Begin forwarded message:
> From: Eugene Eric Kim <eekim(a)blueoxen.com>
> Date: February 16, 2010 12:58:46 PM CST
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >
> Subject: [Foundation-l] strategy office hours
> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Sorry for the late reminder. Strategic planning IRC office hours are
> tonight:
>
> Wednesday from 04:00-05:00 UTC, which is:
> Tuesday, 8-9pm PST
> Tuesday, 11pm-12am EST
>
> As always, you can access the chat by going to
> https://webchat.freenode.net and filling in a username and the channel
> name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a
> security warning. It's fine. More details at:
>
> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
>
> Thanks! Hope to see many of you there.
>
> =Eugene
>
> --
> ======================================================================
> Eugene Eric Kim ................................ http://xri.net/=eekim
> Blue Oxen Associates ........................ http://www.blueoxen.com/
> ======================================================================
>
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____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
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Hi all,
(apologies for the cross-posting and UK-specificness)
The Hunterian have just released a mini-podcast about Britain Loves
Wikipedia - you can see it at:
http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/whatson/wiki/wikipedia-at-the-
hunterian.shtml
We also have lots of events coming up in the next week and a bit
across the UK:
- Saturday 13 February - Manchester Museum
- Sunday 14 February - East Lothian museums
- Tuesday 16 February - Mill Green Museum
- Wednesday 17 February - The Hunterian Museum
- Thursday 18 February - Bedford Museum
- Saturday 20 February - British Postal Museum's store
All of these events are offering something more than the usual access
to the museum - you can get behind the scenes and see (and
photograph) thing that you normally wouldn't be able to. This is a
great opportunity to get photographs of objects for Wikipedia that
you wouldn't normally be able to. Oh, and you can also win prizes!
Full details are on the Britain Loves Wikipedia website - http://
britainloveswikipedia.org/
BTW, I'm hoping that we can organize more things like this in the
future, at different museums throughout the UK - but that can only
happen if these events are well attended. ;-)
Thanks,
Mike Peel
Wikimedia UK
Can anyone help with an authoritative opinion about this? The doubts about
it are causing problems on a number of articles, including during featured
article reviews.
Where an image is in the public domain in its country of origin, and that
country is not the U.S., I believe we still have to show that it is PD in
the U.S. before we can use it, because the Foundation's servers are in the
U.S.. There seem to be widely differing views on this, even among
Wikipedians who seem knowledgeable about images. Some people say that if the
image was not copyrighted in its country of origin on January 1, 1996, it is
regarded as PD in the U.S., and may be uploaded to the Commons and used on
Wikipedia as PD. This is according to the [[Uruguay Round Agreements Act]].
Others are saying no, this *may* mean they are in the public domain, but
their status as such is not secure.
So my first question is: if an image was regarded as in the public domain on
January 1, 1996 in its (non-U.S.) country of origin, is there a consensus as
to whether we are allowed to use it on Wikipedia as a PD image? If so, what
is the correct tag to use?
My second question: for images that are in the public domain in their
(non-U.S.) country of origin, but were not PD in that country as of January
1, 1996, is there any way we can use them apart from claiming fair use?
Sarah
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Rajat Mukherjee <rajatm(a)google.com> wrote:
> Gwern
> This is not true - we support a lot more than 20 patterns - so I will follow
> up to have this addressed in the forum
> if you can provide a specific example where you believe patterns are not
> being used, we can look to see if there's any issue at our end
> thanks
> rajat
I've replied on the forum; with any luck, this will turn out to simply
be a (disconcerting, gut-wrenching) UI issue.
--
gwern
Hey! What? You guys don't want my money?
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Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
So, on a lighter note, I recently got sick & tired of running site:
search after site: -wiki search in Google, and began looking for some
way to automate it.
