User talk:Eloquence/Ask the candidate

Feel free to ask me any questions about my candidature for the Wikimedia board here. I have added this page to my watchlist and will check it daily. You can ask questions in English or German.--Eloquence* 03:12, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Please also see my detailed campaign platform at User:Eloquence/Platform.

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Branches

What on earth is a "local Wikimedia branch" as mentioned in your statement? -- Seth Ilys 03:20, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

A local daughter organization of the Wikimedia Foundation, e.g. a German non-profit foundation, as has been repeatedly requested, to allow these Wikipedias to solicit funds on their own, and to use them for local projects.--Eloquence* 03:23, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

"local projects"? -- Seth Ilys 03:27, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes. For example, advertising the Maori Wikipedia, or creating and distributing a printed WikiReader in a certain language. For such projects, being able to directly and locally solicit funds is very helpful. It is also important for legal representation, press contacts, local meetings, lobbying, and so forth.--Eloquence* 03:34, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Favorite page

Just out of curiosity, and i am asking this to everyone who is standing, i would like to post a question. Could you point me to two or three of your favourite contributions in Wikipedia? Not the whole bunch of them, which I am sure you all have in powers of 10, but that special article you wrote, or made substancial changes to, and makes you happy. Just to see what you've been up to :) Cheers and all the best to you all, MvHG 15:13, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm fairly happy with Life in the Freezer, which I wrote pretty much from scratch while watching the series. Also, ex-gay, in spite of its controversial subject, was never the center of any edit wars and gives a pretty good overview of that movement, in my opinion.--Eloquence* 21:50, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! The ex-gay is a very nice one, which i had come across with before. Its nice to see all the different kinds of answers to the question i made. Happy election! MvHG 10:52, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Voting system

Hi. Due to the concerns of a number of people, we are considering adopting a new system to replace First Past the Post. What is your preference? Please respond to WikiElections AT aol DOT com. This is not an assurance that the system will be changed, but rather an attempt to gauge the will of the electorate. Danny 04:03, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I have responded my mail (my preferred voting system is approval voting).--Eloquence* 00:45, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

License compatibility issues

As you're probably aware, one of the issues the project has is the wide variation in what can and can't be used under copyright law in different jurisdictions and the differing definitions of free used by contributors to the project. How will you seek to resolve the inevitable tension between those who want a completely free to use public domain Wikipedia, those who want to make full use of all works they are free to use under the copyright law of their jurisdiction, those who want a GFDL only encyclopedia, those who want a copyleft encyclopedia and those who want the best possible encyclopedia and accept all content which doesn't infringe copyright, even if some of it might be hard for all reusers, or a small number of reusers? The most compatible license is public domain, so does that mean that you prefer public domain content over other content? Would you want to strongly favor public domain content to maximise the freedom to reuse the work? How do you believe that increasing or decreasing the acceptability of licensed content will increase or decrease the participation in the project? How do you believe it will increase or decrease the chance of a competing project to fill any gaps in what we accept? Jamesday 06:33, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

See my response below. I'm a big believer in license compatibility, but one way to resolve this, besides going to PD, would be to release a new and improved version of the FDL in collaboration with the FSF. I would also be in favor of an "I want all my contributions to be in the PD" option during sign-up.--Eloquence*

