subject: [Commons-l] Deletion of still-used images

body:
Florian Straub wrote:
> "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 11 Aug 2006
> 19:34:00 +0930:
>
>> What we really need are links on local projects to the deletion log on
>> Commons for the "no such image" pages... there's nothing like a redlink
>> to make people ask "Whoa! What happened to that image?", but unless they
>> can find a reason (cf. the deletion record on Commons saying that
>> something was a copyvio) they're going to get angry.
>
> We already have that on de.wp - works fine, I think.
>
> Can anyone tell me how I can reply to the daily digest WITHOUT messing up
> the whole thread at
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2006-August/thread.html#511 ?
>

Switch to individual messages and use a different email program; Outlook
can't handle threads at all.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

references:
<44DC5C85.7030405@wikia.com>
	<NMENLBGDKAFGBDHEPOBNKEKPDCAA.erikzachte@infodisiac.com>
	<71cd4dd90608120617q341d679cs8030b83b855cfd26@mail.gmail.com>
	<41a006820608120920w52206e07ld1d3a8d8289e101d@mail.gmail.com>

body:
"When it is said that a board member only needs to spend "only" a few
hours a week on this function, the reality is very much ignored. By
expressing that this "should be the case" and by not indicating what
needs to be done to make this happen, I am afraid that false
expectations are raised."

I believe that getting the Wikimedia Foundation to a point where each
board member only needs to spend a couple hours a week is a perfectly
reasonable expectation.  To provide a specific outline as to what
needs to happen, the board members who feel that they need to spend
more time than that would need to provide an outline of what they do
spend their time on.  In the case of Ant she has stated on the mailing
lists that her phone number is on the net and she spends time
answering 10 phone calls a day none of which require a board member
(and frankly none of which need to be answered at all).  She also says
she spends a lot of time on OTRS.  Looking at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_OTRS, there has
apparently been a board resolution (as of May 26, 2006) to hire
someone to take care of this.  It's unclear to me whether or not
someone has yet been hired to do so.

When I hear Ant say she spends so much of her time doing these little
jobs that could easily be handled by an employee making a minimal
salary (if not by a volunteer making nothing), and then I look at
about a million dollar annual budget with half of it being spent on
capital expenditures, what else am I supposed to think?

You say that there is a big need for the WMF board to spend a lot of
time on organizational matters.  What is it that you think the board
*needs* to do?

Anthony

On 8/12/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> There is a big difference between how "it should" and "how it is". For all
> kinds of reasons, there is a big NEED and EXPECTATION that a WMF board
> member spends a lot of time on the organisational matters of the board. Not
> only is there the need to communicate in order to come to the strategy of
> the foundation, it is also expected that board members are part of
> committees and play an active part in these. I have heard horror stories
> where board members were denied access to information of "committees" and it
> is therefore understandable that these invisible organisational units are
> considered to operate in stealth mode.
>
> At this moment the organisation is very much in flux. Not only has Angela
> decided to quit, Brad is finding his way in the murky dealings of the WMF
> organisation, the committees pronounce very much that they are only starting
> to get going. To top it off, many of the current people who are up for
> election for the board are manifestly unsuited to the task because of their
> narrow minded platform.
>
> When it is said that a board member only needs to spend "only" a few hours a
> week on this function, the reality is very much ignored. By expressing that
> this "should be the case" and by not indicating what needs to be done to
> make this happen, I am afraid that false expectations are raised. At this
> time, being a board member seems to be the kind of activity that eats up all
> the time that you can throw at it. It has relatively little to do with any
> one project and as Anthere says, it is hard work for little recognition.
>
> I wish all future board members well, but I hope that none are chosen
> because of their ideas on how the English Wikipedia can be improved. They do
> not understand what is needed.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On 8/12/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 8/11/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
> > > Anthere quit/lost (no idea which) her job while being a board member, as
> > she
> > > professed publicly some time ago, so I can quote that. She also told she
> > > works nearly full time on the project and given her omnipresence, this
> > might
> > > well be an understatement. I think we should be grateful she is putting
> > so
> > > much time in the project. And I am sure everyone is. But maybe we ought
> > to
> > > taken a moment to discuss the consequences.
> > >
> >  > If I remember correctly Anthere responded to a question from the
> > audience.
> > > Candid as she always is, she explained her financial situation (again).
> > So I
> > > feel I can comment on that some more.
> > >
> > > I don't know many mothers with three young children who can afford to
> > spend
> > > so much time pro bono. Of course there must be more Wikimedians in a
> > similar
> > > situation, who show as much commitment. Still I feel the organisation
> > has a
> > > special obligation towards its official representatives. If only people
> > who
> > > are financially independent can afford to work for the organisation in
> > > central positions, and others do it to their own detriment, I think the
> > > organisation (not on purpose but still) puts a bias on its central
> > workforce
> > > which is unwanted. These issues have been discussed before. But we have
> > > grown from a small village to a large city, and our budget has increased
> > > with it. We can even afford to delay fundraisers so it is not that we
> > are
> > > entirely unable to even discuss this due to lack of funds. Brad
> > commented to
> > > this effect.
> > >
> > > I have no idea how other non profit organisations handle this, but
> > frankly I
> > > think we should make up our own mind.
> > >
> > Well, I think we should follow the lead of other non-profit organizations.
> >
> > Being a board member shouldn't require a lot of time - a couple hours
> > a week at the most.  If a board member wants to spend more time
> > voluntarily, that's fine.  But if someone wants to spent 40 hours a
> > week helping Wikimedia, and isn't in a financial position to do that
> > for free, and Wikimedia agrees to pay them for this, then they
> > shouldn't be a board member.  It's too much of a potential for a
> > conflict of interest.
> >
> > I don't mean to say this as though it's a simple change to make.  But
> > it's extremely important that the change be made.
> >
> > Anthony
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


list: wikien-l

from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Future avenues of garnering participation;
 or, How Wikipedia is currently a crappy/crack-tastic game

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/12/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
>> But we here are fans of wikis, good ol' Web 2.0, the RW web.  Why not
>> apply these ideas to Wikipedia? Disambiguations are one possibility;
>> categorization is another; image tagging or pace ESP Game,
>> descriptions (I know we have to have a bunch of images on en or
>
> I think there's definitely scope for something like that there. I
> recently saw a demo of this website "Facebook", a socialising tool for
> US college students and was blown away by how information-rich it was,
> and how many endless opportunities there were for users to just "add
> information". One person would label an image with 3 names, and 2
> blanks, someone else could correct one of the 3, and add 2 more etc.
> People could constantly find friends that they had in common with
> others etc, and the wealth of information there was amazing.
>

Gargh, Facebook is both old (we used to use it for meetups) and evil
(it's been taken over by commerical interests and is now completely
useless).

> Granted, an encyclopaedia isn't quite as exciting as building a social
> network, but a lot of people (like me) enjoy the basic process of
> categorising, organising, structuring and so forth. If we could come
> up with some fun tools to make this easier (like Catscan, but
> integrated into Wikipedia, and made even faster and more powerful),
> there could be a lot of benefit.
>

Fun? You're not allowed to have /fun/. Having fun results in making
uniforms, badges, stickers, awards, ranks, logos, and "cool" names for
yourself like "Idiot Counter Unit".

> How would you make it a game, though? Do you have any ideas? Can we
> adapt kittenfight.com? :)
>

I heard there's a really fun game you can play on Wikipedia already -
vandalise something and wait to see how long (if ever) it takes for
someone to fix it!

In all seriousness, "offically" turning Wikipedia into a game is a Bad
Idea, because too many people already think that it is, for all the
wrong reasons. They seem to forget that we're meant to be writing the
world's most comprehensive, and better yet, FREE (as in Speech)
Encyclopedia. WP:NOT a game.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Alison Wheeler

subject: [Foundation-l] Speakers (was *way* too long!)

body:
On Sat, August 12, 2006 15:52, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I have for a very long time now stressed to everyone who invites me to
> speak that they are inviting me in my personal capacity.  So this
> policy will have no impact on me.  But it could have impact on many
> others.

I will stick my head above the parapet here, but comment that *nobody* is
inviting you in a 'personal' capacity. They are inviting you because of
WMF, not because of your history at Chicago Options Associates, Bomis or
anything else whatsoever, and to suggest you can separate yourself from
WMF in this way is rather misleading.

> I believe, and my memory might be weak here so someone can correct me,
> that this question first came up when David Gerard gave a
> talk in the UK, a talk for which there was an honorarium (small)
> associated with it.  The small amount of money involved, it seems to me,
> quite properly
> should go to David for his efforts.  And why not?

The UK Chapter reviewed that (it was for the BBC) and concluded that where
WMUK is the body contacted then any fees received will go to WMUK and the
person(s) concerned would be covered for their expenses. In this instance,
David was representing the WMF directly (the contact came via WMF) and so
it is up to the WMF to decide on such things. AIUI in this instance the
'fee' was basically sufficient to cover the costs involved, so effectively
balanced what would have been claimed anyway.

This is all about how professional we wish to behave and how we wish the
WMF to grow and mature in the future. If we are looking at it as a cash
cow for a select few individuals then outwith the short term there will
clearly be problems in maintaining credibility and capability in delth.

