from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Working towards balance on controversial topics (was:
	Guardian article about Wikipedia)

body:
From: David Gerard [mailto:dgerard at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 12:10 PM

> Thank goodness for that. In a Wikipedia with otherwise really
> very good and *useful* computer articles (i.e., I use it as
> my standard reference in real life), [[Linux]] is a POV-
> pushing dog's breakfast of advocacy. This happens with a lot
> of open source-related articles, because too many
> contributors really do not understand NPOV in any context
> whatsoever, only advocacy. I've tried fixing it in the past,
> but the effort of holding back the tide made me wish I was
> working on more peacable areas of the wiki, like Israel-
> Palestine topics.

I have concentrated more on "balance" than on any other aspect of
quality, during my nearly 4 years of volunteer service here at
Wikipedia. Holding back the tide of advocacy is exhausting work, David,
let me tell you!

Fortunately, the editor in chief at EP is an expert in Israeli-Palestine
peace efforts. He drafted the [[Jerusalem Declaration]], for one thing.
And at a small meeting he arranged last Thursday, I got to meet the
Development Director of "Children of Abraham".

We need more dialogue and understanding. We also need to identify and
celebrate what we have in common. I believe that an encyclopedia can
provide reliable knowledge that helps people realize that "underneath
our differences, we all are one". Anyway as a Unificationist, that's my
dream.

Uncle Ed


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form
	New	Partnership

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> I can imagine a scenario where a company which is supplying us with
> significant resources of some kind can request that we remove an
> "unfriendly" link from their Wikipedia entry. If it isn't, or someone
> readds it, then we get into a potentially ugly situation.

I will never bow to any sort of pressure of that kind, and one of the
reason partnerships like answers.com are so important is precisely to
avoid our having to rely on a few large donors.

> What is more important - that Wikipedia is online and has POV material
> on it, or that it's NPOV but offline due to lack of funds?

NPOV is non-negotiable.

> I don't know whether Answers will do this. I simply don't trust an
> entity which has its sole reason for existence as "deliver maximum
> profit to our shareholders" to act in the best interests of the Foundation.

Of course not.  This is why it is  so important that we pursue many
different modes of funding.

--Jimbo


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Our exponentially increasing costs

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 10/23/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>--- Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Yes, but when you enter into a legal contract, it's not just you that
>>>we have to worry about, it's the other party as well. I really don't
>>>think we'll be getting much revenue from this deal to justify the
>>>risk, and in general I don't think in the *long term* relying on
>>>advertising will keep Wikipedia afloat.
>>>
>>>
>>Er. Not that we'd ever do this unless *absolutely* necessary to keep us
>>online,
>>but do you have *any* idea how much advertising revenue would be brought
>>in by
>>an Internet top 50 website? At least a couple hundred thousand dollars a
>>month
>>for something relatively unobtrusive like Google Ads.
>>
>>
>
>
>It boggles my mind that this isn't being done. Seems to me like a totally
>irrational fear that Wikimedia would somehow start catering to the
>advertisers. It's almost as though Wikipedians are afraid of money or
>something.
>
>

Hmm. 2500 hits/sec * 86400 secs/day * $1 CPM = $216,000 / _day_, or
$78,000,000+/year. Have you considered that the Wikimedia foundation
board might be aware of this, and that its decision not to put up
advertising might be a principled decision, rather than motivated by
"fear of money"?

-- Neil


subject:
[Foundation-l] Benefits of advertising (was Re: Our exponentially
	increasing costs)

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> The Answers.com deal, on the other hand, is just a recipe for offence.
> The benefit is unknown and will probably be small. The Board has agreed
> to it in secret, apparently to repay favours such as the Wikimania
> sponsorship. They've given a single organisation preferential treatment,
> which brings their motives into question: are they doing this to help
> Wikipedia or Answers.com?

"apparently to repay favours such as the Wikimania sponsorship" -
absolutely false.

"a single organization preferential treatment" - absolutely false.

I'm so shocked by these remarks, that I'm going to do something fairly
rare for me and ask for a public apology.

> That's why I join the chorus of editors in asking the Board to withdraw
> from this deal. If we are going to have advertising, it needs to be done
> with extreme sensitivity to the sensibilities of the community. Claiming
> that it's not advertising most certainly doesn't help -- even if the
> Board believes that line, the community certainly doesn't.

Then as a longstanding member of the community with a good reputation, I
ask for your help in explaining to them how it is *not* advertising.  In
order to do that, you'll have to stop spinning wild accusations first
and ask some basic questions about the deal until you understand it.

--Jimbo


list: wikien-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] NuNotNuPedia (again) (was The whole point of wikipedia)

body:
Martin Richards wrote:

>I think it is only a matter of time before a clone of wikipedia pops up with
>restricted editing, gains some popularity (especially with academics), and
>over time makes Wikipedia start to look like the urban dicionary.

There's probably a happy medium between Wikipedia and Nupedia,
actually. I can easily picture something using MediaWiki or a variant
with a workflow something like Wikinews. Get academics to write and
sign articles. Release the results under GFDL and maybe CC-by-sa.
Source Wikipedia articles (under GFDL only, of course) that pass
muster. It could be quite complementary to Wikipedia.

(The Britannica model of encyclopedia writing is to get a smart
person, give them a topic, an outline and a word count and then edit
them as needed. And only a fool would claim Britannica isn't a great
encyclopedia, and indeed one of the great books of Anglophone culture.
Its economic condition is a different matter, of course, but not one
relevant to my point here.)

However, someone needs to (1) set it up (2) have a good sense of what
it will take to build a new community and make it sustainable. I've
often thought some of our more possessive academic editors with a bad
case of expert syndrome seem to be asking for such an environment.
Though I'm not going to bother and I wonder if anyone here will
bother. Mind you, MediaWiki is ridiculously easy for any
junior-to-middling Linux sysadmin to set up, so the means of
production are not an issue ... just finding people to work at them.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The whole point of wikipedia

body:
Alphax wrote:

>It's entirely possible that we are reaching the point of discovering
>that Wikipedia doesn't scale. We already know that certain parts of it
>don't. Maybe it's time to "set aside" (permanantly protect) some of our
>best articles for version 1.0 and let people work on the rest.

Permanently protecting is unnecessary - we just need to keep track of
good versions. That way work can continue, just in case the article
wasn't actually finished after all.

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form New
	Partnership

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> So, what will happen if someone edits the Tools page (and any other
> pages which reference this 1 click thingy), and removes all references
> to it? Will the Board be restating the link, even if it is constantly
> removed by contributors?

It is a wiki page like any other.  I would find it incredibly strange
and shocking if people did that, why would they?

One point that needs to be repeated over and over and over here is that
the time, manner, and place of any link, even the existence of the link
at all, is a matter for the wiki to decide, like any other.

Now, having said that, I think that it is pretty silly to imagine that
we will have a page of "tools", some of which are proprietary, some of
which are free, most of which bring us no revenue, and *1* which does
bring us revenue -- from someone who has freely given to our community
without asking anything in return -- from someone who proposed this idea
as a way for him to give *even more* to us, and then people are going to
maliciously delete any reference to us.

The message coming from that would be simply bizarre.

I think people need to slow down and think this through before jumping
to strange conclusions.

--Jimbo


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Zordsdavini iz Litvy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Created bug, pih, vec, lmo and udm wiki

body:
Hello world,
I'm happy for others approved wikipedias that had an ISO codes. :)))))
But I'm sad, because Samogitian doesn't have ISO code and...
I hope that developers will not be so cruel and justice will be restored.
Good luck bug, pih, vec, lmo and udm wiki developers :)

Respectfully
Arns Udovi??

2005/10/24, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com>:
> bug, pih, vec, lmo and udm wiki, the five approved wikipedias that had
> an ISO code at  meta:Approved requests for new languages have been
> created, I didn't create the other ones because we don't have any
> standard way to determine a code to be used by  these projects and I
> didn't want to make something up.
>
> * http://bug.wikipedia.org
> * http://pih.wikipedia.org
> * http://vec.wikipedia.org
> * http://lmo.wikipedia.org
> * http://udm.wikipedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
:)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 10/24/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
>
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I will never bow to any sort of pressure of that kind, and one of the
> > reason partnerships like answers.com <http://answers.com> are so
> important is precisely to
> > avoid our having to rely on a few large donors.
>
> [...]
>
> > NPOV is non-negotiable.
>
> So what happens in this hypothetical scenario where we accept a
> significant contribution from a corporation, and 6 months into the
> partnership they turn around and say "we don't like that bit on the
> article which criticises us, remove it or we pull the funding"?

 We say no and then publicise the fact that they asked us to do so, ensuring
that not only do they not get their way but if they pull funding they'll
wind up getting bad publicity out of it.
 What would be the alternative? The board announces that they are protecting
the page permanently and that any admin who unprotects it or adds criticism
on company X will be deadmined immediately? Do you really think that's going
to happen?

I understand the need for money for the Foundation, I just disagree with
> the idea that going to a corporation for donations is the best way to do
> it. I am open to persuasion on this (of course), so please don't think I
> am arguing for argument's sake.
>
> Chris

I agree with this to some extent, and that's why I think Wikipedia should
just advertise directly. Then any single corporation is going to have a
negligible effect on revenues. But it seems that
answers.com<http://answers.com>is only beginning, even with them there
is probably a contract in place that
doesn't let them back out for such a trivial reason, and they're unlikely to
put us in such a position anyway, because they'd either not get their way or
get their way and destroy Wikimedia by causing the community to abandon
them. The latter certainly won't happen as long as the current board is in
place. I trust Angela, Anthere (sorry I don't remember your name), and Jimbo
not to abandon NPOV at any cost.
 Anthony


body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> I don't think it is narrow-mindedness that would cause someone to remove
> these links, and I think accusing someone of acting in this way is
> rather impolite and shows a lack of good faith. I can't think of one
> admin who doesn't have the best interests of Wikipedia at heart and is
> only doing what they think best.

