Movement roles revisited

In Haifa, a group of three Wikimedians presented a model for new entities with regard to the Wikimedia movement. This was on request of the Wikimedia Fundation (WMF) board, and in February the board adopted these ideas in a letter by WMF chairman Ting Chen. It is about to give more people the chance to have an official relation to the movement, or to be organized officially. This all has been discussed under the title ‘movement roles’.

I am afraid that our movement isn’t very good at choosing names; everybody would understand much quicker what we are talking about if we would say ‘Wikimedia movement entities’, or ‘future organizations in the Wikimedia movement’ in place of ‘movement roles’. And also the names for the projected new kind of organizations can be improved. (It seems to me that often a word comes up and is kept while the discussion on the subject itself is moving on.)

This is now the official WMF presentation of the new organizations:

• Chapters: independent non-profits dedicated to representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting related work within a country or region. Chapters are granted use of Wikimedia trademarks for their work, publicity, and fundraising; and use a name clearly linking them to Wikimedia.

• Partner Organizations: independent non-profits dedicated to representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting related work within a major cultural, linguistic, or other topic. Partner organizations are granted use Wikimedia marks for their work, publicity, and fundraising; and use a name clearly linking them to Wikimedia.

• Associations: open-membership groups with an established contact person and history of projects, designed to be easy to form. They are granted limited use of the Wikimedia marks in their work, for instance for promoting and organizing projects and events.

• Affiliates: like-minded organizations that actively support the movement’s work. They are listed publicly and granted limited use of the marks on websites and posters indicating their support of and collaboration with Wikimedia.

In the Haifa discussions and later it has been stressed out that an expression like ‘association’ can mean different things in one and the same country, and even more in different countries. But surely most people think of a kind of formal organization – here, it denotes just the opposite, a less formal group of people.

The most striking wording is ‘partner organization’. You might think that this refers to a partner, to an entity outside the Wikimedia movement? Like a museum collaborating with us, as partner of the Wikimedia Foundation or Wikimedia Nederland? No, in this model, a ‘partner organization’ is an organization inside the movement, just like a chapter but with no geographical constrains.

Besides the names, the model looks rather well. So we would have in future (my own interpretation)

• National Wikimedia organizations, for example Wikimedia Nederland or Wikimedia France. They represent the movement in one country each.
• Specialist Wikimedia organizations, for example a future ‘Wikimedia and Cultural Heritage’ or ‘Wikimedia Organization for Medicine related Subjects’, or ‘Wikimedia Organization for Spanish Speaking People’. They represent the movement towards the world of museums and libraries, medical organizations or institutions that are dealing with the Spanish Language or the culture of Spanish-speaking people globally.
• Wikimedia groups, loose clubs of people who do not wish to create a Wikimedia organization with all its paperwork, but to be allowed to use the name ‘Wikimedia’ in contact with other institutions. For example, maybe the Spanish speaking Wikpedians/Wikimedians find it enough to form a Wikimedia group when contacting the Real Academia Española for linguistic advice. For many specialist groups, certainly when limited to a small field, a Wikimedia group would be just fine.
• Official Partners of the Wikimedia Movement are institutions clearly outside the movement but linked with it by a common interest. A national museum might perfectly well collaborate with a national Wikimedia organization, but maybe in that country there is no national Wikimedia organization. Or, a truly international institution such as the university of United Nations wishes to collaborate on a certain activity or permanently.

After names and descriptions, there will be much work left to figure out what precisely those new organizations and entities are entitled to do. For example, how can we exclude abuse of this framework? Imagine a Wikimedia group with ‘Marxism’ or ‘anti-Marxism’ as subject. Also, there is still no final consensus about the national Wikimedia organizations (the chapters), whether we should adopt the concept ‘one country, one chapter’. But in general: we are again a few steps further on the road to a future Wikimedia movement.

When Bismarck phoned Metternich

"We shall be a single People of brethren, Never to part in danger nor distress." Swiss national myth, the oath of Rütli (lyrics by Schiller).

Two days ago I was called by Sebastian Moleski, we talked extensively and intensively about the future Chapters Council. On the Meta Wiki page, there is a “Model B” mainly presented by Sebastian and a “Model KISS” written by me, both before the Financial Meeting in Paris when a number of chapters agreed in principle on creating a chapters council.

We were unanimous on a lot of points, disagreed on others, but mainly we could make clear that we are not presenting two different ways to the same goal, but to two different goals. I wouldn’t see a concurrence between both models but rather a choice the chapters have to make.

“Model KISS” / Model Metternich is a rather reluctant proposal playing on safe. It foresees a pure collaboration between the Wikimedia chapters. Think of the first version of the United States of America before 1787, or the German Confederation of 1815/1820 with the Austrian chancellor Metternich (no political allusions intended, by the way). The chapters council in Model Metternich is simply a platform were chapters meet and vote on common statements. The scope is very restricted to the tasks originally intended for a chapters council: nominate WMF board members, represent the chapters in discussions with the WMF, possibly send members to a future FDC etc.