Alison Wheeler


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Invited by admin to leave en if concerned about free
 reusability

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 8/11/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
>> I think that there is plenty of room for contributors to wikimedia projects
>>who aren't interested in the potential for reuse of those projects, but I am
>>wondering where en is at if admins are actively dissuading contributors who
>>value it.
>
> Incidentally, why has no one pointed out that what "admins" think is
> irrelevant. They have no particular standing within the project, and
> no more say than anyone else on *any* issue. Admins are employed to
> take care of obvious vandals and various other boring tasks. They
> don't decide who stays and who goes.

Whether we like it or not, the views expressed by an identified admin
carry more weight than those of, say, Joe Bloggs, who's merely written a
few hundred articles, taken thousands of beautiful photographs, taken
dozens of pages from Cleanup to FA status, and so on, but has not
otherwise contributed meaningfully to the project as yet (what a parasite!).

We can repeat "adminship is no big deal" as often as we want, and
hopefully some non-admins will start to believe it.  Regardless, what an
admin says *is* often noticed, and so admins have a responsibility to
behave themselves.  Admins who say stupid things should not be noticed
more than users who say stupid things; however, given that they *are*,
our collection of admins therefore damn well ought to *stop* saying
stupid things.

(I note the admin in question was Herostratus, whose recent passing RfA
I was very cheered to see.  It's always the one you least expect, eh?)

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Foundation-l] Honorarium (was Re: [Found>,
	> This conversation had jumped back and forth ....)

body:
On 8/12/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these honoraria essentially Jimmy's only
> means of income? I don't know if he draws a salary from Wikia, but I'm
> fairly sure that the company is not yet turning a profit. He works almost
> full-time publicising Wikimedia. It would seem very strange to me to deny
> him this one small token of our appreciation.

Imagine for a moment a world where demand for official Wikimedia talks
is so great that they fetch prices of upwards of $20,000 each.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have such speakers on our payroll at
that point? ;)

In any case, so long as a speakers isn't using the foundation's
trademarks, or otherwise deriving  revenue from directly from our
collected goodwill then there isn't a darn thing we could do to stop
them.  The question of "if the money should go to the foundation" in
such cases is thus immaterial.


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

references:
<NMENLBGDKAFGBDHEPOBNKEKLDCAA.erikzachte@infodisiac.com>
	<44DCEBD5.7010509@telus.net> <ebjapb$d4j$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anyone there who
>> actually saw the tiny baby in the gentle hands of a gorilla would have
>> laughed.
>
> errrr.
>
> by the way, here is a picture of one of our current candidate :
> http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_5544.JPG
>
> I like this one as well :http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuirdj/206009045/
>

Heh :)

>
> As for
> Q: Why is Angela leaving the board? She says it's become less
> collaborative. How? A: (Angela) E.g., we vote on a wiki rather than
> having discussions.
>
> She has it right on spot. Before, we talked. And after, we were unable
> to remember exactly what was decided and when.
> Now we vote. And we are nearly unable to settle on a proposition which
> makes sense to all of us precisely because it is in written format.
>

I hope I'm not oversimplifying this, but...

IRC is closer to talking than using a Wiki, and you can log it...

You can always record a conversation...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anyone there who
>> actually saw the tiny baby in the gentle hands of a gorilla would have
>> laughed.
>
> errrr.
>
> by the way, here is a picture of one of our current candidate :
> http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_5544.JPG
>
> I like this one as well :http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuirdj/206009045/
>

Heh :)

>
> As for
> Q: Why is Angela leaving the board? She says it's become less
> collaborative. How? A: (Angela) E.g., we vote on a wiki rather than
> having discussions.
>
> She has it right on spot. Before, we talked. And after, we were unable
> to remember exactly what was decided and when.
> Now we vote. And we are nearly unable to settle on a proposition which
> makes sense to all of us precisely because it is in written format.
>

I hope I'm not oversimplifying this, but...

IRC is closer to talking than using a Wiki, and you can log it...

You can always record a conversation...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anyone there who
>> actually saw the tiny baby in the gentle hands of a gorilla would have
>> laughed.
>
> errrr.
>
> by the way, here is a picture of one of our current candidate :
> http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_5544.JPG
>
> I like this one as well :http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuirdj/206009045/
>

Heh :)

>
> As for
> Q: Why is Angela leaving the board? She says it's become less
> collaborative. How? A: (Angela) E.g., we vote on a wiki rather than
> having discussions.
>
> She has it right on spot. Before, we talked. And after, we were unable
> to remember exactly what was decided and when.
> Now we vote. And we are nearly unable to settle on a proposition which
> makes sense to all of us precisely because it is in written format.
>

I hope I'm not oversimplifying this, but...

IRC is closer to talking than using a Wiki, and you can log it...

You can always record a conversation...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anyone there who
>> actually saw the tiny baby in the gentle hands of a gorilla would have
>> laughed.
>
> errrr.
>
> by the way, here is a picture of one of our current candidate :
> http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_5544.JPG
>
> I like this one as well :http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuirdj/206009045/
>

Heh :)

>
> As for
> Q: Why is Angela leaving the board? She says it's become less
> collaborative. How? A: (Angela) E.g., we vote on a wiki rather than
> having discussions.
>
> She has it right on spot. Before, we talked. And after, we were unable
> to remember exactly what was decided and when.
> Now we vote. And we are nearly unable to settle on a proposition which
> makes sense to all of us precisely because it is in written format.
>

I hope I'm not oversimplifying this, but...

IRC is closer to talking than using a Wiki, and you can log it...

You can always record a conversation...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 8/12/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these honoraria essentially Jimmy's only
> means of income? I don't know if he draws a salary from Wikia, but I'm
> fairly sure that the company is not yet turning a profit. He works almost
> full-time publicising Wikimedia. It would seem very strange to me to deny
> him this one small token of our appreciation.

The bylaws should probably be changed then, since according to Jimbo
they prohibit compensating board members.

Anthony


from_name: Filip Maljkovic

subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Walter Vermeir wrote:
>
>
>> Ray Saintonge schreef:
>> [cut]
>>
>>
>>
>>> While it is also possible that there can be rogue bureaucrats, these
>>> will be proportionally rarer than rogue admins.  Anyone who has become a
>>> bureaucrat has a very high degree of trust in the community, and
>>> especially in relatively larger communities there is sufficient
>>> oversight to prevent the abuses that may be more common with the
>>> untested bureaucrats of tiny communities.  Speaking arbitrarily, one
>>> could define a larger community, as one with at least 50,000 articles
>>> and/or 2 active bureaucrats.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Not all wikis are the same. You can not project the situation of EN to
>> all other wikis.
>>
>> I have just done a de-sysop/de-bureaucrat on the Serbian Wikpedia. There
>> the have (now) 40 sysops and of those 25 are bureaucrat.
>>
>> That is from my POV an irresponsible number of bureaucrats. I do not
>> know how many active user there are. The have 34700 articles.
>>
>>
> 25 bureaucrats on such a small project doesn't make sense considering
> the limited duties that are reserved for bureaucrats.  Still it's up to
> the sr community to sort that one out.
>
> Ec
>
The fact that we have that many bureaucrats comes from our character as
a community: up until recently we've been pretty open and hadn't made a
big deal out of administrators and bureaucrats. But now, with what's
been happening recently, I think that there's a consensus that we should
reduce the number of bureaucrats to a minimum (5 or so) that would carry
out the bureaucrat tasks when they are asked.

Filip


subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [Foundation-l] board, babysitting, speaking engagements, etc.

body:
On 8/12/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:

> 1. Requests for speakers from the Foundation will be approved by a
> subcommittee of the Communications Committee to be known as the "Speakers
> Subcommittee.".

In the Communications Committee meeting earlier today there was no
significant objection to the idea of creating a Speakers subcommittee
to manage this, though specifics were not discussed in depth; Amgine
has been doing a fair bit of speaker handling through requests mailed
to WMF already. I endorse the general idea of this being managed
through a committee, approving speakers and archiving presentations;
not decided on other details.

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Future avenues of garnering participation;
	or, How Wikipedia is currently a crappy/crack-tastic game

body:
On 8/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
...
> I heard there's a really fun game you can play on Wikipedia already -
> vandalise something and wait to see how long (if ever) it takes for
> someone to fix it!
>
> In all seriousness, "offically" turning Wikipedia into a game is a Bad
> Idea, because too many people already think that it is, for all the
> wrong reasons. They seem to forget that we're meant to be writing the
> world's most comprehensive, and better yet, FREE (as in Speech)
> Encyclopedia. WP:NOT a game.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax

Well, I was trying for a funny conclusion there. I doubt we could turn
*all* of Wikipedia into a game - how would that even work, anyway?
You'd have people presented random paragraphs and asked where the
error is (in some cases added by computer, and in some cases not)?
That's the best I can come up with anyway, although it might be
interesting to have competitive article writing-based games - but
rather that we might as well formalize some otherwise tedious and
repetitve aspects of Wikipedia that do need to get done and put them
in game form so they can get done and free up editor effort for more
worthwhile things like writing new articles or rewriting old ones.

~maru


from_name: Sarah

subject: [WikiEN-l] Another Israeli apartheid RFD

body:
On 8/9/06, M. Queen <mqueen05 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a systemic bias in WIkipedia on certain subjects. The Middle East
> is one of them because there are more fluent English speaking Israelis and
> Jews than there are fluent English speaking Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims.

