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.

 

Wikimedia Nederland and Heemschut: partners in cultural heritage

Symposium on cultural heritage and new media at the open air museum, Arnhem

On November 11th, 2011, Heemschut ended the festivities of its anniversary year. The one hundred years old Dutch association is occupied with cultural heritage. In 2011, it was our partner with regard to Wiki Loves Monuments.

At a panel discussion I thanked for the collaboration and mentioned some strange facts about Wikipedia and Wikimedia: being in the top ten of the most popular sites in the Netherlands, we have only one part-time employee; we have a youth problem meaning that we have a lack of senior citizens; and if you have ever read a Wikipedia article, maybe it was written by a 13-year-old.

People were astonished but not as much as they were pleased when I reminded them that Wikipedia is only 10 years old, that Facebook and Twitter are huge for less than 5 years, and that 100-year-old Heemschut is possibly going to outlive them.

Wikimedia Conferentie 2011

On November 5th, 2011, Wikimedia Nederland had its Conferentie of this year. After two years pausing, our main annual conference in Utrecht came back, thanks to the team of Ad Huikeshoven who took the initiative.

We had a keynote from Jill Cousins, Europeana, and three tracks of the sessions: cultural heritage, wiki-world, incore Wikimedia. For about half of the 108 participants were non Wikimedians.

People were very happy with the conference, that was organized for the first time in 2006. We hope that next year will see another edition. And maybe it will have something to do with Wiki Loves Monuments again: at the conference the Dutch winners were announced.

What kind of board members for Wikimedia Foundation?

Survey slip

Next year the national organizations of Wikimedia are going to select two new Foundation board members. Due to the nature of the selection it is difficult to make the members of a chapter part of the procedure.

In the Netherlands we did at our general assembly yesterday the follwing. We asked the members what qualifications or traits they find important on a 1-5 scale.  Here the results of the paper slip survey (thanks to Hay Kranen for the ‘math’):

Hardly anybody found it important that the candidate supported by our chapter is Dutch or comes from a poor country. There was a little more sympathy for supporting explicitly a woman.

Very important the members found that a candidate can makes things happen, that he is a goalgetter (most important) and is a socially binding factor. Nearly all gave the last question – is it important that the candidate is very familiar with Wikipedia/Wikimedia – a 4 or 5.

Of course, there can be no automatism. The WMNL board will see which candidates apply, are nice to work with and have a realistic chance. But it was important to me giving the members a little bit of say and having a little guidance for hard decisions.

Wikimedia Nederland changes and stays the same

Utrecht cathedral tower (Michele Ahin, CC-BY-SA)

On Saturday, October 22nd, the Dutch national organization of Wikimedia gathered in Utrecht for a general assembly. The attendance was low, but what to expect with the ever growing number of meetings in the Netherlands? Together with the WikiSaturdays and Stamtafels, there is a wiki-meetup nearly every or every second week (see our website).

The assembly was the third this year. We discussed and approved the budget for 2012, elected Cyriel as a new board member (thanks to Austin Hair, he left for private reasons), and aboved all talked about the events of the past months. Maybe the most important point was the change in the hiring policy: Wikimedia Nederland is now searching a director who can help build up the future professional organization.

Lodewijk Gelauff at 2006 Boston Wikimania

Vadim Zaytsev presented the preparations for our big annual meeting, the Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland on November 5th. Lodewijk Gelauff explained the success and impact of Wiki Loves Monuments, the pan European Photo Contest.

Eventually, the president had a little surprise for Lodewijk and the other members. Lodwijk is one of the two subscribers of the original statutes of Wikimedia Nederland, from March 27th 2006. Subsequently he has been for five years on the board in various positions. When he left the board this year in april, we didn’t really stood still at the fact that five years are a long time especially in a young man’s life. A small photo album with pictorial memories and friends’ quotes may represent the thankfulness of the Dutch Wikimedia community.

Unexpected reencounter

Wikipedia class in Antwerp, 2007. From the scene in question only my left ear is visible. (Picture: Yves Nevelsteen, CC-BY-SA)

In early summer 2007 I travelled to Flanders. The Esperanto club of Antwerp had its 100 years anniversary, and I was invited for a lecture on the history of that language. The weekend included a morning with Wikipedia class.  Interested persons were mentored, except by me, also by Yves Nevelsteen and Chuck Smith, the founder of Wikipedia in Esperanto (Vikipedio).

It was not so much a class like a lesson, we also lacked the teaching aids for that, but we guided the people personally. I was occupied among others with an elderly Flemish lady, who attended with her new laptop and told me about her father.

The father I had met in the early 1990s, a couple of years before his dead. A true citizen of the world, founder of a school in Belgian Congo, a very respected and friendly member of the Esperanto community. With his pursuit of knowledge he would have been enthusiast about Wikipedia, she said. Friends wanted her to write an article on him, but she was in doubt that it was really a good idea to write about relatives.

The morning opened my eyes for the difficulties most people have with contributing to Wikipedia. So the focus of my guidance was less editing but actively using Wikipedia. At the end I wanted the mentees to recapitulate what they have learned. I asked the Flemish lady to search in Vikipedio the name of her father. Even if there is no article on him, maybe one of his works is mentioned elsewhere.

She did, and via a redirect we came to an article on her father, indeed. (I shouldn’t have been wondering, but I may have intuitively thought that she already had searched.) It was an even rather extensive article, with photograph and web link.

Telling this story I love to ask my listeners what the lady did in this moment spontaneously. Men suppose that she immediately edited the article. Or saved it on the hard disk. Or made a bookmark in the browser. Only women conject, as unanimously as aptly, that she burst into tears.

This reaction of a Wikipedia reader may be not representative. But it always reminds me of the fact that we have responsibility for our texts and never know, who is reading them with what eyes.

[Appeared in: Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.: Alles über Wikipedia und die Menschen hinter der größten Enzyklopädie der Welt. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2011, pp. 125-127. The original title of the text above is referring to 'Unverhofftes Wiedersehen', a calendar story by Johann Peter Hebel.]

Kauderstrike: German politician and copyright

‘Kauderstrike’ is not a new computer game, but the nickname for a political project of Siegfried Kauder. The leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag wants to cut off copyright offenders from the internet. Now he appears to be a copyright offender himself.

Siegfried Kauder wants to introduce a two strikes system in Germany. If someone is found guilty of illegal downloading, file sharing, copyright violations on the internet, there will be one warning shot. The second time the offender will be prohibited from internet access for three weeks.

But how about Kauder’s own website? Several pictures there were found to be protected by copyright. Kauder admitted that he did not have the usage rights. He defended his political idea and said that this was the warning shot, and that the system would work well: he immediately “obtained the author’s rights” (Urheberrechte) for these pictures.

Critics answered that Kauder cannot obtain author’s rights according to German law, unless he is adopted by the author’s rights holder (who subsequently dies). He can only purchase the usage rights which is what probably happened.

Even a parliamentary group colleague, Peter Altmaier, twittered on the Kauderstrike plans: if someone steals a book, he is a criminal, but you don’t take away his reading glasses.

By the way, Siegfried Kauder is a lawyer and chairman of the house committee on juridical affairs.