I'm sorry but it is quite strange for me to imagine that someone would
remove such a link, _other than_ if they were in the grip of some of the
false and inflammatory rhetoric which has been thrown around here.

> The thing is, a large number of people have not been convinced that this
> is necessary for the Foundation's continued operations, but the
> partnership is going against some of the ideals on which Wikipedia was
> founded.

Such as what?  Do you really know what you're saying, or are you jumping
to some false conclusions?

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Questionable fair use claims: a case study

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>We have this strange social culture built up around images which I
>believe is caused mostly by the fact that image deletion is instantly
>permanent, rather than being something that can be reverted.  If we
>could revert image deletions as easily (or nearly as easily) as we
>revert deletions of random bits of unacceptable text, we would be much
>better able to pick and choose images wisely.

It's also that using a given image is an all-or-nothing proposition,
whereas text is comparatively easy to rewrite.

And it's also a "my image not anyone else's" pissfight - "my
screenshot is a unique and beautiful snowflake and is much 'l33t3r
than yours!" and so forth.

- d.


from_name: MHart

subject:
[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form
	NewPartnership

body:
>> "That page will highlight the "1-Click Answers, Wikipedia Edition"
software"

"The Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia will create a Tools page on its
English-language site to promote useful tools that access Wikipedia,
and 1-Click Answers, Wikipedia Edition, will receive charter placement
on that page." <<

As long as other tools can be given placement based upon the wishes of "the
crowd" (editors and contributors), then it seems aligned with the goals of
wikipedia/wikimedia. If it is given placement above, or emphasis is given
above some other tool that is considered by the crowd to be "free and
better/more useful", and that placement is due to the partnership and
revenue, then that feels like advertising and against the free and open,
user-contributed goals of wikipedia/wikimedia.

If "charter placement on that page" means emphasis that other, potentially
better tools cannot obtain, then it is advertising.

- MHart


subject:
[WikiEN-l] The Power of Free Images (Was: Questionable fair use
	claims: a case study)

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>One's public image is important to many groups, for example incorporated
>communities like towns or cities;
   [...]
>& these communities are able to advocate a more
>positive appearance than they might otherwise have.

[[Isle of Sheppey]]. There's no link to http://www.sheppeyscum.com/
even though it's THE one thing that's actually famous about the place
and is the third google hit on "Sheppey". If you see the talk page,
you'll see it's locals strenuously keeping it out to whitewash the
image of the place. POV pushers are everywhere.

> (As a counterexample ,
>does anyone really think that Slough wants to be associated with "The
>Office" for the rest of recorded history?)

No, it needs to be associated with "Come friendly bombs" ;-)

- d.


body:
Chris Jenkins writes:
> So what happens in this hypothetical scenario where we accept a
> significant contribution from a corporation, and 6 months into the
> partnership they turn around and say "we don't like that bit on the
> article which criticises us, remove it or we pull the funding"?

Then we tell them to fuck off.

> I understand the need for money for the Foundation, I just disagree with
> the idea that going to a corporation for donations is the best way to do
> it. I am open to persuasion on this (of course), so please don't think I
> am arguing for argument's sake.

It has been my longstanding policy to seek support for our work from a
diversity of sources.  We were offered complete hosting for everything
from a major internet company, and I simply turned it down, even though
it would have made our lives a lot easier in a lot of ways.  I turned it
 down because it was _too much_.

--Jimbo


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Giving reasons in AfD

body:
"Forcing" has its problems of course, but perhaps we should discount
votes without any sort of reasoning. If people say "delete per
nominator" and the nominator said it was unverifiable, we could throw
those votes out the door as soon as it's verified. You can't fix an
article or act upon a vote without a rationale at all.

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
>> suggest trying to get some sort of injunction through the legal
>> system (Australia, I suppose, and one of the other editors claims to
>> actually have known the person). "Don't touch Wikipedia again, or

>Well, via USENET.  I mean, I haven't actually sat down and had coffee
>and joked about the electoral roll with him.  But I s'pose it's possible
>one day; this is a small city, after all.

Yeah. I read the newspaper article (he got the back cover of
Saturday's Canberra Times; there's a scan on skyring.livejournal.com)
and I recognised his name from Usenet aus.politics about ten years
ago. Smart, charming, witty, knowledgeable and an utter crank and
quite, quite mad. aus.politics didn't divide by political lines but
roughly into "lucid" and "frothing"; of those on the "lucid" side, he
was definitely the weirdest.

He also probably warrants his own Wikipedia article for his various
adventures over the years, though I'm not going to start writing it
...

- d.


from_name: Koltwills at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Guardian article about Wikipedia

body:
In a message dated 10/24/2005 10:59:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
slimvirgin at gmail.com writes:

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,16541,1599325,00.html

Sarah

Uh, uh.

And God help us if they ever ask a knowledgeable individual to review the
articles about black folks.


from_name: Arbeo M

subject: Ant:  Re: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

body:
--- Milos Rancic <millosh at mutualaid.org> schrieb:

>
> So, less of 250 people say that their language is
> Zlatiborian language
> and this speech is the basis of the Serbian
> Iyekavian standard.
>
> While I don't have anything against anyone who says
> that "(s)he is
> speaking Glapolgaptoringian language" even if it is
> literal English, I
> think that:
>
> 1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If
> Glapolgaptoringian is the same as
> English and 100 humans call it Glapolgaptoringian,
> then it may be
> noted in the article about English that some people
> call it in such
> way. Idiosyncretic naming should stay inside of user
> space (yes, I
> agree to move it into Aleksandra's user space but
> not redirect, and I
> would say it on the TfD page). Otherwise it makes
> mass.
>
> 2. Wikipedia is not the place for ethnical/national
> constitution. In
> the case of Zlatiborian, English Wikipedia is used
> for that case
> ("Zlatiborian exists, you can see the article about
> Zlatiborian on
> Wikipedia!") I would support Zlatiborians if they
> are asking for
> schools in Zlatiborian etc., even I think it is
> silly. But, I
> _didn't_heard_ about them and their needs yet!
>
> So, if it is OK to say in Wikipedia article "10
> people call Serbian
> language Zlatiborian" or "Mark Williamson calls
> English language
> Glapolgaptoringian", it is OK to keep the language
> tag.

Of course, everybody should have the right to call
their language whatever they want. However, an
encyclopedia (even a 'free' one!) nevertheless has to
focus on scientific facts rather than on (possibly
radical) personal opions. From the very small language
sample given at RfWinL one can easily tell that
"Zlatiborian" is at the most a dialect of the whole
sr/hr/bs/sh or whatever-you-wanna-call-it language.

A useful question we could ask ourselves here could
be: "Would any well-renowned printed encyclopedia
feature an article on 'Zlatiborian'?"

Arbeo

___________________________________________________________
Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 1GB Speicher kostenlos - Hier anmelden: http://mail.yahoo.de


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unnecessary nudity on [[Hogtie bondage]]

body:
I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright
issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to
dare checking...

--Mgm


list: commons-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] Images that require notification

body:
There are a few images on Commons that *require* (not request)
notification of the photographer when used. This includes use by
Wikimedia (though the template used somewhat misleadingly speaks of
"third party use"). I have nominated these images and their template for
deletion here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Template:Notify_and_all_images_using_it.

Our licensing policy currently does not explicitly forbid such images,
but I believe it should. If the community moves to delete these images,
we can edit the policy accordingly.

Since this is a broader issue, I am announcing it here to increase
community feedback, but my arguments for deletion can be found on the
above page.

Best,

Erik


body:
On 10/24/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> > So, what will happen if someone edits the Tools page (and any other
> > pages which reference this 1 click thingy), and removes all references
> > to it? Will the Board be restating the link, even if it is constantly
> > removed by contributors?
>
> It is a wiki page like any other. I would find it incredibly strange
> and shocking if people did that, why would they?
>
> One point that needs to be repeated over and over and over here is that
> the time, manner, and place of any link, even the existence of the link
> at all, is a matter for the wiki to decide, like any other.
>
> Now, having said that, I think that it is pretty silly to imagine that
> we will have a page of "tools", some of which are proprietary, some of
> which are free, most of which bring us no revenue, and *1* which does
> bring us revenue -- from someone who has freely given to our community
> without asking anything in return -- from someone who proposed this idea
> as a way for him to give *even more* to us, and then people are going to
> maliciously delete any reference to us.
>
> The message coming from that would be simply bizarre.
>
> I think people need to slow down and think this through before jumping
> to strange conclusions.
>
> --Jimbo

 I agree that it'd be stupid to remove the link, but the only reason to put
the link in a place of prominence (or whatever the phrase was) is the fact
that we made a deal to do so. In the absense of such a deal the link would
likely be put right in with all the rest.
 I think the question many of us are wondering is what happens if the wiki
process puts the link in a place which Answers Corporation doesn't consider
a position of prominence? Do we forfeit the revenue? Are we in violation of
the agreement?

Hopefully all this will be moot by the time the trial period is over,
because some Wikipedians will have created their own tool just like that by
Answers Corporation except for the fact that it's open source and donates
100% of its net profits to Wikipedia. In that case I think it'll be clear
that the board should not renew the agreement with Answers Corporation.
 Anthony


from_name: charles matthews

body:
David Gerard wrote

>Martin Richards wrote:

>>I think it is only a matter of time before a clone of wikipedia pops up
>>with
>>restricted editing, gains some popularity (especially with academics), and
>>over time makes Wikipedia start to look like the urban dicionary.

>There's probably a happy medium between Wikipedia and Nupedia,
actually. I can easily picture something using MediaWiki or a variant
with a workflow something like Wikinews. Get academics to write and
sign articles. Release the results under GFDL and maybe CC-by-sa.
Source Wikipedia articles (under GFDL only, of course) that pass
muster. It could be quite complementary to Wikipedia.

