Hello,
First of all I was asked to take a look at the following case. I found it very strange how people behave against other people and I would like to write about it and ask opinions. I'm sure this is not only for this user but there are more users like this.
I understand that its needed for people to block users when the encyclopedia or the project is in danger, but where do will place the border? I think destroying people or behaving against people like I will describe below is also endangering the project. We should all remember that we are humans and not robots and everybody makes mistakes. Therefor I am sure that there was behavior that was totally wrong, but the way the whole international community decided to handle it was wrong also.
First of all we have a policy against socks. In that policy we describe that its not right to edit with two accounts at the same time or working together with 2 accounts to get something done. Secondly its not right to use new accounts to evade blocks. Lastly bot accounts are not seen as socks neither are old and unused accounts. Besides that we have a policy in place that says that people are free to leave the project or abandon a username and continue with a new name. This I guess is for protecting the project and protecting the people that work on it.
Now to get to my case. On 3 July on Meta a attack started against a former Dutch Wikipedia user. This attack was mainly started by people of the Dutch Wikipedia. The same people that are willing to destroy this user. (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Abigor) now before you all click away this message hear me out and give me opinions. This is now almost two years ago and a good moment to look back. If I am wrong please point me to that and lets keep a good talk instead of going all "don't waste our time".
In this case there was a big list of names that where socks and this "sockmaster" needed to be blocked. But when we look at our policies and on that list we see the following:
Abigor (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) - thats meAbiBot (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) No sock its a bot, only did bot editsAbiBot.nl.wiki (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) No sock its a bot, only did bot editsAbibot (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) (renamed to AbiBot[2], self acknowledged)Huib (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) Created on request by meta communety en en.wiki communety, because I sign with Huib while I'm abigor... Its points to my abigor account and its created to protect my own account. Execpt for the rename edits, it didn't edit at all.Huib (old) (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) Did a rename request to get Huib free..Sterkebak (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) old account... on my userpage is a note that I used to use that oneSterkeBak (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) old account... on my userpage is a note that I used to use that oneSterkebot (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) No sock its a bot, only did bot editsSterkeBot (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) (renamed from Sterkebot[3][4] and later renamed to AbiBot[5][6])P.J.L Laurens (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) - Its a account created for my uploads, it has a different userpage on Commons with information about me as photographer. Didn't do any edits just created for the userpage and information. All my uploads are pointed to this one with a link.WikiLinkBot (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) No sock its a bot. Only editted on nl.wiki to let its userpage be removed, the dutch admins didn't want to remove the page.This list is ctrl C Ctrl V from Meta.
Now go to the policy:
Abigor is the account of the user. Than we have AbiBot, AbiBot.nl.Wiki and Abibot sterkebot SterkeBot as bot accounts. According to the policy accounts used by a bot without human edits are not socks. Huib and Huib (old) Sterkbak SterkeBak P.J.L Laurens. All those names are old accounts without overlapping edits so according to the policy its not socking. Some accounts doesn't have edits at all but where only there to redirect. WikiLinkBot is intresting cause its now in use by a other user. This user is also the source for the blocking on the Dutch Wikipedia. Abigor would have placed personal attacks against this user and now the user is having that accounts. Very intresting don't you think.
Then we get a bunch of accounts:
Accounts with only a few edits and no CU results where linked to this users. I strongly believe that we should have proof before pointing something out and say "hey it was you". But the account where I want to speak about is Delay. We have the policy that says that you can start right over with a new account. But still a Foundation employee confirms a link between the Delay Account and the Abigor account something CU didn't do at start. So we have a policy, but the policy doesn't work for some people?
The coolest thing here is that we block him for disrupting a project. Or disrupting multiple projects, but every account used on the Wikipedia did get a barnstar for good work. Since when do we give vandals barnstars? Or since when do we block people doing good work?
So in this case one of the accounts that pointed to him is now in use by the user requesting Abigor to get blocked. There are a bunch of account creations that are never clearly linked to the user. Its linked by Abigor was on Wikimania so he have done the actions. And after that we decided to TELL all communities where he was active that he is a danger.
So tell me, why doesn't get this user the change to start over like many others did. Many people have more accounts, or old accounts and why don't do they get blocked and most off all why do we keep hunting him down when there is clear proof that he is doing good work (a.k.a barnstars). Where do we draw the line between protecting a community or scaring people off?
