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Okay, I'm synthesizing this in preparation for offering a report to staff. Although I will link to this page, so that the entire conversation can be read, I want to be sure that I have a good grasp of current position.
Perhaps first on the table is the overweening question of the Wikimedia Foundation’s role: Thatcher asks what responsibilities WMF holds for its projects and volunteers, including when it should step in to address problems with its own resources and what kind of responsibility it may have for ensuring that those with trusted levels of access are suitable for the role. Thatcher suggests that the Board should be more focused on expertise in running organizations of this sort and that WMF should undertake regular review, with community input, of what its responsibilities should include. They should follow this up with a list of issues, annotated by division of responsibilities between WMF and volunteers (with note of risk involved for volunteers). Jehochman also explicitly supports the idea of discussion groups wherein limitations are explained.
In terms of responsibility, several people seem to hold the view that ArbCom should not have to deal with certain kinds of issues, including (among Jehochman’s account) sexual predators, mentally ill editors, crimes, hacking and real world harassment of Wikipedia contributors. (Since emergencies & suicide threats are already handled by the WMF, I’ve removed them.) These instead should be handled by a professional abuse department. LessHeardVanU feels that child predators in particular need to know that they have no right to a “hearing”, but instead should be summarily ejected with whatever process is decided by the community. WMF’s “terms of service” should make clear that those who are not here within the spirit of Wikipedia have no reasonable expectation of using the site. Johnuniq seems to feel that WMF should leave ArbCom to handle matters that are clearly not illegal.
There are serious concerns about security: both in the role of WMF to maintain security and to protect those volunteers handling sensitive information. Jehochman recommend professional legal advice, IT security and insurance--Acroterion says this should at least be extended to Arbs but may be made available to administrators, with Section 230 issues eliminated by making it a donor funding choice, not administered by WMF. Thatcher wonders how much liability may face those with access to secure information: might they be hit with personal subpoenas to testify or present records they may have retained of older investigations?
Questions may remain about security of older records and what should be done with them, although the very informative Risker may have resolved some of these. It's possible that Philippe's note above has resolved others.
Is this about the long and short of it? -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 19:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that the Wikimedia Foundation has been discussing these issues and has put out an invitation to ArbCom to send a couple of representatives to the Foundation office to see what can be worked out. (I'm sure there will be some challenges in finding clear spots in everybody's busy schedules, but I personally hope that we'll be able to sit down some time in September, since I'm supposed to be there, too.:) Wikimania makes the beginning of August out of the question, and there are personal issues with the end of August for several key people who would attend that meeting.) Realistically, I'm sure that not every point requested can be met, but having had meetings on this issue with staff when in SF last week, I know they've been putting a lot of time and research into determining how they can best assist. -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 13:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
We finally have a date when at least most of the people who are supposed to be there can be. (I can't attend in person, alas, but will attend remotely.) The ArbCom meeting is scheduled in SF for November 4th, and travel plans are being booked. :) -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 12:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Maggie, I'd like your take and input on the question I've asked Eric Moller here. The Signpost exchange took place here. Best regards, TransporterMan ( TALK) 14:51, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your note Maggie. No problem: I am a complete ham and I am happy to talk to anyone (from one person to 20,000) for any amount of time about Wikipedia, at the drop of a hat! What happened is, I replied to Aaron by email. I did not hear back immediately, and then Matthew left me a similar note the next day, but erased it when he realized Aaron had already left me one. So I also replied to Matthew, just in case my email to Aaron had gone astray somehow. And today Matthew got back to me via email. (I hope I am not complicating matters by causing one person to poach on another person's domain.) So anyway, if you prefer I talk to Aaron, it's all equal to me! Thanks, Invertzoo ( talk) 19:40, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Maggie. I have a lot of respect for you, but maybe you already know that. Best wishes, Invertzoo ( talk) 20:06, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
So... I did the interview this afternoon. I enjoyed it, but have no idea if I said anything that will be "useful" to the cause. Basically I am better at giving a long (even impromptu) presentation than I am at coming up with a short "quotable quote". But I talked at considerable length, so maybe there is something short that is good in there. Invertzoo ( talk) 01:26, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. As you probably know, I'm working with Brandon, Ian, Steven and Erik, on solutions for improving NPP and article creation work flow. Could you tell me in a nutshell, without me having to search the site, if any inroads have been made to the CorenBot problem, or give me a link to where it's being discussed. Cheers, -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 06:57, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. If the meeting beyween Philippe, Nitika, and Hisham Mundol hasn't taken place yet, there are a couple more copyright issues that have arisen and ought to be brought to their attention. First, we're now finding copyright images uploaded to Commons by IEP students, and declared "own work". There are currently at least 5 11 of them nominated for deletion (with probably more to come), and it's a slow process at Commons. Second, students are putting copyright text in their sandboxes not realizing that it cannot be put anywhere on Wikipedia. I've outlined both problems
here. Best,
Voceditenore (
talk)
10:07, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
This is a message to Mihir, but I think it concerns everyone involved with IEP. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. I read your note on my talk page, but I feel it's best to respond here in your capacity at WMF, and illustrate that copyvio - your Wikipdeia domain and the one that is mainly being discussed - is not the only problem. When I refer below to the 'community' in this concept, I mean the relatively small core of dedicated Wikipedians who are in many ways as qualified as the staff, and who have the distinct advantage that they are also on the 'factory floor', so to speak. There is disquiet among this community at the way the IEP has been prepared and rolled out, and once again we are faced with a situation where the role divide between the community and the WMF is not clear, and perhaps not even sufficiently transparent.
