:Polimerek, Tomasz Ganisz, who primarily edits Polish Wikipedia (where he is an admin and former arbitrator), Polish Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons. He also serves the Wikimedia movement as the president of Wikimedia Poland and on the Grant Advisory Committee. He is a former CheckUser. *User:Stryn, who primarily edits the Finnish Wikipedia and Wikidata, serving as an admin on both and as an oversighter on Wikidata 2013 saw other changes in the Ombudsman Commission. The WMF was able to bring the majority of the OC together in person in San Francisco to discuss the best functioning of their role and how the Wikimedia Foundation could more fully support their work. Among other things, this resulted in a Request for comment on Meta concerning the OC's scope ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Scope_of_Ombudsman_Commission), which is now before the Board. Particularly since the OC may be evolving, with new processes and practices created, and since 2014 may be a particularly important year for the OC with the proposed changes to the Privacy Policy (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy), we felt it was a good idea to ask two additional members of the OC to serve the 2014 commission in an advisory capacity. User:Sir48 and User:Thogo, who have both served the OC for three years, have consented to offer their guidance to the new commission and also, if necessary, to fill in in the unlikely event that the Ombudsman Commission is unable to act due to incapacity or
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
Le 16/01/2014 20:13, geni a écrit : On 16 January 2014 13:02, Emmanuel Engelhart kel...@kiwix.org wrote: Dirac, a free codec developed by the BBC, seems to be a good solution. Do people have some experiences with Dirac? No. BBC managed to get it working dedicated machines a few years back and I think there is an alpha trans-coder out there but people have lost interest. Indeed, it seems the development of Dirac is pretty slow/frozen :( But, I have tested it with ffmpeg: the lossless compression seems to work. Theora is good enough for the no compromise on freedom mob and development interest is moving towards webM. Please refer to the original question, we speak here about lossless codecs and AFAIK neither VP8 nor Theora are lossless (or have lossless options). But it seems that VP9 has one and that last month ffmpeg has started to merge patches to support lossless VP9 transcoding... This might be the best approach to deal with raw video material on Commons: https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2013-November/150547.html Emmanuel -- Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline more * Web: http://www.kiwix.org * Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline * more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
Hi David, We were selling video editing softwares at that time, and that's what I remebered for the MPEG-4 royalties. But MPEG LA would do the license thing case by case, maybe my information is not correct now. I just found that MPEG LA has announced in 2010 that it will not charge royalties from Internet video that is free to users from the lifetime of the license, maybe WMF projects can fit the requirement? I think it needs the legal team to do the investigation. The MPEG LA press release for free Internet Video: http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/74/n-10-08-26.pdf Regards, Ted Chien -- Sent from my HTC New One 2014/1/17 下午11:29 於 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com 寫道： On 17 January 2014 15:03, Ted Chien hsiangtai.ch...@gmail.com wrote: From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats, no patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time. So we'd be fine transcoding *from* MPEG4? - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier
On 17 January 2014 08:24, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.ilwrote: Put it inside the following HTML tag: div lang=en dir=ltr class=mw-content-ltr Your important notification. /div [Snip] Of course, it's not great to have to remember to write it every time, so if there is a way to automate in MassMessage or EdwardsBot or whatever is used to send these messages, it would be great. Filed as https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60176. J. -- James D. Forrester Product Manager, VisualEditor Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] A Multimedia Vision for 2016
Yes, an interesting vision indeed and I like these use cases. Having read the other thread about the copyright difficulties with video codecs and I understand this vision is a long way off, but I like this short intro to keep us all on point about what we would like to see: ease of use in contributing and in therefore sharing, both internally (cross project) and externally (to twitter or whatever). 2014/1/14, Fabrice Florin fflo...