from_name: Florence Devouard

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Fwd: Re: [Internal-l] In re Executive Director &
	COO]

body:
Hello

The two main differences between COO and CEO are that
* the COO is essentially only in charge of the administrative tasks,
whilst the CEO is in charge of the entire organisation (also Technical,
Legal, Communication etc...)
* the COO is acting at the operational level whilst the CEO is more at
the strategic level

The COO, the CTO (Chief Technical Officer), the General Counsel etc...
are all directly reporting to the CEO, who is their boss.

Let me take a couple of examples to be very practical and make the
explanation clearer.

This is what should happen ideally (this is not what is the current
situation at all).

The board has essentially 3 roles
* first, it decides what the mission of the Foundation is. Should the
Foundation help the production of free content, or support raped women,
or kids with aids, is the board decision.
* second, it maintains what the mission of the Foundation is. Once a
mission is chosen, that's the role of the board to ensure the activity
of the Foundation is indeed going in that direction and not in another.
To help this, the Board can in particular choose an ED (or CEO), to whom
it will give the general guidelines to respect, as well as the general
strategy to follow to achieve the mission.
* last, it is also the Board duty to see that the resources (financial,
personnel etc...) are used only for the mission stated in the bylaws,
and not to other means. For example, it should check if funds are
sufficient, if the funds are used for the goals, if the funds are not
misused or wasted...

The board should regularly meet to review the various documents provided
by the staff/volunteers (be it a summary of communication activity,
audited financial statements, report of last fundraising consequences
(amount raised, PR crisis etc...), improvement brought to the software,
budget, clarified need from the community for a new project etc...
The board should, according to these documents, take decisions such as
* approving the budget (and consequently agreeing to hire a CTO,
agreeing to spend 50% of revenue to buy hardware, or deciding to cut
funds to Wikimania etc...)
* hiring an ED search firm to find a new ED
* ask the ED to diversify the sources of revenu and aim at having 20% of
next year revenue from brand marketing, and 5% from DVD sales
* give general guidelines for employement to the ED, such as 1) no
discrimination, 2) hiring personnel in the entire world rather than USA
only, 3) always seek to propose a job to the community before outsider,
4) make sure that all employees have decent health coverage, 5) ethical
employement (no slave children)

To take these decisions, the board needs all relevant information to
make sure  it takes informed decisions. It is the role of the chair to
make sure the board meets when is needed and gets the relevant
information from all parties. It is also the role of the chair to make
sure the instructions of the board are understood by the CEO.

Once the CEO has these decisions/guidelines in hand, it is up to him to
make all that miracouslously happen, with the (sometimes limited)
resources he had. He has a general strategy in hand, that's up to him to
insure this happens. That's a hell of a job. That's why he is paid by
the way.
Let's pick up the decisions taken above.
He needs to hire a CTO. He can consult with the tech team. He can
contact a search firm, or look around. Ask advice. Meet candidates,
evaluate them. Discuss the hiring conditions.
When there is an agreeement, he hands out the candidate to the COO.
The COO will make it so that everything is done so that the CTO is hired
(sign the confidential agreement if needed, set him on the payroll,
register him to health benefit system, pay the bill so that the CTO has
a computer on his desk etc...).

Another example. The CEO was asked to diversify revenu resources, as in
20% from brand marketing. The first thing he needs to take care of is
that the brands are actually brands ! He goes ask the GC if the brands
are in all clean order; if not, the GC has to finish registration, fight
for stolen marks etc... asap, and report to the CEO ("all clear boss
!"). In the process of registrering the mark, the GC will have some
bills sent to the Foundation. That's the role of the COO to make sure
the bills are actually paid properly. To track all expenses. To have the
record-keeping in full order, to the satisfaction of the auditors.
Meanwhile, the job of the CEO will be to figure out how it can get a
revenue from the marks. Which marks. Which countries. On which products.
He may contact a firm monetizing the marks. Will negociate with them
putting a nice Wikipedia logo on a microwave (could get fired later on
for that), or can ask to put them on OLPC laptops. May toy with the idea
of getting money from Britannica in exchange of putting the logo on DVD
of Wikipedia they would sell. Goes back and forth with the GC and the
company lawyers to get juicy contracts for brand marketing. Launch the
deals !
Will start seeeing money flow in.
COO will make him a report of how much money got in and how much got out
to secure that deal. After one quarter, CEO will provide a report to the
board indicating things are nicely proceeding.

Another example.
Boss (board) said for general guidelines for employement to the ED, 1)
no discrimination, 2) hiring personnel in the entire world rather than
USA only, 3) always seek to propose a job to the community before
outsider, 4) make sure that all employees have decent health coverage,
5) ethical employement (no slave children)
CEO will realise that he can not hire easily people out from the USA. He
will consequently go talk to GC about how feasible it is to do that.
Then to other known lawyers. He will conclude he needs counsel from an
international lawyer to understand better. With the help of the
international lawyer and a local lawyer, he will laid down the rules to
follow to hire the latest hit developer in Saudia Arabia. But will
conclude that hiring the PR specialist in China is really really too
much of a hassle. He plans reporting to the board about that.

Meanwhile, he will have asked the COO to contact the various health
benefit providers in the USA, ask them what the coverage is. The CEO
will later decide which health provider to retain based on the
information given by the COO.
Once the provider is decided, the COO is in charge of making sure that
all USA employees have health benefits. Setting up the contract with the
provider, having the documents ready for the employees, asking employees
to fill them in, setting up the care coverage etc... is the job of the
COO. He can of course ask other employees (assistants) to help him.
That's simply his business to make that happen.
After a while, the COO will provide a report to the CEO, saying "all
clear boss".
The CEO will then report to the board at next board meeting that 1) it
is now possible to hire in countries A, B and C and 2) all US employees
have health benefits.

I hope you guess the general idea.
Generally, the board give the general strategy.
The CEO must act creatively to develop a strategy to respect the global
strategy given by the board. In doing so, he will create many policies,
develop guidelines.
The COO will make all that happen at the operational level.

All steps are necessary. All roles are mandatory. If the board is
unsufficient, the global strategy is not done, the CEO can either take
over the role or spend his day at the pool. If the CEO is unsufficient,
the Saoudia Arabia guy is never hired. If the COO is unsufficient, the
employees are not paid.

If any of these steps get too much work to do, things are not working
well either.

Last point. The difference between CEO and ED is subtle. The ED is more
introvert. The CEO is more turned toward outside. You may understand it
better if I say the CEO is the one making the introductory speech at
Wikimania... not the ED.

Does that answer your question ?

I put this on foundation-l as I think it might be helpful to others.

Anthere

PS: in early 2006, the board was playing the role of Chair, of ED, and
even of COO.  The board has finally succeeded not to take care of COO
issues any more. One more step to take not to do CEO job either.

*, Michael Bimmler wrote:

>Hello,
>first, welcome to Carolyn Doran.
>One question though:
>The new position of COO now having been created, what will its effect
>on the job profile of the ED be? I.e. what will be the ED's tasks,
>there being now separate roles for General Counsel and COO?
>Thanks
>Michael
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
>Date: Jan 27, 2007 2:08 PM
>Subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to Carolyn Doran
>To: Foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
>
>The Foundation is pleased to announce the full hiring of Carolyn Doran
>to the current team in St Petersbourg office.
>
>Carolyn is not new ! She has been our part time accountant in the past
>few months, but was working through an interim agency.
>
>Carolyn is now a full time employee, and has seen her role evolve toward
>new responsabilities. She now holds the role of the COO - please see job
>description below. In short, the chief operations officer (COO) is
>responsible for the overall administration and business operations.
>Areas of responsibility include administration, personnel and fiscal
>management. For now, she will be the person in charge of Barbara and
>Danny (for his administrative role), and in the future, any new employee
>working in the administrative area. The WMF board looks forward working
>with her in this new capacity :-)
>
>This position will be re-evaluated upon hiring our future permanent
>Executive Director. I take the opportunity to mention we are moving
>nicely in the direction of finding our new ED, with the recent decision
>to hire a search firm to help us find the best candidate.
>
>Carolyn may be found on irc under the pseudonym Carolyn. Please say
>hello if you run into her online :-)
>
>
>Florence Devouard
>Chair of Wikimedia Foundation
>
>--------
>
>The board agreed upon the following job description.
>
>I. Position summary
>The chief operations officer (COO) is responsible for the overall
>administration and business operations.
>Areas of responsibility include administration, personnel and fiscal
>management.
>This is a full-time position, hired by and directly accountable to the
>Executive Director,
>or to the board of directors through its elected board chair in absence
>of an Executive Director.
>
>II. Responsibilities
>1. Management and administration
>a. Develop and administer operational administrative policies.
>b. Provide information for evaluation of the organization's activities.
>
>III. Fiscal
>a. Ensure effective audit trails.
>b. Approve expenditures.
>c. Provide for proper fiscal record-keeping and reporting.
>d. Submit monthly financial statements to the board of directors.
>
>IV. Personnel
>a. Administer board-approved personnel polices.
>b. Provide for adequate supervision and evaluation of staff with
>administrative role.
>
>V. Board relations
>a. Assist the board chair in planning the agenda and materials for board
>meetings.
>b. Initiate and assist in developing policy recommendations and in
>setting priorities.
>
>VI. Public relations
>a. Ensure appropriate representation of WMF by all employees.
>
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>_______________________________________________
>Internal-l mailing list
>Internal-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l
>
>
>