>From where I sit, surveying the mathematics coverage, there are a few
reasons for doubting the scenario:

1. A moderated site, PlanetMath, has done good work, without attracting
people as good as WP-en has
2. Their articles are worthy but easy to improve with freer editing
3. We are beginning to get more articles about current research, the real
USP for a hot site

Academics who even consider doing pro bono expository work have of course a
free choice.  They all have departmental web space; if they just want to
write surveys and essays, they can post there easily.

Charles


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> We use wiki software for the editing of the site.  This means that
> anyone can change any article at any time.  There are some rare
> exceptions, of course, for example the main page of the site, and at
> various times, articles which are protected for the purpose of dealing
> with vandalism.
>
> Because anyone can edit any article at any time, there is an in-built
> mechanism for dealing with inappropriate influence over articles.  Of
> course, for a limited period of time, an organized group or a really
> persistent editor can push an article to a position of bias for a time,
> but we have constantly developing processes (3RR, Arbcom, NPOV rules,
> etc.) to deal with that.

So, what will happen if someone edits the Tools page (and any other
pages which reference this 1 click thingy), and removes all references
to it? Will the Board be restating the link, even if it is constantly
removed by contributors?

Chris


subject: [WikiEN-l] NuNotNuPedia (again)

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:
>David Gerard wrote

>>There's probably a happy medium between Wikipedia and Nupedia,
>>actually. I can easily picture something using MediaWiki or a variant
>>with a workflow something like Wikinews. Get academics to write and
>>sign articles. Release the results under GFDL and maybe CC-by-sa.
>>Source Wikipedia articles (under GFDL only, of course) that pass
>>muster. It could be quite complementary to Wikipedia.

>From where I sit, surveying the mathematics coverage, there are a few
>reasons for doubting the scenario:
>1. A moderated site, PlanetMath, has done good work, without attracting
>people as good as WP-en has
>2. Their articles are worthy but easy to improve with freer editing
>3. We are beginning to get more articles about current research, the real
>USP for a hot site

ooh, I didn't consider that one. That would be straddling the edge of
No Original Research, of course ...

>Academics who even consider doing pro bono expository work have of course a
>free choice.  They all have departmental web space; if they just want to
>write surveys and essays, they can post there easily.

Yes, but so few do ... Wikipedia somehow motivates them to start, but
then to get annoyed when people ruin their beautiful prose. I'd
actually like them to do so more, because then the pages would be more
useful as references!

- d.


from_name: Delirium

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>A whole section on the spelling of the word "encyclopedia"?   This is
>one of the problems that are endemic to wikis.  Relatively trivial
>topics become extended into a pseudo-debate.
>
I agree to some extent, but only in that it's a problem of organization
and focus.  I think this sort of information is useful to have, just not
useful to have highlighted in prominent places.  I've taken the liberty
of moving the "debate about how this article should be spelled" sections
out of the intro of a few articles to a #Name section near the end,
which I think works fine.  There's certainly no reason to remove
information that might be of interest to someone, so long as it's
verifiable and not unduly getting in the way of other information.

-Mark


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>  I think the question many of us are wondering is what happens if the wiki
> process puts the link in a place which Answers Corporation doesn't consider
> a position of prominence? Do we forfeit the revenue? Are we in violation of
> the agreement?

During the first 60 days, both they and we have the right to cancel for
any reason at all.  I doubt very much that will happen.

--Jimbo


body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Thanks for the clarification (and to Fred Bauder and Anthony DiPierro).
> I think it's important that the community hears the answers to these
> questions. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make a FAQ based on the
> questions/answers discussed on the mailing list?

Yes.

Part of the problem here may be that there are many people who are new
to the community who might not know me very well.  I think anyone who
knows me would know the answer to the question "What do we do if some
donor demands that an article be changed to suit them?"

--Jimbo


body:
On 10/24/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > I think the question many of us are wondering is what happens if the
> wiki
> > process puts the link in a place which Answers Corporation doesn't
> consider
> > a position of prominence? Do we forfeit the revenue? Are we in violation
> of
> > the agreement?
>
> During the first 60 days, both they and we have the right to cancel for
> any reason at all. I doubt very much that will happen.
>
> --Jimbo

 The more details I learn about the deal, the more it sounds like a donation
more than anything else. The only place I was really skeptical was with the
link we were giving to them, but if this really is going to be handled
throught the normal wiki process then I see why many are saying it's not
advertising - in that case it isn't.
 Whoever negotiated this deal did a good job. In its essence we give them
the right to call the software "Wikipedia edition", and they give us half
their revenues for that software. Yeah, yeah, we add a link to
Wikipedia:Tools, but that's a good idea anyway, and yeah, we add a link to
the tool from that page, but if the wiki process is going to be used to add
that link, then again it's something we would have done anyway.
 Anthony


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 10/24/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright
> issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to
> dare checking...

I thought I'd probably feel the same way, after Matt's description,
but fortunately I am on a laptop at home, so I was able to check.  The
pictures seem to be be completely in order.

There are no visible advertising watermarks on the image.  The
uploader, sbc01, correctly licensed his photographs under the GFDL.
They're were clearly created primarily for demonstration rather than
erotic purposes.  Unlike in pornography, the poses show the whole body
from head to toe, and a wide enough area around the body to show
suspension ropes and the like in detail, and the use of the face and
facial expression, a primary erotic tool in pornography, is almost
totally absent here--even where the face is not completely concealed
behind a mask or gag.

Matt removed one photograph on grounds of nudity.  The model is lying
flat on her tummy, gagged, and with her limbs tightly bound behind
her.  She is visibly wearing thong panties, the side strap of which
can be seen at her left hip.  She is obviously naked from the waist up
but her pose completely conceals her breasts.  Her crotch is out of
sight, her buttocks are concealed by her bound wrists and hands.  The
viewpoint is a few feet above and to her left side, and her left
shoulder and head are nearest to the camera.

Although I would hesitate to call this pose decent--the model is after
all semi-naked and restrained in a manner that would be humiliating
and upsetting in other contexts--in my opinion this is an excellent
example of how to illustrate sexual bondage play.

In another photograph, illustrating vertical hogtie, the model is
suspended in a vertical posture and pictured from behind and above her
left shoulder.  Again the buttocks are concealed behind bound hands
and wrists.  The model's right breast and naked nipple are exposed in
profile and if you squint a bit, or use zoom on your image viewer, I
supposed you might see something that might give a particularly
sensitive American Superbowl viewer a small palpitation.


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: Ant: Re: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

body:
Templates should tell us something, not to confuse people about the facts.

I have the idea about that. May we write in info-boxes: "This user
speaks <whatever language name> which is mutually understandeble with
<lang1>, <lang2>, <lang3>..."

In general, I don't care about user language boxes when we are talking
about Shtokavian standards/potential standards because I know the
whole story... But, what about some "exotic" languages where we can be
very confused with language naming? Without clear classification, we
would get a lot of idiosyncretic "languages" and user language boxes
whould be useless.

What others think about the idea?

On 10/24/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Arbeo, this is about templates on userpages, not articles.
>
> Mark
>
> On 24/10/05, Arbeo M <arbeo_m at yahoo.de> wrote:
> >
> > --- Milos Rancic <millosh at mutualaid.org> schrieb:
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> > > So, less of 250 people say that their language is
> > > Zlatiborian language
> > > and this speech is the basis of the Serbian
> > > Iyekavian standard.
> > >
> > > While I don't have anything against anyone who says
> > > that "(s)he is
> > > speaking Glapolgaptoringian language" even if it is
> > > literal English, I
> > > think that:
> > >
> > > 1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If
> > > Glapolgaptoringian is the same as
> > > English and 100 humans call it Glapolgaptoringian,
> > > then it may be
> > > noted in the article about English that some people
> > > call it in such
> > > way. Idiosyncretic naming should stay inside of user
> > > space (yes, I
> > > agree to move it into Aleksandra's user space but
> > > not redirect, and I
> > > would say it on the TfD page). Otherwise it makes
> > > mass.
> > >
> > > 2. Wikipedia is not the place for ethnical/national
> > > constitution. In
> > > the case of Zlatiborian, English Wikipedia is used
> > > for that case
> > > ("Zlatiborian exists, you can see the article about
> > > Zlatiborian on
> > > Wikipedia!") I would support Zlatiborians if they
> > > are asking for
> > > schools in Zlatiborian etc., even I think it is
> > > silly. But, I
> > > _didn't_heard_ about them and their needs yet!
> > >
> > > So, if it is OK to say in Wikipedia article "10
> > > people call Serbian
> > > language Zlatiborian" or "Mark Williamson calls
> > > English language
> > > Glapolgaptoringian", it is OK to keep the language
> > > tag.
> >
> > Of course, everybody should have the right to call
> > their language whatever they want. However, an
> > encyclopedia (even a 'free' one!) nevertheless has to
> > focus on scientific facts rather than on (possibly
> > radical) personal opions. From the very small language
> > sample given at RfWinL one can easily tell that
> > "Zlatiborian" is at the most a dialect of the whole
> > sr/hr/bs/sh or whatever-you-wanna-call-it language.
> >
> > A useful question we could ask ourselves here could
> > be: "Would any well-renowned printed encyclopedia
> > feature an article on 'Zlatiborian'?"
> >
> > Arbeo
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________________________________
> > Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 1GB Speicher kostenlos - Hier anmelden: http://mail.yahoo.de
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> If you would like a gmail invite, please send me an e-mail.
> Si ud. querr?a que le enviara una invitaci?n para juntar gmail, favor
> de env?eme un mensaje.
> Si vous voudriez que je vous envoie une invitation ? joindre gmail,
> envoyez-moi s.v.p un message.
> Se vce. gostaria que eu lhe enviasse um convite para juntar gmail,
> favor de envie-me uma mensagem.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Oour quality could rival Encyclopedia Britannica (was:
	Guardian article about Wikipedia)

body:
I have only skimmed the Guardian article, but it seems fair and
balanced. I bet the "grades" rating the reviewed articles on a scale
from 1 to 10 are realistic indicators of quality.

