Showing posts with label wikipedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wikipedia. Show all posts

24 July 2014

Wikipedia Fights Back Against Socking

The idea that Wikipedia is dying has become one of the Internet's recurrent stories. Because something used by so many people every day is completely free and dependent on the selfless dedication of relatively few individuals, there is perhaps an underlying fear that it will disappear, and it will be our fault for not supporting it better. However, alongside major issues like the need for an influx of new contributors from more diverse backgrounds, one of the lesser-known challenges Wikipedia faces is the rise of "socking", or sock puppetry. Here's how Wikipedia defines the term

On Techdirt.

23 November 2013

Should Wikipedia Force All Users To Use HTTPS?

It would be something of an understatement to say that encryption is a hot topic at the moment. But leaving aside deeper issues like the extent to which the Internet's cryptographic systems are compromised, there is a more general question about whether Web sites should be pushing users to connect using HTTPS in the hope that this might improve their security. That might seem a no-brainer, but for the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the organization that runs Wikipedia and related projects, it's a more complex issue. 

On Techdirt.

14 April 2013

French Intelligence Agency Forces Wikipedia Volunteer to Delete Article; Re-Instated, It Becomes Most-Read Page On French Wikipedia


Last week, we wrote about an organization that was unhappy that a Wikipedia article no longer existed. Now we have the opposite problem: an organization unhappy because a Wikipedia article does exist. And not just any organization, but the "Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intéieur" (Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, DCRI), a French intelligence agency, which suddenly decided that an article about a military base contained classified information, and wanted it deleted. As the English-language Wikipedia article on the subject explains:

Wikipedia Editor Threatened With Lawsuit For Participating In Discussion Leading To Deletion Of Entry


After weathering earlier attacks on its reliability, Wikipedia is now an essential feature of our online and cultural landscapes. Indeed, it's hard now to imagine a world where you can't quickly check up some fact or other by going online to Wikipedia and typing in a few keywords. But that centrality brings with it its own problems, as a post from Benjamin Mako Hill about legal threats he received thanks to his work as a Wikipedia editor makes clear.

10 February 2013

OpenStreetMap: the Open Source of the Mobile Age

One of the themes of this blog has been the wider influence of open source. Everyone knows about open content projects like Wikipedia, but one open endeavour that still hasn't made the big breakthrough into the public's consciousness is OpenStreetMap. Here's how it describes itself:

On Open Enterprise blog.

13 September 2012

Jimmy Wales Threatens To Stymie UK Snooping Plans By Encrypting Wikipedia Connections

The draft bill of the UK's "Snooper's Charter", which would require ISPs to record key information about every email sent and Web site visited by UK citizens, and mobile phone companies to log all their calls, was published back in July. Before it is debated by politicians, a Joint Committee from both the House of Commons and House of Lords is conducting "pre-legislative scrutiny." 

On Techdirt.

10 August 2012

ICANN Continues to Prove It Can't

I have been writing about the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, since its birth in 1998 (see the ICANN entry on Wikipedia for a good summary of how that came about, and the evolution of the organisation since then.) That move was contentious at the time, since it saw the running of the Internet's basic infrastructure taken out of the hands of the geeks, personified by Jon Postel, and put in the hands of the business world. As a fully intended side-effect of that move, it also placed the system fully under the control of the US, rather than allowing a more distributed, global approach to evolve.

On Techdirt.

28 February 2012

The Struggle Between Copyright and the Internet

January 18, 2012 may well go down as a pivotal date in the history of the Internet – and of copyright.  For on that day, the English-language Wikipedia and thousands of other websites were blacked out or modified to protest against two bills passing through the US legislative system that were designed to fight copyright infringement.  To understand why that unprecedented action took place, and what it means for the future of the Net, it’s necessary to review the history of copyright briefly. 

On Stir to Action.

05 January 2012

Is Monmouthpedia The Future Of Wikipedia?

One of the central questions the Wikipedia community grapples with is: What exactly is Wikipedia trying to achieve? For example, does it aspire to be a total encyclopedia of everything? What is the appropriate level of detail? 

On Techdirt.

07 November 2011

Free As In Freedom: But Whose Freedom?

It would be hard to overstate the contribution of Richard Stallman to the digital world. The founding of the GNU project and the creation of the GNU General Public License laid the foundations for a wide range of free software that permeates computing from smartphones to supercomputers. Free software has also directly inspired like-minded movements based around sharing, such as open access and open content (Wikipedia, notably). 

On Techdirt.

05 October 2011

Access To Italian Wikipedia Blocked In Protest Of Wiretapping Bill In Italy

If you go to the Italian version of Wikipedia, you will not find a gateway to 847,000 articles in that language, but (at the time of writing, at least) an unusual letter to the reader

On Techdirt.