_______________________________________________
Internal-l mailing list
Internal-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
On 1/28/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge schreef:
> > Delirium wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Christopher G. Parham wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On 1/27/2007 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares
> >>>> on an important stock exchange.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Sadly our actual "notability guideline" explicitly reject that as a
> >>> criterion.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> It's strange that a small elementary school is inherently notable by
> >> virtue of existing, but a corporation that's actually publicly traded on
> >> a major exchange isn't.  I guess the Wikipedia school lobby has more
> >> clout than the Wikipedia corporate lobby?
> >>
> >>
> > While most Wikipedians have probably attended some elementary school, I
> > sometimes can't help but feeling that there is a profound lack of
> > understanding  about the corporate world.  Maybe it's just that our
> > younger crowd has never had the occasion to figure out what the
> > financial pages are about.  Listed companies have their share prices
> > reported on a daily basis.  Objective studies are constantly being done
> > and published by brokerage and other investment firms.  Even a confirmed
> > opponent of most corporate activities needs to "know his enemy" in oder
> > to fight them more effectvely.  I wonder whether those who support the
> > current guidelines for corporate notability have ever bought, owned or
> > sold any stock in their lives.  The usual image of a corporation st
> > least gives the appearance of being contrary to any kind of open access
> > to information.  We probably don't have much of a corporate lobby at all.
> >
> > Ec
> Hoi,
> I have bought, owned and sold stocks. I have read the financial pages.
> My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies
> that the financial pages are concentrated on. Many companies that are
> economically as relevant do not get the same degree of attention. When
> you aim to say that companies, organisations are relevant and that they
> are under represented I do agree with you. It is just that many of these
> companies, like imho almost all schools are not relevant. When people
> want to write about them, like with schools, people will have strong
> opinions about them. People of these companies will try to game the
> system for their marketing benefit. When there is a project with a
> strong community of people who nurse this content, fine.
>
> Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and many companies have no lasting
> relevance. Some companies have anecdotal relevance like this company
> that sold pet food over the Internet...

I think it's reasonable to consider whether the company notability
criteria are too strict, as currently written and applied.

That we should not open the floodgates to letting companies promote
themselves using Wikipedia doesn't mean that we shouldn't cover more
companies in a fair and neutral manner...

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
>being used, and the money from
>the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
>someone object to images
>being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
>recall my interactions
>on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
>debates I had there.
>
>Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
>nailed. The foundation will
>be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
>defend the Foundation. It's
>pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
>then do not use them.
>
>There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
>pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
>unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
>torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
>and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
>it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
>it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.
>
>Jeff
>
>

I am being told that the one and only way that these images are going to
possibly be removed from Wikipedia is through a WP:OFFICE action.  I
think that is one of the most ridiculous sentiments ever made.  For
example, see the "disclaimer" that was thrown onto this image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3AHand_with_Reflecting_Sphere.jpg

It basically says that if M.C. Escher objects (BTW, he is dead.... so I
guess that is his estate here), then he should contact the "Designated
agent" of Wikipedia (aka Brad) in order to remove this image.

IMHO, this disclaimer by itself is almost proof by itself that this
particular image is a copyright violation, and I would argue that the
other 40,000 images also in [[en:w:Category:Fair use images of art]]
also are very likly to be copyright violations.  That is not a trivial
number of images to be removing.

I don't know directly the liability to either Wikipedia as a project or
the WMF as the "sponsoring institution", but I would strongly suggest
that fair use has gone way too far here.

This is also (at least to me) a very new philosophy that Wikimedia
project might be hosting content that would not necessarily be
reproduceable under the GFDL as the lowest common denominator.  That
essentially this is content that dead-ends just on one project, such as
Wikipedia, and can't be used anywhere else.  I'm not talking about WMF
logos (which is a totally different issue), but for general content that
is project related.  And the group that espouses this viewpoint is
willing to wheel war over this issue as well, so simply deleting the
content is not going to be sufficient here.  They are already making
changing the Wikipedia fair use policy to permit this sort of
philosophy, and I'm just a rather lowly ordinary user with no major
status on Wikipedia.

That the foundation may have a legal liability issue here is why I'm
raising this on a foundation level at all, and because I believe that
this is an issue that will affect all Wikimedia projects in the not so
distant future.  With the current philosophies regarding fair use on
Wikipedia, I am trying very hard to find what is considered an
infringing image that is a copyright violation.  I can't think of a
single one.  Every image I could possibly imagine has some sort of
application under current fair use guidelines to be included in at least
some sort of Wikipedia article, and that once there, is often and
frequently copied to yet other articles where the usage is much more
dubious.  The 400 x 600 pixel image I mentioned above is considered "low
resolution" too.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


list: wikien-l

from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject:
[WikiEN-l] right of rebuttal (was: David is on Channel 4
	tonight re MS issue)

body:
On 28 Jan 2007 at 08:42, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:

> I'm reminded of another entity we love to hate: credit reporting
> agencies.  One of the reasons we (justifiably) love to hate them
> is that they provide little or no mechanism to challenge the
> information they hold about us.  Wikipedia should not be anything
> like a credit reporting agency.

And it isn't.  Credit reporting agencies' reports are produced and
distributed in a secretive, prorpietary manner, and don't include any
external links section to direct readers to alternative views of the
facts involved.  None of this is true of Wikipedia articles.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [WikiEN-l] An obscene example of remote loading

body:
On 28 Jan 2007 at 13:45, "Earle Martin" <wikipedia at downlode.org>
wrote:

> On 27/01/07, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://www.askfactmaster.com/Twiki (not remote loading) is still funnier.
>
> Or indeed: http://www.askfactmaster.com/Portland_Pattern_Repository
>
> "The name Ward's AskFactMaster.Com (or, in camel case,
> WardsAskFactMaster.Com) is also used"

Plus, it "is sometimes referred to simply as AskFactMaster.Com (with
a capital 'W')", and "[o]ther names have been suggested to try to
avoid ambiguity with the generic concept of a AskFactMaster.Com".

I guess by their own admission, AskFactMaster.Com is generic and
can't be trademarked.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
effe iets anders wrote:

>I think all it takes is one person writing the foundation that they are
>breaching their copyright, as they do not follow the GFDL-license, under
>which the person has given his/her texts free? And if Wikipedia is not
>following GFDL, GFDL doesnt apply to those articles either i guess. In
>thery, IANAL, it might even be that the foundation has to remove all that
>persons contributions? :S
>
>Eia
>
>
I've actually thought about doing a sort of mass-mailing to several
prominent artists featured on Wikipedia, saying in effect "do you know
that your art work is being used here without permission" and giving an
address of the WMF to get it removed.

I think that might get a reaction, but it may not be in the best
interest of the WMF to go that far.  It does illustrate at least an
avenue to force this issue.

For myself, I would rather that the concept of fair use be legitmately
reviewed, and that applications of fair use that might be objectionable
would be removed well before there is any problem that might surface
instead.  Unfortunately this is something that may have to come from
"the top" on a WMF level and be forced down onto the project.  The only
ones who are interested right now in setting fair use policy are those
who want to see it extended even further rather than those who want to
scale it back.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:LAME candidate

body:
On 27/01/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> I would like to nominate [[User:I B Wright]]'s current endeavour on

Ideally, he would be arguing with someone called U B Wrong...

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


body:
On 27/01/07, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.askfactmaster.com/Twiki (not remote loading) is still funnier.

Or indeed: http://www.askfactmaster.com/Portland_Pattern_Repository

"The name Ward's AskFactMaster.Com (or, in camel case,
WardsAskFactMaster.Com) is also used"

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 42, Issue 226

body:
> From: Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com>
> I'm reminded of another entity we love to hate: credit reporting
> agencies.  One of the reasons we (justifiably) love to hate them
> is that they provide little or no mechanism to challenge the
> information they hold about us.  Wikipedia should not be anything
> like a credit reporting agency.

???? It is only because of laws passed within the last ten years or
so, certainly no credit to the bureaus, but... just for the record...

