Latest Event Updates
Valg til Wikimedia Foundation-bestyrelsen af affiliates-valgte medlemmer
De såkaldte affiliates, hvilket er Wikimedia chapters, User groups og Thematic groups, har mulighed for at vælge to pladser til Wikimedia Foundations (WMF) bestyrelse (Board of Trustees). Tidligere har det blot været Chapters der har haft mulighed for at vælge medlemmer, men fra januar 2019 er det nu også det betydelige antal af User groups der får indflydelse. Som jeg forstår er det for at få en bredere fundering, måske specielt af hvad der betegnes “emerging communities”.
De to nuværende affiliates-valgte er tidligere formand Christophe Henner fra Frankrig og ukrainske Nataliia Tymkiv. Communities vælger tre bestyrelsesmedlemmer. Disse medlemmer er James Heilman, Canada, Dariusz Jemielniak, Polen og spanske María Sefidari der i øjeblikket er formand. I forhold til affiliates-valgte synes der at være en fornemmelse for at community-valgte er fra store communities: Engelsk Wikipedia, Spansk Wikipedia. Det gælder så ikke helt for den polsk-valgte Jemielniak, der dog har gjort sig bemærket med en engelsk-sproget bog.
Affiliates-valget vil ske hurtigt i løbet af foråret 2019, hvor der først er en periode med nominereringer og derefter det egentlige valg. En håndfuld Wikimedianere fungerer som facilitatorer for valget. Disse facilitatorer kan ikke samtidig være nominerede, men hvis de fratræder facilitatorrollen kan de godt stille op. Jeg har indtryk af at de to nuværende medlemmer genopstiller.
Wikimedia Danmark skal deltage i afstemningen og spørgsmålet er så hvem vi skal stemme på og hvilke kriterier vi skal benytte. Henner og Tymkiv virker udmærkede og har jo erfaring. I hvilken grad de har evner til at banke i bordet og komme med originale levedygtige visioner står mindre klart for mig. Af andre der muligvis vil nomineres kan være Shani Evenstein. Hun virker også udmærket.
En person der stiller op bør ud over det formelle krav om bestyrelsesværdighed, have vægtig bestyrelseserfaring, forståelse for Wikimedia-bevægelsen og være et rimeligt tilgængeligt ansigt i det internationale Wikimediamiljø. Derudover være indstillet på at lægge en god portion ulønnet arbejdstimer på skæver timer af døgnet, og være opmærksom på at man arbejder for WMF, – ikke for affiliates, community eller Wikipedia. Hvis man kigger på sammensætningen i WMF er Europa & Nordamerika godt repræsenteret, dog ingen fra Nordeuropa. Der er en læge (James Heilman), akademikere, grundlæggeren Jimmy Wales, en med økonomierfaring (Tanya Capuano) og forskellige andre erfaringer. Henner synes at være den eneste med teknisk erfaring (et element jeg ville værdsætte) og derudover kan man sige at der mangler repræsentation fra Latinamerika (omend Seridari jo taler spansk), Afrika og Østasien (Esra’a Al Shafei har rod i Bahrain).
Afstemningen koordineres på Meta ved Affiliates-selected Board seats. Der findes vejledning til vælgere på Primer for user groups. Den hollandske formand Frans Grijzenhout har oploadet en handy scorematrix for kandidaterne. Nomineringen har også sin egen side. Nomineringerne er åbne indtil 30. April 2019. Efter at nomineringerne er indkommet er der kort tid i april og lidt af maj til at udfritte de nominerede.
Luftige spørgsmål til Wikimedia Strategi 2030
Wikimedia forsøger at tænke langsigtet og lægge en strategi der sigter mod året 2030. Et udkast er tilgængelig fra https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction
Her er nogle luftige spørgsmål der måske ville kunne få folk til at tænke over tingene:
- Hvorfor skal vi ha’ en strategi? Bør Wikimedia ikke blot udvikling sig organisk? Kan vi overhovedet forsige meget til 2030? Hvis vi ikke allerede kender vores strategi sidder vi så ikke allerede fast?
- Sidder vi fast i wiki-interfacet?