I have the ear of the Editor in Chief of the IIFWP's Encyclopedia
Project (EP). He has praised my attention to quality (no one else seems
to care as much as me!) and urged me not to shut up about it.

I hope to be able to bring over some additional, pre-publication
articles from EP to Wikipedia. So far I've only exported [[abstinence]].
(It came early on in the alphabet, I'm not trying to be subversive or
anything :-)

We at Wikipedia like claiming that our quality rivals Encyclopedia
Britannica, but our readers don't think so. As a software engineer, I
think the "end users" are the ones I have to satisfy: THEY have to think
it's a good computer program; it doesn't matter much what my team
thinks.

As encyclopedia editors, I think our readers are the ones we have to
satisfy. Let's stop patting ourselves on the back and telling each other
what wonderful writers we are, merely because we have a daily "featured
article" (FA). EVERY article on a major topic should be up to FA
standards.

I won't feel we will have "arrived" until our readers start telling us
that our quality level rivals Encyclopedia Britannica. And if our
[[Atom]] article is any indicator, we have a long way to go.

I've mentioned "atom" repeatedly over the last few weeks, but no one did
a thing to it until recently. It then suddenly got a lot better.

This tells me two things:

(1) We don't pay enough attention to quality. Lousy articles can lie
around for months or years, collecting dust.

(2) When we put our minds to it, we can polish one of these decaying
relics and out-do Britannica!

What conclusion can we draw from this? I'd like to hear some discussion
on this, please.

Ed Poor
Wikipedia Liaison and Technical Consultant
Encyclopedia Project
IIFWP

-----Original Message-----
From: David Gerard [mailto:dgerard at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 11:32 AM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Guardian article about Wikipedia


from_name: Snowspinner

body:
On Oct 24, 2005, at 11:52 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
>> The Britannica guy wants us
>> to write 26000 words in one article about encyclopaedias, obviously
>> hasnt understood the web.
>>
>
> Actually his point wasn't that we should produce 26,000 words.  It was
> rather that by contrast to the Britannica article of that length, ours
> runs to a mere 2000.  This is surprisingly short, given the subject.
> If we can manage 750 words on Squeaky Fromme, why so few on
> Encyclopedia?

Does Britannica also have separate articles on Encyclopedia
Britannica, Brokhaus Encyclopedia, Great Soviet Encyclopedia,
Encyclopedia Judaica, Etymologiae, Bibliotheke, Cyclopaedia, or
Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, Encyclopedie, Pseudodoxia
Epidemica, Lexicon technicum, or, for that matter, Wikipedia?

Because I bet if you count all of those (And probably a few more),
we've got more than EB on the subject, just broken into multiple
articles.

Which may well be a flaw on our part.

-Snowspinner


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:
>On 10/21/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

>> What I support is not a "hoax", but rather the right to determine
>> one's own sociolinguistic and sociocultural identity.

>Mark, at least two linguists (User:Angr is another) said twice that
>story about Zlatiborian is a hoax.

I want a Wikipoidia in broad 'Straiyan, mate. Yew gonna tell me broad
'Straiyan's a hoax, mate? Strewth!

- d.

References:
1. http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Australian-English_Dictionary


body:
On Oct 24, 2005, at 12:06 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>
>
> I would say not in the least, because we're primarily writing for the
> Web. 32 kilobytes (which used to be a hard technical limit but I still
> think is a very good *stylistic* limit) is 6000 words, which is a LOT
> of text to read on a screen. It's really quite a lot even if you print
> it (about ten or so pages). Anything longer than 32k really needs some
> attention to what can possibly be spun out.
>

On the other hand, I've seen many an article that starts spinning out
stuff well before it's sensible - mysteriously, it's the "criticism
of" sections that always are the first to go. Wonder why that could be.

-Snowspinner


subject:
[WikiEN-l] The twitch-game joy of vandal-fighting (was The whole
	point of wikipedia)

body:
On 10/24/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> [*] a geek term meaning "doing something in order to do something in
> order to do something in order to do something." May be ultimately
> productive or may be a sophisticated form of procrastination. Possibly
> the greatest feat of yak-shaving in geek history is Don Knuth taking
> several years off "The Art Of Computer Programming" to invent TeX. His
> book needed better typesetting, you see, so he wrote a typesetting
> system ...

Mmm, did those guys ever get their spacewars game running on a PDP7?
I heard they decided to write an operating system...


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Oour quality could rival Encyclopedia Britannica (was:
	Guardia...

body:
In a message dated 10/24/2005 11:53:44 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com writes:

This  tells me two things:

(1) We don't pay enough attention to quality.  Lousy articles can lie
around for months or years, collecting  dust.

(2) When we put our minds to it, we can polish one of these  decaying
relics and out-do Britannica!

What conclusion can we draw  from this? I'd like to hear some discussion
on this,  please.

I don't know about conclusions.  Nor do I really know what kind of  checks
and balances exist for catching the garbage that all too often finds its  way
into articles on the site.

A few weeks back, I came across a passage that flat-out said that the only
contact the outside world had with sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern times was
related to the spread of diseases like malaria.  This incredibly ignorant
language had been in the article for almost a year and-a-half, completely
undisturbed.  And there supposedly is a effort of some sort to beef
up/improve/contribute articles on Africa.  The contributor was anonymous --  probably a
racist troll.

It surprises me not one whit that the reviewers found Wikipedia to be an
unreliable source of information.  I've found it to be rife with
mis/disinformation.  In fact, it's about the only thing that keeps me  coming back to edit.
It's a noble effort, but some of the things I've read  are nothing short of
shameful.

deeceevoice


body:
On Oct 24, 2005, at 12:09 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>
> It's the same problem [[George W. Bush]] has. Some topics have
> *entirely too much* interest for editors, to the detriment of readers.
>
>

For added fun, see [[2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and
irregularities]], and its associated sub-articles, which provide a
pleasant tonic to anyone who complains that we might give certain
areas of coverage the short shrift. In fact, I bet that's where
24,000 of our words about Encyclopedia got to - they were busy being
used to get those articles up to 60,000.

And if anyone wants to add those dispute tags that the interested
editors keep removing back while you're looking at the articles,
well, I'd surely not stop you.

-Snowspinner


body:
On 10/24/05, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Neil Harris wrote:
> > Hmm. 2500 hits/sec * 86400 secs/day * $1 CPM = $216,000 / _day_, or
> > $78,000,000+/year. Have you considered that the Wikimedia foundation
> > board might be aware of this, and that its decision not to put up
> > advertising might be a principled decision, rather than motivated by
> > "fear of money"?
>
> We don't have 2500 hits/sec, we have 2500 requests/sec, i.e. including
> images, stylesheets, etc. The difference is roughly a factor of 3. The
> income would thus be closer to $26M.
>
By these figures, we could cover our current operating costs by putting
> ads on the site for two weeks per year. I'm not sure if it's a good idea
> though.

 Alternatively, if just 5% of people *opted in* to advertisements, we'd be
set, and could use the donated money on other things (and wouldn't have to
run the ad begging for donations). Personally I'd rather see targetted ads
at the bottom of the page than requests for donations at the top. Isn't it
possible that 5% of Wikipedians are like me in this respect?
 I really don't see the reason not to try it, other than a fear of money. Or
in the case of Jimbo, the fact that he promised not to do it until the
community agrees.


body:
I wrote:

>I want a Wikipoidia in broad 'Straiyan, mate. Yew gonna tell me broad
>'Straiyan's a hoax, mate? Strewth!

Wrong list, sorry. Bugger! [*]

- d.

[*] for the New-Zullund speakers


subject: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!


subject: [WikiEN-l] The twitch-game joy of vandal-fighting

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
>On 10/24/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>> [*] a geek term meaning "doing something in order to do something in
>> order to do something in order to do something." May be ultimately
>> productive or may be a sophisticated form of procrastination. Possibly
>> the greatest feat of yak-shaving in geek history is Don Knuth taking
>> several years off "The Art Of Computer Programming" to invent TeX. His
>> book needed better typesetting, you see, so he wrote a typesetting
>> system ...

>Mmm, did those guys ever get their spacewars game running on a PDP7?
>I heard they decided to write an operating system...

*splutter* You win.

- d.


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 24 Oct 2005, at 12:18, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> So what? Jimbo himself has done that too. Atleast a few of the
> "raunchy" images on Wikipedia has a description that reads something
> like "(c) Bomis.inc, licensed as FDL". I don't understand the law that
> says that when smut-peddlers donate images it is bad, but when other
> corporations does it, it is good.

Thats not quite correct. There should only be one Bomis image on the
site licensed under GFDL, and its not particularly "raunchy". You
should delete any others you see as they are not licensed for wikipedia.