The en.Wiki is suffering from a critical lack of experienced editors for carrying out maintenance such as the unenviable tasks of patrolling of new pages, copyvio detection, and reeditiing. An even smaller number of editors have agreed to cooperate with the WMF to develop a user friendly landing page for new editors, and research into the improvement of page patrolling. Unfortunately, such developments take time, and although we are well on the way to focusing the priorities, the issues surrounding the IEP have come at an inopportune moment when the new solutions are still a long way from completion. There appears to have been little or no forethought for the impact that the IEP would have on the work of the community and again the volunteers have expressed uncertainty about the WMF's role and understanding of this and other situations.
Outreach and education programmes are good and are entirely necessary to guarantee the growth and continuation of Wikipedia, but little is being done, or seen to be being done, to reach out to that core of dedicated volunteers who are expected to carry the burden of content management generated by such programmes. But as you have seen (if you have read all of today's lengthy discussions on my talk page), the organisers, ambassadors, and students of the IEP, are fully expecting us , the handful of experienced volunteers, to mop up the mistakes. I'm almost sure that I am trespassing on WMF domain by getting involved, but when my talk page becomes the turntable for such a major issue, the volunteer community puts me, another volunteer, under pressure to do something about it. I've spoken again with Hisham today at some length and made some suggestions for improving the knowledge of the campus ambassdors, but he is apparently not in the chair. In fact none of us here in the community actually know who is. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 21:07, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Just to let you know, there's a minor issue with the pages that you recently blanked for office oversight purposes — namely, because they're sitting in articlespace without categories on them, they're getting picked up by the uncategorized articles toolserver. I realize that there's a sensitive office issue preventing them from being treated as normal articles, so I obviously can't categorize them normally, but I still have to get them off that list somehow. So just to let you know, I'm going to add them to Category:Temporary maintenance holdings, within the Wikipedia maintenance queue, so that they stay off the toolserver list while you resolve the issue. Bearcat ( talk) 00:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your confidence in me Maggie. Yeah, they let me know how well it tested, and that was really a surprise to me. Who knows how these things work... Invertzoo ( talk) 21:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I believe that what Cinnamon colbert meant was that when you give something to Wikipedia, anyone can take it and use it for whatever purpose; they can even use a contributor's work for purely commercial purposes, and that is something that Cc feels is unacceptable. I do understand that would make some people feel that they don't want to contribute their work to WP. Invertzoo ( talk) 22:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. Please see recent comments here by me and Vodeditenore. I have some suggestions to make, but I believe (and I think Voce shares my opinion) that the programme organisers are still missing some vital points, and I have some further suggestions to make. However, my other concern is that some of our postings are just seen by some as rants, so if you you would like to hear our ideas, perhaps the three of us could join up over Skype or IRC without the backgound noise. regards, -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 13:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I did said that I would contribute to this discussion if at least four other people took part. Well, that never happened, but here are my thoughts anyway.
Scarabocchio ( talk) 00:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi. I'm not quite sure of your role here, but I've mentioned you as someone who might be the most appropriate person to get an RfC off the ground.