Ed
[I am purposefully leaving out the previous content.]
There are times and spaces where the most honourable of people fail to get
along, and while it is unfortunate and/or as inconvenient as it may be, it
is what it is. There are some communities where people are unable to or
fail to identify boundaries, and/or fail to be able act within the
boundaries expected by a community. That is not to judge either set of
parties, it is just about incompatibilities, and separation is a
well-founded means of risk management, especially from a little corner of
the world that is wiki-editing. Sometimes with separation, and growth and
development of the community and the individual, there is the ability for a
future reconciliation. Being right is not necessarily helpful, and vice
versa.
Mailing to such public forum as you did may help you to understand
something, however, I am not sure that it is particularly helpful. It is
clear that you don't have an understanding of the matter in its history or
its context, and rather than learning by the old-fashioned means of
trawling through the data, and reflection, jumping up in the centre of a
publicly archived, and widely distributed forum shows a level of naivety,
and simplicity in the approach. There are simply some acts that should not
be undertaken while standing up in front of a group of people.
... or there is the old saying of "let sleeping dogs, lie"
Regards, Billinghurst
Crossed to Wikimedia-l, see Deryck's e-mail below.
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Deryck Chan <deryckchan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Wikimania community,
>
> There are currently two discussions on Meta which will have a fundamental
> impact on the technical logistics of all future Wikimania bids.
>
> As many of you would know, working documents of Wikimania bids, such as
> letters of support and venue information, are conventionally uploaded to
> Meta locally because they don't come with a Commons-compatible free licence.
> However, currently there's no explicit "exemption doctrine policy" on Meta,
> so two discussions are ongoing, with the aim of deleting all
> Wikimania-related non-free files which have been uploaded in the past
> years[1], and to ban future uploads of non-free media to Meta including
> Wikimedia events' working documents[2].
>
> [1]
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Requests_for_deletion#All_files_in_Cate…
> [2]
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Restrict_or_abolish_local_file_up…
>
> Since this would mean future Wikimania bids may not include copies of
> third-party working documents on Meta, these proposals will change the
> logistics of Wikimania bids completely. I therefore urge all of you to
> scrutinise the proposed changes and comment as appropriate.
>
> Deryck
> WM2013 local team
>
> PS. To those of you who also run chapters: the proposed changes will mean
> that chapter financial statements may not be uploaded to / will be deleted
> from WMF-hosted wikis since they're have an implicit no-derivative
> requirement.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-l mailing list
> Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
I don't know if there's a general bug report about canonical URLs & co.
indexing, but there's one about Google messing up with 301/302 redirects
which is spreading quite a bit lately. Erik wrote them to no avail some
time ago.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26115
Nemo
Good morning or afternoon, wherever this finds you,
Apologies for the acronym overuse in the subject line. :)
This is a reminder that our second IRC office hour focused on the letter of
intent as part of the Funds Dissemination Committee process is starting in
three minutes!
We look forward to seeing you on #wikimedia-office.
Katy
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Katy Love <klove(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> As announced earlier, the FDC support team is holding office hours on
> #wikimedia-office to speak about questions on the Letter of Intent
> process in a few minutes and again at 15:00 UTC (Wednesday May 29).
>
> * Wendesday, May 29 at 0:00 UTC
> * Wednesday, May 29 at 15:00 UTC
>
> We look forward to speaking to you!
> Katy
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Katy Love <klove(a)wikimedia.org>
> Date: Thu, May 16, 2013 at 2:45 PM
> Subject: FDC Letter of Intent due June 8 & IRC office hours
> To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
>
> Dear members of the Wikimedia community,
>
> You will have seen an email recently from Patricio Lorente and Jan-Bart de
> Vreede, the Board Reps to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), about
> the FDC's new Letter of Intent process. The Letter of Intent (LOI) is the
> first step in applying for funds from the FDC, as outlined in the FDC
> Framework. [1] This upcoming year (2013-2014) will be the first time we
> institute the LOI process. As you heard from them, we anticipate the LOI
> will be a helpful planning tool for the FDC as well as offering us a chance
> to begin working with entities in advance of the FDC proposal deadline. We
> hope it will allow us to work closely with applying entities and to address
> questions and concerns (and clear up any misunderstandings) significantly
> before the proposal deadline.