- Skal vi fortsætte med PHP MediaWiki interfacet som det primære software?
- Hvorfor er Wikiversity ikke blevet større, og slet ikke eksisterende på dansk? Er det fordi folk ikke gide lave Wikiversity? Er det fordi vi ikke ved hvad wikiversity er eller skal være? Er det fordi wiki-tekniske ikke fungerer i undervisningssammenhæng. Hvad skal vi ændre for at få det til at fungere?
- Hvorfor laver folk ikke flere video? Er det fordi at det er teknisk for besværlig? Er det for produktionsmæssigt for besværligt? Hvordan kunne Wikimedia hjælpe?
- Hvorfor er Stackoverflow det primære sted for faglige spørgsmål og svar? Burde det ikke have været Wikimedia der var det?
- Skal Wikimedia Foundation modtage penge fra firmaer så som Google? Vil det kunne skabe et afhængighedsforhold? Ifølge Peter Gøtzsches mening er patientforeninger påvirket i uheldig retning på grund af afhængighed til medicinalfirmaer. Kan Wikimedia-bevægelsen løbe ind i samme problem? Skaber det problemer med pengedonation, for eksempel i forbindelse med lobbyvirksomhede til EU’s ophavsretsdirektiv?
- Hvorfor kan OpenStreetMap kører med et mindre budget? Skyldes det langt mindre server load? Burde Wikimedia neddrosle og vælge en slags OpenStreetMap-model med hvor server værket bliver bedre distribueret til andre?
- “Knowledge equity” er et af to centrale begreber i Wikimedia Foundations strategi og noget svært at oversætte. Financial equity er hvad der på danske betegnes egenkapital. Et latinsk ord der nærmer sig findes i Den Store Danske, ellers er min nærmeste tanke det forældede udtryk “billighed”, – “ret og billighed” som det hedder i en dansk sang. Et sådant ord kan vi næppe bruge. Hvad kan vi på dansk forstå som “knowledge equity”?
- Kan Wikimedia komme i en situation som man har set Cochrane Collaboration hvor den professionaliserede del af organisationen kommer til at udmanøvrere græsrødderne? Hvad gør vi for at det ikke ske?
- Skal vi være stolt af at den danske Wikipedia stort set er opbygget gratis? Sidst jeg spurgte på den danske Wikipedias Landsbybrønd om Wikimedia Strategi blev det nævnt.
- Knowledge as a service følger en as-a-service-mønster man ser i datalogi. Her kan det hedder Platform-as-a-service e software-as-a-service. Hvad skal vi egentlig ligge i det? Jeg selv har skabt Scholia, et websted der viser videnskabelige data fra Wikidata via SPARQL-forespørgsler til Wikidata Query Service og Ordia, der gør det samme for leksikografiske data. Som sådan falder tanker om knowledge as a service fint i slag, – og jeg har da også forgæves forsøgt at erindre om det var mig der var med til at foreslå begrebet ved et internationalt Wikimedia-møde i 2017.
- Skal Wikimedia engagere sig i aktivisme, så som det sås til afstemningen om EU’s nye ophavsretsdirektiv? Har vi nogen succeshistorier på at det hjælper?
- Wikimedia Danmark har fået penge af Wikimedia Foundation til blandt andet et roll-up-banner. Det har været brugt i nogle få sammenhænge og vist været i tv. Er det sådan at Wikimedia Foundation skal bruge dets penge?
- Den visuelle editor synes at kunne hjælpe mange nye brugere, men er redigering af Wikipedia på en smartphone ikke meget besværlig? Kan man overhoved gøre noget ved det?
- Skal Wikimedia Foundation støtte forskere der bygger værktøjer eller undersøger fænomener på Wikimedia’s wikier?
- Normalt fungerer Wikipedia hurtigt, men hvis man kommer til et net der er langsomt oplever man at der kan være frustrerende at arbejde med, for eksempel Wikidata. Er det mon ikke frustrere at arbejde med wikier fra lande som ikke har hurtigt Internet? HVad kan der gøres ved det?
- Linux udvikles med en distribueret model, og sådan gør man med mange andre software systemer. Hvor er Wikipedia og andre Wikimedia wikier ikke distribuerede hvor fork og pull requests er nemt?