Can you give an example of an article that you think is unduly biased
in favor of Israel, and say exactly which parts of it illustrate that
bias? Also, could you say what your user name is?

Sarah


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary

body:
On 8/12/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> 40 admins, 25 are bureaucrats? Yikes! I thought having 42 admins with 4
> bureaucrats was a lot!
>

Certian projects tend to promote people to bureaucrat rather than
admin. Species for one.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject: [Foundation-l] WMF staff & hiring

body:
Angela wrote:
> On 8/13/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> Looking at
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_OTRS, there has
>> apparently been a board resolution (as of May 26, 2006) to hire
>> someone to take care of this.  It's unclear to me whether or not
>> someone has yet been hired to do so.
>>
>
> Someone was hired for this but she quit already. I don't know the
> exact details of why she left. I believe Brad was tasked with finding
> a replacement.
>
> Angela.
>
On the subject of office help, we advertised on Craig's list locally and
hired someone.  She since received an offer to work at her daughter's
school, which included a 40% tuition break so....

We have someone who just started Friday for the first time; she is a
very professional person who is a great receptionist.  Alas, it is her
son and not she who speaks German.  If things work out with her I
anticipate she will be a receptionist and office person.  As soon as we
go into a serious fundraising mode, the office will be overwhelmed.

As to OTRS, I was not able to attend the WM06 OTRS session, but
understand a large number of excellent suggestions came out of that and
there is a plan to help fix things.  I have no doubt paid OTRS list
management would be a great thing; nearly all of the OTRS folks I think
of off the top of my head are gainfully employed elsewhere and not quite
the right fit.  Surely we will come up with an appropriate solution.
Our traffic on OTRS will not be diminishing significantly anytime soon.

So far as the rest of WMF operations go, one of the major considerations
for the next year is what the correct size for WMF in terms of employees
ought to be.  I can easily imagine expanding our roster by a handful in
short order; there is certainly a landslide of work and not enough hands
to guarantee things get done.  Just thinking out loud:

Press - we will always have press issues.  Should we have a paid staff
person to be the press liason?
Chapters - Surely the Foundation needs to understand the role of
chapters and what staff it will take to support them.  Hint, we can't do
anything substantial with the 4 professional staff we have
Tech - Brion and Tim are all we have for paid staff.  Do you trust the
whole shebang to just run?  We need more dedicated to *guarantee*
performance.
Accounting - WMF needs professional bookkeeping. It is irresponsible to
run a million dollar organization without professional accounting
assistance.
Marketing and fundraising may also evolve to include professional
staff.  Note: Danny is grants coordinator and will be doing a lot more
of that work in the near future.

The bottom line here is that we have an extraordinary organization.  It
may have been appropriate to run things without paid staff two years ago
when raising $30,000 for servers seemed like a big task.  We are now the
15.5th ranked website in the world.  Our financial picture is about to
change dramatically, once we have our audit completed in the next few weeks.

The state of the Foundation is strong.  We have phenomenal potential.
Because Jimmy has been on world tour for years, but has *not* been
pitching Big Rich Guys for money, he has accumulated great goodwill.  We
are on the verge of finally pulling together a program of sustainable
activity with clearly defined goals and clean financials.  Exactly the
kind of situation that serious fundraising calls for.

This is the big picture stuff the board will be thinking about for the
Retreat.   I'm not worried about a million dollar donation.  I'm worried
about how to think about an organization that has a *billion* dollars.
We have jumped several orders of magnitude.  WMF isn't going to be
holding bake sales to buy servers.


subject: [Foundation-l] WMF staff & hiring


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Revised proposal

body:
I had no idea of the maelstrom point seven in my proposal would lead to.
That said, I want to remove that point as contentious, and resubmit the proposal
without it for now.

In response to some of Anthere's questions, I believe that most speaking
requests continue to come through the office or the communications committee.
Many of the private requests were actually directed to individuals through the
office or the comcom.

Although I admit that we cannot enforce it, in the event that people are
asked privately, we can ask them to inform the Foundation. For one thing, it is
good to know where people are speaking, while we also stand to benefit from
their experiences and can provide support if we have a repository of speeches,
questions, AV material, etc. available for them.

While I believe that we can turn down speaking engagements, the reason
should never be because the requesting group has no money.

As for budgeting talks, I have no problem at all if the order of 3 and 4  are
reversed. My feeling is, however, that for talks in Europe, it is probably
wiser to send someone locally than to send someone from the US. Nevertheless,
this also involves costs and questions. If a free talk is requested in
Romania,  is it cheaper to send someone from Serbia or from England. That should be a
 consideration too (until we find an ideal Romanian speaker--this is only an
example).

Finally, I believe that we should be as wary of the use of our logo and tm
in talks as we are when it is used online.

Having said all that, I submit an amended proposal.

1. Requests for speakers from the Foundation will be approved by a
subcommittee of the Communications Committee to be known as the  "Speakers
Subcommittee."

2. The Speakers Subcommittee will determine whether and how fulfilling  the
request furthers the goals of the Foundation. This will be called  Speaker
Objectives.

3. The Speakers Subcommittee will then determine whether the Speaker
Objectives are equal or greater to the costs involved in sending a speaker
to  the
event.

4. The Speaker Subcommittee will then determine  which representative of the
WMF is best suited to deliver the talk,  based on considerations of language,

geography, skills, conference  needs, availability, etc.

5. Basic costs for speakers will include
a. transportation
b. per diem (hotel,  food)
c. ancillary (babysitting, formal wear such as   renting a tux, other)

6. The Speaker Subcommittee will negotiate with the requesting  organization
to ensure that they cover as much of these costs as  possible. Should the
event
be deemed worthwhile, but the requesting  organization is unable to cover
these  basic costs, the Speakers  Committee will determine a budget for the
speaker to   participate.

7. A calendar of speaking engagements and speakers will be  maintained  in a
public space, such as wikimediafoundation.org.

8. The Foundation will discourage the use of logos, registered tms, etc.,
except by speakers  approved and appointed by the Speakers  Subcommittee.

9. Upon completing their speaking engagement, speakers will provide a
written report to the Speakers Subcommittee in which they describe whether
and  how
the Speaker Objectives were met.

10. The written report will include a summary of the talk, major  questions
asked, and a copy of handouts, PowerPoint presentations,  etc. as  necessary.

11. These materials will be made easily available to other speakers so  as
to
enhance their own presentations.

12. Upon completing their speaking engagement, speakers will also   submit
any
receipts for *approved* expenses.

13. Upon submission of receipts, the written report, and ancillary
materials--and only upon their submission--the speaker will be reimbursed
for  any
out-of-pocket expenses.


subject: [Foundation-l] Revised proposal


subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary

body:
geni wrote:
> On 8/12/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 40 admins, 25 are bureaucrats? Yikes! I thought having 42 admins with 4
>> bureaucrats was a lot!
>>
>>
>
> Certian projects tend to promote people to bureaucrat rather than
> admin. Species for one.
>
In Serbian Wikipedia, on the other hand, there was a lax policy
regarding admin/bureau. promotions. Namely, after 1 month of active
contributions, you could become an admin and after 1 more month, a
bureaucrat. That has changed in the past half a year or so. Now, with
regards to some recent situations, I wouldn't be surprised if the policy
becomes ever so restrictive. I, for example, became an admin in 11 days
(fastest in sr: wikipedia). :) But that was more than a year ago...

Filip


subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Are TV screencaps reputable sources?

body:
jayjg wrote:
> On 8/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>> I seriously question the notion that using material from the original
>> movie or book is original research.
>
> I don't see how you possibly could question it; it's clear as day (see
> above). Where have the screencaps in question been published?

On TV. In the case of Star Trek in particular they've also been
published on DVD.

>> The original research was done by
>> the author of the book.
>
> That's right, and he's allowed to. Scientists, researchers, authors,
> newspaper reporters - they all do original research.  We don't, we use
> the material the have published in reliable sources instead.

NOR explicitly allows the use of primary sources, which as far as I can
tell a broadcast or DVD showing of a television episode is.

The "is a TV episode a primary source?" debate was in full swing back
when I left on vacation a couple weeks ago, good to see it wasn't
resolved behind my back. :)

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Categories

body:
On 8/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> While a list begins with a box and tries to put items
> into it, a category begins with an item and tries to find the box in
> which it belongs.

That's true for the *current* category scheme, but it doesn't have to
be true.  It would hardly be impossible for categories to be editable
from the category page as well as from the pages of their contents.
It would make some things a lot easier, too.  It's just not something
that's probably going to happen in the immediate future.  If/when it
does happen, combined with bug 1775, lists will finally become
obsolete.


from_name: jayjg

body:
On 8/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
> >Joe Anderson wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Cool Cat recently created an article called Starfleet
> >>Uniforms<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfleet_Uniforms>,
> >>and it was nominated for deletion as cruft and OR.
> >>
> >>The screencaps/promo photos in the article, IMO, acted as a reputable
> >>source. I mean, how else (canonically) are you going to know about the
> >>uniform switch between TOS and TNG? Using a book is not canonical, and
> >>therefore is surely not [[WP:V]].
> >>
> >>
> >There are such things as Star Trek encyclopediae, which report canon and
> >real life (and probably not fanfic/other non-canon).
> >
> >While the TV shows are canonical (as are the movies (except where
> >continuity fails, cf. /Enterprise/)), using a screencap is close to
> >original research and on dangerous ground wrt. using "fair use" as an
> >excuse for copyright infringement.
> >
> So using a picture from the secondary source would be somehow more free
> than using a screen capture?

