[Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation website

Sat Nov 12 13:40:50 UTC 2005

Angela wrote:

> On 11/9/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>>I no longer think an uneditable wiki is the best way to present the
>>>Foundation to the world.
> 
> 
>>I'll let other people make that decision.
> 
> 
> I'd like to know if anyone still thinks it is a good idea, and if so
> why? It clearly doesn't present an official view, so where is the
> benefit in it being uneditable?
> 
> Angela.

Incidently, if you read Traroth report, what does it says...

It says

1) Le Louvres is a famous french museum; hosting art, with most of it 
much much older than 100 years old, so likely to be considered owned by 
humanity

2) Le Louvres has started forbidding taking pictures from this art

3) Only photographers authorized to take picture of art will be Le 
Louvres photographers, so ALL photos will be under cp. Which means that 
unless you go to Paris and pay the entrance, all this artwork will be 
only visible through work under copyright. None will be free to use.

4) And Traroth concludes he does not think art and freedom will gain 
much of this;

Now, on another note, compare it to Jimbo's speech at Wikimania, about 
freeing 10 things...

How different is that ? How unofficial is it to try to push so that 
people are free to take pictures of famous paintings 500 years old ?

To me, there is no difference. What Jimbo said in his Wikimania speech 
is exactly what Traroth says about what is happening in Le Louvres; The 
only difference is that Jimbo was speaking generally, while Traroth is 
taking an example. But if the Foundation agrees that what Le Louvres is 
doing (ie if the Foundation public view is that forbidding access to old 
painting is just fine) then I must say I do not agree with the 
Foundation public view at all.

I will go further in saying that Jimbo's public speech does not fit 
either with the Foundation position.

Then, if neither Jimbo's nor my position are the positions of the 
Foundation... how do we define what the official position of the 
Foundation is ?

--------

Now, there is another important point.
Traroth position on Le Louvres issue is clearly supported by Wikimedia 
France. Similarly, other people are currently working to free some 
information, such as the people working on the ESA images issue. Most of 
these actions are linked with the French and/or German associations.

Should we also remove all descriptions of what the german and french 
associations are doing from the WMF website, upon the principle that 
those actions are not official views of the Foundation ? Does that mean 
what the associations do are contrary to the Foundation goals ? If so, 
why do we authorize them to use trademarks and such ?

I am quite worried of what you seem to imply in saying that this article 
does not reprensent our official view, because it represents my view and 
quite probably the view of at least one chapter. If we remove everything 
but only what Jimbo's words, then, I agree, there is no sense in that 
website.

The bottom point might well be : are only Jimbo's words the official 
view, or may other people view have any interest ? If not, I have no 
interest at all in the Foundation web site and will not put one more 
word over there.

In short, yes, I agree that the existence of the whole website as well 
as the relevancy of our own existence as board members are questionable.

Ant