Questions based on your statement

• The Wikipedia license requires that all improvements are also open content. Please explain if and why you believe that our license prohibits quotations and other fair use or fair dealing items.
  • I don't believe that. To avoid future misunderstandings, I have modified the text accordingly.--Eloquence*
• if we get a magazine to use an article we created, and they add a pretty picture, we can plausibly argue that we have a right to use that picture as well. As discussed at Meta:Do fair use images violate the GFDL?, it is the view of Richard Stallman, Jimmy Wales and most others with a strong interest in copyright law that an image displayed with an article is an aggregated independent work under clause 7 of the GFDL. As a result, the GFDL would not cause the pretty picture to be usable here. Do you agree or disagree?
  • I am the one who originally proposed the aggregation argument on the mailing list, if I remember correctly. This inspired one of the people who disagreed with me, Marco Krohn, to ask Richard about it. Richard has never explicitly endorsed my interpretation; he has merely stated that he feels the FDL does not apply to fair use images. My argument rests on the images being separately stored and dynamically included by the client (not the server). The actual wikisource only contains the text [[Image:Foo.jpg]], which is not an image but a link. That link is converted by the server into an <img src="..."> tag, which can be resolved by a modern web browser during viewing by fetching the image and the page separately. Furthermore, an image can be included in this way on several pages. All this is not the case with the magazine article, where the two clearly belong together, which is why I do not believe this interpretation to be applicable.
• I have, in a couple of instances, managed to get sites to comply with our license. Please say which sites, why they weren't complying with our license and whether you believe they were complying with the GFDL.
  • Most notably [1], which had no license information whatsoever and claimed its own copyright instead. I also take some credit for getting McFly into compliance as I repeatedly bugged Anthony about it and am the one who brought the issue up on the mailing list. But no, I do not want to have a discussion with you about whether or not the whole work or individual pages are under the FDL, or whether Anthony's combination argument is correct. :-) Suffice it to say that I think the current solution is more acceptable than what he originally did, that is, to have no license information on individual articles.
• the only project which I can think of that in my opinion already is a failure is the September 11 wiki. Why do you believe that this project has failed to meet the goals for which it was created, which appear to have originally been a place to dump tributes to September 11th victims which en didn't want? Do you believe that it should be a more comprehensive resource for all knowledge about the September 11th attacks? If yes, should that include only GFDL items or is the use of fair use and restrictively licensed works to achieve that goal acceptable? What do you believe would make it a success?
  • Sep11 hardly is even a complete resource for tributes alone, nor has the community taken an active role in maintaining or promoting it. As you say, all it ever was is a place to dump articles from another wiki, and I find that to be a weak raison d'être. A more comprehensive "Wikimorial" approach may work, but that needs to be discussed and planned properly.
• When a corporation like Corbis threatens us with a lawsuit for hosting an image that is clearly in the public domain (but they claim to have "reproduction rights" because it was digitized by them), we will have to decide whether we want to fight a precedent lawsuit. What grounds do you believe Corbis might have for such an act? The Communications Decency Act protects the Wikipedia and Wikimedia Foundation. The OCILLA also does and makes their only effective remedy a takedown notice which we know to be invalid and which the uploader could reply to with a valid counter-notification. Do you believe that the precedent in Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. v. Corel Corporation, 36 F. Supp. 2d 191, US SDNY (1999) [2], which held that a photograph of a public domain work is not original, will not apply? Do you believe that the Foundation should fund the defence of the uploader?
  • I believe that Corbis - in cases of PD images - rests on a weak legal basis, and they know that. They may at some point attempt to solidify that basis through a high profile lawsuit. I think we have a fair chance of winning that lawsuit, based on the precedent you cite; however, similar precedents do not exist in all countries, and that may be a problem when daughter organizations are set up. I think the Foundation should make a decision on whether or not to fund the defense of the uploader in any such case, depending on the precise context (if the uploader was a vandal who insisted on adding an image which we think is too ambiguous then we should of course not defend them).
• Do you believe that all Wikimedia-hosted projects must be free as defined by the FSF or Open Source as defined by the OSF? Is a public domain or primarily public domain project compatible with the goals of the Foundation? Should a history of the Foundation refuse to use any non-GFDL works, even if it makes an incomplete history, perhaps because those prortayed negatively refuse permission to use their works or are unable to grant such permission because they aren't the primary copyright holder?
• That should be enough for a start.:) Jamesday 07:14, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
  • We should be as free as reasonably possible, that's why I created Wikipedia:Fair use. I believe we should not use fair use just because we can, but only if we find no open content replacement. I don't want to discourage producers of open content who may feel "Well, we already have a fair use image, so why should I bother to create an open content photo of this or that celebrity?" So all realistic options should be explored before we resort to fair use. I'm strongly against licenses which prohibit commercial use, but I can accept, in a few exceptional cases (such as artistic works), licenses which prohibit derivative works. I am of two hearts with regard to copyleft / non-copyleft licenses. I admire the copyleft idea and use it for my software. For text I think it creates many problems and still haven't seen a single case where we have benefitted from it. I think at one point we may have to hold a community wide vote on which license we want to use for this or that new project; for example, using the FDL for a Wikinews spin-off could seriously impact its potential world-wide impact. We do, however, have to maintain good relations with the FSF, as they effectively hold control over the future of our only current license, the FDL, and can release a new version of it that solves some of its many problems.--Eloquence* 09:43, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Please stand for both positions!

Hi Eloquence

I would like to ask you to reconsider standing for only one of the two available board positions, but rather to stand for both. Both you and Anthere address my concerns, and I would hate to see only one of you on the Board! Greenman 00:39, 22 May 2004 (SAST)

Hi Greenman, thank you for your feedback and for your support. Given that a lot of my concerns are related to the allocation and use of funds, I believe a candidacy as Contributing Member Representative is the most appropriate choice for the time being. I also don't want to directly compete with Angela, who I think would make an excellent Volunteer Member Representative. However, please do keep in mind that this election will use approval voting, so you may very well vote for both me and Florence.--Eloquence* 22:58, May 22, 2004 (UTC)

Edit wars--ennobling of a trustee?

Why are you carrying on edit wars in Homosexuality_and_morality and Gay disease?

You continually claim that there is a larger connection between homosexuality and pedophilia than there is between heterosexuality and pedophilia, despite the fact that you have been invited to peruse academic studies denying this.

I would oppose nominating you to any position based on your actions at these articles.