“Model B” / Model Bismarck is much more ambitious. It will create a new entity, an association of the chapters council. Think of the second (modern) version of the US, or the North German Confederation or German Empire created by Bismarck (again, no political allusions intended). The chapters will still exist and have an important role, but the members of the chapters council will be very independent once elected (for a limited term, of course). This means that the chapters will have to pass a lot of power to the chapters council, or, to be more exact, they create a new power entrusted to the chapters council. With the association, the Model Bismarck will provide a strong basis for the projected tasks and to serve “as an umbrella organization for the chapters in all other aspects not mentioned before”.

The models can be altered, but I stress out again: they present two different futures. When I wrote Model Metternich, I was cautious, considering that many chapters are (still) rather weak and have few human and financial resources. Sebastian is projecting a future organisation (based on the chapters council) the current chapters could grow into. I principally do not disagree with him, but would like to keep Model Metternich to fall back on for the case that the chapters should not agree on the many points that will have to be dealt with for Model Bismarck. Or maybe Metternich can be the first step and Bismarck the second?

The discussion started, and let’s hope that we will have something to decide on in Berlin in March.

New year started in the Netherlands

Teylers Museum, the 'Gehoorzaal'

Wikimedia Nederland had its 2012 new year’s reception at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem. It calls itself the first and oldest museum of the Netherlands. Ca. 150 Wikimedians and Wikipedia fans came together and saw an amazing collection, including some of the rooms closed to the ‘ordinary’ audience.

In her welcoming speech Marjan Scharloo, general director, mentioned the political and philosophical implications of Teylers Museum’s mission in the 18th century: spreading knowledge to the people. As president of WMNL, I looked back at our activities of 2011 and presented some of 2012. Maarten Dammers explained about a ‘Challenge’ competition that will have prize winners in May.

A great beginning of the new year, with a lot of new people interested in a membership of WMNL.

Understanding Jimmy Wales, but not free knowledge

At the end of December, I was invited to an Esperanto convention that took place in my relative vicinity. Some 30-40 people (of 110 participants) came to my two lectures on the history of encyclopedias and Wikipedia. Essentially I presented what I show to German school teachers, with a special focus on free knowledge, free licenses and the benefits of that for everybody. People had smart questions and the tendency to go into detail; many have a website or edit an Esperanto newspaper and want to know how to use Wikimedia Commons, whether they are allowed to use free content commercially etc.

But the two sessions were also very useful for me because I learned once more about what people already know about Wikipedia and what are the usual wrong conceptions. Explaining/understanding free knowledge is very challenging, and it really needs the large approach I provide at a slow pace, with examples and simplifications.

The sessions were part of the ‘International Winter University’ of the convention, organized by astronomy professor Amri Wandel of Tel Aviv. At the end of the second lecture, I examined those listeners who were eager to obtain study points. Most of the content did reach the audience, and it is obviously easy to follow on practical things and pure facts, like that Wikipedia was founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales.

An abstract concept such as free knowledge is a different thing: for about half of the examinees had severe difficulties picking the right multiple choice answer. And as a matter of fact, doesn’t the expression ‘free knowledge’ sound like ‘free access for everybody’, ‘sharing knowledge freely in an open way’? I always emphasise – and maybe I should even more – that our ‘free knowledge/content/culture’ is a very specific concept, that the word ‘free’ should be in quotation marks with a clear, short definition.

My Wikimedia week

A short post on my last seven Wikimedia days. From 2-4 December Wikimedia Nederland hosted the second GLAMcamp, a seminar on cultural heritage. Besides the Wikimedians we welcomed (on Friday) a number of representants from our partners: Stedelijk Museum, Tropenmuseum, Europeana. The Wikimedians produced some papers and visited another partner, the Amsterdam Museum.

Videos from a conference in Berlin were posted with a connection to Wikimedia Deutschland, ‘Ins Netz gegangen’. Among them was a report from Oliver Sander, Bundesarchiv. He mentioned the many great advantages from the Bundesarchiv – Wikimedia collaboration that started in 2008, with an import of ca. 90,000 pictures to Wikimedia Commons. But there was one big downside: many reusers of the pictures, outside the Wikimedia movement, did not meet the reusage requirements. This is bad because the Bundesarchiv has granted to many original rights holders that it will look after e.g. the name attribution.

On Thursday, the WMNL met in Utrecht. Among many other things we discussed (again) about the multitude of information channels we have. Twitter, Facebook, our WMNL website, our other websites, our WMNL wiki, newsletter, Wikipedia project pages, several mailing lists… maybe we should more concentrate on some of those channels instead creating only more.