Justinc


from_name: Martin Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Temple University is Blocked

body:
See [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal]]

----- Original Message -----
From: "fintler" <fintler at gmail.com>
To: <WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 2:34 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Temple University is Blocked

> To whom it may concern,
>
> I just tried to register for an account on wikipedia but it says my IP
> (155.247.166.29) has been blocked. It just happens that this IP is for
> the web proxy to the biggest library on campus. I'm at Temple
> University in Philadelphia (www.temple.edu). Is there any chance of it
> getting unblocked so the legit users can add to the site too? I'm not
> sure what the policy is for blocking proxies. Thanks for your time.
>
> -Jonathan Bringhurst <jbringhurst at temple.edu>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: policy on breaches of bans

body:
Simone Pantaleo wrote:

>Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
>
>>We can't block his IP-range, if understand it he's editing from
>>203.xxx and 141.xxx. That's 1/128th of the entire internet
>>(approximately)! Anyway, we really shouldn't permablock any IPs. As
>>for dealing with this user, what else can we do? I mean, he is in
>>essence banned for ever (I doubt he'd give up for an entire year,
>>just to come back and be a nice, productive member of the wikipedia
>>community). What can we do except to revert and block his socks?
>>
>>
>
>
>
>Hate to break the news to you all.. but if you did decide to block the
>intire Telstra IP range you will block not only the offending users/editors
>but innocent users (like me for instance i am telstra broadband... i am
>thinking those are IP address for a dial up connection though but i am not
>sure) as far as how we should address breaches on bans... I have a few ideas
>(parctually as it pertains to unregiested users-- will post something later
>this weekend australian time on my user page wildkitten1205 @
>wikipedia.org<http://wikipedia.org>)
>as i had to wack a annoying vandal (who was unregeisted) with the help of an
>admin last night and it got me thinking.
>
>
>

Of course, as Wikipedia heads for the top 20 websites, blocking an
entire large ISP is likely to become more and more likely to lead to
blowback in the direction of the ISP, particularly, I imagine, if their
users were presented with:

"ATTENTION $LARGE_ISP USERS:

Access to Wikipedia from $LARGE_ISP has been blocked because of your
ISPs unwillingness to address the problem of persistent vandalism/abuse
from $LARGE_ISP customers. If you are affected by this problem, please
call your ISP's abuse department on 555 xxx-yyyy to help resolve this
problem, citing [[Wikipedia:Trouble ticket ISSUE005153]]. We usually
find that these problems resolve themselves after the first few hundred
helpdesk calls."

-- Neil


body:
Snowspinner wrote:

>> Actually his point wasn't that we should produce 26,000 words.  It was
>> rather that by contrast to the Britannica article of that length, ours
>> runs to a mere 2000.  This is surprisingly short, given the subject.
>> If we can manage 750 words on Squeaky Fromme, why so few on
>> Encyclopedia?
>
>
> Does Britannica also have separate articles on Encyclopedia
> Britannica, Brokhaus Encyclopedia, Great Soviet Encyclopedia,
> Encyclopedia Judaica, Etymologiae, Bibliotheke, Cyclopaedia, or
> Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, Encyclopedie, Pseudodoxia
> Epidemica, Lexicon technicum, or, for that matter, Wikipedia?

I dug out a copy of Britannica to look at their article, and that's a
big part of the word difference: While we give a high-level overview of
the history of the encyclopedia, and break out individual detailed
histories into their own articles, Britannica gives a long narrative
exposition on the history of the encyclopedia, not entirely unlike what
you would get if you merged all those articles back into the main one.
That certainly accounts for the history portion of the Britannica
article, anyway, which is a pretty good proportion of the wordcount.

-Mark


from_name: Poe, Marshall

body:
Just a quick question.

Isn't it the case that Google Adsense (and similar programs) basically
cut the tie between specific advertisers and specific publications?  As
I understand it, the ads are dynamically generated by Google--neither
the advertiser nor the website owner have much say in placement, nor do
the advertiser or website owner have any contact with one another.

If this is so, it's pretty hard for me to understand how putting Adsense
ads on Wikipedia pages could ever lead to any of the editorial-influence
scenarios being described here. Adsense makes the "wall" between
editorial and advertising that stronger than it already is (and I work
for a magazine where it is very strong without Adsense).

Best,

Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
The Atlantic Monthly
600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-6511
mpoe at theatlantic.com
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Chris Jenkinson
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 12:21 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form
NewPartnership

GerardM wrote:
> As you assume that it is enough to have your own point of view and do
> not need to consider what others say and as you do not bring
> alternatives that addresses the negative side-effects of your stance.
> I fail to see what principles you are referring to; the primary goal
> is to bring good NPOV Free information to all people in all
languages.. What are you referring to?

I don't assume that at all; I would be interested to know how you came
by that assumption (because it is absolutely wrong). The principles I am
referring to are the exact same as you have said there - free access to
uninfluenced information.

> Why does it not apply to corporations and, why have all individuals
> the moral high ground ? From my perspective organisations including
> corporations can do good and I hate the idea that every cooperation
> needs to be considered evil.

It doesn't apply to corporations because corporations are legal entities
whose reason for existence is to deliver profit to shareholders. By
definition, they are not required to "do good".

I don't think every corporation is evil or should be considered evil,
and I never said that. Of course corporations can do good, they aren't
required to - which is exactly why we shouldn't assume that they are in
existence to "do good".

This is why the Board needs to explain why the partnership is good for
the continued existence of the various projects.

> You have to assure that you do not become beholden to one source of
revenue.
> So let us have many corporate sponsors. Let us have many
> organisational sponsors. Let us get loaded with money, let us be able
> to do good, the good that we do not do because of lack of funds.

Yes, let's - but let's not compromise on our core beliefs.

> The project as far as I am concerned is not Wikipedia. We are bigger
> than that. Please read what I say; I am an admin NOT a Wikipedia
admin.

I still have no idea what you are talking about here. Could you try
rephrasing it in a different way?

> We disagree strongly. I try to explain why removing these links wrong
> and you do not want to know. The lack of revenue will disproportially
> hurt projects other than the English Wikipedia. You must be an
> en.wikipediaadmin, I do not see andy consideration for the other
> projects or languages.

Yes, I am an admin on the English language Wikipedia, but that's not
relevant. I would be making the same points if it were a different
language Wikipedia or one of the other projects (in any language).

> I fail to see how your stance helps us get information that is NPOV,
> free and available in all languages to all people of this world. I
> only see that your stance prevents us from getting aditional funds.
Funds that are needed.

My stance is that we shouldn't compromise on our key beliefs - free
access to information which is not influenced by individuals,
governments or corporations. If we have to scale back our operations or
reject some funding because it might affect this in some way, then so be
it. Money is not our goal here.

> It is cheap to only consider your POV and not consider the
implications.
> Money is needed and money from *MANY* sources prevents us from
> becoming reliant on any one of them. Your argument that the
> consequences of your POV are for someone else is inconsiderate.

I don't have the legal skills nor financial skills to budget for an
organisation like this. It's not inconsiderate for me to constructively
criticise the Board or the Foundation. It's not only inconsiderate but
socially negligent of me not to.

> You have read the arguments why this partnership is a good move. You
> do not accept these arguments, it does not mean that it was not
> explained to you and it does not mean that the reasons are not valid.
> It only shows that you disagree.

I have heard some arguments regarding this partnership, but not all, and
not all the arguments are complete. I agree with some of what I have
heard, disagree with other bits, and believe there is more information
on this to come - as with anything. Please don't tell me what I do or do
not believe, and let me be the judge of what I think is valid.

Chris
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Possibly there is false rhetoric involved in the discussion, but this is
> probably due to a lack of information and clarity from the Board on this
> issue.

Yes, and I take full responsibility for that and apologize for the
confusion.

> One of the ideals which I am referring to is free access of information
> which is not influenced by individuals, governments or corporations. The
> idea that it is possible to purchase text placement on Wikipedia gives
> many cause for concern - some people see advertising as the next step.

Well, advertising *may* come someday.  I have been clear about this on
many occassions.  But it will come from the community, not from me.  I
remain opposed to it.

--Jimbo


body:
Just a quick question.

Isn't it the case that Google Adsense (and similar programs) basically
cut the tie between specific advertisers and specific publications?  As
I understand it, the ads are dynamically generated by Google--neither
the advertiser nor the website owner have much say in placement, nor do
the advertiser or website owner have any contact with one another.

If this is so, it's pretty hard for me to understand how putting Adsense
ads on Wikipedia pages could ever lead to any of the editorial-influence
scenarios being described here. Adsense makes the "wall" between
editorial and advertising that stronger than it already is (and I work
for a magazine where it is very strong without Adsense).

Best,

Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
The Atlantic Monthly
600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-6511
mpoe at theatlantic.com
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony
DiPierro
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 12:23 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Benefits of advertising (was Re: Our
exponentiallyincreasing costs)

On 10/24/05, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Neil Harris wrote:
> > Hmm. 2500 hits/sec * 86400 secs/day * $1 CPM = $216,000 / _day_, or
> > $78,000,000+/year. Have you considered that the Wikimedia foundation

> > board might be aware of this, and that its decision not to put up
> > advertising might be a principled decision, rather than motivated by

> > "fear of money"?
>
> We don't have 2500 hits/sec, we have 2500 requests/sec, i.e. including

> images, stylesheets, etc. The difference is roughly a factor of 3. The

> income would thus be closer to $26M.
>
By these figures, we could cover our current operating costs by putting
> ads on the site for two weeks per year. I'm not sure if it's a good
> idea though.

 Alternatively, if just 5% of people *opted in* to advertisements, we'd
be set, and could use the donated money on other things (and wouldn't
have to run the ad begging for donations). Personally I'd rather see
targetted ads at the bottom of the page than requests for donations at
the top. Isn't it possible that 5% of Wikipedians are like me in this
respect?
 I really don't see the reason not to try it, other than a fear of
money. Or in the case of Jimbo, the fact that he promised not to do it
until the community agrees.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject:
[Foundation-l] Benefits of advertising (was Re: Our
	exponentiallyincreasing costs)


subject:
[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to
	Form	NewPartnership

body:
Poe, Marshall wrote:
> Just a quick question.
>
> Isn't it the case that Google Adsense (and similar programs) basically
> cut the tie between specific advertisers and specific publications?  As
> I understand it, the ads are dynamically generated by Google--neither
> the advertiser nor the website owner have much say in placement, nor do
> the advertiser or website owner have any contact with one another.
>
> If this is so, it's pretty hard for me to understand how putting Adsense
> ads on Wikipedia pages could ever lead to any of the editorial-influence
> scenarios being described here. Adsense makes the "wall" between
> editorial and advertising that stronger than it already is (and I work
> for a magazine where it is very strong without Adsense).
>
> Best,
>
> Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
> The Atlantic Monthly

I think that's all 100% correct.  There are a number of different issues
associated with partnerships, advertising, and so on, but one area which
I think is really a red herring is the idea that advertisers might be
able to influence Wikipedia content.