The subject of the RfC is being batted about at WT:FAC#FAC 2012, and I suggested that the FA leadership needs to change via an election and much edit-conflicting has ensued. User:Wehwalt and some others support this call. The incumbents mostly not. This is of course all tied up with the civility mess that's landed at the arbitration board. One the questions there is has the hostility around FA driven anyone off, and I've encountered a user who's about to leave over this. User:Lecen from Brazil has written about eight FA on Brazilian topics ( Empire of Brazil...) and has lost interest in ENWP over poor treatment at FAC. Not losing him would seem to fall within your remit. There's a longish talk with him on my talk page. Thank you. Alarbus ( talk) 17:08, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
MRG, since you are much loved and respected all over the Wiki, your offer to help out Mike is much appreciated; the input of someone as respected outside of FAC as you are, along with someone within FAC who knows the issues and history, will hopefully lead to a better RFC. I've never seen anyone get much by you, but will point out that Alarbus (as a person with limited knowledge of FAC) might not be aware of Lecen's background at FAC. You can search the WT:FAC archives, there is more at WP:TFAR that is not archived, or read some of his FACs to see how combative they are, or I can dig up and point you to the number of times delegates have recused from his FACs because he is so combative. He doesn't respond well to constructive criticism, he's dug himself in to a place where few reviewers will go near his FACs, and it's unfortunate that Alarbus is making proposals and recommendations around cases that aren't representative of the many writers and reviewers working to produce FAs. I'm glad you might be able to reach out to Lecen in your WMF function, but for the purposes of the RFC, Alarbus is not fully apprised of why Lecen in particular is seeking a scorched earth policy at FAC. I also like Alarbus's neutral section heading here :) SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 00:18, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Maggie -- would you take a look at my post at FAC from the point of view of an editor who doesn't participate in FAC, and give some feedback there (in one or other of your personae) if necessary? Thanks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:03, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Maggie; per your recommendation the other day I posted the question to Jami again. Thanks for your advice. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 05:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Maggie, on a more cheerful matter, may I ask if there's been any progress on the JSTOR thing? I had sent you and Philippe a note on how it can be done for one person; I had not received a reply but didn't want to push the matter because of the holidays. Should I send another email? Or just await events? My experience is that if you await events, though, they don't tend to happen.-- Wehwalt ( talk) 00:52, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I've checked with Philippe, and evidently Sue's work on meta:Fundraising and Funds Dissemination/Recommendations is relevant here. The fund dissemination materials she's drawing together includes, in her third recommendation, "Expanded grantmaking to individual volunteers, to provide support for work that requires it, e.g. reimbursement of travel expenditures, lending or purchasing of equipment and literature, provision of t-shirts and event materials." Philippe says he is looking into funding for the JSTOR idea, but that these kinds of requests may wind up being held as the larger issue is decided.
From my volunteer standpoint, I think it's a pretty exciting idea. I know some other groups have been interested in obtaining access to resources. Wouldn't it be grand if we could make more of these available? -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 20:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I know this is a segue from the JSTOR topic and I haven't been around recently: but what's this about CSB having broken? I'm just curious, but I'd rather not have to go searching through talk page archives to figure it out. VernoWhitney ( talk) 14:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Looks like we almost had a full blackout! ;-) Stubble boy 05:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Copyrights states at the top that it is a "Wikipedia policy with legal considerations". Does that mean it applies to all language wikipedias? If it does, do any other pages in Category:Wikipedia legal policies apply to all wikipedias too? And finally, if they (one or many of them) do apply to all language wikipedias, shouldn't they be moved/copied to meta? Thanks for any help that you may be able to provide.-- Siddhartha Ghai ( talk) 11:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
My heartiest congratulations Maggie, on your appointment to a permanent position. Very best wishes, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:18, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I think we've already got the necessary community input ... that is, we know that a lot of Wikipedians feel strongly enough about the issue to volunteer their time to check for copyvio. We also know what's holding us back: the difficulty in finding the texts we can check against. I don't think the community is very good at, or interested in, assessing whether the SOPA debates have opened up (or closed!) opportunities to get access to additional texts through Google or Amazon or directly from publishers; we'll need professional help from connected people for that. I guess the idea that I'd like to suggest to the WMF is that it's possible that, post-blackout, there may or may not be two new routes to getting access to sources:
Okay. I've gotten the ball rolling. I may have to roll it a few times until I find out where it should go. :) -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 21:15, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I've talked to a few people about this. The recommendation is that you put it through a Grants proposal. It's felt unlikely that this can be negotiated gratis, but it's the kind of thing that the Grants budget is created to evaluate and, where possible, accommodate.