- Hvor mange af Wikimedia Foundations indsamlede midler skal anvendes på events, så som Wikimania?
Open questions for the EU copyright directive
I am wondering if there are any good sources for the scope and effect. I was interviewed by a Danish radio channel and I must admit that it was difficult for me to say much in that respect.
The proposal for the directive says that “not-for-profit online encyclopedia” and makes an exception. To me it is clear that the lawmakers have had Wikipedia in mind, – and thanks for that. But there are several issue:
- Would Wikipedia be characterized as not-for-profit when the typical license is the Creative Commons with no clause for the non-commercial?
- Would Wikimedia Commons fall in under the “not-for-profit online encyclopedia”? Some of my photos are used in commercial online news sites which makes at least Wikimedia Commons commercial in some sense. I wouldn’t characterize Wikimedia Commons as an encyclopedia, but rather as a media archive.
- What is the scope with respect to other Wikimedia sites, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikisource, Wikivoyage and possibly others? It seems to me that yet again there is an issue, – as I would not characterize them as encyclopedias.
- What other site are likely to be hit by either Article 15 or Article 17? For instance, Wikia, Referata, Soundcloud, Reddit, Bandcamp, WordPress, 500px.com? Referata, I imagine, is under 10 mio Euro but over 3 years and hit? Reddit would be hit by both articles? Soundcloud Article 17? (Back in June 2018, WordPress noted their concern: https://transparency.automattic.com/2018/06/12/were-against-bots-filtering-and-the-eus-new-copyright-directive/ Reddit has this Wednesday published an article https://redditblog.com/2019/03/20/error-copyright-not-detected-what-eu-redditors-can-expect-to-see-today-and-why-it-matters/
Are we able to say something about the possible outcomes we would see if the directive proposal is approved, for instance:
- Large 10+ mio Euro companies, particularly Google by their ownership of YouTube, regularly paying rights organizations to address Article 17?
- Large parts of YouTube not being available to Europeans?
- Twitter and Facebook stop showing snippets from linked sites?
- European newspapers paying Twitter and Facebook to display snippets in Twitter and Facebook?
- Twitter and Facebook paying European newspapers to allow the display of snippets?
- Websites such as Soundcloud needing to implement advanced copyright detection systems for audio?
- Some American Web 2.0 companies blacklisting access from Europe?
- Widespread implementation of identity verifications in Web 2.0 systems?
- Widespread implementation of plagiarism-like detection on Web 2.0 platforms where users may not be able to upload content, even if it is legal?
- Google using Article 17 against Facebook wrt. freebooting? See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q (via YourWeirdEx@reddit)
- Small Internet forum owners needing to subscribe to the services of upload filter service providers?
- Google News shutting down in Europe? See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/18/google-news-may-shut-over-eu-plans-to-charge-tax-for-links
On climate strike
I am not on climate strike, but for the sake of respect for the enormous dependency we have on electricity, I had planned to avoid electricity for 24 hours.
So far not so good.
I stayed late Thursday to complete a paper submission et al. and that went into early Friday. The desktop computer and light were switched on, so lets start at wake-up time instead…
My bedside clock is electrical. It has a battery, so potentially I could let it go off-grid instead of switching it off. A room in my home is without windows. I have candles in the room but they do not light up much… Breakfast includes milk from the refrigerator. Any use of water is presumably dependent on electrical water pumps somewhere along the tubes. My smartphone can – as any other mobile phone – be off the power grid. My electrically powered home wifi is typically on, but I could have used 4G, which would enable me to have off-power grid Internet.
Off to work, my bike does not require on-grid electricity. The back light is battery powered, the front light is a dynamo. However, the room with the bike is without natural light. It is necessary to switch on light or bring your own light to find the bike.
My employer has physical access control with a card. The door is not locked at the hour that I came, – so I am able to get in… The coffee machine is electrical, the heater for warm water is electrical…. My desk telephone is electric.
For work, I had plenty of paper (which these letters are written on) and I printed several articles to read.