...everyone is entitled to get one free report every year from
Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. (This has been true for at least
ten years in Massachusetts, and has been true nationally for a couple
of years).

I noticed a ludicrous error in one of them one year, found an online
correction form, filled it out, clicked "send" or whatever, and it
was fixed in the next report.


from_name: · Firefoxman

subject: [WikiEN-l] about my tragic "ban"

body:
Ah. I was worried there for a second.

On 1/27/07, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 27/01/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 27/01/07, LAWRENCE A TKALYCH <lat2000 at msn.com> wrote:
> >
> > > As I have received a myriad of e-mails re:mthis issue, I will do my
> best to
> > > respond to you personally.
> >
> >
> > You'll be most pleased to know that Mr Tkalych is set to moderated and
> > nomail now.
>
>
> Ah, but his emails never reached the list - they were sent directly to
> us list administrators :) so they probably have no idea what you're
> talking about. Nothing to see here people, move along.
>
> ~Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
-Firefoxman


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
> Both of those people are already on moderation on this mailing list.

In which case, the moderators need to be a little more strict about
what they let through...


body:
http://www.thagodz.com/search/wiki/?title=Wikipedia&x=25&y=17 no longer
works, looks like they were blocked or they are getting a dump. Speaking of
dumps, the latest <http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20070124/> one seems
to be taking forever.

On 1/28/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> On 28 Jan 2007 at 13:45, "Earle Martin" <wikipedia at downlode.org>
> wrote:
>
> > On 27/01/07, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > http://www.askfactmaster.com/Twiki (not remote loading) is still
> funnier.
> >
> > Or indeed: http://www.askfactmaster.com/Portland_Pattern_Repository
> >
> > "The name Ward's AskFactMaster.Com (or, in camel case,
> > WardsAskFactMaster.Com) is also used"
>
> Plus, it "is sometimes referred to simply as AskFactMaster.Com (with
> a capital 'W')", and "[o]ther names have been suggested to try to
> avoid ambiguity with the generic concept of a AskFactMaster.Com".
>
> I guess by their own admission, AskFactMaster.Com is generic and
> can't be trademarked.
>
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
> Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
-Firefoxman


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>2007/1/28, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>:
>
>
>
>>All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
>>being used, and the money from
>>the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
>>someone object to images
>>being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
>>recall my interactions
>>on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
>>debates I had there.
>>
>>Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
>>nailed. The foundation will
>>be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
>>defend the Foundation. It's
>>pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
>>then do not use them.
>>
>>
>>
>
>But what if there is no such request? Should we keep everything on the site
>until we get a request to take it down? Or should we only put things on that
>are as free as our own texts? Or something somewhere in between? That's what
>the issue is about.
>
>
>
Doctrine of Esstoppel. Someone puts something up fair use and the owner
does not complain, then
should be no big deal (though the law says they have to have gotten some
sort of notice or discovered
its use before the statute of limitation time clock starts ticking).

If someone goes to the trouble of sending a notice to take it down, then
it should be addressed, apart from
what yould be obvious misuse of someone else's materials.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 1/28/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
>>being used, and the money from
>>the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
>>someone object to images
>>being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
>>recall my interactions
>>on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
>>debates I had there.
>>
>>Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
>>nailed. The foundation will
>>be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
>>defend the Foundation. It's
>>pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
>>then do not use them.
>>
>>There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
>>pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
>>unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
>>torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
>>and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
>>it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
>>it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.
>>
>>
>
>This argument is pure copyright paranoia. What I mean by that is that
>Jeffrey is asserting as fact a hypothetical scenario ("The foundation
>will be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm
>to defend the Foundation.") That's possible, but certainly not
>guaranteed.
>
>

Yeah? How many of you have actually had to stand in front of a judge
with millions of dollars of **YOUR**
money on the line. I have stood there more times than I care to mention,
and in most cases not by my own choice.
Judges will not listen to whining exusces and weak arguments, and you
don't get to argue over and over again
after they rule -- you have to pay. The real shocker is when the judge
orders you to pay
the other sides legal fees. What if they hire Coudert Brothers from new
York to defend them who charges $500.00/hour
and they rack up 350,000.00 in fees just to send a dozen letters and
file a complaint and you get ordered to pay it.

Cheaper to take down the content.

Jeff

>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
On 1/28/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
> being used, and the money from
> the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
> someone object to images
> being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
> recall my interactions
> on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
> debates I had there.
>
> Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
> nailed. The foundation will
> be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
> defend the Foundation. It's
> pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
> then do not use them.
>
> There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
> pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
> unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
> torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
> and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
> it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
> it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.

This argument is pure copyright paranoia. What I mean by that is that
Jeffrey is asserting as fact a hypothetical scenario ("The foundation
will be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm
to defend the Foundation.") That's possible, but certainly not
guaranteed.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 28/01/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Yeah? How many of you have actually had to stand in front of a judge
>>with millions of dollars of **YOUR**
>>money on the line. I have stood there more times than I care to mention,
>>and in most cases not by my own choice.
>>Judges will not listen to whining exusces and weak arguments, and you
>>don't get to argue over and over again
>>after they rule -- you have to pay. The real shocker is when the judge
>>orders you to pay
>>the other sides legal fees. What if they hire Coudert Brothers from new
>>York to defend them who charges $500.00/hour
>>and they rack up 350,000.00 in fees just to send a dozen letters and
>>file a complaint and you get ordered to pay it.
>>
>>
>
>
>In the example I mentioned, it may be worth mentioning the Church of
>Scientology has had to pay the attorney's fees for the people they
>sued many a time.
>
>

It can go the other way -- depends on who wins. In a case where we are
using someones copyrighted images and
they were posted by a n anonymous editor, I woud dare to guess we may
not alays be on the winning side ...

>
>
>
>>Cheaper to take down the content.
>>
>>
>
>
>I suspect in a clear-cut case, you'd be surprised how many friends
>Wikipedia has.
>
>Not that I consider it a good idea to push it, of course.
>
>
We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
a "cloud of doubt" and they are
an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
would be to remove it.

" your honor, we always strive to act in good faith in all situations,
and in the present case, we were notified
the materials may have been copyrighted and removed them immediately IAW
with our policies. Given our
actions in good faith, we cannot be held liable as the other side claims
since we are simply a third party
interactive web service and we have complied with the DMCA at all times ..."

:-)

Jeff

>
>- d.
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to the advisory group

body:
On 28/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:

> As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
> resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
> You'll find the entire list here:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board

Excellent selections!

What sort of thing would we bug them with, through what channel?

I'm wondering on the issue of setting up an "editorial concerns"
channel for English Wikipedia, our vastly successful and troublesome
child. Mathias Schindler floated the idea after the Microsoft press in
the past few days and I repeated the suggestion on Friday.

I can't say I'm having great success or a wave of people going "Hell
yes, that's a great idea! I'll volunteer to help monitor that!"
Evidently I'm just not using something that the cats think is tuna.
HELP NEEDED.

Having an editorial concerns channel is I think an obviously nice idea; how to
deal with the likely flood of crap^Wless valid concerns and the lack
of a wave of volunteers going "hell yes, I'll watch it" is another
matter. How would this remarkable selection of social website experts
suggest we attract and keep the volunteers for it? I'm at a loss.

- d.


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
On 28/01/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are clearly far too many policy wonks on the English Wikipedia.
> I don't recall we have problems with any other project understanding
> this sort of thing.

I think it's a scaling issue: we've attracted a critical mass of the
sort of obnoxious nerds who give aspergism a really bad name. See also
the book 'Cyberselfish' by Paulina Borsook. [[WP:PRO]] on en: is an
attempt at a how-to on clearing up policycruft.

- d.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Search vs. non 24-hour powerup

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Dan Jacobson wrote:
> Why doesn't Special:Search ever find anything on my test wiki that is
> on a computer powered up only a few hours every few days?

Likely possibilities:

* you're searching for short words or words on MySQL's internal
stoplist; see the FAQ and the MySQL documentation for how to change
those options

* the searchindex table is not populated because you created your wiki's
content through some sort of import system instead of through the wiki;
in that case you might want to run rebuildtextindex

If running that script, you of course need appropriate permission for
the database user used for scripts (fill out AdminSettings.php).

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFvQmbwRnhpk1wk44RAq8vAJ9wIr0w+1krbsUasTCEZNB5qHHdFgCgtwB0
ro0md1O0/4yncNHNSicV7aw=
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from_name: David Strauss

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I think you're misinterpreting Wikipedia's fair-use justification. Fair
use is subject to a series of tests. It does not need to pass all of
them to achieve the status of fair use. It happens that a few
distinctive aspects if Wikipedia -- the ones you've noticed -- allow it
to pass the tests more easily.