@wikimedia.org: Dear Gerard, Thank you so much for your kind words about the proposed Multimedia Vision for Wikimedia sites by 2016. (1) I am glad that our first user stories resonate with you. They intentionally focus on ways that our community may interact through multimedia -- and we view these types of productive collaborations between different user groups as a key objective for our work. We really appreciate your thoughtful blog post about this vision (2) and fully agree with you that more user stories will be needed to illustrate the scope of possible interactions between different communities around the world -- from schools to professional or personal sites around the world. We aim to identify more user stories like these to inform our next steps. We are actively working with Lydia, Daniel and the Wikidata team to implement structured data on Commons and integrate it with Wikidata later this year, in collaboration with our community. We expect this work will improve a range of multimedia workflows as a result, from curation to search and beyond. We will definitely address the points you raise. I would also like to thank all the community members who have joined our discussion about this multimedia vision (3). We are grateful for your feedback, and very glad to see a partnership develop between our community and the foundation around these goals, so we may better serve our users together. If you haven’t commented yet, please share your feedback here, after viewing the video: http://ur1.ca/gdljy You are all invited to join our office hours IRC chat about multimedia this Thursday, January 16 at 19:00 UTC (4) — we look forward to discussing this vision and other media projects with you then. More on this later. Thanks again for everyone’s wonderful work in helping share free knowledge through multimedia. All the best, Fabrice (1) Multimedia Vision 2016: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Multimedia_Features/Vision_2016 (2) Blog Post by Gerard: http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2014/01/wikimedia-multimedia-featuresvision-2016.html (3) Discuss the Multimedia Vision: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Multimedia_Features/Vision_2016 (4) Multimedia Office Hours chat on IRC: Thursday at 19:00 UTC https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours ___ Fabrice Florin Product Manager, Multimedia Wikimedia Foundation Multimedia Hub: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia Profile: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF) On Jan 10, 2014, at 4:01 AM, wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote: Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 09:33:30 +0100 From: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia developers wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org, WikiData-l wikidat...@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Commons Discussion List common...@lists.wikimedia.org,Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] A Multimedia Vision for 2016 Message-ID: cao53wxuxycnbfoe6fkugohvvopgb+mc+h9kbhk4btm74fqo...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hoi, Fabrice, I very much love the two stories described in the vision. It describes not only a functionality that is technical, it also describes how our community may interact. That is great. What I missed are the consequences of the planned integration of Commons with Wikidata. I blogged about it [1] and I suggest three more stories that could be told because they are enabled by this integration. What I do not fully understand is how the community aspects will integrate in an environment that will be more multi lingual and multi cultural as a consequence. I have confidence that the three stories that I suggest will be realised by 2016. Not only that, I am pretty sure that as a consequence the amount of traffic that our servers will have to handle will grow enormously to the extend that I am convinced that our current capacity will not be able to cope. Then again, they are the luxury problems that make us appreciate how much room we still have for growth. Thanks, GerardM [1] http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2014/01/wikimedia-multimedia-featuresvision-2016.html On 10 January 2014 01:39, Fabrice Florin fflo...@wikimedia.org wrote: Happy new year, everyone! Many thanks to all of you who contributed to our multimedia programs last year! Now that we have a new
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann derhoe...@gmx.netwrote: * Andrew Lih wrote: BTW, Luis from WMF has put a very lengthy and detailed analysis of the legal issues that does help quite a bit, at the end of the RFC: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#Commercial_use_and_h264 I note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not really have to obtain a license to use H.264 encoders and decoders, users could do the format conversions elsewhere and the Wikimedia Foundation could then merely distribute the files. As the RfC notes, Merely distributing MP4 files never requires a patent license. That would spare us problems like the secret contract issue. That would be the status quo. But that's also the problem -- the conversion tools are lacking and serve as a choke point for contributions. Right now the most ubiquitous MP4 creation devices (your mobile phone) cannot directly upload to Commons because of this issue. (Disappointingly, this is a reason for some Commons users to cheer/vote who simply don't like ease of video contribution.) Requiring users to do format conversion on their side also it makes it extremely hard for remixing, since popular video editors don't ingest Ogg or WebM as downloaded from Commons. You would have a situation of MP4-Ogg/WebM conversion; upload to Commons; next user downloads Commons Ogg/WebM; Ogg/WebM-MP4 conversion; ingest to video editor. That means there's undesirable generation loss. Why does the proposal, instead, suggest the Foundation should engage in the practise of, not just mere distribution, but Internet Broadcasting? That apparently requires a patent license. For that matter, would users who