Grants talk:TPS/Oop/Big Fat Brussels Meeting Episode 3/Report

Comments on report

Hello Oop,

Thank you for submitting this very entertaining report! Though we enjoyed reading about the philosophical inquiry prompted by the meeting, the committee needs more information about the outcomes of your participation before we can review and approve your report. We would like to request the following:

• More information about the proposal you presented at the meeting
  • We understand your presentation was largely oral and that you do not have a slide deck to link to, so a brief summary of your proposal will work instead.
  • In your closing comments, you said in regard to your proposal that it "Doesn't matter much now anyway." Can you say more about why you say so? Did you change your position as a result of participation in the meeting? Was there learning you can share in your report?
• Links to the outcomes of the meeting as a whole
  • For example, you might provide relevant links to wiki pages that would direct readers of this report to the right place to learn more about the work accomplished during the meeting by the group as a whole.
• a TPS reporting outcome as required in #2 here: TPS/Report.
  • A link to the blog post mentioned will suffice. We can't approve this report until the link is submitted.

We wish you luck in your inquiry into different interpretations of "social responsibility" across Wikimedia projects in different languages and communities--though we don't have any ready examples to offer your investigation.

We look forward to reading more about the benefits of your participation in Big Fat Brussels Meeting Episode 3!

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I did not give a presentation, so there are no slides. I gave a lot of talks to one or two people apiece, grabbing buttons in all kinds of places and trying to coax people into supporting my own, if foolish, crusade.

My personal point was that, as I have been one of the two people behind the campaign for establishing Freedom of Panorama in Estonia (somewhere on Meta there should be an English version of a report of activities and analysis for the last year that was 16 pages in Estonian), I have noticed a need for a lot of comparative data that would most likely be possible for any such campaign. In several cases, when Wikimedians have been campaigning for FoP, there haven't been even any definite proposal. Yet there are many forms and nuances of FoP (2D/3D art, 2D/3D images, buildings only, the German special clause, inner rooms, infographics, possible differences in the definitions of public places and publicly accessible places, etc etc) that are difficult to decide on if one does not have any knowledge about how exactly are copyright laws formulated and interpreted in different countries.

A clear example: as we're going for FoP in Estonia, we have led discussions with all the stakeholders amongst creative unions, and I think we have probably managed to achieve a sustainable balance between the interest of the artists to protect their art and the interest of Wikipedians and society in general to have as much free culture as possible. We're going to propose including public interiors explicitly under FoP, except the museums and galleries. Now, to reach that point, we had to know the laws and interpretations of the FoP established in UK, Germany, Netherlands, and Czech Republic, as well as some of the legal history of Soviet Union. An organization proposed a restriction which, while made in good faith, most likely would turn out to make all seemingly free images unusable for Commons - and we were able to counter it by an example from Laos. Luckily, no one has yet raised the question why we don't go for the German exception (that free photos have also to be taken from a public place - you can't photograph the neighbouring house from your window) but in case someone does, we have to be able to explain the complications proven by court cases. Etc etc etc ad nauseam plus ultra.

So, I thought it might be prudent to compose a comparative collection of all such data at least across EU, giving a solid basis for both the local attempts and our joint lobbying for FoP in EU as a whole. How could we achieve it if we don't know what do the current laws look like, who are the stakeholders we should consult with, what problems we need to prepare for, and what examples we can use for argumentation? Yet, like I wrote in the report, "according to general consensus it was deemed to be interesting and perhaps even original". I was actually told that this should be a doctoral thesis, and "there should be at least one university in Europe that might want it". Which is a polite way to say... something else. So, yes, doesn't matter much now.

Nevertheless, I got a lot of useful data from these one-to-one conversations as well as from the general discussions. Now we have a better idea about the situation in the countries whose representatives were present on the meeting, and about the goings-on on in Brussels. Also, many other themes besides FoP were discussed, so all in all, the result was quite useful, if not entirely satisfying for my own little ego. Like philosopher Jagger once said, you can't always get what you want.

I will include links to what I can find in the report. Our blog post is still not ready, we're hoping to finish it daily, and each night our dreams are broken, yet the flame has still not been extinguished nor is all hope forlorn.

P.S. One of our themes that seemed to catch the eyes of the others was the question of attribution. It seems we have a very good opportunity to work publicly together with the organizations of the architects and artists, as we all have commons interest in being attributed correctly. In society these days and in media particularly, the culture of attribution is quite low, one can often meet pictures with only Wikipedia or Commons mentioned as the source, without naming the author or the license. The same goes for architects and artists. Hence, we could very well make a joint effort to bring the problem to media and education, writing about it, organizing trainings and explaining it to the people who teach teachers (how else could we change the general mentality?). This would result in Wikipedians being publicly recognized as authors, not only distributors, and cooperating with the traditional authors, not antagonizing them. That would be good for attribution, our public image, and further cooperation with the authors (e.g. improving the attributive metadata on Commons and Wikipedia, getting more OTRS-permissions for art, perhaps even attracting a couple of new Wikipedians). And this could work very well much wider than just in Estonia. --Oop (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi again, Oop! Thanks for this response. Good points about attribution! It does seem like a powerful support to positive collaboration, key to our movement. Perhaps you might share some of this in your blog post!

Since the blog post meets the outcome requirement for this report, please ping us as soon as you've linked to it. The committee will review for approval at that time.

Warmly, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 18:58, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello @Oop: We're checking in since we have not heard back from you via email or here. Do you have a status on when the blog post might be completed and linked to your report? -- Thank you, JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Report incomplete

Hello Oop,

We want to let you know that the committee will mark you report incomplete on Wednesday, April 13 if we have not received an outcome to complete your report. Please let us know if you intend to submit an outcome and need an extended deadline. We are happy to work with you to finish out your grant.

Best regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

The blog post is up. You're welcome to proceed as you like. --Oop (talk) 23:22, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Report accepted

Hello Oop,

Thank you so much for providing a link to your blog post. I enjoyed reading your summary and appreciate that you included photos. And, as usual, you made me laugh out loud. I am accepting this report, which completes your grant. Thank you for your contribution to the Wikimedia movement!

Best regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think this about sums it up, a suitable point to the 11+ years. Glad somebody at least reads something I write. Wish the same could be said about poetry. --Oop (talk) 22:34, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello again, Oop! I'm following up on your recent email exchange with our Grants Administrator to record on Meta that the committee is approving the full amount of your reimbursement at 334.45 €, including the 96.82 € increase in transportation costs +237.63 € meals & incidentals. As noted, your reimbursement for 334.45 € (96.82+237.63 €) will be processed for payment within 30 days but may arrive as early as 20 May 2016. Kindly email grantsadminwikimedia · org to confirm receipt of funds.

Best, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2016 (UTC)