This does not mean an organization needs those aspects to reuse
Wikipedia articles under fair use.

Coupled with the conservative interpretation in Wikipedia's policy of
what constitutes fair use, it's clear that Wikipedia isn't trying to
foster articles that only it can use.

Regarding the "buyer beware" issue, everything on Wikipedia is
*necessarily* buyer beware because Wikipedia is not censored. There has
never been a guarantee that the content on Wikipedia won't put
republishers in jail for political dissent, obscenity, or other reasons
specific to their countries' laws.

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> I've somehow found myself embroiled in the middle of a fair-use fight on
> en.wikipedia, but an interesting viewpoint has expressed itself that I'm
> curious with the "powers that be" and other experienced Wikimedia users
> might find a bit interesting, at least in terms of where a significant
> faction of Wikipedia users want to go.
>
> The philosophy is essentially that fair use images are permitted on
> Wikipedia, even if you are not going to be legally permitted to use them
> if you copy them and try to re-publish the Wikipedia article.  I guess
> this same philosophy also applies to the whole issue of NC images and
> their inclusion in Wikimedia projects, but in this case the issue is
> mainly centered on fair use applications of image content.
>
> In reading through the Wikipedia Fair Use guideline talk page
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3AFair_use), I noticed a
> recurring theme to justify many fair use images based around two
> significant points of the fair-use doctrine as described in USC 92
> section 107:
>
> * Educational fair use  - Wikipedia is part of an "educational
> institution" and the images are used as a form of instruction.
> * Non-commercial entity - Because the WMF is a 503 (c) 3 non-profit
> organization, and because all of the editor/contributors to Wikipedia
> are unpaid volunteers, Wikipedia can claim non-commercial usage of fair
> use content.
>
> My counter argument is that neither of these justifications are valid
> for inclusion into Wikipedia.  The educational exception is a major
> stretch and I just don't see how it really applies in the case of
> Wikipedia, particularly with some common-law cases that have
> significantly reduced the scope of educational fair use.  In the case of
> the non-commercial entity, I would argue that the GFDL is the trump card
> here, as reproducing Wikipedia (and almost all Wikimedia) content must
> be done under the terms of the GFDL, which explictly permits commercial
> reproduction.
>
> The response to this is that it doesn't matter if the GFDL applies.
>  They just want to include fair use images, even if the GFDL doesn't
> permit their reproduction.  This is essentially a "buyer beware"
> attitudue where you, as the end-user, are required to explicitly go
> through the licensing terms of all images you download together with an
> article and remove those images if you decide to pass the article on to
> a 3rd party.  The inclusion of an image on Wikipedia has no connection
> to the GFDL, but only if it is legal (even if barely) for it to be
> displayed on a website run by the WMF.
>
> I had a hard time understanding this philosohpy, but a fairly vocal
> group insists that this is where fair use policy on Wikipedia ought to
> be going.
>
> I should note that I got into this whole mess because I was involved
> with a group that was trying to write a Wikibook about M.C. Escher, and
> I tried to point out that they couldn't reproduce the Escher artwork
> unless they somehow were able to obtain a license that could be used
> under the GFDL.  The response was that the images were being used on
> Wikipedia, so why not Wikibooks?  The Escher reproductions are claiming
> fair use, but I think it has gone way too far on Wikipedia, as I believe
> these to be merely a copyright violation.
>

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subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I think you're misinterpreting Wikipedia's fair-use justification. Fair
use is subject to a series of tests. It does not need to pass all of
them to achieve the status of fair use. It happens that a few
distinctive aspects if Wikipedia -- the ones you've noticed -- allow it
to pass the tests more easily.

This does not mean an organization needs those aspects to reuse
Wikipedia articles under fair use.

Coupled with the conservative interpretation in Wikipedia's policy of
what constitutes fair use, it's clear that Wikipedia isn't trying to
foster articles that only it can use.

Regarding the "buyer beware" issue, everything on Wikipedia is
*necessarily* buyer beware because Wikipedia is not censored. There has
never been a guarantee that the content on Wikipedia won't put
republishers in jail for political dissent, obscenity, or other reasons
specific to their countries' laws.

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> I've somehow found myself embroiled in the middle of a fair-use fight on
> en.wikipedia, but an interesting viewpoint has expressed itself that I'm
> curious with the "powers that be" and other experienced Wikimedia users
> might find a bit interesting, at least in terms of where a significant
> faction of Wikipedia users want to go.
>
> The philosophy is essentially that fair use images are permitted on
> Wikipedia, even if you are not going to be legally permitted to use them
> if you copy them and try to re-publish the Wikipedia article.  I guess
> this same philosophy also applies to the whole issue of NC images and
> their inclusion in Wikimedia projects, but in this case the issue is
> mainly centered on fair use applications of image content.
>
> In reading through the Wikipedia Fair Use guideline talk page
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3AFair_use), I noticed a
> recurring theme to justify many fair use images based around two
> significant points of the fair-use doctrine as described in USC 92
> section 107:
>
> * Educational fair use  - Wikipedia is part of an "educational
> institution" and the images are used as a form of instruction.
> * Non-commercial entity - Because the WMF is a 503 (c) 3 non-profit
> organization, and because all of the editor/contributors to Wikipedia
> are unpaid volunteers, Wikipedia can claim non-commercial usage of fair
> use content.
>
> My counter argument is that neither of these justifications are valid
> for inclusion into Wikipedia.  The educational exception is a major
> stretch and I just don't see how it really applies in the case of
> Wikipedia, particularly with some common-law cases that have
> significantly reduced the scope of educational fair use.  In the case of
> the non-commercial entity, I would argue that the GFDL is the trump card
> here, as reproducing Wikipedia (and almost all Wikimedia) content must
> be done under the terms of the GFDL, which explictly permits commercial
> reproduction.
>
> The response to this is that it doesn't matter if the GFDL applies.
>  They just want to include fair use images, even if the GFDL doesn't
> permit their reproduction.  This is essentially a "buyer beware"
> attitudue where you, as the end-user, are required to explicitly go
> through the licensing terms of all images you download together with an
> article and remove those images if you decide to pass the article on to
> a 3rd party.  The inclusion of an image on Wikipedia has no connection
> to the GFDL, but only if it is legal (even if barely) for it to be
> displayed on a website run by the WMF.
>
> I had a hard time understanding this philosohpy, but a fairly vocal
> group insists that this is where fair use policy on Wikipedia ought to
> be going.
>
> I should note that I got into this whole mess because I was involved
> with a group that was trying to write a Wikibook about M.C. Escher, and
> I tried to point out that they couldn't reproduce the Escher artwork
> unless they somehow were able to obtain a license that could be used
> under the GFDL.  The response was that the images were being used on
> Wikipedia, so why not Wikibooks?  The Escher reproductions are claiming
> fair use, but I think it has gone way too far on Wikipedia, as I believe
> these to be merely a copyright violation.
>

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subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I think you're misinterpreting Wikipedia's fair-use justification. Fair
use is subject to a series of tests. It does not need to pass all of
them to achieve the status of fair use. It happens that a few
distinctive aspects if Wikipedia -- the ones you've noticed -- allow it
to pass the tests more easily.

This does not mean an organization needs those aspects to reuse
Wikipedia articles under fair use.

Coupled with the conservative interpretation in Wikipedia's policy of
what constitutes fair use, it's clear that Wikipedia isn't trying to
foster articles that only it can use.

Regarding the "buyer beware" issue, everything on Wikipedia is
*necessarily* buyer beware because Wikipedia is not censored. There has
never been a guarantee that the content on Wikipedia won't put
republishers in jail for political dissent, obscenity, or other reasons
specific to their countries' laws.