27 July 2011

What's the Father of the Wiki Doing at Nike?

The idea of the wiki is now so pervasive that we rather take it for granted - "oh, let's just use a wiki" is a typical cry these days. But it's important to remember that for all its simplicity, it took someone to come up with the idea (just as it did for the "simple" idea of a hyperlinked Web.)

That person was Ward Cunningham, who has led a colourful professional life, as his Wikipedia entry (oh look, a wiki...) makes clear:


He is a founder of Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc. He has also served as Director of R&D at Wyatt Software and as Principal Engineer in the Tektronix Computer Research Laboratory. He is founder of the Hillside Group and has served as program chair of the Pattern Languages of Programming conference which it sponsors. Cunningham was part of the Smalltalk community. From December 2003 until October 2005, he worked for Microsoft Corporation in the "patterns & practices" group. From October 2005 to May 2007, he held the position of Director of Committer Community Development at the Eclipse Foundation.

In May 2007, Cunningham joined AboutUs as its chief technology officer.[2][3][4] On March 24, 2011 The Oregonian reported that Cunningham had quietly departed AboutUs to join Venice-based CitizenGlobal, a startup working on crowd-sourced video content, as their Chief Technology Officer. He remains "an adviser" with AboutUs.

Well, he is moving again, to fill this rather interesting, if horribly-named, post at Nike:

At Nike we know tomorrow's world will be radically different from today's. To thrive in a world where resources are constrained, where people and governments and systems are fully connected, where sustainability is an imperative, not a choice, where transparency is requisite, we believe we need innovation. Disruptive, radical, jaw-dropping innovation. Innovation we cannot imagine. That kind of innovation is not going to come only from within. It will require the best of what we've got, along with unlikely partnerships, collaborations and open innovation.

We believe that data and technology will be key to unleashing new innovations.

Nike is looking for a person with the skills, passion and know-how to use data and technology to solve problems standing between business-as-usual and a sustainable future. We're looking for a creative visionary who also has both feet firmly on the ground — one in Nike and one in the open data world, ready to run. We're looking for a Code for a Better World Fellow.

The fellow will help Nike determine the steps needed to open our sustainability data to communities of data-obsessed programmers, visual designers and researchers.

The fellow will work with Nike's data managers to landscape current data and craft a desired future state; manage the formatting and release of data to the open data community; curate use of the data within the community; bring knowledge from the open data community back to Nike as actionable steps; attend conferences related to open data to grow Nike's network and profile in this space; and ultimately create/steward the creation of prototypes that demonstrate how opening Nike's sustainability data can be a force to drive change.

What's particularly interesting here is the emphasis on open data. So far, we have seen mainly governments opening up their data stores, but there are many benefits for companies, to do so too, as this article points out (it was also the source of the news that Cunningham was moving.) It also points out that Nike has been in the forefront of innovative business practices in this area for a while:

Nike have a surprisingly long history of releasing data. Back in 2000, they started publishing a list of all their contracted factories (scraped list by Selena Deckelmann) and related audit information. The aim? To improve their factory working conditions, both by improved scrutiny of Nike’s own measurement systems, and by enabling direct on the ground inspection and campaigning by activists.

Employing the Father of the Wiki is another smart move, and I can't wait to see what he does there.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter and identi.ca, or on Google+

09 May 2011

Portugal to Make CC Licences Illegal?

I recently wrote about the suggestion that a "Great Firewall of Europe" should be created - a fine example of political cluelessness when it comes to technology. Here's another, this time from Portugal:

The Socialist Party will present this new proposal for approval in the next Government, no matter if they win the elections or not. In regards to Creative Commons, they support a vision where Creative Commons harm Culture, and in this law proposal they intend to turn them illegal. Here's how (quick translation, I'll soon post the whole proposal in Portuguese online, so others can make their own translation; this is only the part regarding written works, but there are similar items in "Article 3" for other works, except software):

Article 3, point 1 - The authors have the right to the perception of a compensation equitable for the reproduction of written works, in paper or similar support, for instance microfilm, photocopy, digitalization or other processes of similar nature.

[...]

Article 5 (Inalienability and non-renunciability) - The equitable compensation of authors, artists, interpreters or executives is inalienable and non-renunciable, being null any other contractual clause in contrary.

Here: in sum, every author (except software authors, so thankfully free software isn't affected) has the right of getting money out of private copy, and they can't renounce it, so every Creative Commons license, where saying "You are free to share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work" (or actually, in legalese, "licensor hereby grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license to reproduce the Work") is illegal.