No, the secondary source would describe the uniform switch from TOS to TNG.

> If one draws from a Star Trek Encyclopedia, comparing what is said there
> with the original source is still important.  How else are you going to
> know whether the Encyclopedia information is accurate?

"Wikipedia articles include material on the basis of verifiability,
not truth. That is, we report what other reliable sources have
published, whether or not we regard the material as accurate. In order
to avoid doing original research, and in order to help improve the
quality of Wikipedia articles, it is essential that any primary-source
material, as well as any generalization, analysis, synthesis,
interpretation, or evaluation of information or data, has been
published by a reputable third-party publication (that is, not
self-published) that is available to readers either from a website
(other than Wikipedia) or through a public library. It is very
important to cite sources appropriately, so that readers can find your
source and can satisfy themselves that Wikipedia has used the source
correctly." WP:NOR

> I seriously question the notion that using material from the original
> movie or book is original research.

I don't see how you possibly could question it; it's clear as day (see
above). Where have the screencaps in question been published?

>The original research was done by
> the author of the book.

That's right, and he's allowed to. Scientists, researchers, authors,
newspaper reporters - they all do original research.  We don't, we use
the material the have published in reliable sources instead.

Jay.


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

references:
<ebfkoi$bup$1@sea.gmane.org> <ebflq6$fkg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<71cd4dd90608101016y80834albe8cb906c2bc5c@mail.gmail.com>
	<453b6e50608101058p518c54dcg1a84b8efa8615c33@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90608101157n5465cf51n7e5886e07cda7cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<ebievm$ukr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<71cd4dd90608120459v4abdd59dhec68589a5c6d650c@mail.gmail.com>
	<ae4e17e00608120510w42ee72dcmfff8a39b34017fdc@mail.gmail.com>
	<8b722b800608121318y6f5f4d9ana0dbea833f36ab03@mail.gmail.com>

body:
This sounds weird. Don't have access to it. :-S. A Board should be
able to oversee the activities of the "company". And of course I
understand that there may be tasks within the board, where is stated
who oversees what, and is responsible for that. But as the committees
give advice to the Board at this moment only, and do formally (as far
as i know) not *make* the decision (the Board still has to accept the
resolution, right?) I would expect that at least some Boardmembers
(those who are responsible for that area) have access to those wiki's.
Is there maybe some list of responsibilities of the boardmembers, on
what basis it may appear more logical that some boardmembers (hearing
the sound of her writing, angela appears not to have access to some?)
do or don't have access to certain sources of information, relevant to
their functioning as boardmember? Is there further a list of private
channels and wiki's available with globally the access? (for example
certain Board members and committeemembers) I can understand of course
that certain conversations and/or information should be out-of-public,
but I wonder if the information that there is certain non-public
information should be classified as well.

Greetings, Lodewijk Gelauff

2006/8/12, Angela <beesley at gmail.com>:
> On 8/12/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > But in the mean time, I don't think it's at all unusual for a
> > > candidate to publish his or her discussion page on a particular
> > > project.  Checking meta all the time is just ridiculous.
> > > -- Anthony
> >
> > Don't board members work mostly on meta? (with side orders of
> > wikimediafoundation.org and projects?)
>
> No, some Board members don't work on those wikis at all, but only on a
> number of private wikis (one Board wiki and various committee wikis
> which not all Board members even have access to).
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary

body:
I can imagine that it works well for a lot of wiki's. As I understood
also WiktionaryZ is very easy on the behalf of making someone sysop.
And other wiki's are as well. It is very like "adminship is no big
deal". And maybe it shouldn't. But then deamminship shouldn't be a big
deal either i think. Because when someone is adminned easely, the
chance that you grab someone who doesn't fit the profile is easier,
and deadminning should be easier, so you can fix it quick as well.
I've seen little misuse of people with adminship, apart from things
like easier blocking etc. But that is something the community can and
should solve anyway. You will have the same issues on that behalf when
s.o. is after a hard procedure admin.
And regarding bureaucrat, that shouldn't be a big deal either maybe.
Because a sysop is supposed to be trusted, the bureaucrat is as well.
As long as you watch closely what each bc is doing.

greetings, Lodewijk

2006/8/12, Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com>:
> geni wrote:
> > On 8/12/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> 40 admins, 25 are bureaucrats? Yikes! I thought having 42 admins with 4
> >> bureaucrats was a lot!
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Certian projects tend to promote people to bureaucrat rather than
> > admin. Species for one.
> >
> In Serbian Wikipedia, on the other hand, there was a lax policy
> regarding admin/bureau. promotions. Namely, after 1 month of active
> contributions, you could become an admin and after 1 more month, a
> bureaucrat. That has changed in the past half a year or so. Now, with
> regards to some recent situations, I wouldn't be surprised if the policy
> becomes ever so restrictive. I, for example, became an admin in 11 days
> (fastest in sr: wikipedia). :) But that was more than a year ago...
>
> Filip
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
jayjg wrote:

>On 8/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Joe Anderson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Cool Cat recently created an article called Starfleet
>>>>Uniforms<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfleet_Uniforms>,
>>>>and it was nominated for deletion as cruft and OR.
>>>>
>>>>The screencaps/promo photos in the article, IMO, acted as a reputable
>>>>source. I mean, how else (canonically) are you going to know about the
>>>>uniform switch between TOS and TNG? Using a book is not canonical, and
>>>>therefore is surely not [[WP:V]].
>>>>
>>>>
>>>There are such things as Star Trek encyclopediae, which report canon and
>>>real life (and probably not fanfic/other non-canon).
>>>
>>>While the TV shows are canonical (as are the movies (except where
>>>continuity fails, cf. /Enterprise/)), using a screencap is close to
>>>original research and on dangerous ground wrt. using "fair use" as an
>>>excuse for copyright infringement.
>>>
>>>
>>So using a picture from the secondary source would be somehow more free
>>than using a screen capture?
>>
>>
>No, the secondary source would describe the uniform switch from TOS to TNG.
>
So would sample screen captures from episode of the two programs.  You
would be able to see the difference without explanation.  This doesn't
explain your gratuitous red herring about copyright infringement.

>>If one draws from a Star Trek Encyclopedia, comparing what is said there
>>with the original source is still important.  How else are you going to
>>know whether the Encyclopedia information is accurate?
>>
>>
>"Wikipedia articles include material on the basis of verifiability,
>not truth. That is, we report what other reliable sources have
>published, whether or not we regard the material as accurate. In order
>to avoid doing original research, and in order to help improve the
>quality of Wikipedia articles, it is essential that any primary-source
>material, as well as any generalization, analysis, synthesis,
>interpretation, or evaluation of information or data, has been
>published by a reputable third-party publication (that is, not
>self-published) that is available to readers either from a website
>(other than Wikipedia) or through a public library. It is very
>important to cite sources appropriately, so that readers can find your
>source and can satisfy themselves that Wikipedia has used the source
>correctly." WP:NOR
>
I see.  So you believe that slavish adherence to the ravings of policy
wonks is more important than accuracy.  By your analysis above, if the
material in a Star Trek Encyclopedia is just plain dead fucking wrong we
would not be allowed to point that out because you consider it to be
original research.  When it gets that far it strikes me as though the
lunatics have taken over the asylum.

>>I seriously question the notion that using material from the original
>>movie or book is original research.
>>
>>
>I don't see how you possibly could question it; it's clear as day (see
>above). Where have the screencaps in question been published?
>
It's clear as day that they were published when the movie was released.

>>The original research was done by
>>the author of the book.
>>
>>
>That's right, and he's allowed to. Scientists, researchers, authors,
>newspaper reporters - they all do original research.  We don't, we use
>the material the have published in reliable sources instead.
>
Then I'm glad that you agree that since the author of the Star Trek
novel or movie script did the original research our use of that material
is not original research.

Ec


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-13

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 413 of 429 tests (96.27%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Challenge: explain NPOV in a sentence.

body:
Sarah wrote:

>On 8/8/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>
>>On Aug 7, 2006, at 10:40 PM, SPUI wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Explain NPOV in a sentence.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>"Teach the controversy."
>>>
>>>
>>Outstanding!
>>
>>
>"Teach the controversy"
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy is the name of a
>campaign and strategy fashioned by the [[Discovery Institute]] for
>teaching creationism in schools. Perhaps not quite the image we want
>to associate with. :-)
>
>
The appropriation of a maxim by a group with a very specific Point of
View should not mean that they have received exclusive rights to the use
of the term.  I could as easily see it applying to a completely opposing
perspective.

Ec


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 8/8/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>"Teach the controversy"
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy is the name of a
>>campaign and strategy fashioned by the [[Discovery Institute]] for
>>teaching creationism in schools. Perhaps not quite the image we want
>>to associate with. :-)
>>
>>
>I would have gone more with "Describe the controversy, don't become part of it."
>
That would be too passive.  Teaching the controversy requires a greater
effort to understand what your opponents are saying to the extent that
you would be able to give an eloquent defence of the opposing point of view.