download video automatically obtain Internet Re-Broadcasting rights? Read the details and you'll see that free (as in beer) Internet Broadcast video doesn't need a license. SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf In the case of Internet Broadcast AVC Video (AVC Video that is delivered via the Worldwide Internet to an End User for which the End User does not pay remuneration for the right to receive or view, i.e., neither Title-by-Title nor Subscription), there will be no royalty for the life of the License. I do note that according to MPEG LA there are only about 1300 entities with relevant license agreements, if putting a H.264 video on my web site whether people can download it is Internet Broadcasting and I do not obtain an Internet Broadcasting license by pressing the record button on my camera, or some other automatic process, then that figure is several orders of magnitude too small, or patent holders tolerate a lot of infringement (for the moment). Yes, this is what's confusing about MPEG-LA's stance -- basically it wants to rich entities with deep pockets near the end of the distribution chain to pay. This article might help, but it's still confusing: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-2101-264.html -Andrew ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving Wikimedia's mission? In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is not allowed. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/56100?hl=en Most folks have concluded it's a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service. So much for the remix part if you want to do it outside of YouTube's own editor. More here in the comments: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/27533 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
I'm not sure what debate you're referring to. If it's about whether video belongs in Wikipedia, I don't think it's even in question. Wikipedia started in 2001 as all text. It didn't have photos then, we now have photos. It didn't have audio then, we now have audio. It didn't have video then, we now have video (albeit not that much). Video shouldn't need special justification to be a full-fledged part of Wikiepdia's content. On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving Wikimedia's mission? Actually it did come up, allow me to reproduce the comment in a vote posted by Brad Patrick (former WMF general counsel): I agree that the dominant file format means we need to be able to comprehend what is ingested. But it is not okay to ingest and spew using that file format if it means we are putting on someone else's intellectual property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion, license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David Gerardhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no guiding principal or idea that WMF is intended to be an *exclusive* repository of anything. Others do nothing but video, and that's great. I want there to be video, *but it is not part of a grant vision to out-YouTube YouTube, or Vimeo, or any other huge site with billions of hours of video*. User:Fuzheado https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fuzheado is right - we lack the present toolset to be able to address such volumes of video, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.--BradPatrickhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:BradPatrick (talk https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BradPatrick) 14:45, 16 January 2014 (UTC) Emphasis is mine. I'm sure smart people have debated this before, can anyone point me to it? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote: I'm not sure what debate you're referring to. If it's about whether video belongs in Wikipedia, I don't think it's even in question. Wikipedia started in 2001 as all text. It didn't have photos then, we now have photos. It didn't have audio then, we now have audio. It didn't have video then, we now have video (albeit not that much). Video shouldn't need special justification to be a full-fledged part of Wikiepdia's content. More specifically, if growing Commons as a repository for video in the same way it is for images is the best use of Wikimedia resources. I'd think lobbying Google to be more expansive in its license permissions for cc-by YouTube videos, curating existing educational video content, etc. might bear more fruit. Not to say that using video from Commons to illustrate other projects isn't valuable, but hosting millions of videos not used on any projects (as it is with images on Commons) seems like a misuse of time and effort given the far more popular alternatives. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