>
> Interested entities must submit an Letter of Intent in order to apply for
> FDC funding. For Round 1 of 2013-2014, the LOI is due on June 8. The LOI
> asks potential FDC applicants to state their intentions to apply and to
> include a notional dollar figure (or local currency figure). The Letter
> of Intent can be created on the FDC portal [2], and a sample is here for
> your reference [3]. The LOI is non-binding, but it is required in order to
> be able to submit a proposal for Round 1.
>
> In anticipation of the LOI's June 8 deadline, the FDC staff is holding
> office hours twice to respond to questions. We welcome entities considering
> applying for Round 1 funding to join us. Our two office hours will be held
> on #wikimedia-office on:
>
> * Wednesday, May 29 at 0:00 UTC
> * Wednesday, May 29 at 15:00 UTC
>
> These two sessions will have the following agenda:
>
> 1. Introductions
> 2. Brief explanation of the FDC
> 3. Explanation of the purpose of the Letter of Intent and general FDC
> proposal process
> 4. Q&A on the LOI
>
> And finally, for your reference, here is the 2013-2014 Round 1 proposal
> process [4] schedule:
>
> - *Letter of Intent deadline for Round 1: 8 June 2013*
> - Deadline for WMF Staff to post eligibility: 15 July 2013
> - Deadline for entities to meet eligibility requirements: 15 September
> 2013
> - Proposal submission deadline: 1 October 2013
> - Community review period: 1 October - 31 October 2013
> - Staff assessment deadline: 8 November 2013
> - FDC recommendation due: 1 December 2013
> - Board decision due: 1 January 2014
>
> As always, contact us questions or requests for support:
> FDCsupport(a)wikimedia.org.
>
> Warm regards,
> Katy and the FDC support team
>
> [1]
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Framework_for_…
> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal
> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Sample_letter_of_intent
> [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposal_process
>
>
Hello, everybody!
Sorry for crossposting if you are on advocacy-advisors (if you aren't, join
the party!), but we'd like to encourage comments or questions on this on a
wider scale, so I believe it makes good sense if we also post it here the
first few times.
Dimi
The portal for this group is: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy
*
*
*tl;dr*
The first monitoring report on EU Policy strives to give a brief overview
over current legislative debates in Brussels that might be of interest to
the Wikimedia movement. We have five topics:
1. Collective Rights Management and Online Use
2. EU-US Trade Agreement
3. Stakeholder Dialogue on Copyright
4. EU Data Protection
5. Network Neutrality
*#CRM*
*Collective Rights Management and Online Use of Music Works *
*What’s going on?*
The European Commission’s directive proposal *on collective management of
copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in
musical works for online uses in the internal market *[1]* *has entered the
next stage of the legislative process by being submitted to the European
Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
The reform aims to tweak the current legislation by making collecting
societies more transparent and ensuring cross-border compatibility of
licenses on the internal market, especially when it comes to online use of
works.
*Why should we care?*
The directive intends, although vaguely, to introduce non-commercial uses
(read: Creative Commons licenses) as an option for creators in the
collective management system.
As the Commission proposal is anything but clear on this, there is
currently a push and pull within the Parliament as to how far this should
go. Industry proponents argue for a “minimum harmonisation approach”, which
means that no exact measures will be specified. At the same time, the
Parliament’s Culture Committee says that authors should be given the right
to remove some of their works from the collective management system and
publish them under a free license. Currently collecting societies in the EU
don’t allow their clients to make parts of their work generally available
(e.g. One song of an album to be released under a CC license). In Germany,
there is simultaneously a strong effort to build up a non-exclusive
collecting society.[2]
*Game plan?*
The first reading in the Parliament is forecasted for the 19.11.2013. The
four non-leading committees have already published their draft opinions.
Until then the lead committee (Legal Affairs - Rapporteur Marielle Gallo,
EPP) will publish its report and amendment proposals can still be tabled.
There is also a mandatory consultation with the Economic and Social
Committee.
-----------------
-----------------
*#IPRTTIP*
*Intellectual Property Regulation in EU-US Trade Agreement*
*What’s going on?*
Both the EU and the US have expressed their intent to include an IPR
chapter in TTIP, though its final scope will be subject of negotiations.