Ec


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 8/12/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> What would it mean for a speaker to attend something *not* as an
> official representative? Perhaps guidelines on what people can do if
> they are/are not attending in that capacity are needed. It needs to be
> something more than just not keeping the money since there generally
> isn't any offered anyway.

I believe it is very simple, the signature on the speaker's
presentation would state:

"Mr Schmoll, ZabadumWiki" and not "Mr Schmoll, Wikimedia Foundation".
More over, advertisement about Mr Schmoll participating in the
conference would not mention their affiliation with the Wikimedia
Foundation other than in their bio, and Wikimedia would not be the
point of focus of their talk. This is in the case of someone like you
who has more than one affiliation about wikis, for example.

In the case you state about Mitch Kapor, he was surely invited as
Mitch Kapor talking about Wikipedia, and not a random wikipedian who
happened to be Mitch Kapor.

Delphine
--
~notafish


body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Dabljuh wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 8 Aug 2006 17:52:50 -0400
>>"The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Verifiability flows from evidence.
>>>
>>>
>>Right right - but you say WP would have
>>a bias towards verifiable information. That
>>is just wrong - WP has not a bias towards
>>verifiable information, but towards mainstream
>>ignorance.
>>
>>
>...and your continued trolling is helping HOW, exactly?
>
Not at all.  Don't underestimate the powerful force that ignorance can
exert on the collecttive mind.

Ec


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary

body:
Hoi,
As WiktionaryZ is dragged into this discussion, let me explain how it is
at this moment. At this moment we have people edit WiktionaryZ that we
trust / know / come recomended / ask. We are at this time in a pre-alpha
stage, we do not have versioning, being an admin is not a big thing.
Being able to edit is. When someone proves that he either does not
understand the concept of what we are trying to do. When someone does
not communicate his/her concerns and makes a mess, we will protect our
data and revoke the edit right. The admin right goes with it.

We have been clear about this notion. We do not want to discuss this
really as it is not compatible with the state of our project. The notion
of having to watch closely is in my mind problematic because by arguing
that this is needed, there will always be people that either think that
it is there place to complain and want things different even though they
have no knowledge about a project (assume that everything is like
Wikipedia).

Every project has it's own way of doing things. WiktionaryZ is different
because not only is it a project where we are in a pre-alpha state, it
is also a project where we aim to have people from all nationalities and
languages work together. This requires that things are particular to
WiktionaryZ. We welcome people to contribute to WiktionaryZ. We ask to
be judged on what we are and what we do and not to be judged by what
some consider "normal".

Thanks,
     GerardM

effe iets anders wrote:
> I can imagine that it works well for a lot of wiki's. As I understood
> also WiktionaryZ is very easy on the behalf of making someone sysop.
> And other wiki's are as well. It is very like "adminship is no big
> deal". And maybe it shouldn't. But then deamminship shouldn't be a big
> deal either i think. Because when someone is adminned easely, the
> chance that you grab someone who doesn't fit the profile is easier,
> and deadminning should be easier, so you can fix it quick as well.
> I've seen little misuse of people with adminship, apart from things
> like easier blocking etc. But that is something the community can and
> should solve anyway. You will have the same issues on that behalf when
> s.o. is after a hard procedure admin.
> And regarding bureaucrat, that shouldn't be a big deal either maybe.
> Because a sysop is supposed to be trusted, the bureaucrat is as well.
> As long as you watch closely what each bc is doing.
>
> greetings, Lodewijk
>
> 2006/8/12, Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com>:
>
>> geni wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/12/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> 40 admins, 25 are bureaucrats? Yikes! I thought having 42 admins with 4
>>>> bureaucrats was a lot!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Certian projects tend to promote people to bureaucrat rather than
>>> admin. Species for one.
>>>
>>>
>> In Serbian Wikipedia, on the other hand, there was a lax policy
>> regarding admin/bureau. promotions. Namely, after 1 month of active
>> contributions, you could become an admin and after 1 more month, a
>> bureaucrat. That has changed in the past half a year or so. Now, with
>> regards to some recent situations, I wouldn't be surprised if the policy
>> becomes ever so restrictive. I, for example, became an admin in 11 days
>> (fastest in sr: wikipedia). :) But that was more than a year ago...
>>
>> Filip


subject: [Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary


subject:
[Foundation-l] [Found>,
	> This conversation had jumped back and forth from single-instance
	expenses ,
	> (eg. babysitting costs) to much larger issues such as speakers
	fees. With the ,
	> number of speaking requests pouring in to the Foundation (an

body:
On 8/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> >  7. The Speaker Subcommittee will also request an honorarium, to be
> >  paid to the Foundation, for providing a speaker.
>
> I think this concept of the Foundation receiving speaker's fees makes a
> lot of sense for employees of the foundation, just as it
> might for any organization where speakers are being paid by the
> organization and the speaking is a part of what their salary covers.
> For volunteers, this makes significantly less sense to me.

I believe it does not only make sense, but it seems completely and
totally normal that employees of the Foundation, whenever giving a
speech and offered an honorarium, should *not* be given an honorarium
personally, but rather make sure whatever money is there to take goes
to the Foundation.

> I have for a very long time now stressed to everyone who invites me to
> speak that they are inviting me in my personal capacity.  So this
> policy will have no impact on me.  But it could have impact on many others.

This is where, in my opinion, we hit the borderline case. If you take
every single speech in your personal capacity, what chance is there
that organisations that would like to help the projects as a whole
ever can? Of course they want Jimmy Wales. But if you never are tasked
with the role of representing the Foundation, and hence bring some of
the honoraria into the organisation, there is a big chance that we'll
never see the first cent of anything. Although I do agree with you
that people should be able to take whatever money is given to them, I
also believe that *some* of it should go to the Foundation.

I am not saying all of it, I am not even putting forward a percentage,
but the Foundation has to see a return on investment in the time and
money they put in providing speakers to the organisations that ask for
them (booking tickets, making sure that the person is there,
reimbursing upfront the speaker while waiting that the conference
organizer reimburse them has a cost in the end), as well as for the
trademarks used to advertise the conferences etc. This includes all
volunteers, and in my opinion, you.

This return on investment could be on an "assume good faith" basis,
ie. if a speaker is offered XXX dollars per year to give speeches,
they might want to make a donation to the Foundation one day or the
other, or at least be in a position where they can attest their talk
has brought something to the Foundation, may it be contacts (and hence
potential sponsors that turn into real sponsors), a great press
coverage (and hence an increase in donations) etc.

Another thing is also, that although I agree with Danny that we should
be in a position where we can refuse to send a speaker, this should
only be keeping in mind the return on investment. We should never find
ourselves in a position where we refuse to send a speaker *because*
there is no money involved. One speech that might cost us money to
arrange can bring millions of dollars in, another that costs nothing
and brings money to one person (the speaker) might bring the
Foundation absolutely nothing. There is a balance to be found.

This said, I would be interested in knowing what speakers and speeches
have actually brought to the Foundation in its 3 years of existence,
whether directly or indirectly. Having an idea of that should give a
good basis to fine tune Danny's proposal.

Delphine

--
~notafish


body:
Resending in the thread, sorry for the mishap.

On 8/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> >  7. The Speaker Subcommittee will also request an honorarium, to be
> >  paid to the Foundation, for providing a speaker.
>
> I think this concept of the Foundation receiving speaker's fees makes a
> lot of sense for employees of the foundation, just as it
> might for any organization where speakers are being paid by the
> organization and the speaking is a part of what their salary covers.
> For volunteers, this makes significantly less sense to me.

I believe it does not only make sense, but it seems completely and
totally normal that employees of the Foundation, whenever giving a
speech and offered an honorarium, should *not* be given an honorarium
personally, but rather make sure whatever money is there to take goes
to the Foundation.

> I have for a very long time now stressed to everyone who invites me to
> speak that they are inviting me in my personal capacity.  So this
> policy will have no impact on me.  But it could have impact on many others.

This is where, in my opinion, we hit the borderline case. If you take
every single speech in your personal capacity, what chance is there
that organisations that would like to help the projects as a whole
ever can? Of course they want Jimmy Wales. But if you never are tasked
with the role of representing the Foundation, and hence bring some of
the honoraria into the organisation, there is a big chance that we'll
never see the first cent of anything. Although I do agree with you
that people should be able to take whatever money is given to them, I
also believe that *some* of it should go to the Foundation.

I am not saying all of it, I am not even putting forward a percentage,
but the Foundation has to see a return on investment in the time and
money they put in providing speakers to the organisations that ask for
them (booking tickets, making sure that the person is there,
reimbursing upfront the speaker while waiting that the conference
organizer reimburse them has a cost in the end), as well as for the
trademarks used to advertise the conferences etc. This includes all
volunteers, and in my opinion, you.

This return on investment could be on an "assume good faith" basis,
ie. if a speaker is offered XXX dollars per year to give speeches,
they might want to make a donation to the Foundation one day or the
other, or at least be in a position where they can attest their talk
has brought something to the Foundation, may it be contacts (and hence
potential sponsors that turn into real sponsors), a great press
coverage (and hence an increase in donations) etc.