Ah. Well if you're not even buying into the legitimacy of photos on Commons, I'm not sure there's a way to have a productive discussion about video. -Andrew On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote: I'm not sure what debate you're referring to. If it's about whether video belongs in Wikipedia, I don't think it's even in question. Wikipedia started in 2001 as all text. It didn't have photos then, we now have photos. It didn't have audio then, we now have audio. It didn't have video then, we now have video (albeit not that much). Video shouldn't need special justification to be a full-fledged part of Wikiepdia's content. More specifically, if growing Commons as a repository for video in the same way it is for images is the best use of Wikimedia resources. I'd think lobbying Google to be more expansive in its license permissions for cc-by YouTube videos, curating existing educational video content, etc. might bear more fruit. Not to say that using video from Commons to illustrate other projects isn't valuable, but hosting millions of videos not used on any projects (as it is with images on Commons) seems like a misuse of time and effort given the far more popular alternatives. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote: Ah. Well if you're not even buying into the legitimacy of photos on Commons, I'm not sure there's a way to have a productive discussion about video. -Andrew No, I think the vast repository of images, properly curated, is valuable and useful. But Commons is still pretty close to square one with video, so it seems natural to discuss whether it can fulfill the same role for video content that it does for images, and whether there exists out there enough interested reusers to make large investments worthwhile. Reading the multimedia vision and watching the video answers some of my questions, in that it seems the goal for videos is more limited than it is for images. I don't think it would be of much value to have 100 million videos where only 50,000 are used in another Wikimedia project, but judging by the video presentation that clearly is not the WMF's goal or direction. Some of the comments in the RFC seemed to suggest that as an object and I'm glad that isn't the case. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier
This is already in the guidelines: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Best_practices_for_reaching_out_to_projects_in_multiple_languages You won't reach all massmessage users on this list. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier
[OMG, I actually wrote quite a lot of that page.] -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore 2014/1/17 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com This is already in the guidelines: https://outreach.wikimedia. org/wiki/Best_practices_for_reaching_out_to_projects_in_multiple_languages You won't reach all massmessage users on this list. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On 17 Jan 2014, at 19:11, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving Wikimedia's mission? In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is not allowed. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/56100?hl=en Most folks have concluded it's a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service. So much for the remix part if you want to do it outside of YouTube's own editor. More here in the comments: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/27533 Doesn’t that break the terms of the CC-BY license, if not legally then at least ethically? The right to distribute copies is built into the license, no? Thanks, Mike ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse I'm not sure this is correct. There are two different implementations possible. * Accept MP4 and support a transcoding toolchain, but only show readers and editors patent-unencumbered* formats. I think this is an excellent idea, and something we should implement. * Accept MP4 and support transcoding as above, show readers and editors patent-unencumbered formats by default, and allow them to download the original file if they wish. This would allow people using toolchains that only support MP4 to continue to edit one another's work without themselves having to implement a transcoding toolchain on the client side. Again, the default presentation for anyone who doesn't know what they are doing would be unencumbered, but we would be more extensively providing a server-side transcoding toolchain for users who do not or cannot [depending on whether they have full control over the hardware they use]. Lionel writes: Most of the time it is a bad idea to upload a video without any form of editing. Most of the time you need to remove at least the begining and the end of a video file. Just because that video is incomplete doesn't mean it is a bad idea to share. As with text, we should be able to upload drafts and work on them online. This sort of basic editing is something we should support online post-upload. Forcing uploaders to have an offline editing toolchain in order to be able to share material is unnecessary; the uploader doesn't have to be the one to refine the result. Sam. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: This proposal asks to move to a free as in beer model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse I'm not sure this is correct. There are two different implementations possible. * Accept MP4 and support a transcoding toolchain, but only show readers and editors patent-unencumbered* formats. I think this is an excellent idea, and something we should implement. +1 * Accept MP4 and support transcoding as above, show readers and editors patent-unencumbered formats by default, and allow them to download the original file if they wish. This would allow people using toolchains that only support MP4 to continue to edit one another's work without themselves having to implement a transcoding toolchain on the client side. Again, the default presentation for anyone who doesn't know what they are doing would be unencumbered, but we would be more extensively providing a server-side transcoding toolchain for users who do not or cannot [depending on whether they have full control over the hardware they use]. Lionel writes: Most of the time it is a bad idea to upload a video without any form of editing. Most of the time you need to remove at least the begining and the end of a video file. Just because that video is incomplete doesn't mean it is a bad idea to share. As with text, we should be able to upload drafts and work on them online. This sort of basic editing is something we should support online post-upload. Forcing uploaders to have an offline editing toolchain in order to be able to share material is unnecessary; the uploader doesn't have to be the one to refine the result. Sam. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Victor Grigas* Storyteller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTVAmstteM Wikimedia Foundation vgri...@wikimedia.org https://donate.wikimedia.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