The introduction to the Grants process is at meta:Grants:Index. This includes all the links necessary to apply. You don't have to be a chapter or official organization to apply for a grant, but somebody will need to be willing to supply ID to the Wikimedia Foundation. This can be kept private.
Is somebody willing to shepherd this through the Grants process and see how it goes? -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 13:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps some guidance from a knowledgeable and experienced editor and WMF employee such as yourself will help? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 20:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
First, my apologies for being out of the loop on the project I started. Real life, distractions, etc. Good news, Dcoetzee is going to take it on for one of his school classes. So it's on! Come check out the new developments, and let me know if the Foundation has any thoughts. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 01:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I originaly left this message at your other Talk page, but perhaps this is the one it belongs at.
Thank you for your message about this article. You indicated that no rewrite to avoid the copyrighted material had been proposed, and that therefore the whole article was being deleted. I am sorry that I have had no prior experience with cases of this kind. I had offered earlier on the Talk webpage to help rewrite the article and asked for information about which the problem sections were. I assumed -- due to lack of experience of the process -- that I would hear back from an admin on the request and the offer. I am sorry to hear now that it has been deleted -- there was a good deal of solid work in the article undertaken independently by other users that had nothing at all to do with Mr. Mannerings (or his co-author) and their article. To be more future-focused, can I ask if, even now, you are able to share with me and other users the identity of the specific text passages in the WP article about which Mr. Mannerings (or his co-author) have made their complaint and assertion of copyright? With this information and a few days notice, as I've suggested before, I for one would certainly be willing to take a close look at the challenge and see if a rewrite seemed feasible. My instinct is that the answer would probably be yes. Nandt1 ( talk) 06:22, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
One other query. I see that some details of this case are at a ticket on Wikimedia. It does not allow me to log in using my Wikipedia account details. Where can a user register to access this material? Nandt1 ( talk) 04:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I've come across a page which I think may directly relate to your post on trademarks on the village pump. Tofurky is branded product with an active registered trademark. Tofurkey seems to be "what people call that type of thing", with no references, and links to competitor's websites. Is there a noticeboard where things like this can be discussed? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Okay, I'm synthesizing this in preparation for offering a report to staff. Although I will link to this page, so that the entire conversation can be read, I want to be sure that I have a good grasp of current position.
Perhaps first on the table is the overweening question of the Wikimedia Foundation’s role: Thatcher asks what responsibilities WMF holds for its projects and volunteers, including when it should step in to address problems with its own resources and what kind of responsibility it may have for ensuring that those with trusted levels of access are suitable for the role. Thatcher suggests that the Board should be more focused on expertise in running organizations of this sort and that WMF should undertake regular review, with community input, of what its responsibilities should include. They should follow this up with a list of issues, annotated by division of responsibilities between WMF and volunteers (with note of risk involved for volunteers). Jehochman also explicitly supports the idea of discussion groups wherein limitations are explained.
In terms of responsibility, several people seem to hold the view that ArbCom should not have to deal with certain kinds of issues, including (among Jehochman’s account) sexual predators, mentally ill editors, crimes, hacking and real world harassment of Wikipedia contributors. (Since emergencies & suicide threats are already handled by the WMF, I’ve removed them.) These instead should be handled by a professional abuse department. LessHeardVanU feels that child predators in particular need to know that they have no right to a “hearing”, but instead should be summarily ejected with whatever process is decided by the community. WMF’s “terms of service” should make clear that those who are not here within the spirit of Wikipedia have no reasonable expectation of using the site. Johnuniq seems to feel that WMF should leave ArbCom to handle matters that are clearly not illegal.
There are serious concerns about security: both in the role of WMF to maintain security and to protect those volunteers handling sensitive information. Jehochman recommend professional legal advice, IT security and insurance--Acroterion says this should at least be extended to Arbs but may be made available to administrators, with Section 230 issues eliminated by making it a donor funding choice, not administered by WMF. Thatcher wonders how much liability may face those with access to secure information: might they be hit with personal subpoenas to testify or present records they may have retained of older investigations?
Questions may remain about security of older records and what should be done with them, although the very informative Risker may have resolved some of these. It's possible that Philippe's note above has resolved others.
