LSS/foundation-l-archives/2007 week 2

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This issue covers (roughly) 2007 January 8-14

Threads

• [1] Wikimania Team Bulletin asks everyone to contribute to wm2007:Attendees to help them establish a head count. They inform the list that China Times Travel Service is the official travel agent of Wikimania 2007 and will provide 1, 2, and 3-day tours and also that the interwiki prefix "wm2007:" now works.
• [2]Yorian asks about how Wikimedia data is being backed-up. [3]Arne informs the list that Wikimedia Deutschland just bought a RAID system with a capacity of 12 terabytes, which arrived in Amsterdam this week for this purpose.
• [4]Virgil Ierubino asks why MediaWiki is so low tech and requests particularly features such as pop-ups and instant editing found at websites like Facebook. Many people respond with the common reasons of the WMF's lack of funds and lack of developers compared to such websites, some particularly mention the current fundraiser falling short of it's goal. [5] Tim Starling informs the list that has several JS/AJAX features, but with the comparative lack of developers thinks we are years away from the features requested.
• [6] Erik suggests the setup of a central, multilingual portal at outreach.wikimedia.org. This portal, like spreadfirefox.com, would not be aimed at the general public, but at Wikimedians who wish to work with general public, work with specific institution, organize speakers and requests, and work on marketing and promotion of WMF. [7] David Strauss suggests using what's currently FundCORE, which is Drupal based, as an interactive portal for coordinating community relations.
• [8] effeietsanders suggests having an auction as an alternative way of fundraising. Discussion follows on various items that may be worthwhile to offer at and auction.[9] mav informs the list that fundcom has seriously considered both online and live auctions. Nothing has been planned or decided yet, but it could be an additional method of fundraising.
• [10]Anthere, Chair of WMF Board of Directors, makes a four part announcement about the fundraiser. 1) There will not be another matching donor in this current fundraiser, in part due to the reaction of some members in the community. 2) The fundraiser is not over until Jan 15. The site notice may be changed to have links thanking donors. 3) This fundraiser has been the most successful of our history and we can do better in the last week. 4) WMF will go on with limited funds. Limited means we'll go delaying certain issues. [11] Anthere further explained that it is very probable we'll have again matching donations in the next fundraisers. The discussion that follows at times both praises this decision for it's responsiveness to the community and criticizes the decision for oversensitivity to a vocal minority. [12] Anthere further explains the decision by adding that the previously planned matching donor will still being supporting WMF and adding that some people had written to Virgin Unite complaining about them being a matching donor. She explains the need to take into account that such people may try to publicly shame future matching donors. She also informs the list that detailed discussion of the financial situation and efforts to bring in more money will be on the agenda of the board meeting next week. [13] Londenp suggests that people examine the idea from nl.WP of splitting off fan articles into a separate advertisement hosting website for raising money more seriously. Discussion follows with negative opinions of the idea and changes into the topic of whether WMF is really lacking funds at all. [14] Anthere explains that right now, WMF is VERY underfunded. Discussion follows analyzing the WMF financial reports.
• [15]Sage Ross informs the list of a NEH grant that looks promising for the WMF. [16] Brianna explains that the funds specifically cannot be used to purchase collections, and the proposal must specifically include a collaborative partner such as a university, library, or some other institution, and thinks WMF could be a strong contender. She also asks for ideas to be contributed at NEH Advancing Knowledge grant. [17] Aude suggests a project using maps and geospatial data would be a good use of such a grant. She asks people give feedback on his detailed thoughts on the issue at w:User:AudeVivere/GIS
• [18] Yorian asks for technical help with patrolled edits at nl.WP.
• [19] effeietsanders informs the list of a Wikimeet to be held in Rotterdam at the Golden Tulip Hotel on January 12th at 20.00h CET. The Board of Directors will be attending they will all be in Rotterdam for the Board meeting.
• [20] Anthere informs the list of the agenda of the Board Meeting which includes: Budget and finances, Audit, Legal issues, Personnel issues, Technical summit, and Brainstorming on quality. [21]Husky asks that the Board formulate an advice to the projects concerning the use of non-commercial images as part of the Legal Issues agenda item. [22] After the list is informed of the it.WP policy of including non-commercial images, Jimbo explains this is a violation of Wikimedia Foundation policy. A LARGE amount of discussion follows on the inclusion non-commercial and/or fair use images in WMF projects. Although a large variety of opinions are expressed, most can be roughly summarized into three viewpoints. 1) Both non-commercial and fair use images are unfree; against the spirit and letter of the GFDL and cannot be a part of a GFDL project. 2)Non-commercial images are more free than fair use images and it.WP should not be made to change their policy until en.WP is made to change theirs. 3) Fair use, as used by en.WP, is a strict and valid interpretation of a concept that is present in many legal systems and necessary to writing an encyclopedia while Non-Commercial licenses are against the founding principles of Wikimedia and cannot be part of any WMF project. There also follows a more general discussion on whether the projects should ever make an effort to match their policies to the laws of any particular nation(s) where the project's language is dominant. [23] Delphine explains the more general legal issues; reminding editors to: forget the idea that internet is a lawless zone; observe the laws of the country they live in; observe the laws of the US, where the servers are.
• [24] Yoni asks for help determining the nature of a custom license. [25] Dbl2010 explains that the license is like cc-by-sa with some more limitations, which should be eliminated.
• [26] David Gerard asks for feedback on his editing of Commons:Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia about the reuse of GPL/LGPL contents.
• [27] David Gerard explains the problems of keeping the global Spam blacklist updated with large amount of local spam found at en.WP. He suggests creating a local blacklist and asks for feedback on how to keep the lists in sync.
• [28] Christophe Henner informs the list of a research paper about Wikipedia that is now under review for publication.
• [29] John Barberio asks the WMF to explain the requirements for copyright verification of external links to en.WP where he feels an unreasonable policy has been adopted. [30] Ec explains this is a problem that is not a WMF level issue and must be worked out locally at en.WP.
• [31] Neil Harris informs the list of a BBC reports that explains the UK may be revising Crown Copyright to grant more freedoms than it currently does. [32] Ec explains the development is positive but the suggestion that they might still require permissions, even free ones, is unworkable for WMF.
• [33] Dbl2010 informs the list that the Turkish Wikipedia won Golden Spider- 2006 Best Content Prize. The Golden Spider award is a nation wide, most famous and most reputable web award organization in Turkey.
• [34] willi boy asks the list to comment on allegations of sysop abuse at the Yiddish Wikipedia.
• [35] Anthony asks the list to focus on the vision of WMF, "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." [36] David Strauss explains that the recent discussions aren't a sign of weakness in our projects. They're a sign that Wikipedia has grown large enough that it must confront these issues.