*Why should we care?*
Remember ACTA? We cannot be generally for or against this motion yet, since
the content is not even discussed yet. We do however, as many other
stakeholders, have an interest that the negotiations are public and
transparent so that “surprise packages” (such as a more rigorous liability
regime for providers) can be avoided.
*Game plan?*
Some MEPs are currently organising dialogues and meetings to hear about the
fears and hopes of the stakeholders. Generally speaking, an involvement of
the Parliament in the negotiations would make the process more predictable.
Currently a group of digital rights organisations are trying to motivate DG
Trade to release the texts, an effort not met warmly within the Commission
(and the Parliament Committee on Trade for that matter). A vote on this
treaty could happen well before the EP elections in 2014.
-----------------
-----------------
*#Licenses4Europe*
*Stakeholder Dialogue on Copyright Reform*
*What’s going on?*
The European Commission has launched a stakeholder dialogue in four working
groups with the intention to discuss current licensing issues and come up
with a reform proposal.
*Why should we care?*
- Although this does not seem to be turning out as the major copyright
reform originally claimed, its general intention to address “user-generated
content” should make us alert and calls for keeping an eye on the whole
process.
- After some early signals from the Commission that new Fair Use
exceptions be introduced, there has been silence on this issue as none of
the current participants want or can bring it up.
- Another possibility is that cross-border compatibility of licenses is
addressed, which could improve or worsen some of the issues with our
content across Europe.
- Simultaneously there might be a move towards stronger copyright
enforcement and more restrictive use of content online
*Game plan?*
The working groups will conduct regular meeting until the end of this year.
The Commission plans to table a legislative proposal early 2014.
-----------------
-----------------
*#EUdataP*
*EU Data Protection*
*What’s going on?*
The European Commission originally wanted to guarantee a high level of data
protection to all of its citizens online. This has turned into real trench
warfare of several accounts. The topics discussed include:
- The “right to be forgotten”
- Definition of "personal data"
- Should pseudonymous data be exempt from regulation
- Should there be a “justifiable interest” exception allowing companies
to not ask for consent
- Who is going to control it and will there be fines
*Why should we care?*
While we are currently complying with even the stricter proposals, as
website operators, administrators and editors we need to be aware of what
is legal and what is coming.
There was some fear that the “right to be forgotten” might force us to
delete information from our websites, but it currently looks like this risk
is off the table.
There are currently no inherent or apparent risks for us in this although
we do care deeply about the topic.
*Game plan?*
The Lead Comittee’s (LIBE) vote is expected before the summer break 2013.
After that the dossier will move to the 1st plenary hearing and a vote in
the Council, where significant changes are highly unlikely.
-----------------
-----------------
*#netneutrality*
*Network Neutrality*
*What’s going on?*
The European Commission originally expressed support for an “open” and
“neutral” internet, yet has never acted to inscribe this into law. In the
past months telecoms in Germany and internet service providers in France
have stopped or limited access to services from competitors in their
networks. This has lead to considerable outrage among digital rights
groups. Neelie Kroes (Commissioner for Competition), who was originally in
favour of the idea decided not to act upon the restrictions in France,
saying that packaging or throttling access is a product labelling issue,
rather than worrisome.[3]* *
*Why should we care?*
We are interested in a open and free internet guaranteeing each user the
right to access all the websites. Otherwise clients might be charged extra
money to access servers from outside their country (i.e. in Virginia) or
have different packages for different types of websites
(sports/news/multimedia) which would not be advantageous to us.
On the other hand, such a legislation would disallow zero access projects,
which might hinder free access to educational and other content, even in
cases with non-commercial intentions.
*Game plan?*
The Commission is currently planning to release non-binding
recommendations. There is a considerable debate going on whether there
should be binding legislation on the matter and whether the EU shouldn’t
leave this issue to the member states. Slovenia and the Netherlands have
already codified net neutrality as part of their national legislations.
-----------------
-----------------
[1]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201303/20130306ATT62…
[2]http://c3s.cc/index_en.html
[3]http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/netneutrality/
I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book
"Encyclopedia of Electronic Components." [1] I'm not sure that I've ever
seen an evaluation of Wikipedia's electronics coverage before, but to me
this sounds like a pretty good description of a lot of our engineering
articles (at least in English)...