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> I've somehow found myself embroiled in the middle of a fair-use fight on
> en.wikipedia, but an interesting viewpoint has expressed itself that I'm
> curious with the "powers that be" and other experienced Wikimedia users
> might find a bit interesting, at least in terms of where a significant
> faction of Wikipedia users want to go.
>
> The philosophy is essentially that fair use images are permitted on
> Wikipedia, even if you are not going to be legally permitted to use them
> if you copy them and try to re-publish the Wikipedia article.  I guess
> this same philosophy also applies to the whole issue of NC images and
> their inclusion in Wikimedia projects, but in this case the issue is
> mainly centered on fair use applications of image content.
>
> In reading through the Wikipedia Fair Use guideline talk page
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3AFair_use), I noticed a
> recurring theme to justify many fair use images based around two
> significant points of the fair-use doctrine as described in USC 92
> section 107:
>
> * Educational fair use  - Wikipedia is part of an "educational
> institution" and the images are used as a form of instruction.
> * Non-commercial entity - Because the WMF is a 503 (c) 3 non-profit
> organization, and because all of the editor/contributors to Wikipedia
> are unpaid volunteers, Wikipedia can claim non-commercial usage of fair
> use content.
>
> My counter argument is that neither of these justifications are valid
> for inclusion into Wikipedia.  The educational exception is a major
> stretch and I just don't see how it really applies in the case of
> Wikipedia, particularly with some common-law cases that have
> significantly reduced the scope of educational fair use.  In the case of
> the non-commercial entity, I would argue that the GFDL is the trump card
> here, as reproducing Wikipedia (and almost all Wikimedia) content must
> be done under the terms of the GFDL, which explictly permits commercial
> reproduction.
>
> The response to this is that it doesn't matter if the GFDL applies.
>  They just want to include fair use images, even if the GFDL doesn't
> permit their reproduction.  This is essentially a "buyer beware"
> attitudue where you, as the end-user, are required to explicitly go
> through the licensing terms of all images you download together with an
> article and remove those images if you decide to pass the article on to
> a 3rd party.  The inclusion of an image on Wikipedia has no connection
> to the GFDL, but only if it is legal (even if barely) for it to be
> displayed on a website run by the WMF.
>
> I had a hard time understanding this philosohpy, but a fairly vocal
> group insists that this is where fair use policy on Wikipedia ought to
> be going.
>
> I should note that I got into this whole mess because I was involved
> with a group that was trying to write a Wikibook about M.C. Escher, and
> I tried to point out that they couldn't reproduce the Escher artwork
> unless they somehow were able to obtain a license that could be used
> under the GFDL.  The response was that the images were being used on
> Wikipedia, so why not Wikibooks?  The Escher reproductions are claiming
> fair use, but I think it has gone way too far on Wikipedia, as I believe
> these to be merely a copyright violation.
>

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body:
As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board

You'll find the entire list here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board

Welcome to

         Angela Beesley (eh !)
         Ward Cunningham
         Heather Ford
         Melissa Hagemann
         Danny Hillis
         Mitch Kapor
         Joris Komen
         Rebecca MacKinnon
         Wayne Mackintosh
         Benjamin Mako Hill
         Erin McKean
         Trevor Nielson
         Achal Prabhala
         Jay Rosen
         Clay Shirky
         Peter Suber
         Raoul Weiler
         Ethan Zuckerman

who have agreed to give a bit of their time and expertise, to help us
navigate in the difficult waters of collaborative software, free
licensing, free speech, education for all, governance, sustainability
models...
We really appreciate.

How did we chose these people ? Either because they were already
frequently in touch with us, or because we thought their experience
could help. "We" is both the board and the community, as the board also
contacted some of the people whose names showed up when I asked help on
this list.
Is that list closed ? Of course not. Please feel free to discuss further
additions that could be necessary in the future.

Florence Devouard


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is the fundamental goal of the project?

body:
Omegatron wrote:

>A number of users are trying to change Wikipedia's
>policy to prohibit *all* fair use and permission-only images, and
>deleting scores of them.  Their rationale hinges around this concept
>that we have a "primary goal" of creating free content, and a
>"secondary goal" of writing a high-quality encyclopedia.  If the goals
>can in fact be split into multiple sub-goals (which itself is
>contentious), their subdivision seems completely wrong and backwards
>to me, and they're destroying a ton of irreplaceable encyclopedic
>content with it.
>
What you call the "primary goal" applies to all Wikimedia projects; the
"secondary goal" applies only to the Wikipedias.  I think there is a
place for fair use in Wikipedia, and at the same time I support the
rationale for its being prohibited in Commons.  Your talk of multiple
sub-goals seems to be a second rate categorixation problem more than
anything else.  Don't make the issue more complicated than it should be.

>In the years I've been contributing to the project, I have always
>understood that our goal is to create a neutral, reliable encyclopedia
>"of the highest possible quality" that can be distributed as widely
>and freely as possible.  "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".  Copyleft,
>free content is a tremendously important means to that end, but it
>isn't the end itself.  We should use free content wherever possible,
>but when no free content exists to suit our encyclopedic purpose, we
>should still use whatever else we legally can and maximize the benefit
>downstream users get from the project.
>
Jimbo, in his speech at Wikimania 2005, spoke of freeing various kinds
of intellectual property.  People seem to forget that he used the verb
"free" rather than the noun "free". The verb is dynamic; the noun is
static.  That is the case irrespective of whether we are talking about
"free as in beer" or "free as in speech".  Simply taking material that
is already free and regurgitating it is insufficient to the task.  While
I support fair use I still recognize the transitivity problem connected
with it.  Simply using fair use may not effect free use in all
circumstances; it only does so in a difficult-to-define subset.  If we
are to regard "free" as a verb our task is to take things that are not
now free, and through our efforts make them free.  This is a more
complex and more challenging task than what we have been doing up until
now.  It involves recognizing law as a tool, not as a hindrance.

>Our goal is to create a
>repository of "the sum of all human knowledge"; not "a collection of
>copyright-free human knowledge".  (That's what Project Gutenberg is
>for.)
>
Then what do you see as the goal of Wikisource?

>Should we remove articles that haven't been translated into other
>languages yet because it doesn't meet our subgoal of "in their own
>language"?
>
That seems like a space cadet extension of the concept that no article
should be allowed unless it is perfect in every respect from the beginning.

>Should we delete and paraphrase all quotations and excerpts because
>they don't meet our subgoal of being free content?  Quotation is a
>form of fair use copyright violation, too, yet I don't see any
>fanatics with "Say 'NO' to quotation!" banners on their user pages.
>
To get your terminology straight "fair use" is specifically NOT a
"copyright violation".  Don't muddle the argument by mixing up claimed
fair use and actual fair use.

>Our goal is to write a useful, authoritative encyclopedia and make it
>as distributable and accessible as possible.  We should be doing
>everything we can to meet this goal.
>
Yes, but we still need to be mindful of prevailing constraints.

Ec


from_name: George Drummond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Groups Suggestion

body:
For novices i think it is difficult to read these mailing lists.

I think that it would be an idea to have the mailing lists
archived to google groups (which i believe is possible)

If you are worried about the possibility of spam etc we could
set the group to announce, so it is viewable on google groups
but to reply users must sign up in usual way. It would then just
be like a mirror of this groups messages but more easily viewed.

Just a suggestion

Thanks

George


from_name: Angela

body:
On 1/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:

> What sort of thing would we bug them with, through what channel?

For the topics, see the bios at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board to see what topics
would be relevant to each person or the whole group.

I'm not sure on which channel yet. We have a private mailing list, but
for that to be read by everyone, it needs to be low-traffic. I wonder
if foundation-l should be used and the members of the AB who are on
this list can pass over anything relevant, either to the whole group
or to individuals. That would prevent the need for a separate list and
since everything that should go to the AB is a Foundation matter, it
shouldn't be off-topic for here.

I'll add links to everyone's wiki user page when they all have
accounts so they can choose to enable email through the wiki if they
want to receive private communications from people.

Any other suggestions?

Angela


body:
On 28/01/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure on which channel yet. We have a private mailing list, but
> for that to be read by everyone, it needs to be low-traffic. I wonder
> if foundation-l should be used and the members of the AB who are on
> this list can pass over anything relevant, either to the whole group
> or to individuals. That would prevent the need for a separate list and
> since everything that should go to the AB is a Foundation matter, it
> shouldn't be off-topic for here.

That sounds like a good idea for the moment.

- d.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Florence Devouard [mailto:anthere at anthere.org]
>Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 07:41 AM
>To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to the advisory group
>
>As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
>resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>
>You'll find the entire list here:
>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
>Welcome to
>
>         Angela Beesley (eh !)
>         Ward Cunningham
>         Heather Ford
>         Melissa Hagemann
>         Danny Hillis
>         Mitch Kapor
>         Joris Komen
>         Rebecca MacKinnon
>         Wayne Mackintosh
>         Benjamin Mako Hill
>         Erin McKean
>         Trevor Nielson
>         Achal Prabhala
>         Jay Rosen
>         Clay Shirky
>         Peter Suber
>         Raoul Weiler
>         Ethan Zuckerman
>
>who have agreed to give a bit of their time and expertise, to help us
>navigate in the difficult waters of collaborative software, free
>licensing, free speech, education for all, governance, sustainability
>models...
>We really appreciate.
>
>How did we chose these people ? Either because they were already
>frequently in touch with us, or because we thought their experience
>could help. "We" is both the board and the community, as the board also
>contacted some of the people whose names showed up when I asked help on
>this list.
>Is that list closed ? Of course not. Please feel free to discuss further
>additions that could be necessary in the future.
>
>Florence Devouard

I had suggested Stephen Gaskin in correspondence with Jimbo, but while I did receive a favorable reply from Stephen, no response from Jimbo.