 

GLAMcamp Amsterdam: mass upload

At Amsterdam, 60 Wikimedia activists and fans from 22 countries gather for the 2nd “GLAMcamp”: a seminar on cultural heritage. Now we listen to the experts on mass uploads. There is a problem for museums to upload pictures from their collection to the internet; of course, we want those pictures with metadata.

Wikimedia organizations are going to cooperate with Europeana, a EU network for cultural heritage institutions. It’s tricky – uploading must become easy and effective so that really everyone can use the new tools.

Joint seminar of UEA and WMNL on free knowledge

Marek Blahus in Rotterdam

‘Libera Scio’ was the title of a seminar organized by Wikimedia Nederland together with the World Esperanto Association (UEA) in Rotterdam. Marek Blahus and I presented the Wikimedia movement, multilingual Wikipedia and above all the secret ingredient of Wikipedia: free knowledge.

The UEA holds an open day twice a year in its headquarters; it is usually on Saturday, and on Sunday some guests from abroad still stay in town. For about a dozen people (age 20 to 70) joint us for a tight schedule with lots of information and exercises. The participants were not only impressed by Wikipedia’s size (and the size of Wikimedia Commons) but also by the many ways you can go wrong when it comes to copyright.

New round Guttenberg scandal

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Will Guttenberg use this kind of machines ever again? (2010 in Kunduz; US Gov. PD)

The prosecuting attorney of Hof (Bavaria) made public today that it will drop the charges against Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the former German minister of defense. Guttenberg had to step down from his office in March 2011, after massive plagiarism had been discovered in his PhD thesis. GuttenplagWiki found out that more than 63% of all lines were taken from various sources.

From 199 complains that came in only one was issued by a person whose texts had been plagiarized by Guttenberg. The prosecuting attorney says now that

• ‘only’ 23 text passages can be considered plagiarism in the strict sence of the law
• taking over parts of texts provided by the scientific service of the parliament is no embezzlement or fraud to the detriment of the Federal Republic
• copyright is primarily protecting economic rights, and the economic damage to the plaintiff is minimal
• the title PhD did not provide essential benefits to Guttenberg

Guttenberg got the complaints cancelled by paying € 20,000 to a charity. Even a party comrade of Guttenberg calls this a second class cessation. After more than seven months we came to know that plagiarism is less than you think, that it causes no damage and that a PhD title isn’t worth anything anyway.

The ex-minister is already busy with his political comeback. Recently he appeared in Canada at a conference on security issues, where he offered abrasive criticism against European politicians. For November 29th he announced his new book ‘Failed for the moment’.

Communications in the Wikimedia movement

Sad clown (Melissa Wiese CC BY SA)

Today I read another complaint in German language Wikipedia about the Wikimedia Foundation. Someone said that he found many of the candidates to the WMF board incompetent, and that he had candidated himself if he was capable of that difficult commercial English they use at the Foundation.

One might put this on the pile of easy reproaches: leaning back, let the others work and take responsibility, and complain that ‘I was not informed sufficiently’. But this sorrow has a true and honest ground. For a non native speaker of English, or even a native, it is difficult to follow discussions on Meta Wiki or the Foundation mailing lists. The language there

• is full of colourful colloquialisms, nice for the natives, terrible for the rest
• delivers a lot of Wikimedia jargon which you have to learn separately for every language
• often contains an aggressive tone

When the Foundation asks volunteers to translate something, then the texts are not always as comprehensive and concise as they should and could be.

In theory, the Wikipedia language versions have ‘ambassadors’ who are supposed to link the national or ethnic level with the international level. In practice, this hardly happens because the ambassadorship is non-binding, it bears no obligation. People put their names on the list and then forget about it.

Such a position, a contact person for a single language version, should be assigned by the concerning community, maybe by vote. And it must be clear to the ambassador what people expect from him: translating the most important messages from the Wikimedia blog, giving feedback from the community to the international level.

It should be obvious by now that the pure wiki way does not work.

Personal image filter: nein!

For a while some Wikipedians are protesting against the personal image filter the Wikimedia Foundation wants to introduce. Based on the Harris report of 2010, the Foundation thinks that individuals should have an easy tool to hide pictures they find disturbing, for example pictures with sexual content or violence.

Although the filter is a purely individual choice and can be turned off immediately, the protesters cry out ‘censorship!’ and claim that the filter is intended to please religious extremists in the USA. The protest seems to rise high especially in Germany. A poll among the German Wikipedians showed a strong contra vote, and at the WikiCon in Nuremberg in September one head-hot yelled at Foundation president Ting Chen.

Today in Hannover the members of Wikimedia Deutschland gathered to elect a new board and decide on some propositions. One of the accepted propositions was: “Position concerning the image filter in Wikimedia projects” by Achim Raschka. WMDE should not support or defend the introduction of the image filter. The filter is in violation of the basic principles of encyclopedic enlightenment. Inappropiate content (pictorial or other) should be treated in the usual way of community discussions. The board of WMDE had supported the Raschka proposal in advance.