Is this about the long and short of it? -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 19:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that the Wikimedia Foundation has been discussing these issues and has put out an invitation to ArbCom to send a couple of representatives to the Foundation office to see what can be worked out. (I'm sure there will be some challenges in finding clear spots in everybody's busy schedules, but I personally hope that we'll be able to sit down some time in September, since I'm supposed to be there, too.:) Wikimania makes the beginning of August out of the question, and there are personal issues with the end of August for several key people who would attend that meeting.) Realistically, I'm sure that not every point requested can be met, but having had meetings on this issue with staff when in SF last week, I know they've been putting a lot of time and research into determining how they can best assist. -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 13:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
We finally have a date when at least most of the people who are supposed to be there can be. (I can't attend in person, alas, but will attend remotely.) The ArbCom meeting is scheduled in SF for November 4th, and travel plans are being booked. :) -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 12:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Maggie, I'd like your take and input on the question I've asked Eric Moller here. The Signpost exchange took place here. Best regards, TransporterMan ( TALK) 14:51, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your note Maggie. No problem: I am a complete ham and I am happy to talk to anyone (from one person to 20,000) for any amount of time about Wikipedia, at the drop of a hat! What happened is, I replied to Aaron by email. I did not hear back immediately, and then Matthew left me a similar note the next day, but erased it when he realized Aaron had already left me one. So I also replied to Matthew, just in case my email to Aaron had gone astray somehow. And today Matthew got back to me via email. (I hope I am not complicating matters by causing one person to poach on another person's domain.) So anyway, if you prefer I talk to Aaron, it's all equal to me! Thanks, Invertzoo ( talk) 19:40, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Maggie. I have a lot of respect for you, but maybe you already know that. Best wishes, Invertzoo ( talk) 20:06, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
So... I did the interview this afternoon. I enjoyed it, but have no idea if I said anything that will be "useful" to the cause. Basically I am better at giving a long (even impromptu) presentation than I am at coming up with a short "quotable quote". But I talked at considerable length, so maybe there is something short that is good in there. Invertzoo ( talk) 01:26, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. As you probably know, I'm working with Brandon, Ian, Steven and Erik, on solutions for improving NPP and article creation work flow. Could you tell me in a nutshell, without me having to search the site, if any inroads have been made to the CorenBot problem, or give me a link to where it's being discussed. Cheers, -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 06:57, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. If the meeting beyween Philippe, Nitika, and Hisham Mundol hasn't taken place yet, there are a couple more copyright issues that have arisen and ought to be brought to their attention. First, we're now finding copyright images uploaded to Commons by IEP students, and declared "own work". There are currently at least 5 11 of them nominated for deletion (with probably more to come), and it's a slow process at Commons. Second, students are putting copyright text in their sandboxes not realizing that it cannot be put anywhere on Wikipedia. I've outlined both problems
here. Best,
Voceditenore (
talk)
10:07, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
This is a message to Mihir, but I think it concerns everyone involved with IEP. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. I read your note on my talk page, but I feel it's best to respond here in your capacity at WMF, and illustrate that copyvio - your Wikipdeia domain and the one that is mainly being discussed - is not the only problem. When I refer below to the 'community' in this concept, I mean the relatively small core of dedicated Wikipedians who are in many ways as qualified as the staff, and who have the distinct advantage that they are also on the 'factory floor', so to speak. There is disquiet among this community at the way the IEP has been prepared and rolled out, and once again we are faced with a situation where the role divide between the community and the WMF is not clear, and perhaps not even sufficiently transparent.
The en.Wiki is suffering from a critical lack of experienced editors for carrying out maintenance such as the unenviable tasks of patrolling of new pages, copyvio detection, and reeditiing. An even smaller number of editors have agreed to cooperate with the WMF to develop a user friendly landing page for new editors, and research into the improvement of page patrolling. Unfortunately, such developments take time, and although we are well on the way to focusing the priorities, the issues surrounding the IEP have come at an inopportune moment when the new solutions are still a long way from completion. There appears to have been little or no forethought for the impact that the IEP would have on the work of the community and again the volunteers have expressed uncertainty about the WMF's role and understanding of this and other situations.