There are other reasons to be worried about ads, but with programs like
AdSense, and with Wiki editing, it's essentially impossible for there to
be influence.

--Jimbo


body:
Matt R wrote:

>
>However, to balance that, I think that content which is likely to be
>offensive, such as nudity, should be used only when there is a
>compelling case that the offensiveness is unavoidable if the article
>is to be illustrated properly. I would oppose photographs of nude
>people kissing in [[kiss]], or two nude people hugging in [[physical
>intimacy]], because I believe these concepts can be quite adequately
>illustrated without nudity. I don't suppose this is a particulary
>controversial line to take.
>
>
"Paging [[Auguste Rodin]]. M. Rodin to the white telephone, please."

-- Neil


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form
	New	Partnership

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Tim Starling wrote:
>
>> The press release, and the text posted by Angela in various locations,
>> was certainly not clear on the nature of the agreement, especially
>> regarding the rules relating to placement. Accordingly, I've updated the
>> page on Wikipedia on the subject, with some help from Jimbo:
>
>
> Thanks, that's a great deal clearer! As I've mentioned previously, the
> initial press release sounded greatly like Answers paid to get their
> tool prominently displayed on Wikipedia.
>
> Now it turns out that Answers are simply making a new tool with
> advertising, and are giving some of the revenue to the Foundation, and
> are asking nicely if we'd put the tool on the Tools page.
>
> Hopefully the lesson learnt from this is that the detail should be
> provided right from the beginning, rather than confusingly-worded
> which creates false impressions right from the start.

The new wording is still a bit confusing to me, if "asking nicely if
we'd put the tool on the Tools page" is all it's supposed to mean.
Simply putting the tool on the tools page was not an issue---the tools
page is for listing pretty much any tool we know about, so of course it
should be listed.  The controversy was over an agreement to give it
"charter placement" on that page.

Some people object to even having a profit relationship in the first
place (and did with Amazon anyway), but I haven't generally been among
them (I supported the Amazon referrer revenue way back then, so long as
it was disclosed and not displayed any more prominently than other
bookstores' links).  The objection, from me anyway, is to displaying
such partners' links in a more prominent location.  Amazon referrer
link: fine.  Putting Amazon link at the top of the ISBN page in larger
font (or otherwise highlighted uniquely): not fine.  The present
situation is pretty much identical, imo, and it's a bit bizarre how
directly the board seems to have completely ignored the community
consensus that was reached the last time this issue came up.

-Mark


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form New
	Partnership

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> Will the Wikimedia Foundation ever accept money to change the content of
>> the articles?  Not as long as I'm alive, ok?  Anyone who thinks
>> otherwise should check their premises and remember who I am and what I'm
>> doing and how I spend my life.
>
>
> Forgive my scepticism, but if we start accepting advertising and become
> reliant on it, it isn't unknown for the company who is advertising to
> pull their adverts, cutting Wikimedia's revenue.

Absolutely.
Just as a huge disaster happening in an country from which we get a
significant part of our donations would also cut down our revenue.
Just as Yahoo could decide to stop helping with the Korea servers at the
end of the deal period. We would also have to replace all those servers
pretty quickly.

Overall, all it really says is that we should have various sources of money.
* Individual donations certainly is our best assets
* Corporate donations should be favored (but are also controversial)
* Grants (again controversial depending on the Foundation giving it)
* Tee-shirt and other item sales (about 200 dollars last year ?)
* Government support (controversial as well)
* Collaboration such as Kennisnet (might be controversial as well...)
* Collaboration such as Answers.com (potentially highly controversial)

But to be sustainable, I think we need diverse sources of income.

> A possibly apocryphal story is of a program on the BBC, I believe it was
> a car review program, who gave a bad review to a certain American car
> model. The CEO of the company found out about it, was furious and
> ordered the advertising team to pull all adverts to punish the TV
> station. The advertising team replied "sorry sir, but the BBC don't run
> adverts".
>
> A lack of adverts is one of the reasons why Wikipedia can be neutral. If
> we become reliant on others for our existence, they can exert influence
> over our content. I don't want to see us go down that route.
>
> Chris

You are perfectly correct. I would totally oppose an ads for a certain
american car model on [[car]]?
Now the question I would ask, in all honesty, is how do you perceive the
current deal with Answers.com could have an impact on the neutrality of
our articles ?

Ant


subject: Ant: Re: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

body:
On 10/24/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think it matters -- even if there is no template, people can
> make it look like a language template anyhow.
>
> So if they can make something that looks like a rabbit and acts like a
> rabbit, why not just give them a rabbit?

Because of categorization.


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>
>> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>
>>> Will the Wikimedia Foundation ever accept money to change the content of
>>> the articles?  Not as long as I'm alive, ok?  Anyone who thinks
>>> otherwise should check their premises and remember who I am and what I'm
>>> doing and how I spend my life.
>>
>>
>> Forgive my scepticism, but if we start accepting advertising and
>> become reliant on it, it isn't unknown for the company who is
>> advertising to pull their adverts, cutting Wikimedia's revenue.
>>
>> A lack of adverts is one of the reasons why Wikipedia can be neutral.
>> If we become reliant on others for our existence, they can exert
>> influence over our content. I don't want to see us go down that route.
>
>
> That problem has more to do with dependancy than advertising.  This is
> why diversification is important.  Just as dangerous as it might be to
> depend exclusively on donations, so too is it to depend on a single
> advertiser.  One avoids exclusive arrangements so that if one advertiser
> fails there remain others to pick up the slack, or there is enough in
> contingency reserves to tide us over until a replacement can be found.
>
> Ec

Absolutely.
We must keep away from any exclusive arrangements and always manage a
door to get out of a deal which turns sour.

Ant


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
Here we go again, will this dead bloodily beaten horse ever decompose?

> First, I'd like to state that, in general, I support Wikipedia being
> explicit in its illustration where necessary. I have never had a
> problem with potentially-offensive photos on pages like [[penis]],
> [[clitoris]] and the like.

You have never had a problem with from an American viewpoint
potentially-offensive images? OK. I have never had a problem with
potentially-offensive photos (and text!) on pages like [[female]],
[[hair]], [[feet]], [[homosexual]], etc... By saying that only
[[penis]] and [[clitoris]] are potentially offensive but not the other
examples I mentioned, you are implying that your viewpoint is the
supreme one and more important than all others.

> However, to balance that, I think that content which is likely to be
> offensive, such as nudity, should be used only when there is a
> compelling case that the offensiveness is unavoidable if the article
> is to be illustrated properly. I would oppose photographs of nude
> people kissing in [[kiss]], or two nude people hugging in [[physical
> intimacy]], because I believe these concepts can be quite adequately
> illustrated without nudity. I don't suppose this is a particulary

I think it is. Just because you (and you are not alone, but I bet you
are not the majority either) think nudity is offensive is not a reason
to exclude it. Also, nudity (or atleast very few clothes) is an
important part of [[physical intimacy]] because most people are
undressed when they are doing it. Woman can be quite adequately
illustrated without either feet, fingers or hair. I don't think that
is a reason to butcher a huge number of images in Wikipedia.

> Recently, a proprietor of a bondage pornography site uploaded a number
> of his images to Wikipedia depicting a woman in various positions of
> sexual bondage, and added them as illustration to several pages,
> including (what has now been split off to become) [[Hogtie
> bondage]]. Two of these photographs used on [[Hogtie bondage]] feature
> a nude woman. However, I don't believe that nudity is necessary to

Once again you think. I don't know very much about [[Hogtie bondage]]
(and I can't read up on it ATM, because I'm at work and I'm fully
aware that Wikipedia is not work safe) but I assume that it has
something to do with SEX, hasn't it?

> In general, I think we should be very careful when dealing with
> erotica within Wikipedia. The original purpose of such images is not
> illustration, so we need to be sure that they do indeed make for good
> illustration when used as such. In the hogtie case, the owner of the
> adult website likely had the partial motive of promoting his website

So what? Jimbo himself has done that too. Atleast a few of the
"raunchy" images on Wikipedia has a description that reads something
like "(c) Bomis.inc, licensed as FDL". I don't understand the law that
says that when smut-peddlers donate images it is bad, but when other
corporations does it, it is good.

> (a link was included in the image description pages). And many people
> readily enjoy seeing titillating images in web pages, regardless of
> their illustrative value. So I think it's worth making sure there is a
> robust case for their use, given the potential for offense, because we
> decrease the value of Wikipedia if we are offensive without good
> editorial reasons.

Noone has suggest that we should be offensive for no good reason.
However, what has been common practice so far, is that editorial
decisions and an images educational value always and unconditionally
trumps (what many of us Westerners percieve as) offensiveness.

--
mvh Bj?rn


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Dan Grey wrote:
>
>>I'm really quite confused.
>>
>>Angela said we don't need this money to pay for servers, yet Mav is
>>apparently saying this.
>>
>>Which is correct?
>
>
> I don't want to speak for either of them, but Angela was asked whether
> this was due to a budget shortfall, and she said no.  That's correct.
>
> Mav is talking about longterm strategy and planning, and he's also correct.
>
> There is no emergency at the present time.  There are big opportunity
> costs if we start to fail next year if we don't plan ahead effectively.
>
> --Jimbo

Both are correct imho.