Judging by the interesting discussion around the post quoted above, it's still not entirely clear whether this is really the intent of this new law. It's possible, for example, that this is just very badly drafted, and not actually an attack on the idea that creators should be able to share their work freely if they wish.

Unfortunately, a follow-up comment to the post is more pessimistic:
The SPA position (that the Ministry of Culture shares because they state they agree 100% in their positions) is that every creative commons author is harming artists, authors and the creative ecosystem.

The SPA is the "Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores", or Portuguese Authors Society:

Since its creation in May 22, 1925, the Portuguese Authors Society took on two important areas of activity: the mutualist and the cultural. The mutualist one has allowed thousands of authors to find support in old age and in sickness. As for the cultural one, it remains active, always with new proposals.

It seems here that those "new proposals" have nothing to do with helping authors distribute their creations as they wish, but is more about imposing a very one-sided and anachronistic view that only fools give away their creations. (Or as Bill Gates put it some years back: "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?")

This shows how prescient Rick Falkvinge was when he wrote recently:

Some people, and corporations in particular, claim that the purpose of the copyright monopoly is for a certain profession to make money. That was never the case, and frankly, the idea is revolting to any democracy and functioning market. Bricklayers don’t have laws guaranteeing they make money, marketers don’t, plumbers don’t, and nobody else does, either.

However, the means of achieving the maximization of the available culture has been to give some creators a monopoly on the opportunity — not the right, but the opportunity — to make money off of a creative work. This has been the means to maximize culture for the public at large, and never the end in itself.

This also means that the only legitimate stakeholder in copyright legislation is the public. The monopoly is indeed a balance, but not the “balance” between corporate profits and human rights that the copyright industry likes to paint and pretend. In fact, the copyright industry is not part of the balance at all.

Unfortunately, this is not some abstract battle between different points of view. For example, if CC licences become illegal in Portugal, this would presumably mean that contributing to Wikipedia would also become illegal. Maybe Wikipedia itself would become illegal - there seems no limit to the absurdity of the knock-on consequences when starting from such a ridiculous premise.

Let's hope that enough Portuguese artists protest and the politicians come to their senses before Portugal becomes the laughing-stock of the civilised world.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

26 November 2010

Wikipedia as (Multilingual) Word-Hoard

Wikipedia is often regarded as little more than a poor person's encyclopedia, providing a handy reference collection of basic facts. But there's another side that I predict will be recognised increasingly: as a key corpus of texts in languages that lack traditional large-scale publishing to preserve their cultures.

Here's a good example:

"Some Indian-language Wikipedias are already the largest online repositories of information in their respective languages," Bhati said. "Regular community meetings such as the one we had today in Ahmedabad can help spread the word about our mission."

This facet is even more important for languages with a relatively small numbers of speakers, or perhaps threatened with outright extinction. Wikipedia acts as a natural focus for the creation of texts in these languages that might otherwise be missing - a repository of linguistic wisdom that can be shared and built on. In this way, it plays an important role not just in spreading knowledge about the world, but also about the languages that people use to talk about that world. (via @klang67)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

15 July 2010

Free Access to the Sum of all Human Tarkovsky

One of the many things I love about Wikipedia is the underlying vision, as articulated by Jimmy Wales:

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.

I love this because it really goes beyond just entries in Wikipedia; it's about making everything that *can* be made universally available - non-rivalrous, digital content, in other words - freely accessible for all.

It's one of the key reasons why I think copyright (and patents) need to go: they are predicated on stopping this happening - of *not* sharing what can be shared so easily.

In terms of how we might go beyond Wikipedia, here's the kind of thing I mean:

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) firmly positioned himself as the finest Soviet director of the post-War period. But his influence extended well beyond the Soviet Union. The Cahiers du cinéma consistently ranked his films on their top ten annual lists. Ingmar Bergman went so far as to say, “Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.” And Akira Kurosawa acknowledged his influence too, adding, “I love all of Tarkovsky’s films. I love his personality and all his works. Every cut from his films is a marvelous image in itself.”

Shot between 1962 and 1986, Tarkovsky’s seven feature films often grapple with metaphysical and spiritual themes, using a distinctive cinematic style. Long takes, slow pacing and metaphorical imagery – they all figure into the archetypical Tarkovsky film.

Thanks to the Film Annex, you can now watch Tarkovsky’s films online – for free.

Since Tarkovsky is one of my two favourite directors (Mizoguchi, since you ask), you can imagine how my heart leapt when I went to the main site and found not only those seven main films but various shorts and documentaries as well.

Imagine now, *every* film being freely available in this way, and every piece of music - of every genre - every picture, every book, every kind of knowledge, from every time and culture. Just imagine the possibilities for enriching people's lives (once they have a capabilities of accessing it, or course - a non-trivial pre-requisite.) Imagine the impact that would have on them, their families, their nations, and on the world. Now tell me why we should let copyright stop that happening.