Outreach and education programmes are good and are entirely necessary to guarantee the growth and continuation of Wikipedia, but little is being done, or seen to be being done, to reach out to that core of dedicated volunteers who are expected to carry the burden of content management generated by such programmes. But as you have seen (if you have read all of today's lengthy discussions on my talk page), the organisers, ambassadors, and students of the IEP, are fully expecting us , the handful of experienced volunteers, to mop up the mistakes. I'm almost sure that I am trespassing on WMF domain by getting involved, but when my talk page becomes the turntable for such a major issue, the volunteer community puts me, another volunteer, under pressure to do something about it. I've spoken again with Hisham today at some length and made some suggestions for improving the knowledge of the campus ambassdors, but he is apparently not in the chair. In fact none of us here in the community actually know who is. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 21:07, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Just to let you know, there's a minor issue with the pages that you recently blanked for office oversight purposes — namely, because they're sitting in articlespace without categories on them, they're getting picked up by the uncategorized articles toolserver. I realize that there's a sensitive office issue preventing them from being treated as normal articles, so I obviously can't categorize them normally, but I still have to get them off that list somehow. So just to let you know, I'm going to add them to Category:Temporary maintenance holdings, within the Wikipedia maintenance queue, so that they stay off the toolserver list while you resolve the issue. Bearcat ( talk) 00:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your confidence in me Maggie. Yeah, they let me know how well it tested, and that was really a surprise to me. Who knows how these things work... Invertzoo ( talk) 21:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I believe that what Cinnamon colbert meant was that when you give something to Wikipedia, anyone can take it and use it for whatever purpose; they can even use a contributor's work for purely commercial purposes, and that is something that Cc feels is unacceptable. I do understand that would make some people feel that they don't want to contribute their work to WP. Invertzoo ( talk) 22:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. Please see recent comments here by me and Vodeditenore. I have some suggestions to make, but I believe (and I think Voce shares my opinion) that the programme organisers are still missing some vital points, and I have some further suggestions to make. However, my other concern is that some of our postings are just seen by some as rants, so if you you would like to hear our ideas, perhaps the three of us could join up over Skype or IRC without the backgound noise. regards, -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 13:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I did said that I would contribute to this discussion if at least four other people took part. Well, that never happened, but here are my thoughts anyway.
Scarabocchio ( talk) 00:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi. I'm not quite sure of your role here, but I've mentioned you as someone who might be the most appropriate person to get an RfC off the ground.
The subject of the RfC is being batted about at WT:FAC#FAC 2012, and I suggested that the FA leadership needs to change via an election and much edit-conflicting has ensued. User:Wehwalt and some others support this call. The incumbents mostly not. This is of course all tied up with the civility mess that's landed at the arbitration board. One the questions there is has the hostility around FA driven anyone off, and I've encountered a user who's about to leave over this. User:Lecen from Brazil has written about eight FA on Brazilian topics ( Empire of Brazil...) and has lost interest in ENWP over poor treatment at FAC. Not losing him would seem to fall within your remit. There's a longish talk with him on my talk page. Thank you. Alarbus ( talk) 17:08, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
MRG, since you are much loved and respected all over the Wiki, your offer to help out Mike is much appreciated; the input of someone as respected outside of FAC as you are, along with someone within FAC who knows the issues and history, will hopefully lead to a better RFC. I've never seen anyone get much by you, but will point out that Alarbus (as a person with limited knowledge of FAC) might not be aware of Lecen's background at FAC. You can search the WT:FAC archives, there is more at WP:TFAR that is not archived, or read some of his FACs to see how combative they are, or I can dig up and point you to the number of times delegates have recused from his FACs because he is so combative. He doesn't respond well to constructive criticism, he's dug himself in to a place where few reviewers will go near his FACs, and it's unfortunate that Alarbus is making proposals and recommendations around cases that aren't representative of the many writers and reviewers working to produce FAs. I'm glad you might be able to reach out to Lecen in your WMF function, but for the purposes of the RFC, Alarbus is not fully apprised of why Lecen in particular is seeking a scorched earth policy at FAC. I also like Alarbus's neutral section heading here :) SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 00:18, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Maggie -- would you take a look at my post at FAC from the point of view of an editor who doesn't participate in FAC, and give some feedback there (in one or other of your personae) if necessary? Thanks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:03, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Maggie; per your recommendation the other day I posted the question to Jami again. Thanks for your advice. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 05:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Maggie, on a more cheerful matter, may I ask if there's been any progress on the JSTOR thing? I had sent you and Philippe a note on how it can be done for one person; I had not received a reply but didn't want to push the matter because of the holidays. Should I send another email? Or just await events? My experience is that if you await events, though, they don't tend to happen.-- Wehwalt ( talk) 00:52, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I've checked with Philippe, and evidently Sue's work on meta:Fundraising and Funds Dissemination/Recommendations is relevant here. The fund dissemination materials she's drawing together includes, in her third recommendation, "Expanded grantmaking to individual volunteers, to provide support for work that requires it, e.g. reimbursement of travel expenditures, lending or purchasing of equipment and literature, provision of t-shirts and event materials." Philippe says he is looking into funding for the JSTOR idea, but that these kinds of requests may wind up being held as the larger issue is decided.