I'll give you a tiny example based on hardware though;

This is the planned hardware purchase listed on meta :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_budget/2005/Q4/hardware

This is the wish list though :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kate/Q4_hardware_order_proposal

Between the first and the second, you may have the difference between
the site still working... and the site really working well.

This is only for hardware, but you may figure out for various items
* Full time assistant : relief for Jimbo and things working so much better
* No assistant : paperwork being late, board and officers screaming on
each others or resigning from despair etc....

* Grant manager : a guy working full time to bring us fresh money from
other very supportive organisation
* No grant manager : well... how much did we gather on grants this year ?

* Wikimania : a wonderful meeting, with great community mix up, media
coverage and collaboration deals boiling
* No Wikimania : well...

We can shorten our budget to survival needs. And donations might be
sufficient. Can we survive with only donations for Q4 ? Yes. Did we
agree on the deal because we were strangled ? No.
But, we can turn the issue just as much as we want, in the long term, we
need more money. Best to fix deals BEFORE we get strangled, because
right now, we have choice on the deal we make. When we are strangled, we
have less room to negociate, accept, refuse or change a deal if the
community really does not like it.

Ant


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: I can't believe!

body:
Mark Willaimson wrote:

>I'm not 100% sure about that.

I'm 0% sure about it ;-)

>For a separate Wikipedia in Strine/Straiyan/..., it would need to be
>developed more as a literary language and/or made an official language
>of even a single municipality, or for more people to use it.
>By this, I mean in the strictly written sense.

No Australian uses *written* Strine ([[:en:Australian
English#Broad_Australian_English]]) in any context other than taking
the piss out of themselves. I invented the orthography in the
Uncyclopedia article as I went along.

>Some might say this is comparable to Cantonese, however I disagree, as
>YYBHW is used much more often than written Strine.

Someone who would say that would be smoking crack big time.

- d.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] So,
	you think you're a good writer? The "Fix Crappy Prose" Challenge

body:
> ===The "Fix Crappy Prose" Challenge===
>
> I'd like everyone reading this who thinks they're a pretty good writer

> to middle-click

I've tried this on 4 or 5 articles already.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:%22Fix_Crappy_Prose%22_Challenge

Uncle Ed


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Quality

body:
>>From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>

>>I have only skimmed the Guardian article, but it seems fair and
>>balanced. I bet the "grades" rating the reviewed articles on a scale
>>from 1 to 10 are realistic indicators of quality.

I agree.

>>We don't pay enough attention to quality.

This is what bothers me most about Wikipedia.

Low-quality articles are tolerated on the assumption that every low-quality
article is the nucleus around which a pearl will coalesce.

Unfortunately, one of the things that seems to be scaling, possibly
increasing, is the ratio between the rate at which irritating grains of
pollutant are introduced and the rate at which nacre is being deposited.

The de facto situation here seems to be that we would _rather_ have more
article than better articles.

I thought the Guardian article was very fair and accurate. And speaks quite
well of Wikipedia. We have consciously chosen to produce an encyclopedia in
which most articles are "almost good enough."

But if we want them to be better, we have got to do something to direct more
nacre around fewer nuclei.

Quality is not one of the "five pillars of Wikipedia." And only a certain
level of quality results from the natural operation of the Wiki process.

If we want Wikipedia to be not just a "free encyclopedia," but a "high-
quality free encyclopedia," something needs to change.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form New
	Partnership

body:
GerardM wrote:
> People who know me, now that I do almost everthing to have the things I
> believe in come true. They also know that i will not squander away the
> values of what we stand for. When some person aggresively removes these
> links, I will be sorry for the narrow mindedness that it demonstrates. It
> must also be an admin to do this, I will wonder to what extend this
> behaviour will be mitigated by him finding the funds that are lost to the
> rest of us. This is the least I would expect of someone who is this position
> of responibility.

I don't think it is narrow-mindedness that would cause someone to remove
these links, and I think accusing someone of acting in this way is
rather impolite and shows a lack of good faith. I can't think of one
admin who doesn't have the best interests of Wikipedia at heart and is
only doing what they think best.

The thing is, a large number of people have not been convinced that this
is necessary for the Foundation's continued operations, but the
partnership is going against some of the ideals on which Wikipedia was
founded. At the moment, the impression I (and many others) am getting is
that this deal is allowing corporations to influence how the Foundation
operates. Some people do not mind; others do. It's up to the Board to
demonstrate that this is a good move, not up to the community to say why
it's a bad move. Saying "let's give it a trial and see what the results
are" isn't good enough.

Chris


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Quality

body:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> On Mon 24 Oct 2005, dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote:
> >
> > This is what bothers me most about Wikipedia.
> >
> > Low-quality articles are tolerated on the assumption that every
> > low-quality
> > article is the nucleus around which a pearl will coalesce.
> >
> > Unfortunately, one of the things that seems to be scaling, possibly
> > increasing, is the ratio between the rate at which irritating grains of
> > pollutant are introduced and the rate at which nacre is being deposited.
> >
> > The de facto situation here seems to be that we would _rather_ have more
> > article than better articles.
>
>  I really don't know where you get these ideas from. How are low-quality
> articles "tolerated"? Who would rather have more articles than better
> articles? Who even thinks there is a choice between more articles and better
> articles?
>
Editor makes a good-faith edit to article. It is reverted by another
editor who is uncompromisingly pushing a POV. A conflict results, sometimes
more acrimonious than at other times.

Rinse, lather, repeat. Eventually the first editor will decide that it is
more rewarding to start creating articles & turn those red links blue
than to argue over content -- unless that editor is also uncompromising
about a certain POV, & decides to squat on certain articles to preserve
that POV.

Either path means that articles improve to a certain point, then unless
something happens they remain at that level of quality. We need more
tools to ensure that "something happens".

Geoff


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
I am getting more and more annoyed with the people that are not thinking
constructively about what is at stake. The Wikimedia Foundation is not only
about Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not only about the en.wikipedia. Our growth is
increasingly NOT in wikipedia and certainly not in the en.wikipedia. The
funding is about ebabling what already exists for the English people
interested in encyclopedic information.When you do not log on, you get
excellent info and response in English.

The other resources need to be build up, this attitude of what do we need it
for is discriminatory. If it intended as such fine. If you think that we can
grow in quality and quantity without ever increasing amounts of money you
have not followed things. We are talking about growth on a scale where
marginal changes will atrackt us more money, but not on the scale that is
needed.

I am on record that with Ultimate Wiktionary in full production with full
features for one year, it will be as big as Wikipedia was in August 2005.
Now in order to make that possible, money and major amounts of money will be
involved. When this money is to be raised through the standard Wikimedia
ways, it would not be possible because it would drain the money away from
Wikipedia. So please tell me if you have constructive ideas on how to make
this happen.

I am also on record that we can find the money for these things.. As much as
you do want things to stay the same, I want to see change because it is only
now that we are aproaching the tipping point where we are in a position to
make many of the things possible.

People who know me, now that I do almost everthing to have the things I
believe in come true. They also know that i will not squander away the
values of what we stand for. When some person aggresively removes these
links, I will be sorry for the narrow mindedness that it demonstrates. It
must also be an admin to do this, I will wonder to what extend this
behaviour will be mitigated by him finding the funds that are lost to the
rest of us. This is the least I would expect of someone who is this position
of responibility.

Thanks,
GerardM


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
Anthere wrote:
> You are perfectly correct. I would totally oppose an ads for a certain
> american car model on [[car]]?
> Now the question I would ask, in all honesty, is how do you perceive the
> current deal with Answers.com could have an impact on the neutrality of
> our articles ?

It depends on the amount of money we get from Answers. The larger the
percentage of the Foundation's income we receive, the greater the amount
of influence Answers have over us (due to their ability to withhold money).

I can imagine a scenario where a company which is supplying us with
significant resources of some kind can request that we remove an
"unfriendly" link from their Wikipedia entry. If it isn't, or someone
readds it, then we get into a potentially ugly situation.

What is more important - that Wikipedia is online and has POV material
on it, or that it's NPOV but offline due to lack of funds?

I don't know whether Answers will do this. I simply don't trust an
entity which has its sole reason for existence as "deliver maximum
profit to our shareholders" to act in the best interests of the Foundation.

Chris


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form
	NewPartnership

body:
On 10/24/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > With people saying they could lead to an income of $26m a year, or pay
> > for all of our normal hosting costs in a fortnight, I'd like to know
> > what these other reasons are!
>
> It's purely speculation to imagine the income would be that high. From
> my experience with Wikicities, $26m seems an exaggeration. Also, would
> the number of people visiting stay as high if we had ads? Would there
> still be the same level of motivation to use Wikipedia.org<http://Wikipedia.org>as opposed
> to a much faster loading mirror?

 Wikicities certainly doesn't have the quality content that Wikipedia has.
>From my experience running a mirror site of Wikipedia, I'd say it's a good
ballpark estimate. I'll also say this: my CPM rate is more significantly
higher than the $1 in the ballpark estimate. I'd be more specific, but
that'd violate the terms of service of Google Adsense. Granted, Wikipedia is
going to have a different traffic profile from a mirror, but still, we're
talking about a lot of money.

The threats of forking and boycotts over the last day highlight one of
> the biggest reasons for not doing this, or certainly for not rushing
> into it - Wikipedia.org <http://Wikipedia.org> would be nothing without
> the community behind
> it. Would they still be behind it if AdSense was used on the site?
> Even if for just two weeks a year? Would we be jeopardising our
> non-profit status? What effect would turning Wikimedia into something
> commercial have on the project? Would it make people less likely to
> donate / less likely to use Wikipedia / less likely to edit?