I discovered that one can make a 'custom' Google search:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Google_Co-op
It allows one essentially to tell Google to increase the score of any
hits in certain domains, and blacklist other domains. It has a number
of neat features - for example, I can tell it to blacklist any domain
on https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/…
. You might think that a parameter like '-wiki' or '-wikipedia' would
do the same thing, but alas!
In particular, I've created a CSE focused on anime & manga topics:
http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=009114923999563836576:1eorkzz2gp4
I started with all the links listed in
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_…
and then began running searches on random topics and pruning based on
that - chucking sites into the blacklist sinbin, or finding good sites
omitted from the list and adding them to the whitelist. At last count,
I had 200 sites on the nice list and 311 on the naughty list (but this
counts things like the Mirrors page as a single link, though they ban
dozens or hundreds of sites).
The results are *much* better. To take my most recent use, finding
material on [[Amanchu!]] for its AFD
(https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_delet…!),
compare the regular Google search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=amanchu
with the CSE search:
htp://www.google.com/cse?cx=009114923999563836576%3A1eorkzz2gp4&q=amanchu
All the blogs & scanlations & forums in the former are great for
someone who just wants to read _Amanchu!_, but for a Wikipedian? It's
terrible. Notice that the ANN launch article, which is apparently the
most substantive English coverage in a RS*, is the first hit in the
CSE but the fifth in the regular Google search, and you can keep
scrolling down and find mostly chaff. And the weekly sales ranking
that puts _Amanchu!_ at #8 nationally, that shows up in the first page
in the CSE? I've no idea where it is in the regular Google hits.
Or take a critical classic: _The Wings of Honneamise_
(https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Royal_Space_Force:_The_Wings…).
Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=wings%20of%20honneamise
CSE:
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=009114923999563836576%3A1eorkzz2gp4&q=wings+of…
Google has on its first page WP, IMDb, Amazon, video links, Tucows
(!), ads, and just 2 reviews a Wikipedian might find useful.
CSE has 9 or 10 good review sources from respectable publications like
Ex.org or the New York Times, and even the questionable hits like
RottenTomatoes have their good points - RT would lead one to the
famous critic Roger Ebert's *very* flattering review of _Wings of
Honneamise_. And it'll take you straight to Ebert's review on page 2,
whereas in regular Google search, you have to go to page 7 or 8.
Further examples can be multiplied, but I hope this shows that CSEs
can be very useful for finding online sources; I'm sure it would work
as well for other subject-areas!
(And since I can't let recent events go, I'll mar my little essay with
a final remark: *this* is the sort of thing that will lessen issues
like BLPs - not fanaticism like "Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui
sunt eius".)
* Unsurprising, really. _Amanchu!_ is Japanese only and likely will
stay that way for years; even the anime media can be very
language-parochial.
--
gwern
Hello, all.
The Living People task force begins work Monday with part one, board
recommendations and proposal. This will run for two months, with the second
half beginning in April on community focus.
This is a global project, and we highly encourage active global
participation in discussion.
More information can be found here: <
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People>.
We hope to see you all there, and everyone have a good weekend.
~Keegan
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
Hi all,
just toolspamming my latest...
I read the announcement for "Britain Loves Wikipedia", was sad to find
no museum in or immediately around my place participates, and tried to
look for the nearest one. Harder than it sounds, if you're not very
familiar with British geography.
So I wrote a tool to show all "related" places.
First, you need a wikipedia page that links to all the objects you are
potentially interested in. I quickly made [1].
Then, go to my new tool [2] and enter that location there. Click on the button.
Then, you get a link to a google maps page (shortened at [3]).
Which is when I realized there is potential for more. Wanna see places
important to The Beatles? Go [4]!
Enjoy!
Magnus
P.S.: I couldn't quickly figure out how to do the same for
openstreetmaps. If anyone could point me to that...
P.P.S.: Yes, using backlinks are an option as well. Is there interest in that?
[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/BLW
[2] http://toolserver.org/~magnus/related_places.php
[3] http://tinyurl.com/ycncg2f
[4] http://tinyurl.com/y92rgo2