From my volunteer standpoint, I think it's a pretty exciting idea. I know some other groups have been interested in obtaining access to resources. Wouldn't it be grand if we could make more of these available? -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 20:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I know this is a segue from the JSTOR topic and I haven't been around recently: but what's this about CSB having broken? I'm just curious, but I'd rather not have to go searching through talk page archives to figure it out. VernoWhitney ( talk) 14:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Looks like we almost had a full blackout! ;-) Stubble boy 05:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Copyrights states at the top that it is a "Wikipedia policy with legal considerations". Does that mean it applies to all language wikipedias? If it does, do any other pages in Category:Wikipedia legal policies apply to all wikipedias too? And finally, if they (one or many of them) do apply to all language wikipedias, shouldn't they be moved/copied to meta? Thanks for any help that you may be able to provide.-- Siddhartha Ghai ( talk) 11:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
My heartiest congratulations Maggie, on your appointment to a permanent position. Very best wishes, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:18, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I think we've already got the necessary community input ... that is, we know that a lot of Wikipedians feel strongly enough about the issue to volunteer their time to check for copyvio. We also know what's holding us back: the difficulty in finding the texts we can check against. I don't think the community is very good at, or interested in, assessing whether the SOPA debates have opened up (or closed!) opportunities to get access to additional texts through Google or Amazon or directly from publishers; we'll need professional help from connected people for that. I guess the idea that I'd like to suggest to the WMF is that it's possible that, post-blackout, there may or may not be two new routes to getting access to sources:
Okay. I've gotten the ball rolling. I may have to roll it a few times until I find out where it should go. :) -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 21:15, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I've talked to a few people about this. The recommendation is that you put it through a Grants proposal. It's felt unlikely that this can be negotiated gratis, but it's the kind of thing that the Grants budget is created to evaluate and, where possible, accommodate.
The introduction to the Grants process is at meta:Grants:Index. This includes all the links necessary to apply. You don't have to be a chapter or official organization to apply for a grant, but somebody will need to be willing to supply ID to the Wikimedia Foundation. This can be kept private.
Is somebody willing to shepherd this through the Grants process and see how it goes? -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 13:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps some guidance from a knowledgeable and experienced editor and WMF employee such as yourself will help? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 20:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
First, my apologies for being out of the loop on the project I started. Real life, distractions, etc. Good news, Dcoetzee is going to take it on for one of his school classes. So it's on! Come check out the new developments, and let me know if the Foundation has any thoughts. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 01:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I originaly left this message at your other Talk page, but perhaps this is the one it belongs at.
Thank you for your message about this article. You indicated that no rewrite to avoid the copyrighted material had been proposed, and that therefore the whole article was being deleted. I am sorry that I have had no prior experience with cases of this kind. I had offered earlier on the Talk webpage to help rewrite the article and asked for information about which the problem sections were. I assumed -- due to lack of experience of the process -- that I would hear back from an admin on the request and the offer. I am sorry to hear now that it has been deleted -- there was a good deal of solid work in the article undertaken independently by other users that had nothing at all to do with Mr. Mannerings (or his co-author) and their article. To be more future-focused, can I ask if, even now, you are able to share with me and other users the identity of the specific text passages in the WP article about which Mr. Mannerings (or his co-author) have made their complaint and assertion of copyright? With this information and a few days notice, as I've suggested before, I for one would certainly be willing to take a close look at the challenge and see if a rewrite seemed feasible. My instinct is that the answer would probably be yes. Nandt1 ( talk) 06:22, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
One other query. I see that some details of this case are at a ticket on Wikimedia. It does not allow me to log in using my Wikipedia account details. Where can a user register to access this material? Nandt1 ( talk) 04:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I've come across a page which I think may directly relate to your post on trademarks on the village pump. Tofurky is branded product with an active registered trademark. Tofurkey seems to be "what people call that type of thing", with no references, and links to competitor's websites. Is there a noticeboard where things like this can be discussed? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)