[Foundation-l] Call for a moratorium on all new software developments

Tue Sep 7 10:01:17 UTC 2010

2010/9/7, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org>:
>
> If you don't like it, you can request that it be switched off, using
> Bugzilla. You will need to demonstrate that the community is in favour
> of such an action.

This is not proactive. Giving more power to the admins is a
constitutional change. Usually a constitutional change requires a
referendum beforehand (An amendment to the United States Constitution
must be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures, WP says). You don't
simply switch to the new constitution and tell the people who are
unhappy with the new constitution that it is their burden to
demonstrate that the older constitution was better. And when a
constitutional change changes a democracy into a dictatorship without
the freedom of speech, it is too late to express yourself after you
have lost the freedom of speech.

>> * The pdf tool is not fulfilling the licenses of images imported from
>> Flickr. This is typically a tool enabled on all projects without
>> consulting with the communities. That tool should be disabled at once
>> from all project, until it is repaired (which might mean redevelopped
>> from scratch). (2)
>
> Is there a bug report for this?

No and there won't be (at least from me). Because I don't know if it
is a bug or a feature. Show me the specification of the pdf tool
first. I will see if the specification says that pictures'
photographers should be credited. If the specification says so, I will
report it as a bug. But if the specification does not say so, it
simply means that I disagree with the specification. And I don't think
bugzilla is the proper forum to discuss specifications.

If there had been a talk before implementing the tool between the
developpers and the Wikimedia Commons community, I would have been
able to say how I see such a tool. Basically I think that every
description page from Commons must be added at the end of every pdf
produced. That will make the pdf a bit longer, but it is an easy and
secure way to have the pictures properly described, and licenced. This
is not my idea. This is what somebody else answered to a newbie asking
how to best credit pictures when a wiki article is distributed in
printed form. This is part of the common knowledge at wikimedia
commons.

By the way, the pdf of [[:fr:Valery Giscard d'Estaing]] (1) is
properly crediting at least some photographers. But I wonder why
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0309-027, Dresden, Volkskammerwahl,
BFD-Wahlkundgebung.jpg (2) is marked as "public domain" in the pdf
instead of "creative commons".

My feeling with that pdf tool is that I am the first person ever to
care on how pictures are credited. So I think it has never been
specified as a requested feature. That means how little the WMF cares
about respecting licenses.

I think it is partly thoughtlessness, partly an agenda to remove
contributor's names from wherever is possible, so that the WMF can
dominate the contents and do whatever it wants with them without the
contributors being able to control. An agenda to use the volunteers
not as partners, but as a pleb available for [[:en:corvée]] (3).

The removal of the article's history tab from mobile.wikipedia.org
(merely linking to the main websites's history tab is not the same as
including it within the mobile.wikipedia.org website) sounds more like
an agenda than mere thoughtlessness.

(1) http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val%C3%A9ry_Giscard_d'Estaing
(2) http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1990-0309-027,_Dresden,_Volkskammerwahl,_BFD-Wahlkundgebung.jpg
 (but the pdf is not crediting the photographer of
Fichier:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F075424-0004, Bonn, Genscher mit
Politikern aus Frankreich - crop 2 - Anne-Aymone Giscard d'Estaing.jpg
)
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e