David Gerard wrote: Given Commons' attitude on even incredibly unlikely copyright risks ... it's just ridiculous to assume such a provision on a format would be allowed to pass. I see at least one person has deemed it a snowball-pass after just a few hours. I find this ... unlikely. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video Looking at the discussion, there are currently approximately 105 users under general support, 167 users under general oppose, and 34 users under partial support (contributions only). The few other sections have a negligible amount of activity. There's already discussion on the talk page about how to close what will inevitably be a very long and contentious discussion. If we avoid treating this RFC as a vote, there's possibly hope for a reasonable compromise. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?
Yes. The current discussion has confused people about the things that are not very contentious: * Ingesting and converting out of more formats is good: we should start ingesting MP4 and converting on the fly. There are no major legal risks to our doing so. * We have a tiny video community; even so we are one of the largest collection of WebM videos on the web. We should try to increase the global population of WebM videos so that there is more incentive for remixers and videographers to start playing with and using compatible tools. * We should increase our support for toolchains for WebM and similar unencumbered formats: by helping the major clients implement support. If we clarify those things, a new RFC that focuses on implementing MP4 autoconversion would have more support. It would be easier faster if the RFC creators chose to close discussion for now while reframing revising the focus of discussion. SJ On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:18 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: David Gerard wrote: Given Commons' attitude on even incredibly unlikely copyright risks ... it's just ridiculous to assume such a provision on a format would be allowed to pass. I see at least one person has deemed it a snowball-pass after just a few hours. I find this ... unlikely. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video Looking at the discussion, there are currently approximately 105 users under general support, 167 users under general oppose, and 34 users under partial support (contributions only). The few other sections have a negligible amount of activity. There's already discussion on the talk page about how to close what will inevitably be a very long and contentious discussion. If we avoid treating this RFC as a vote, there's possibly hope for a reasonable compromise. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Community consultation + Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director selection process
Hi. Is there a community consultation period built in to the selection process for a new Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director? If not, should there be? In trying to figure out what the selection process may look like, I re-reviewed some of the relevant FAQs and timelines: * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/90968 * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/91132 * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/7127367 As I understand the basic process, the Transition Team will ultimately find a suitable candidate and will make a recommendation to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. (Please correct me if this description is mistaken... this is largely unchartered territory for Wikimedia.) When this recommendation is made and prior to the Board voting, should the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to weigh in on the candidate Selection prior to final approval? If so, in what way? These questions are not meant to suggest that the Wikimedia community and the Transition Team have not been working together already (e.g., in creating a connectors list, drafting interview questions, etc.). While nobody would reasonably argue that every Wikimedia Foundation employee be vetted by the Wikimedia community, it seems to me that this particular position is unique given its enormous influence in shaping Wikimedia's course. As I understand it, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is (s)elected to ultimately make the choice of who oversees the daily operations of the Wikimedia Foundation as Executive Director. However, I believe that ensuring that the community is adequately consulted is important. Relatedly, I've asked the Executive Director Transition Team on-wiki about the possibility of more regular status updates on its progress in some form (mailing list posts, wiki page updates, etc.). MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