Another thing is also, that although I agree with Danny that we should
be in a position where we can refuse to send a speaker, this should
only be keeping in mind the return on investment. We should never find
ourselves in a position where we refuse to send a speaker *because*
there is no money involved. One speech that might cost us money to
arrange can bring millions of dollars in, another that costs nothing
and brings money to one person (the speaker) might bring the
Foundation absolutely nothing. There is a balance to be found.

This said, I would be interested in knowing what speakers and speeches
have actually brought to the Foundation in its 3 years of existence,
whether directly or indirectly. Having an idea of that should give a
good basis to fine tune Danny's proposal.

Delphine


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

body:
Anthony wrote:
> "When it is said that a board member only needs to spend "only" a few
> hours a week on this function, the reality is very much ignored. By
> expressing that this "should be the case" and by not indicating what
> needs to be done to make this happen, I am afraid that false
> expectations are raised."
>
> I believe that getting the Wikimedia Foundation to a point where each
> board member only needs to spend a couple hours a week is a perfectly
> reasonable expectation.

Agreed.
But I fear we are not yet ready for that.

   To provide a specific outline as to what
> needs to happen, the board members who feel that they need to spend
> more time than that would need to provide an outline of what they do
> spend their time on.

Ya. Good question. This might be relevant information for future members :-)

I have seriously reduced my time for WMF since holidays (for the kids)
started. Simply because they are at home :-)

I have on average from 2 to 4 speaking engagements or collaboration
meeting per month (I refuse some). A speaking engagement may take one
full day (rarely), usually 2 days, sometimes more. Of course, most
speaking engagements require preparation time (in particular if you do
not wish to simply forever repeat the same things :-)).
I could very naturally cut down on these, but the fact is there are some
collaborations I wish we develop (in particular related to Africa,
wikijunior etc), so I focus most of my presentations on these topics.
Except when I am specifically asked, I generally try to let most
conferences in France to french editors.

I removed my phone number in most places, so phone calls are finally
dropping. Frankly, journalists calls generally are better answered.
People screaming they are gonna sue us as well (I can smooth the issue
on the phone). I think it is relevant I answer the phone for
french-speaking requests. Nicolas Weeger, the french chapter chair also
get a lot of them. It makes no sense to redirect these phone calls to
Florida where no one speaks french. Future board member from english
speaking countries will not have to do that, but if they are non
english, they will likely have interviews, complains etc. Frequence for
interviews is variable. Low times are 0 per week. High times may be a
couple per day.

I have hardly done any OTRS thing in the past 3 weeks (Wikimania). I am
the only board member left looking a bit at it. A couple of people are
thank god helping. A new person was hired to help with the phone in
Florida (apparently, she was not planned to help on OTRS). She resigned
last week (during Wikimania). So, there is no employee on OTRS.
Someone to take care of this will be very valuable help. I intend to
remind Brad about this need. I assume we could possibly hire part time
someone from our community to give a hand with this.

By burst of time, I give some time to the special project committee (the
only committee I chose to belong to). I followed up several projects
over there and I was the one who made Nokia be the Wikimania sponsor. I
am the chair of that committee for now. In the past weeks, I have to
review the InstantCommons proposal and handle some of it with Oscar (the
grant request). We also approved hosting the WiktionaryZ. There are the
collaboration proposals, or business proposals to review. The big
decisions all are the objects of resolutions I proposed to the board
(and had to push them to vote on). I also am the one writing the
committee report to the board (Angela may not have access to the wiki,
all relevant topics were reported to the board and all decisions were
presented to the board). This takes time.

And then, there is everything else. From hiring Brad to approving last
technical purchase. Getting informed about the last potential serious
legal concern, to complaining of lack of information from another
committee. Asking financial or audit information to Michael and trying
to settle down the composition of the Fundraising committee. Considering
  whether I should pay myself the domain names renewal when Soufron
credit card is failing :-) Trying to convince Brad that the polish
chapter needs a logo agreement. And thinking of the potential flaws of
our organisation, which could lead to damage for our mission. Whatever.
This takes a lot of time. Mostly, it is a huge mass of information or
request flowing all the time. Whether you want it or not, you get it.
What would be fabulous would be to avoid getting all that information,
but only summaries. Or reports about what we need to know. This is not
how things are really working right now. We are flooded with information
all the time. Each time I leave home for a couple of days, I am snowed
under emails. Should we have all this ? Probably not. A lot should be
Brad or other staff people job. A lot could be done by others. Board
members should also get more specialised. But hell; we are not a
professional organisation. We are learning :-)

   In the case of Ant she has stated on the mailing
> lists that her phone number is on the net and she spends time
> answering 10 phone calls a day none of which require a board member
> (and frankly none of which need to be answered at all).  She also says
> she spends a lot of time on OTRS.  Looking at
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_OTRS, there has
> apparently been a board resolution (as of May 26, 2006) to hire
> someone to take care of this.  It's unclear to me whether or not
> someone has yet been hired to do so.

Not to take care of OTRS. There is not employee yet as of today (and
yes, the resolution was taken in may. No comment).

> When I hear Ant say she spends so much of her time doing these little
> jobs that could easily be handled by an employee making a minimal
> salary (if not by a volunteer making nothing), and then I look at
> about a million dollar annual budget with half of it being spent on
> capital expenditures, what else am I supposed to think?

...

> You say that there is a big need for the WMF board to spend a lot of
> time on organizational matters.  What is it that you think the board
> *needs* to do?

To voluntarily stop doing some of the stuff they do.

If everything goes on fine, they had no reason to do it before
If things really fail, then it might be sufficient to prove there is a
problem to fix

> Anthony
>
> On 8/12/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Hoi,
>>There is a big difference between how "it should" and "how it is". For all
>>kinds of reasons, there is a big NEED and EXPECTATION that a WMF board
>>member spends a lot of time on the organisational matters of the board. Not
>>only is there the need to communicate in order to come to the strategy of
>>the foundation, it is also expected that board members are part of
>>committees and play an active part in these. I have heard horror stories
>>where board members were denied access to information of "committees" and it
>>is therefore understandable that these invisible organisational units are
>>considered to operate in stealth mode.
>>
>>At this moment the organisation is very much in flux. Not only has Angela
>>decided to quit, Brad is finding his way in the murky dealings of the WMF
>>organisation, the committees pronounce very much that they are only starting
>>to get going. To top it off, many of the current people who are up for
>>election for the board are manifestly unsuited to the task because of their
>>narrow minded platform.
>>
>>When it is said that a board member only needs to spend "only" a few hours a
>>week on this function, the reality is very much ignored. By expressing that
>>this "should be the case" and by not indicating what needs to be done to
>>make this happen, I am afraid that false expectations are raised. At this
>>time, being a board member seems to be the kind of activity that eats up all
>>the time that you can throw at it. It has relatively little to do with any
>>one project and as Anthere says, it is hard work for little recognition.
>>
>>I wish all future board members well, but I hope that none are chosen
>>because of their ideas on how the English Wikipedia can be improved. They do
>>not understand what is needed.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>    GerardM
>>
>>On 8/12/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>>On 8/11/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Anthere quit/lost (no idea which) her job while being a board member, as
>>>
>>>she
>>>
>>>>professed publicly some time ago, so I can quote that. She also told she
>>>>works nearly full time on the project and given her omnipresence, this
>>>
>>>might
>>>
>>>>well be an understatement. I think we should be grateful she is putting
>>>
>>>so
>>>
>>>>much time in the project. And I am sure everyone is. But maybe we ought
>>>
>>>to
>>>
>>>>taken a moment to discuss the consequences.
>>>>
>>>
>>> > If I remember correctly Anthere responded to a question from the
>>>audience.
>>>
>>>>Candid as she always is, she explained her financial situation (again).
>>>
>>>So I
>>>
>>>>feel I can comment on that some more.
>>>>
>>>>I don't know many mothers with three young children who can afford to
>>>
>>>spend
>>>
>>>>so much time pro bono. Of course there must be more Wikimedians in a
>>>
>>>similar
>>>
>>>>situation, who show as much commitment. Still I feel the organisation
>>>
>>>has a
>>>
>>>>special obligation towards its official representatives. If only people
>>>
>>>who
>>>
>>>>are financially independent can afford to work for the organisation in
>>>>central positions, and others do it to their own detriment, I think the
>>>>organisation (not on purpose but still) puts a bias on its central
>>>
>>>workforce
>>>
>>>>which is unwanted. These issues have been discussed before. But we have
>>>>grown from a small village to a large city, and our budget has increased
>>>>with it. We can even afford to delay fundraisers so it is not that we
>>>
>>>are
>>>
>>>>entirely unable to even discuss this due to lack of funds. Brad
>>>
>>>commented to
>>>
>>>>this effect.
>>>>
>>>>I have no idea how other non profit organisations handle this, but
>>>
>>>frankly I
>>>
>>>>think we should make up our own mind.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Well, I think we should follow the lead of other non-profit organizations.
>>>
>>>Being a board member shouldn't require a lot of time - a couple hours
>>>a week at the most.  If a board member wants to spend more time
>>>voluntarily, that's fine.  But if someone wants to spent 40 hours a
>>>week helping Wikimedia, and isn't in a financial position to do that
>>>for free, and Wikimedia agrees to pay them for this, then they
>>>shouldn't be a board member.  It's too much of a potential for a
>>>conflict of interest.
>>>
>>>I don't mean to say this as though it's a simple change to make.  But
>>>it's extremely important that the change be made.
>>>
>>>Anthony
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


from_name: Arne Klempert

body:
On 8/13/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these honoraria essentially Jimmy's only
> > means of income? I don't know if he draws a salary from Wikia, but I'm
> > fairly sure that the company is not yet turning a profit. He works almost
> > full-time publicising Wikimedia. It would seem very strange to me to deny
> > him this one small token of our appreciation.
>
> His income from other places is not at all something we need consider.
> What matters is the use of Wikimedia-owned trademarks and logos
> for monetary gain. The foundation owns and controls the use of those
> trademarks and logos and, per our bylaws, board members are not
> supposed to get net monetary gain for activities that arise from being
> board members.