Paying for lunch is an issue: At the local street food you pay with MobilePay or contactless card, – I do not recall seeing customers paying with cash. While MobilePay and card do not require on-grid electricity on your part, the receiver may have on-grid electricity at their end and certainly the card handling company has.
There is not non-electrical light at my employer which means that around 17:00 things get complicated. At around 18:00 I gave up. Until then I had read about two and a half papers and written two sections for a possible paper, – as well as checked my email via the off-grid smartphone.
Back home I switched on the light by old habit. Switched off, I went to buy something for dinner. I have an electrical stove, so cooking hot food would be impossible. I bought bread and salmon which did not require heating. Back home I managed to find candles, LED candles and a bright sun-charged lamp. From these lights, my battery radio and my off-grid smartphone I managed to eat and entertain myself for the rest of the evening.
Venezuela has had a blackout with major effects. Developed societies have become so dependent on electricity.
An occasional switch-off may indulge us with a sense of awe of modern electrical technology, previous generations’ ability to strive through the darkness and a respect for the light.
Coming Scholia, WikiCite, Wikidata and Wikipedia sessions
In the coming months I will have three different talks on Scholia, WikiCite, Wikidata and Wikipedia at al.:
- 3. October 2018 in DGI-byen, Copenhagen, Denmark as part of Visuals and Analytics that Matter conference, – the concluding conference for the DEFF-sponsored project Research Output & Impact Analyzed and Visualized (ROIAV).
- 7. November 2018 in Mannheim as part of the Linked Open Citation Database (LOC-DB) 2018 workshop.
- 13. december 2018 at the library of the Technical University of Denmark as part of Wikipedia – a media for sharing knowledge and research, an event for researchers and students (and still in the planning phase).
In september I presented Scholia as part of the Workshop on Open Citations. The slides with title Scholia as of September 2018 is available here.
Fru Astrid Grib af Thit Jensen
Lillesøster Thit gir den hele armen med mord og død i psykologisk portrættering af en kærlighedsbefængt 28-årig kvinde, hvor tiltag til sprog a la storebror aldrig helt letter. Vældig meget kunst og melodrama hvor 40 sider lader en kvinde gå fra forelskelsens vanvid til vanvid. Kærligheden er voldsom, ugengældt, balstyrisk, overdreven men også uudtrykt; ganske kontrastfyldt mod brorens skolemesteragtige forhold til kærlighed.
Fra Librarything.
A viewpoint on a viewpoint on Wikipedia’s neutral point of view
I recently looked into what we have of Wikipedia research from Denmark and discovered several papers that I did not know about. I have now added some to Wikidata, so that Scholia can show a list of them.
Among the papers was one from Jens-Erik Mai titled Wikipedian’s knowledge and moral duties. Starting from the English Wikipedia’s Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy, he stresses a dichotomy between the subjective and the object and argues for a rewrite of the policy. Mai claims the policy has an absolutistic center and a relativistic edge, corresponding to an absolutistic majority view and relativistic minority views.
As a long time Wikipedia editor, I find Mai’s exposition is too theoretical. I lack good exemplifications: cases where the NPOV fails, and I cannot see in what concrete way the NPOV policy should be changed to accommodate Mai’s critique. I am not sure that Wikipedians distinguish so much between the objective and the subjective; the key dichotomy is verifiability vs. not veriability, – that the statements in Wikipedia are supported by reliable sources. In terms of center-edge, I came to think of events associated with conspiracy theories. Here the “center” view could be the conventional view while the conspiracy views the edge. It is difficult for me to accommodate a standpoint that conspiracy theories should be accepted as equal as the conventional view. It is neither clear to me that the center is uncontested and uncontroversial. Wikipedia – like a newspaper – has the ability to represent opposing viewpoints. This is done by attributing the viewpoint to the reliable sources that express them. For instance, central in the description of evaluation of films are quotations from reviews of major newspapers and notable reviewers.
I don’t see the support for the claim that the NPOV policy assumes a “politically dangerous ethical position”. On the contrary, Wikipedia is now – after the increase of fake news – been called the “last bastion”. The example given in The Atlantic post is the recent social media fuzz with respect to Sarah Jeong where Wikipedians reach a work with “shared facts about reality.”