1) I have never edited gay disease. 2) I have not been involved in any edit war ever since a rule against reverting a single page more than three times has been instituted. 3) See Talk:Homosexuality and morality for my arguments on the matter.--Eloquence*

democratic decision-making

I like your campaign platform a lot, especially things such as the recognition that Wikipedia does not exist in a political vacuum but should lobby for better laws in copyright, software patents, censorship etc. However, one tricky issue where I couldn't find any concrete proposals in your platform is democratic control of Wikipedia. (what follows is a bit of a copy-paste of question I asked Angela). As Wikipedia grows, in terms of contributors, readers, articles amd generally in importance, more decisions will have to be taken regarding the general direction of the project. The most critical decisions will probably be those that relate to funding and licensing. In my opnion there is a very real danger that these decisions will be made by a small elite such as the Board and/or the most comitted/active Wikipedians. While I do not question in any way the integrity of the people belonging to such an elite, I think this turn of events would be highly detrimental to Wikipedia. After all, it is the contributors that make Wikipedia what it is - even the most committed Wikipedians would never be able to deal with half million+ articles - and if these contibutors feel that they don't have enough say in decision making and that decisions are imposed on them, they will turn away from the project. Also, a democratic decision making process, even though it tends to take more time, leads to better decisions in my experience.

I can see two slightly different approaches: representative democracy, where contributors elect representatives which then take the decisions about the long-term direction. In this case it is extremely important that those representatives are accountable to contributors, that they can be deselected if they take decisions that don't reflect the interests of contributors, that the time they serve is not too long. The alternative approach, which I would very much prefer, is the one of direct democracy. The board, elected representatives or even just any Wikipedian would propose competing plans regarding e.g. funding, licensing, etc, and then contributors would directly vote on these proposals. In my opinion the direct route of decision taking is not only technically and humanly possible (if Wikipedia shows anything it is how very different people can collaborate productively) but far preferable, because it is consensus-based and deals with the real issues rather than the more personal stuff. Also, it could be a way to make Wikipedia less depedent on outside funding, because I am sure that if contributors are more deeply involved in decision taking, they are also much more willing to contribute financially - maybe one could even have a system where Wikipedia voters pay a voluntary Wikipedia tax. Also, if it's possible to hold this election for two representatives for the board, it's possible to have similar votes in the decision-making process.

In your campaign platform you talk about the need for "Democracy and openness" and propose a constitution. While I wholeheartedly agree with what you say, I don't think it goes far enough. For example, although I check and edit Wikipedia almost daily, I haven't got the slightest idea why and how this election came about, nor even when it will end, if these representatives are accountable to us and how long their mandate is. I'm sure that the process was open enough for me to be able to find out, and maybe I just missed a few things, but I don't think that's enough: this kind of decision-making should be right in the middle of Wikipedia and all Wikipedians should be able to be involved not just in theory but in practice. Also, do you envisage the constitution you propose to be voted on by all Wikipedians? Who would be involved in putting together this constitution - people appointed by the Board, or democratically elected Wikipedia representatives ? I wonder if you have any concrete plans on how to democratically control the amazing Wikipedia project. pir 12:13, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I have concrete plans. This is a good example of what I mean in my platform when I say that it's important to understand all the issues -- legal, technical, social, economic, political -- to a reasonable extent.

Let me address the problem of hearing about important issues first. Right now, many important discussions take place on the mailing lists. I love mailing lists and use them a lot, but one of the key concepts of wiki is lowering barriers to entry and not requiring things like subscriptions. Now, I do not propose that we eliminate the mailing lists right away because discussions on a wiki, right now, are rather cumbersome. There is no reply button, automatic paging, thread notification, automatic signing, sorting etc. So first I would like to see some changes made to the software to facilitate discussions on the wikis. Then we could integrate what are currently separate mailing lists into the project, as topical discussion pages. This would go a long way in making important debates more accessible.

Another technical change is that right now, we have no built-in voting system other than page editing itself. This makes it rather cumbersome to set up polls on important issues. We should change that, but we also need to remember - and here's a social issue - that wiki is built on consensus and compromise-seeking. So we should not allow people to start polls willy-nilly; in fact there should be a mandatory consensus-seeking phase, wide support for starting the poll, and defined thresholds for decisions of different magnitude (e.g. banning a user should be more difficult than changing a word in an intro).

I absolutely agree with you about direct democracy and believe strongly in it. However, direct democracy fails when people are uninformed. So it is essential that everyone who votes gets a summary of the different points of view on an issue (this should be supported by software, e.g. in the form of a standard template associated with voting pages), and we should strive to build a strong community sense that as a voter, you have the responsibility to read and understand what you are voting on.

This doesn't mean that I do not define the role of the board as a leadership role. I do, probably more so than other candidates. The board, in my view, should communicate ideas from the user base, but it should also take the initiative in promoting specific goals and values which they consider to be of importance. This should not so much be done through top down decisions, but by making specific proposals, building consensus on them and voting if necessary. In my vision, representative democracy and direct democracy are combined so that each can compensate for the other's shortcomings. I want an enlightened board of trustees which promotes a general direction for the project, and a broad, informed user base which improves upon these suggestions, submits their own proposals and makes the final decisions. The authority of the board would mostly rest in the trust that people have in the individual board members.--Eloquence* 00:25, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)