Fred


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
>a "cloud of doubt" and they are
>an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
>would be to remove it.
>
>" your honor, we always strive to act in good faith in all situations,
>and in the present case, we were notified
>the materials may have been copyrighted and removed them immediately IAW
>with our policies. Given our
>actions in good faith, we cannot be held liable as the other side claims
>since we are simply a third party
>interactive web service and we have complied with the DMCA at all times ..."
>
>:-)
>
>Jeff
>
Unfortunately in this case, official policy is that we are simply
grabbing content and claiming fair use.  We know these are copyrighted
images, and yet we are permitting their use on Wikipedia openly, even
though we also know that we don't have any sort of permission to do so.

There are some items such as trademarks, bank notes, government seals,
ect. that I feel are justified in terms of fair use.  I just don't think
that nearly everything that currently is being claimed for fair use fits
the same rationale.  The question here is where to draw the line, and I
see at the moment that the current line is to the point that nearly
everything that could be claimed under fair use, including overt usage
of the non-commercial nature of Wikipedia and the educational mission of
the WMF as justification to keep the content.  It is for this reason
that I question how the copyvio template could even legitimately be used
on an image, except if it were redundant or of somebody or something
non-notable on Wikipedia.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Anthere

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 28/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
>
>
>>As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
>>resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>>You'll find the entire list here:
>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
>
>
> Excellent selections!
>
> What sort of thing would we bug them with, through what channel?
>
> I'm wondering on the issue of setting up an "editorial concerns"
> channel for English Wikipedia, our vastly successful and troublesome
> child. Mathias Schindler floated the idea after the Microsoft press in
> the past few days and I repeated the suggestion on Friday.
>
> I can't say I'm having great success or a wave of people going "Hell
> yes, that's a great idea! I'll volunteer to help monitor that!"
> Evidently I'm just not using something that the cats think is tuna.
> HELP NEEDED.
>
> Having an editorial concerns channel is I think an obviously nice idea; how to
> deal with the likely flood of crap^Wless valid concerns and the lack
> of a wave of volunteers going "hell yes, I'll watch it" is another
> matter. How would this remarkable selection of social website experts
> suggest we attract and keep the volunteers for it? I'm at a loss.
>
>
> - d.

Angela accepted to be the chair of the advisory group.
There is for now a mailing list where we can be sure to post and get
their attention, without them being flowed by the amount of information
coming to that list.

I let it to Angela to see how she prefers to get them involved for
community matters. It may be to propose them to join the foundation
list. It may be to only tell them to register (so that they can post),
but not received the emails (which can be seen on archives, this is what
I do myself thanks to thunderbird and gmane). It may be to warn them on
the advisory list of a discussion on the foundation which may be of
interest to them. It may be to make them get in touch with specific
people or specific groups of interest.
There are many options there and no reasons to limit ourselves.

I think Angela can make the decision of what she thinks is best
depending on circonstances.

The board has already been in contact with several of them. Sometimes
the discussion was only through private emails. Once a person joined the
board retreat. In another case, we set up a private wiki to work on
together. There is no limits to our imagination :-)

ant


from_name: habj

subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
2007/1/28, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com>:
>
>
> Oh, for god's sake. More common sense needed, obviously.
>
> That particular statement is supposed to be applied as (example case):

Don't get me wrong now... common sense requires a certain amount of
background information, usually. You have the background information, so you
know how that should be read...

I completely agree with David Gerard on the scaling issue. You can say
"there are far too many policy wonks on the English Wikipedia" all you like;
just how does that make them go away? Hence, one might realise some things
will be misunderstood in context and try and change them. That seems to me a
more logical reaction than crying out loud every time people do the same
kind of mistake, and wait for next time it happens. This particular case of
policy insanity probably has wells, so it might be possible to try and do
something about it slightly more upstream.

 /habj


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know Sunir
Shah.There are other people on this board that I do not really know
either. I have some people that I would like to see included.

The point is not who is not on it, the point is are the people on this
list complementary in stead of all being in the same mould. When this is
a great list of people, celebrate them. When there are people who are
complementary, suggest them in a nice, even private way. Your
indignation does not work for me, quite the contrary.

Thanks,
    GerardM

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen schreef:
> The list is excellent. The only mile-wide glaring omission from it
> that I can think of, is Sunir Shah. What happened? Was he asked and
> refused a position on the advisory board?
>
>
>
>
> On 1/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 28/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
>>> resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>>> You'll find the entire list here:
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>>>
>> Excellent selections!
>>
>> What sort of thing would we bug them with, through what channel?
>>
>> I'm wondering on the issue of setting up an "editorial concerns"
>> channel for English Wikipedia, our vastly successful and troublesome
>> child. Mathias Schindler floated the idea after the Microsoft press in
>> the past few days and I repeated the suggestion on Friday.
>>
>> I can't say I'm having great success or a wave of people going "Hell
>> yes, that's a great idea! I'll volunteer to help monitor that!"
>> Evidently I'm just not using something that the cats think is tuna.
>> HELP NEEDED.
>>
>> Having an editorial concerns channel is I think an obviously nice idea; how
>> to
>> deal with the likely flood of crap^Wless valid concerns and the lack
>> of a wave of volunteers going "hell yes, I'll watch it" is another
>> matter. How would this remarkable selection of social website experts
>> suggest we attract and keep the volunteers for it? I'm at a loss.
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>
>
>


from_name: Roberto Alfonso

body:
I believe reference.com and about.com are, along with answers.com,
the biggest reusers in profile and size.

RB

On 1/28/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28/01/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> > Rob Church wrote:
> > > Legitimate mirrors and people who want to reuse our content are free,
> > > and encouraged, to download a database dump and process it for their
> > > needs.
> >
> > Say, are there examples of people who do this well, contributing back to
> > Wikipedia or to the general public? The examples I've seen are all a bit
> > disappointing, but perhaps that's just because the outrageous ones
> > generate more attention.
>
> answers.com is perhaps our most high-profile reuser, but we have an
> agreement with them for a live feed. I'm not offhand aware of a
> particularly shining example of a database-dump site, partly because
> we tend to outstrip them quite fast (and because enwiki dumps were
> iffy for quite a while, meaning most of them are long-stagnant)
>
> There are certainly some decent offline projects using dumps, though,
> in one form or another.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/28/07, Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/28/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> You seriously think this way?  We should remove all quotations from
> Wikipedia unless they have been released under free licenses?  Seriously?
>

That would appear to be a strawman.

>
> It most certainly does.  You aren't part of it?
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Walter#Say_no_to_fair_use>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Say_NO_to_Fair_Use.svg>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:User_no_fair_use>
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2007_January_24#Template:User_against_Fair_Use

5 people is harldy a movement.

>
> You seriously think this way?
>

I know that the fair use claims are highly questionable. I suspect I
have a far better idea of what is in the image namespace than you do.

> Such as?

Finding outher ways to describe the facts. IT is not posible to copyright facts.

> You seriously think these images have no value in an encyclopedia?
> Seriously?

In many cases it is extreamly questionable. we are able to write about
the fall of Carthage without pics.

> You do realize that this is an encyclopedia, right?

Of course. One side effect of this is that we pay more attention to
copyright than say youtube

>Are you actually
> interested in contributing to an encylopedia or are you just here to delete
> images?

How does stealing Image:032806 francelaborprotests2.jpg produce a
better free encycopedia that useing the free images I linked to?

--
geni


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>On 1/28/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Hoi,
>>
>>I have bought, owned and sold stocks. I have read the financial pages.
>>My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies
>>that the financial pages are concentrated on. Many companies that are
>>economically as relevant do not get the same degree of attention. When
>>you aim to say that companies, organisations are relevant and that they
>>are under represented I do agree with you. It is just that many of these
>>companies, like imho almost all schools are not relevant. When people
>>want to write about them, like with schools, people will have strong
>>opinions about them. People of these companies will try to game the
>>system for their marketing benefit. When there is a project with a
>>strong community of people who nurse this content, fine.
>>
>>Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and many companies have no lasting
>>relevance. Some companies have anecdotal relevance like this company
>>that sold pet food over the Internet...
>>
>>
>I think it's reasonable to consider whether the company notability
>criteria are too strict, as currently written and applied.
>
>That we should not open the floodgates to letting companies promote
>themselves using Wikipedia doesn't mean that we shouldn't cover more
>companies in a fair and neutral manner...
>
For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to
worry about the floodgates.  Maybe someone should tell the little boy
with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>Derek Hodgson stated for the record:
>
>
>>Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
>>
>>
>Well, I can't speak for others, but ... well ... no.  I don't care about
>this when I'm fucking.  I doubt anyone fucking does.
>
That's another perspective on "Eats ... shoots ... and leaves" :-)

Ec


body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
>advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know Sunir
>Shah.
>
He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>I didn't let it through. The original email sent by the person was
>>rejected from the mailing list. If you received it, it means the
>>person emailed it directly to you in addition to mailing it to the
>>mailing list address. Notice that this thread was started by someone
>>*replying* to the email, not the original email itself.
>>
>>
>The first email I see on this thread was Michael Smith replying to
>you, and it looks like it was sent just to the mailing list.
>
Whatever.  If only one more e-mail got through that should not have it's
no big deal.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
>being used, and the money from
>the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
>someone object to images
>being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
>recall my interactions
>on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
>debates I had there.
>
>Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
>nailed. The foundation will
>be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
>defend the Foundation. It's
>pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
>then do not use them.
>
>There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
>pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
>unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
>torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
>and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
>it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
>it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.
>
When the actual owner of the photograph complains that certasinly boost
the issue up a notch, and we should definitely be ready to pay attention
to his requests.  I did not see that as a factor in Robert's comments.
If the person objecting has no connection to the pictures, there is no
reason for us to give too much weight to that opinion.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

body:
The list is excellent. The only mile-wide glaring omission from it
that I can think of, is Sunir Shah. What happened? Was he asked and
refused a position on the advisory board?