"Wikipedia’s coverage of electronics is impressive but inconsistent. Some
entries are elementary, while others are extremely technical. Some are
shallow, while others are deep. Some are well organized, while others run
off into obscure topics that may have interested one of the contributors
but are of little practical value to most readers. Many topics are
distributed over multiple entries, forcing you to hunt through several
URLs. Overall, Wikipedia tends to be good if you want theory, but
not-so-good if you want hands-on practicality."
-- phoebe
1. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026105.do
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at>
gmail.com *
Hi everyone,
As announced earlier, the FDC support team is holding office hours on
#wikimedia-office to speak about questions on the Letter of Intent process
in a few minutes and again at 15:00 UTC (Wednesday May 29).
* Wendesday, May 29 at 0:00 UTC
* Wednesday, May 29 at 15:00 UTC
We look forward to speaking to you!
Katy
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Katy Love <klove(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, May 16, 2013 at 2:45 PM
Subject: FDC Letter of Intent due June 8 & IRC office hours
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Dear members of the Wikimedia community,
You will have seen an email recently from Patricio Lorente and Jan-Bart de
Vreede, the Board Reps to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), about
the FDC's new Letter of Intent process. The Letter of Intent (LOI) is the
first step in applying for funds from the FDC, as outlined in the FDC
Framework. [1] This upcoming year (2013-2014) will be the first time we
institute the LOI process. As you heard from them, we anticipate the LOI
will be a helpful planning tool for the FDC as well as offering us a chance
to begin working with entities in advance of the FDC proposal deadline. We
hope it will allow us to work closely with applying entities and to address
questions and concerns (and clear up any misunderstandings) significantly
before the proposal deadline.
Interested entities must submit an Letter of Intent in order to apply for
FDC funding. For Round 1 of 2013-2014, the LOI is due on June 8. The LOI
asks potential FDC applicants to state their intentions to apply and to
include a notional dollar figure (or local currency figure). The
Letter of Intent
can be created on the FDC portal [2], and a sample is here for your
reference [3]. The LOI is non-binding, but it is required in order to be
able to submit a proposal for Round 1.
In anticipation of the LOI's June 8 deadline, the FDC staff is holding
office hours twice to respond to questions. We welcome entities considering
applying for Round 1 funding to join us. Our two office hours will be held
on #wikimedia-office on:
* Wednesday, May 29 at 0:00 UTC
* Wednesday, May 29 at 15:00 UTC
These two sessions will have the following agenda:
1. Introductions
2. Brief explanation of the FDC
3. Explanation of the purpose of the Letter of Intent and general FDC
proposal process
4. Q&A on the LOI
And finally, for your reference, here is the 2013-2014 Round 1 proposal
process [4] schedule:
- *Letter of Intent deadline for Round 1: 8 June 2013*
- Deadline for WMF Staff to post eligibility: 15 July 2013
- Deadline for entities to meet eligibility requirements: 15 September 2013
- Proposal submission deadline: 1 October 2013
- Community review period: 1 October - 31 October 2013
- Staff assessment deadline: 8 November 2013
- FDC recommendation due: 1 December 2013
- Board decision due: 1 January 2014
As always, contact us questions or requests for support:
FDCsupport(a)wikimedia.org.
Warm regards,
Katy and the FDC support team
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Framework_for_…
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Sample_letter_of_intent
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposal_process
Hi all,
The minutes and slides from the Quarterly Review meeting of the Grantmaking
team have now been posted on Meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_re…
Cheers,
Adele
--
*Adele Vrana*
Senior Project Assistant to the Grantmaking & Programs Department
Wikimedia Foundation
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6773
avrana(a)wikimedia.org
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.
Donate.<https://donate.wikimedia.org/>
*
I don't know what to do. I lost sleep thinking about this situation last night. I think I'm still in shock and I'm frustrated. The normal situation on wiki is to have this kind of discussion in public for actions that happen on any wiki that I know of. There were similarly public discussions about what happened in WMUK. Maybe that's wrong. I don't know. I worried that if I said nothing that it would be wrong, and I worry that saying something is wrong too.
I'm withdrawing from this discussion for now. I wish I knew what the right thing to do was. I'm very sorry.
Pine