 If the ad revenue were kept to solely paying for the maintenance of the
website, and regular donations and grants were used for everything else,
then you wouldn't be jeopardising non-profit status and furthermore you
wouldn't even be taxed on the earnings, because the website upkeep would be
deductible against it. The potential problem would come into place if you
want to go beyond that, but I don't see how that's any different whether
you're doing the ads yourself or you're doing them through a partnership
with someone else.

We also need to bear in mind that covering the basic costs is only the
> beginning. Our goal, of providing free knowledge to every person on
> the planet, is a much larger aim than buying servers for Wikipedia,
> and 2 weeks AdSense isn't going to cover it. Would those 2 weeks
> prevent us getting the grants, donations, corporate sponsorship, and
> volunteer effort, needed to attain those wider goals?

 Seems to me the answer to all these concerns is that it'd help us get
grants and donations, because those grants and donations would be going
toward new projects as opposed to maintaining the status quo. I think a lot
of donators are more likely to donate to a company that's willing to help
itself. Would you donate to a bum who refuses to get a job? I wouldn't.
 Most of this could be avoided by simply making the ads opt-in, anyway.

These are more questions than reasons at this stage, but the fact that
> so many questions exist is a reason in itself not to even consider
> this until they can be answered.
>
> Angela.

 Most of the questions are hypotheticals, and can't be answered with any
amount of certainty until it's actually tried.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Find-A-Grave's founder provides us with list of famous
	people

body:
Brian wrote:

> FindAGrave.com provides genealogists, historians, and others with
> information on people who have died (famous or not). It averages
> millions of hits daily, 500k-700k page views daily, and 30k-50k unique
> visitors daily. They have a separate category for "famous people",
> each of whom were individually approved by the Find-A-Grave staff to
> be "well-known outside his or her local community".
>
> So, after a lot of wrangling with a 4.33MB spreadsheet file,
> containing 46,698 individuals, I've posted it at
> [[Wikipedia:Find-A-Grave famous people]]. Of course, there is some
> overlap with our content, but this should give us something to work on
> for a while :)

Sounds like it sets a standard for "notability". :-)

Ec


body:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> On 10/24/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright
> > issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to
> > dare checking...
>
> I thought I'd probably feel the same way, after Matt's description,
> but fortunately I am on a laptop at home, so I was able to check.  The
> pictures seem to be be completely in order.
>
[snip]
>
> Although I would hesitate to call this pose decent--the model is after
> all semi-naked and restrained in a manner that would be humiliating
> and upsetting in other contexts--in my opinion this is an excellent
> example of how to illustrate sexual bondage play.
>
There are some interesting opinions expressed in this thread (both
in the emails quoted & elsewhere) that touch upon my proposal about
encouraging cities and towns to use the GFDL (or CC-BY-2.0) as a
pubicity tool.

First, Matt has a point that nudity is unimportant in the image
to illustrate a hogtie bondage position: the focus is on how the
model is dressed, not on how the model is dressed (or undressed).

Then on the Talk page, Deeceevoice makes the interesting observation
that all of these images feature a woman tied up -- why isn't one of
the images of a man?

And above, I have quoted Tony Sideway as saying that he finds the
pictures informative, & snipped out the part where he states that a
prima facia case can be made that they have been offered as properly
part of the free use domain (free as in speech, not as beer).

So how do all of these affect my proposal? Let me explain:

1. One point I would like to make that I haven't seen anyone else make
is that we ought to be glad that these images have been released
under the GFDL: the more material we have in that category -- as long
as the subject is in focus & other technical criteria are met -- the
healthier our collection of free material becomes. Both we Wikipedians
& our users are now free to reuse this image in any way we want, for
example to illustrate articles like [[rope]], [[young female]],
[[sexual domination]], or [[prisoner]].

2. We are not going to have complete -- or much -- control over images
contributed. If we ask famous people for free images like sbc01 has
generously granted, we are going to have to be grateful for whatever
they give us; that's the nature of being a charity. For example, I
would find a picture of Ann Coulter in a short skirt, holding a rifle
& a picture of Michael Moore that she has obviously been using for
target practice offensive, but if was released under the GFDL then it
would replace all of the fair use images we currently are using.
(Actually, I would find any picture of Ann Coulter offensive, but I hope
I'm not the only person here that would defend the use of any image
that is free over others.)

3. If a given image used to illustrate a subject is offensive or otherwise
unsatisfactory, then I invite you to find or create a better one. Last
I looked the image used to illustrate [[Miniskirt]] is not Featured
Picture quality: it fails to capture the edginess or the sexiness that
this garment evokes in the popular imagination. However, it does the job
by illustrating what a miniskirt looks like -- & it is a free image.
If capturing these other qualities of this garment is important, then
create the image that captures these qualities & release it under GFDL.
Just as I said should be done if a town releases an image that does
not accurately represent the town, we are free to do in this instance.

But we should show gratitude that these donations were made.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Quality

body:
>
> This is what bothers me most about Wikipedia.
>
> Low-quality articles are tolerated on the assumption that every
> low-quality
> article is the nucleus around which a pearl will coalesce.
>
> Unfortunately, one of the things that seems to be scaling, possibly
> increasing, is the ratio between the rate at which irritating grains of
> pollutant are introduced and the rate at which nacre is being deposited.
>
> The de facto situation here seems to be that we would _rather_ have more
> article than better articles.

 I really don't know where you get these ideas from. How are low-quality
articles "tolerated"? Who would rather have more articles than better
articles? Who even thinks there is a choice between more articles and better
articles?

I thought the Guardian article was very fair and accurate. And speaks quite
> well of Wikipedia. We have consciously chosen to produce an encyclopedia
> in
> which most articles are "almost good enough."
>
> But if we want them to be better, we have got to do something to direct
> more
> nacre around fewer nuclei.

 Either would probably be sufficient, but I agree we could do more to focus
more on a core set of articles. It's one of the reasons I think we should
eliminate VFD and the like. It wastes far too much time focussing on at best
accomplishing nothing and at worst decreasing the quality of the
encyclopedia.

Quality is not one of the "five pillars of Wikipedia." And only a certain
> level of quality results from the natural operation of the Wiki process.
>
> If we want Wikipedia to be not just a "free encyclopedia," but a "high-
> quality free encyclopedia," something needs to change.

 Probably a lot needs to change, and not just "something". But that's pretty
obvious. What's less obvious is what it is that needs to change.
 Anthony


body:
GerardM wrote:
> It is one thing to disagree (simple) it is another to address the issues
> that I have raised.
> *You quote of context and therefore you lose the main point that I made that
> we will need money for other projects than just the English Wikipedia.

I didn't lose that at all. In fact, I didn't even mention the English
Wikipedia. I said the principles on which Wikipedia is founded (which
applies to all projects).

> *You only rehash why you think this might be acceptable. You tell me that I
> must assume good faith but where is your good faith where you assume that it
> is only the other party that has to convince ? So far you have not convinced
> at all.

I don't understand what you're referring to. As far as I'm aware, the
principle of "assume good faith" does not apply to corporations, but
only to individuals. Since the partnership is between the Foundation and
a corporation, the principle does not apply, and it is up to those
proposing the deal to explain why it is needed and will be beneficial.

> *You assume that it goes against the ideals of the Foundation. Which ideals
> are they ? As a Foundation we have objectives and it does say what we aim to
> do. With more funding we can do more.

The ideals I am referring to include the policy of neutral point of
view. See my other email
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-October/004580.html)
which explains why reliance on companies is a bad idea.

> *If you cannot think of an admin who does not have the best interest of
> Wikipedia at heart .. Well I am not a Wikipedia admin and I am an admin.
> This does not mean that I do not have the best interest of Wikipedia at
> heart, it only shows the fallacy of your line of thinking.

I don't understand what you are talking about. You don't have the best
interests of the project at heart? What exactly are you trying to say?

> I do consider an admin who removes these links narrow minded. He does not
> consider other things than his immediate concerns (that is what narrow
> minded means). I also fail to see a justification for these things in your
> arguments. I also miss how you would make the money that allows for the
> growth pattern that we have seen. Please be constructive; make sure that our
> projects can grow as boundless as the English Wikipedia has been allowed to
> do untill now.

I am well aware of what narrow-minded means, which is why I said in my
previous email that removing the links would not be narrow-minded. If
you make an accusation, it's up to you to explain why it is so, not up
to me to explain why it is not so. Why is someone who removes the link
narrow-minded, and how is he only considering his immediate concerns?
You are the one who must justify why, not I.

Also, it's not up to me to budget for the Foundation. I believe there is
someone appointed by the Board to do this. I can give you my suggestions
if you like, but I fail to see how this is relevant.

Please, explain to me why this partnership is a good move.

Chris


body:
On 10/24/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Gah, I'm finding all this really weird.
>
> 1. We need money for servers and bandwidth
> 2. Currently, it comes from donations but people seem to be saying
> that's not sustainable
> 3. We've had a few big donations, but they could be time-limited (will
> Yahoo want their servers back?) and they don't happen often
> 4. One proposal is a small link to a small tool which probably won't
> generate much money, so is no solution by itself
> 5. There's a few other ideas which show promise, but not a lot in
> terms of delivering hard cash
> 6. Adsense could give us stacks of cash
>
> Surely there's only a handful of logical conclusions here:
>
> 1. We stay with just donations (small private and few large coporate
> ones) and the site slowly bogs down as traffic demand outstrips server
> supply
> 2. We try more small stuff like the Amazon and the forthcoming 1-Click
> experiments, but let's be honest unless WP is plastered in them
> they'll never make much of a difference
> 3. We eventually accept a small amount of Adsense (or Adsense-syle)
> advertising on the site, which will most likely pay for what we need.
>
>
> Dan

 I'd add 4) We build a system which automatically scales along with the
demand, such as a P2P system based on something like BitTorrent. And I'd
subtract 1 and 2 for the reasons you've essentially given (we don't want WP
pastered in small stuff, and we don't want the site to bog down).