Sorry, but I think you're going over the top. Giving Speeches has
nothing to do with trademarks. Even if the name "Wikipedia" is
mentioned in the program, this is completely legal (fair use or
similar laws outside the US).

Regarding Jimbo: He is the founder of Wikipedia. He is not famous
because he's a board member. He's famous because without him the
Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the corresponding trademarks
wouldn't even exist.

This said, I have absolutely no problem if Jimbo gets money when he
talks about Wikipedia, or even the Wikimedia Foundation - as long as
he (and this is where his responsability as a Wikimedia official
begins) doesn't just pick the $$$ talks. IMHO it would also be wise to
donate some amout of his speaker fees to Wikimedia. But I'm sure you
can't find a bureaucratic solution for this, it has to be settled on a
case-by-case basis.

This has long been debated within Wikimedia Deutschland. In the end we
agreed on a policy that all board members have to inform the board
about all their talks (including fees and reimbursements), so the
board can review it from time to time.

Cheers,
Arne


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

body:
Amgine wrote:
> On 12-Aug-06, at 3:49 PM, Angela wrote:
>
>
>>On 8/13/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>>Looking at
>>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_OTRS, there has
>>>apparently been a board resolution (as of May 26, 2006) to hire
>>>someone to take care of this.  It's unclear to me whether or not
>>>someone has yet been hired to do so.
>>
>>Someone was hired for this but she quit already. I don't know the
>>exact details of why she left. I believe Brad was tasked with finding
>>a replacement.
>>
>>Angela.
>
>
> As I understand it, a replacement has already been found and has
> worked one day already.
>
> Amgine

I do not know for this one, but I understood that Susy would not work on
OTRS anyway. If the new one is only planned to answer the phone, that
does not help at all with the OTRS issue and does not answer the request
for help made in the resolution mentionned above.

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


subject:
[Foundation-l] Honorarium (was Re: [Found>,
 > This conversation had jumped back and forth ....)

body:
Arne Klempert wrote:
> On 8/13/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>--- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>>
>>>Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these honoraria essentially Jimmy's only
>>>means of income? I don't know if he draws a salary from Wikia, but I'm
>>>fairly sure that the company is not yet turning a profit. He works almost
>>>full-time publicising Wikimedia. It would seem very strange to me to deny
>>>him this one small token of our appreciation.
>>
>>His income from other places is not at all something we need consider.
>>What matters is the use of Wikimedia-owned trademarks and logos
>>for monetary gain. The foundation owns and controls the use of those
>>trademarks and logos and, per our bylaws, board members are not
>>supposed to get net monetary gain for activities that arise from being
>>board members.
>
>
> Sorry, but I think you're going over the top. Giving Speeches has
> nothing to do with trademarks. Even if the name "Wikipedia" is
> mentioned in the program, this is completely legal (fair use or
> similar laws outside the US).
>
> Regarding Jimbo: He is the founder of Wikipedia. He is not famous
> because he's a board member. He's famous because without him the
> Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the corresponding trademarks
> wouldn't even exist.
>
> This said, I have absolutely no problem if Jimbo gets money when he
> talks about Wikipedia, or even the Wikimedia Foundation - as long as
> he (and this is where his responsability as a Wikimedia official
> begins) doesn't just pick the $$$ talks. IMHO it would also be wise to
> donate some amout of his speaker fees to Wikimedia. But I'm sure you
> can't find a bureaucratic solution for this, it has to be settled on a
> case-by-case basis.
>
> This has long been debated within Wikimedia Deutschland. In the end we
> agreed on a policy that all board members have to inform the board
> about all their talks (including fees and reimbursements), so the
> board can review it from time to time.
>
> Cheers,
> Arne

Jimbo's talks were originally organised by Danny. They are now organised
by Jimbo's wife. So, I do not think the board has much information about
them.

Ant


from_name: Gregory Kohs

subject: [WikiEN-l] First post

body:
I have just completed an updated Talk page for the account MyWikiBiz.  I
would very much like to see an intelligent, civil discussion of the whole
"Paid to edit" issue that MyWikiBiz.com seems to have set off.  I have
constructed what I think is a good format for that dialogue at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MyWikiBiz

I believe that this is an excellent opportunity to determine what is truly
best for the Wikipedia community, then to put it before the Arbitration
Committee and Jimmy Wales.

Kindly,

   Greg

P.S.  I hope that this post gets through moderation.  If I've done something
wrong, please let me know.

--
Gregory Kohs
Founder, MyWikiBiz.com
thekohser at gmail.com

Cell: 302.463.1354


body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> This conversation had jumped back and forth from single-instance expenses
> (eg. babysitting costs) to much larger issues such as speakers fees. With the
> number of speaking requests pouring in to the Foundation (and they come in at
> an  ever increasing rate), I want to suggest the following guidelines for board
>  members and others giving talks about the Foundation. Much of this is based
> on  my belief that it is possible to say no to speaker requests too. We are
> big  enough to set the terms by which we offer to send speakers, and the
> benefits of  participating in various conferences etc. should be weighed against the
> real  needs and interests of the Foundation. My proposal is as follows.
>
> 1. Requests for speakers from the Foundation will be approved by a
> subcommittee of the Communications Committee to be known as the "Speakers
> Subcommittee.".

How will you define which requests made should make it to the
subcommittee and which should not ?
For example, what if a speaker receive a personal invitation to talk.
Should he turn the invitation to the committee, who will maybe assign
someone else ? Is that viable ?
For example, what should be done with requests made on a specific
project or on its mailing list. Or to requests made for example to a
specific user who also happens to be a chapter member. Would he have to
turn the invitation he got or the chapter got so that it is handled by
the subcommmittee ?

> 2. The Speakers Subcommittee will determine whether and how fulfilling the
> request furthers the goals of the Foundation. This will be called Speaker
> Objectives.

Certainly, if the request was sent to a specific speaker, this speaker
can participate to determine the Speaker Objectives.

> 3. The Speakers Subcommittee will then determine whether the Speaker
> Objectives are equal or greater to the costs involved in sending a speaker to  the
> event.
>
> 4. The Speaker Subcommittee will then determine which representative of the
> WMF is best suited to deliver the talk, based on considerations of language,
> geography, skills, conference needs, availability, etc.

Eh Danny.... Should not number 3 occur *after* number 4 ? Surely, you
cannot estimate costs first and choose the person second.

Also, the speaker may choose to go and participate even if the costs are
higher than the benefit for the Foundation, since the benefits may be
higher for him (in which case, he will support part of the cost of course)

> 5. Basic costs for speakers will include
>     a. transportation
>     b. per diem (hotel, food)
>     c. ancillary (babysitting, formal wear such as  renting a tux, other)
> 6. The Speaker Subcommittee will negotiate with the requesting organization
> to ensure that they cover as much of these costs as possible. Should the event
>  be deemed worthwhile, but the requesting organization is unable to cover
> these  basic costs, the Speakers Committee will determine a budget for the
> speaker to  participate.

Care should be given that cultural issues may get in the way. It is much
more usual apparently to pay in certain countries than in some others.

> 7. The Speaker Subcommittee will also request an honorarium, to be paid to
> the Foundation, for providing a speaker.
> 8. A calendar of speaking engagements and speakers will be maintained  in a
> public space, such as wikimediafoundation.org.
> 9. Only speakers approved and appointed by the Speakers Subcommittee will  be
> entitled to speak on behalf of the Foundation in such public forums and to
> make use of Foundation property such as logos, registered tm's, etc. in their
> presentations.

Hmmm.
So... are you saying that all these editors kindly and voluntarily going
to present the project at local fairs or students gathering or groupwork
libraries, usually very casually invited; and very unlikely approved by
the Foundation.... will not be authorized to put a Wikipedia logo in
their presentation in the future ???

> 10. Upon completing their speaking engagement, speakers will provide a
> written report to the Speakers Subcommittee in which they describe whether and  how
> the Speaker Objectives were met.
> 11. The written report will include a summary of the talk, major questions
> asked, and a copy of handouts, PowerPoint presentations, etc. as  necessary.
> 12. These materials will be made easily available to other speakers so as  to
> enhance their own presentations.

Should exclude all presentations where discretion is required.

> 13. Upon completing their speaking engagement, speakers will also  submit any
> receipts for *approved* expenses.
> 14. Upon submission of receipts, the written report, and ancillary
> materials--and only upon their submission--the speaker will be reimbursed for  any
> out-of-pocket expenses.