Update: oh, what a surprise: some of the films have *already* disappeared because of "copyright issues". Because copyright is so much more important than letting everyone enjoy an artist's work. (Via Open Education News.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

05 July 2010

WWW: World Wide Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia. I love using it, frequently spending many a spare minute (that I don't actually have) simply wandering from one entry to another, learning things I never knew I never knew. I love it, too, as an amazing example of why sharing and openness work. For those who aren't programmers, and who therefore don't grok the evident rightness of the open source methodology, Wikipedia is a great way of explaining how it's done and why it's so good.

On Open Enterprise blog.

01 February 2010

Britain Loves Wikipedia - And About Time, Too

One of the important roles of museums and galleries is education: helping the public to discover and explore the masterworks in their collections. So you would have thought that they would be only to happy to have images of those works exposed in the greatest online gallery of them all, Wikipedia. And yet there has been a certain resistance to this in some quarters, thanks - of course - to a crazy obsession with "copyright".

That's doubly misguided: we're talking about old works here, so the idea that copyright should be operative on their images, is nuts; but it's also perverse, because it stops people from finding out about what's on offer in museums, which is against their best interests.

Against that rather sad background, I obviously applaud this initiative:


‘Britain Loves Wikipedia’ is a month-long competition and series of events to be held in participating museums nationwide from 31 January 2010. People from all ages, backgrounds and communities can take part in the competition, which encourages the public to photograph the treasures of our nation’s museums and galleries, actively involving them in digitally recording the collections. All of the photos entered into the ‘Britain Loves Wikipedia’ competition will be made available under a free license on Wikimedia Commons, and can then be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles.

It's just sad that this hasn't been happening automatically, everywhere.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

28 January 2010

Uncommonly Good Post on the Commons

Wow: this is the best single post I have ever read on the commons (and I've read a few):


The commons as a common paradigm for social movements and beyond (version 1.0)

We can only promote the commons as a new narrative for the 21st century if they are identified as a common denominator by different social movements and schools of thought. In my point of view, enforcing the commons would be not only possible, but strategically intelligent. Here are 15 reasons why...

I'm tempted to quote the whole thing, but it's long and doing so is unnecessary, since you can simply follow the link above. But it really touches on just about every reason why the commons as an idea is important. However, I can't resist give an indication of its riches by quoting two sections that should strike a chord with people in the world of free software:

The commons strengthens an important core belief about human beings and behaviour. We are not only, not even mainly the „homo oeconomicus“ they made us believe we are. We are much more than selfish creatures looking for our own interest. We need and enjoy being embedded into a social web. “The commons are the web of life”, says Vandana Shiva. We enjoy to contribute, care and share. The commons strengthens the confidence in the creative potential of people and in the idea of inter-relationality, which means: “I need the others and the others need me.” They honour our freedom to contribute and share. This is a different kind of freedom than the market is based on. The more we contribute, more things we have access to. But note: it is not simply „access to everything for free“.


And:

The commons is an alternative mode of production. The problems we are confronted with are not problems of resource-availability. They are problems that arise from the current mode of production. Fortunately, in some areas, we are witnessing a shift from the capitalist mode of production (based on property, command, value exchange via money, resources and labour exploitation, dependent on growth and striving for profit) into a commons mode of production (based on possession, contribution, sharing, self interest and initiative, where the GDP is a negligible indicator and the aim is a „good life“ < bem viver). Many “Common Based Peer Production” projects are developing successfully. This is especially true for the production of knowledge (Wikipedia, Free Software, Open Design). But there is a thrilling discussion going on about how principles of commons based peer production can be transferred to the production of what we eat, wear and move with, at least to a certain extent. I believe that this is possible. Firstly because knowledge makes up the lion’s share of each kind of production. All goods are latent knowledge products. There is no car production or eggproduction without a concept and a design behind (which make the lion’s share of its „market value“). Secondly because there are many kinds of commons sectors (care economy, solidarity economy) which have not been commodified yet and where commons values and rules are deeply rooted. Those sectors are evidence that every day many of the things we need to live are produced outside the market.

Do read the whole thing if you can: it's really worth it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

30 November 2009

Estonia's Open Source Shame

Last week I wrote about the curious case of Mr Kallas, vice president of the European Commission. He seemed to have problems with the word “open”, imagining that this meant “unprotected”, judging by his comments. I put this down to some linguistic misunderstanding as a result of the distance of the Estonian language from English, rather than an intentional and wrong-headed attack on openness. Looks like I was wrong....

On Open Enterprise blog.