On 1/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
>
> > As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
> > resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
> > You'll find the entire list here:
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
>
> Excellent selections!
>
> What sort of thing would we bug them with, through what channel?
>
> I'm wondering on the issue of setting up an "editorial concerns"
> channel for English Wikipedia, our vastly successful and troublesome
> child. Mathias Schindler floated the idea after the Microsoft press in
> the past few days and I repeated the suggestion on Friday.
>
> I can't say I'm having great success or a wave of people going "Hell
> yes, that's a great idea! I'll volunteer to help monitor that!"
> Evidently I'm just not using something that the cats think is tuna.
> HELP NEEDED.
>
> Having an editorial concerns channel is I think an obviously nice idea; how
> to
> deal with the likely flood of crap^Wless valid concerns and the lack
> of a wave of volunteers going "hell yes, I'll watch it" is another
> matter. How would this remarkable selection of social website experts
> suggest we attract and keep the volunteers for it? I'm at a loss.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]


from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brandchannel claims hi brand marks for WP, YT

body:
It is difficult to do accurate procedure when there are large numbers
of items, most of them totally unworthy. It's like traffic court. At
any such review, after looking at a certain number, people get into a
really foul mood and tend to express it.

This sort of thing affects teachers also, and most have worked out
some routine to minimize the effect, such as grading question one for
everybody first & only then doing question two; thats why many use
multiple choice tests, even if they're less accurate. But there the
students are very ready to appeal, and know how.

The immediate solution is for more people to take an interest, and
appeal informally first. and then ask others, and then formally when
necessary.--but only what is necessary, lest the problems escalate.
Besides DRV--which I do not recommend at present-- there's ANB if
someone is really unreasonable.  The sure way to perpetuate the
present situation is to give up and tolerate real abuse.

The longer term way is to devise more narrowly directed rapid
procedure, and fairer procedure for other problems. I suggest it will
be easier to get such change if real problems are called to wider
attention.  -- DGG

On 1/27/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
> > That would be a cynical way of looking at it. There's no core policy issue
> > at stake, the reason for deletion was a poor one. We're just responding to
> > public criticism by taking a token step in the right direction.
>
> Indeed. And even if this particular website _does_ turn out to be not
> particularly notable (I haven't done much checking myself), the proper
> way to deal with that IMO would be to redirect to the article on its
> parent company [[Interbrand]] and perhaps add a section on it there.
> Everyone wins.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 28/01/07, Dan Jacobson <jidanni at jidanni.org> wrote:
> Why doesn't Special:Search ever find anything on my test wiki that is
> on a computer powered up only a few hours every few days?

What are the search terms? What content language?

> Must be some mysterious cron function. OK, this looks like it will

No, no cron job needed by default, unless $wgMiserMode is turned off,
and possibly other live update options.

> OK, but why wasn't that detected/fixed by the upgrader script when I
> upgraded to 1.9.0? Now what? Manually change some/what mysql things?
> I don't want to put my fingers in there.

The search index rebuild script drops and re-creates the full text
index on the search engine, when using the default MyISAM search. Your
database user will obviously need to be able to do this.

Rob Church


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to stop that gaping mouth of an edit box?

body:
On 1/28/07, Dan Jacobson <jidanni at jidanni.org> wrote:
> Anyway, how limiting that MediaWiki can't deny editing (to everybody,
> fine with me) in a given namespace! One must create new namespaces,
> etc.

Latest trunk allows denial of editing in a given namespace,
using.$wgNamespaceProtection.  I don't recall offhand if that made it
into the 1.9 branch.


from_name: Pilotguy

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: Wikipedia e-mail]

body:
Obviously looks to me like it was deleted because it wasn't written to our
standards. I just took a quick glance at the deletion log, but it looks like
this article might be worthy of inclusion, that is, if we can find the right
person to write it. Just my two c's...

On 1/28/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/28/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't know. Let's have a look at the log:
> >
> >     * 06:29, January 29, 2007 Angela (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
> > (redeleting after temporary undelete to export page history)
> > [...]
>
> My (un)deletions were so I could export it to
> http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Pieism without losing the history
> since it wasn't the most recent version of the page that was worth
> keeping but a combination of some of the older revisions.
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Pilotguy
pilotguy.wikipedia at gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pilotguy

http://pilotguy.wordpress.com


body:
Hoi,.
For several of these notable people, there are articles on Wikipedia..
Some of them have no photo yet, some of the photos could be better
quality.. In the Netherlands we want more quality pictures of famous
people. We even have a "werkgroep" for this.. Being a member of this
werkgroep, I would like to urge our new advisory group members to
provide us with a few photos.. Photos that will do them justice as
advocates of an organisation that is very much about free content :)

Thanks,
    GerardM

Florence Devouard schreef:
> As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
> resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>
> You'll find the entire list here:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
> Welcome to
>
>          Angela Beesley (eh !)
>          Ward Cunningham
>          Heather Ford
>          Melissa Hagemann
>          Danny Hillis
>          Mitch Kapor
>          Joris Komen
>          Rebecca MacKinnon
>          Wayne Mackintosh
>          Benjamin Mako Hill
>          Erin McKean
>          Trevor Nielson
>          Achal Prabhala
>          Jay Rosen
>          Clay Shirky
>          Peter Suber
>          Raoul Weiler
>          Ethan Zuckerman
>
> who have agreed to give a bit of their time and expertise, to help us
> navigate in the difficult waters of collaborative software, free
> licensing, free speech, education for all, governance, sustainability
> models...
> We really appreciate.
>
> How did we chose these people ? Either because they were already
> frequently in touch with us, or because we thought their experience
> could help. "We" is both the board and the community, as the board also
> contacted some of the people whose names showed up when I asked help on
> this list.
> Is that list closed ? Of course not. Please feel free to discuss further
> additions that could be necessary in the future.
>
> Florence Devouard
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
> I didn't let it through. The original email sent by the person was
> rejected from the mailing list. If you received it, it means the
> person emailed it directly to you in addition to mailing it to the
> mailing list address. Notice that this thread was started by someone
> *replying* to the email, not the original email itself.

The first email I see on this thread was Michael Smith replying to
you, and it looks like it was sent just to the mailing list.


body:
On 1/28/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
>
> The point is not who is not on it, the point is are the people on this
> list complementary in stead of all being in the same mould. When this is
> a great list of people, celebrate them. When there are people who are
> complementary, suggest them in a nice, even private way. Your
> indignation does not work for me, quite the contrary.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>

Hmm. One more indication of the problems of pure text modes of communication.
I would have sworn that it would have been obvious when I was
indignant. When I am, I usually express myself in strong terms of an
expletive nature. My posting about Sunir Shah was purely motivated by
curiosity, and thus entirely free of expletives, or even pointed
sarcasm. Very emotively neutral curiosity. If you you thought using
words like "glaring" and "mile wide" expressed indignation, I assure
they were not intended to do so, but to be purely expressive of the
objective case of affairs.

--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]


from_name: Marco Schuster

body:
Dan Jacobson schrieb:
> "ALTER TABLE `searchindex` DROP INDEX si_title, DROP INDEX si_text"
> >from within function "dropTextIndex".
> MySQL returned error "1142: ALTER command denied to user 'wikiuser'@'localhost' for table 'searchindex' (localhost)"
>
You do not have the right MySQL permissions. Add to your wikiuser
account the ALTER TABLE privilege and your problems should be fixed.