Does that mean that all speakers will have to advance all expenses each
time ?

> While this may seem bureaucratic to some, I believe that it is a common
> sense approach to dealing with the growing influx of requests for speakers that
> the Foundation is facing. It will help us to avoid what Mr. Merkey wisely
> called  "poaching speaking engagements," and ensure that previous experiences as a
> speaker are shared with others.

I am a bit perplex of how this will work out when chapters are concerned.

> Rather than dwell upon what happened in the past, let's move forward by
> improving this initial proposal and submitting it to the Board for vote.
>
> Danny


body:
On 8/13/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> jayjg wrote:
>
> >On 8/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Joe Anderson wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Cool Cat recently created an article called Starfleet
> >>>>Uniforms<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfleet_Uniforms>,
> >>>>and it was nominated for deletion as cruft and OR.
> >>>>
> >>>>The screencaps/promo photos in the article, IMO, acted as a reputable
> >>>>source. I mean, how else (canonically) are you going to know about the
> >>>>uniform switch between TOS and TNG? Using a book is not canonical, and
> >>>>therefore is surely not [[WP:V]].
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>There are such things as Star Trek encyclopediae, which report canon and
> >>>real life (and probably not fanfic/other non-canon).
> >>>
> >>>While the TV shows are canonical (as are the movies (except where
> >>>continuity fails, cf. /Enterprise/)), using a screencap is close to
> >>>original research and on dangerous ground wrt. using "fair use" as an
> >>>excuse for copyright infringement.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>So using a picture from the secondary source would be somehow more free
> >>than using a screen capture?
> >>
> >>
> >No, the secondary source would describe the uniform switch from TOS to TNG.
> >
> So would sample screen captures from episode of the two programs.  You
> would be able to see the difference without explanation.  This doesn't
> explain your gratuitous red herring about copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement? I don't know what you're talking about, I
never mentioned copyright infringement.

>
> >>If one draws from a Star Trek Encyclopedia, comparing what is said there
> >>with the original source is still important.  How else are you going to
> >>know whether the Encyclopedia information is accurate?
> >>
> >>
> >"Wikipedia articles include material on the basis of verifiability,
> >not truth. That is, we report what other reliable sources have
> >published, whether or not we regard the material as accurate. In order
> >to avoid doing original research, and in order to help improve the
> >quality of Wikipedia articles, it is essential that any primary-source
> >material, as well as any generalization, analysis, synthesis,
> >interpretation, or evaluation of information or data, has been
> >published by a reputable third-party publication (that is, not
> >self-published) that is available to readers either from a website
> >(other than Wikipedia) or through a public library. It is very
> >important to cite sources appropriately, so that readers can find your
> >source and can satisfy themselves that Wikipedia has used the source
> >correctly." WP:NOR
> >
> I see.  So you believe that slavish adherence to the ravings of policy
> wonks is more important than accuracy.  By your analysis above, if the
> material in a Star Trek Encyclopedia is just plain dead fucking wrong we
> would not be allowed to point that out because you consider it to be
> original research.  When it gets that far it strikes me as though the
> lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Um, you might not be aware of just how many crackpots there are that
insist that the facts printed in books are wrong.

>
> >>I seriously question the notion that using material from the original
> >>movie or book is original research.
> >>
> >>
> >I don't see how you possibly could question it; it's clear as day (see
> >above). Where have the screencaps in question been published?
> >
> It's clear as day that they were published when the movie was released.

Published in what sense?

>
> >>The original research was done by
> >>the author of the book.
> >>
> >>
> >That's right, and he's allowed to. Scientists, researchers, authors,
> >newspaper reporters - they all do original research.  We don't, we use
> >the material the have published in reliable sources instead.
> >
> Then I'm glad that you agree that since the author of the Star Trek
> novel or movie script did the original research our use of that material
> is not original research.

Huh? Writing a work of fiction is not "original research". Writing
*about* a work of fiction *is* original research. When the authors of
the Star Trek encyclopedia write about the series, they are engaging
in original research.

Ray, how could putting words in my mouth that you clearly know I don't
mean help further a discussion?

Jay.


from_name: mboverload

body:
Someone explain to me how a screencap is ANY different than a quote from a
book.

mboverload


subject: [Wikitech-l] Apple's Wiki Server brings WYSIWYG to wiki

body:
On 8/11/06, tim at greenscourt.com <tim at greenscourt.com> wrote:
>
> At the recent Wikimania Conference, Jimmy Wales said that, contrary to
> some opinions, barriers to participation are *not* good. We still get
> vandals, but we're probably missing out on some really good content
> creators who are not technologically savvy. This is one reason why WM
> is now working with SocialText to integrate Wikiwyg.
>
> Tim

I fail to see how not being about to make large bold red text is a barrier
to entry


body:
On 8/11/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:

> If the WYSIWYG editor were actually good, and actually displayed
> *exactly* what the end result would be, I think you'd find that you'd
> acclimate to it extremely quickly.

That's not WYSIWYG, that's live preview.


body:
On 8/13/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/11/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If the WYSIWYG editor were actually good, and actually displayed
> > *exactly* what the end result would be, I think you'd find that you'd
> > acclimate to it extremely quickly.
>
>
> That's not WYSIWYG, that's live preview.
>
Oops, that came out wrong, what I meant was that live preview can do that,
no need for WYSIWYG


body:
Maybe I need to simplify it further:

The only syntax people need to learn is [[link]].  That's it.  Maybe
''italics'' if they feel like it.  There's no need to do anything else.

That's damn simple.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Introducing the Hutter Prize for Lossless
 Compression of Human Knowledge

body:
James A. Bowery wrote:
> Named for the discoverer of the proof and the initial 50,000 Euro donor,
> the Hutter Prize currently targets the compression of a 100 megabyte
> sample of human knowledge drawn from the broadly based Wikipedia online
> encyclopedia.

Although I doubt we have many AI researchers on this list who would be
interested in competing for this prize, some readers here might be
interested in the related statistical analysis of Wikipedia's text,
performed by AI researcher Matt Mahoney:

http://cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression/textdata.html

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

references:
<ebfkoi$bup$1@sea.gmane.org> <ebflq6$fkg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<71cd4dd90608101016y80834albe8cb906c2bc5c@mail.gmail.com>
	<453b6e50608101058p518c54dcg1a84b8efa8615c33@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90608101157n5465cf51n7e5886e07cda7cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<ebievm$ukr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<71cd4dd90608120459v4abdd59dhec68589a5c6d650c@mail.gmail.com>
	<ae4e17e00608120510w42ee72dcmfff8a39b34017fdc@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 8/12/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > But in the mean time, I don't think it's at all unusual for a
> > candidate to publish his or her discussion page on a particular
> > project.  Checking meta all the time is just ridiculous.
> > -- Anthony
>
> Don't board members work mostly on meta? (with side orders of
> wikimediafoundation.org and projects?)

No, some Board members don't work on those wikis at all, but only on a
number of private wikis (one Board wiki and various committee wikis
which not all Board members even have access to).

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

body:
On 8/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> > I am currently required to spend my own money to go and give speeches.
> > This has been the case for over 2 years now.
> The board passed a budget for your expenses and to my knowledge, you
> have never used it all up, nor have you asked
> for an increase, nor have you ever submitted any claim for expenses
> which has been denied.  Standard policy has always
> been that board members should be reimbursed upon request for reasonable
> travel expenses.

I've almost never used any of this, and the candidates for the
election shouldn't be misled into thinking they won't incur
significant personal costs.

The main problem is knowing what is an official Wikimedia related
expense, so I've assumed that little of what I do is. For example, I'm
currently attending conference at which I'm giving a short talk about
Wikipedia tomorrow, and will be spending $90 of my own money on taxis
(I could spend less if I got public transport instead, but that I
don't have time to spend 4 hours on trams). I'm not paid for the
event. (I've never been paid for any event, though one I did was
supposed to have paid me). Is this a valid Wikimedia-related expense?
I have similar things about once a month, often costing far more than
$90 since they're not usually so nearby. I don't see a way of
distinguishing between valid Wikimedia expenses and expenses that are
only indirectly related to me being on the Board.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


body:
On 8/12/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> This conversation had jumped back and forth from single-instance expenses
> (eg. babysitting costs) to much larger issues such as speakers fees. With the
> number of speaking requests pouring in to the Foundation (and they come in at
> an  ever increasing rate), I want to suggest the following guidelines for board
>  members and others giving talks about the Foundation.

What about the requests that don't come in via an official Foundation
address? If individuals are approached, are you expecting them to
follow these guidelines, or would those not count as official
Foundation talks? Do we have any way of knowing which events are
expecting an official representative of the Foundation?

> 7. The Speaker Subcommittee will also request an honorarium
> , to be paid to the Foundation, for providing a speaker.

Are you suggesting that this Subcommittee would only send people if an
honorarium was to be received? Or would you just be requesting it on
the slim chance there is one? Considering I've only ever once been
offered one, it doesn't seem very likely most speakers are going to
get this, unless you want to start turning down the opportunity to
promote the projects except in the very rare cases where money will be
involved.

An additional point to consider is whether this subcommittee will be
the ones booking the transport.

Angela.