Regards,
Marco


body:
On 1/28/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> When there are people who are
> complementary, suggest them in a nice, even private way.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>

You may have missed the bit in Florences posting, which invited us to
be free in discussing other potential additions. I do not see what is
not nice about a posting which I explicitly began with stating I
thought the list was an excellent one.

--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
2007/1/28, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>:

> All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
> being used, and the money from
> the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
> someone object to images
> being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
> recall my interactions
> on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
> debates I had there.
>
> Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
> nailed. The foundation will
> be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
> defend the Foundation. It's
> pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
> then do not use them.
>

But what if there is no such request? Should we keep everything on the site
until we get a request to take it down? Or should we only put things on that
are as free as our own texts? Or something somewhere in between? That's what
the issue is about.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
"groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are
on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD,
then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of
course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.

Same with an edit to an active article. If the edit stands, it's
"consensus" if it's constantly reverted and your persistence gets you
banned by a "rogue admin (tm)", it's "groupthink".

Therefore, I have to wonder if "groupthink", as long as it doesn't
lead to an [[Abilene paradox]] might not just be another way of saying
"consensus" which can either be good or bad. Good if the "consensus"
decision squares with previously established policies, bad if it
doesn't.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
On 28/01/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey, if your partner is talking about it during the act, wouldn't you
> think about it?

Now, that's definitely beyond 'kinky' into 'just sick.'

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
On 1/28/07, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:
> How about saying "there can only be X policies on the Wikipedia, where X = the number we currently have. If you want to add another
> one, you must first remove an existing policy, by consensus." I.e. keep them constrained within a busy loop, fighting each other's
> policies. For bonus points, as time progresses, you could try gradually reducing X (using a Last-In-First-Out approach), thus
> forcing people to condense the rules into "meta-policies" (such as "assume good faith"), rather than obsessing about petty details.
> And when the rules fit on the back of a Wikipedia membership card in 14-point font, then it's time to stop reducing X. :-)

That's a good policy!  Now, let me go make a 200-square-foot membership card.


from_name: Omegatron

body:
On 1/28/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That would appear to be a strawman.

I asked "Should we remove all quotations from Wikipedia?  Should we delete
Wikiquote?" and you simply responded "There are many free quotations."  Does
this mean that you are in favor of removing all quotations from Wikipedia
and Wikiquote unless they are free content?  if not, what do you mean by
that statement?

5 people is harldy a movement.

So you are not part of this movement?  You are in favor of the use of
non-free images on Wikipedia?

I know that the fair use claims are highly questionable. I suspect I
> have a far better idea of what is in the image namespace than you do.

You've certainly deleted a lot more of it...

How does stealing Image:032806 francelaborprotests2.jpg produce a
> better free encycopedia that useing the free images I linked to?
>

It doesn't.  I said I was looking at file names only.  That image should be
replaced with a free one.


body:
On 1/28/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I think there is a
> place for fair use in Wikipedia, and at the same time I support the
> rationale for its being prohibited in Commons.

Then we are in agreement.

> Your talk of multiple
> sub-goals seems to be a second rate categorixation problem more than
> anything else.  Don't make the issue more complicated than it should be.

This is the wording used on [[Wikipedia:Fair_use_criteria]], which I object to.

> While
> I support fair use I still recognize the transitivity problem connected
> with it.

But as long as the fair use content cannot be replaced with free
content, the transitivity  is a non-issue.  We can't do anything about
it.  When legal, we *can* still use it to further our encyclopedia,
though.

> >Our goal is to create a
> >repository of "the sum of all human knowledge"; not "a collection of
> >copyright-free human knowledge".  (That's what Project Gutenberg is
> >for.)
> >
> Then what do you see as the goal of Wikisource?

I don't know much about Wikisource.  They have their own comparison at
<http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Wikisource_and_Project_Gutenberg>

> To get your terminology straight "fair use" is specifically NOT a
> "copyright violation".  Don't muddle the argument by mixing up claimed
> fair use and actual fair use.

Rather, it is "not an infringement of copyright", or an "exception to
copyright".


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Florence Devouard [mailto:anthere at anthere.org]
>>Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 07:41 AM
>>To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>Subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to the advisory group
>>
>>As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
>>resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>>
>>You'll find the entire list here:
>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>>
>>Welcome to
>>
>>        Angela Beesley (eh !)
>>        Ward Cunningham
>>        Heather Ford
>>        Melissa Hagemann
>>        Danny Hillis
>>        Mitch Kapor
>>        Joris Komen
>>        Rebecca MacKinnon
>>        Wayne Mackintosh
>>        Benjamin Mako Hill
>>        Erin McKean
>>        Trevor Nielson
>>        Achal Prabhala
>>        Jay Rosen
>>        Clay Shirky
>>        Peter Suber
>>        Raoul Weiler
>>        Ethan Zuckerman
>>
>>who have agreed to give a bit of their time and expertise, to help us
>>navigate in the difficult waters of collaborative software, free
>>licensing, free speech, education for all, governance, sustainability
>>models...
>>We really appreciate.
>>
>>How did we chose these people ? Either because they were already
>>frequently in touch with us, or because we thought their experience
>>could help. "We" is both the board and the community, as the board also
>>contacted some of the people whose names showed up when I asked help on
>>this list.
>>Is that list closed ? Of course not. Please feel free to discuss further
>>additions that could be necessary in the future.
>>
>>Florence Devouard
>
>
> I had suggested Stephen Gaskin in correspondence with Jimbo, but while I did receive a favorable reply from Stephen, no response from Jimbo.
>
> Fred

At the risk of appearing rude (which is not my desire), I will mention
that when I asked community to provide names, I said specifically to
write to "me", not to Jimbo. There was a reason so this request :-)

Anthere


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
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Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
> Sean Barrett wrote:
>> Derek Hodgson stated for the record:
>>
>>> Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
>>>
>> Well, I can't speak for others, but ... well ... no.  I don't care about
>> this when I'm fucking.  I doubt anyone fucking does.
>>
> That's another perspective on "Eats ... shoots ... and leaves" :-)

Many of my sex partners have commented on that.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Modern art is what happens when painters stop
 sean at epoptic.com | looking at girls and persuade themselves
                  | that they have a better idea. --John Ciardi
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from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [Foundation-l] Sigh, problems with non-Latin usernames again

body:
Enwiki users are now trying to change policy so users with non-Latin
usernames that don't provide transliterations in their signatures when
they're told to can be blocked. Currently, the policy requests that users
consider providing a transliteration, but does not require it. This came as
a result of massive amounts of discussion that ended up in this change from
blocking all non-Latin usernames. Now enwiki contributors are trying to move
back towards blocking good faith contributors with non-Latin usernames,
which will very likely create problems once Single User Login comes into
effect. Will we block people who are honestly trying to improve the
encyclopedia just because they haven't changed their signature to a Latin
script?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Username#Latin_character_transliterations

--rory096


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 28/01/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
> > Legitimate mirrors and people who want to reuse our content are free,
> > and encouraged, to download a database dump and process it for their
> > needs.
>
> Say, are there examples of people who do this well, contributing back to
> Wikipedia or to the general public? The examples I've seen are all a bit
> disappointing, but perhaps that's just because the outrageous ones
> generate more attention.

answers.com is perhaps our most high-profile reuser, but we have an
agreement with them for a live feed. I'm not offhand aware of a
particularly shining example of a database-dump site, partly because
we tend to outstrip them quite fast (and because enwiki dumps were
iffy for quite a while, meaning most of them are long-stagnant)

There are certainly some decent offline projects using dumps, though,
in one form or another.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] The downside of creating perfect articles

body:
On 26/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/26/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > As an aside, this is the other use for redlink farms - they're a
> > really good way to find places to put sensible redirects.
>
> Yeah. I can't help but feel that there ought to be an organised front
> end to all of this, though. Like a committee that says "There shall be
> a "Religion in X" article for every country. The list of countries is
> stored [[here]]. Redirects of the following forms will be set up for
> every country..."
>
> I mean I know Wikipedia isn't run top-down, but would it hurt to have
> a little management? Or should I say "leadership".

That's exactly what we have wikiprojects for! Perfect textbook example
of a good role for them - organising coverage on a specific subject,
getting the infrastructure (names, redirects) in place that they can
then come back and work on content

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: effe iets anders

body:
2007/1/28, Angela <beesley op gmail.com>:
>
> On 1/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard op gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 28/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere op anthere.org> wrote:
>
> > What sort of thing would we bug them with, through what channel?
>
> For the topics, see the bios at
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board to see what topics
> would be relevant to each person or the whole group.
> (...)
>
> Any other suggestions?
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Well, a photo next to the bio's would be marvellous :) That way the
community can discover a face with the name. it's not exactly necessarily,
but would just be a nice thing :)

lodewijk