Wikimedia Hong Kong/Newsletters/Fall 2010

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In Agenda

Liberal Studies Toolkit

GLAM Project

Fundraising

Tango Succeed as Director 陳子恩獲躍升為協會理事

Tango Chan was elected as a director of Wikimedia Hong Kong at the monthly meeting of the directory in September. Tango replaces Morgan Chan, who resigned as director in August to focus on his academic studies. Tango also succeeds Morgan as commissioner for communications of Wikimedia Hong Kong. Prior to his election as director, Tango served as an administrative assistant for WMHK's treasury since July 2009, and was actively involved in outreach projects of the chapter and ISOC-HK’s youth fighters programme.

陳子恩於九月的每月例行會議中獲推選且躍升為協會理事的其中一員。在是次人事調動中，陳子恩亦將擔當新任傳訊署長，以取代於八月因學業理由而表示辭任傳訊署長一職的原署長陳柏燊之職務。在當選為理事前，陳子恩自2009年7月起已於協會中擔任財政署行政助理一席，並且於協會的外展活動和香港互聯網協會的Youth Fighters計劃之中活躍參與。

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Largest Infringement 最大型侵權事故

In August, Wan Li Book Company, a leading Hong Kong publisher, released A Speaking Map of Hong Kong – a multimedia guidebook to Hong Kong history and geography. It was soon discovered that it used some 100 photographs from Wikipedia and Flickr without any copyright acknowledgement. When comparing any page from the book with the relevant Wikipedia article about the corresponding district of Hong Kong, one can almost certainly find a Wikipedia picture replicated exactly in the book. 在是年八月，香港其中一所大型連鎖印刷書商「萬里書店」出版了一本名為《會說話的香港地圖》，且以香港地理和歷史為題的多媒體書籍。甫出版後不久，有網民和維基用戶發現該書籍中有超過１００張圖片皆直接由維基百科和Flickr相簿中直接挪用，且沒有按一眾圖片的協定條款之規定發佈。如果將該書籍中介紹香港各區域的大部份圖片，與維基百科描述相關區域之條目內之圖片比較，可發現當中有約干數量之圖片是直接複制且外貌完全一樣的。

Aware that the book in question is actually the sequel to A Speaking World Map, a similar interactive book by the same publisher, a writer on Hong Kong Inmedia, set out to buy the previous book in search for more copyright violations. Instead, he was surprised to discover copyright acknowledgements for various pictures in the book. Those credited included both individual photographers and organisations such as the United States Geological Survey. For one illustrated photograph, the acknowledgement was so delicately written that it included the photographer, the illustrator, and the Tajik Agency on Hydrometeorology who provided the original data. A skim through the inside covers of the two books reveals that they were compiled by the same chief editors.

The publisher did leave a line in A Speaking Map of Hong Kong as a defence: "We were unable to contact some of the old street photographs' owners due to a lack of information. Copyright holders should feel free to contact us." However, Wikipedians noted that every picture description on Wikipedia and Flickr is clearly accompanied by the username of the author, and the copyright licence under which the author released the picture. The infringing book did not credit anyone in compliance with the licences; neither did the publisher leave a comment to the authors asking for authorisation.

Jeromy-Yu Chan, president of Wikimedia Hong Kong, called it the largest infringement of Wikipedia images in Hong Kong's history. A Hong Kong freelance writer filed a case against Wan Li Books with the customs.

On August 14, one user identifying as deputy editor-in-chief of the publisher posted an apology on the talk page where the infringements were being discussed. The user stated that the editor for the book had resigned and that all copies would be recalled and destroyed, and asserted that the apology was made "not on legal grounds, but out of conscience."

(Source: Deryck Chan and HaeB, Wikipedia Signpost)

• zh: w:zh:維基百科:維基簡訊/2010年8月/新聞3

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World Community News

Mike Godwin leaves WMF

Mike Godwin, general counsel of Wikimedia Foundation, announced his resignation from the foundation in October. Mike has a long history of serving as an attorney for free culture organisations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and joined Wikimedia Foundation in July 2007. A particular highlight of his work with the foundation was his whimsical response when he denied a request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to remove the FBI seal from Wikipedia, mocking the FBI's attitude as "idiosyncratic... and, more important, incorrect." Mike Godwin is also known for coining "Godwin's law", which states that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." (Source: Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia)

Three million free netbooks for Argentinian schools

The government of Argentina has recently announced an ambitious plan to distribute 3 million netbooks among secondary school students and teachers. An advisory board of 20 members was appointed to oversee the project. Patricio Lorente, in his capacity of chairman of Wikimedia Argentina, was appointed to the board. Patricio's appointment is viewed as an official acknowledgement of the five years of hard work that the Argentinian Wikimedian community has contributed to the field of free culture and improvement of educational resources. (Source: Enrique Chaparro, Wikimedia Argentina)

Offline French Wikipedia goes to Africa

Equipped by Wikimedia Israel with computers running free software and containing an offline version of the French Wikipedia, a team of students from Ben-Gurion University headed for Cameroon and Benin, both French-speaking countries in Africa, to bring free knowledge to local Africans without access to the Internet. Wikimedia Israel collaborated with Wikimedia Switzerland and Wikimedia France to produce an up-to-date static version of the French Wikipedia with about 1 million articles and included images; Hamakor, the Israeli Free and Open Source Software NGO, helped obtain computer donations onto which the offline version of Wikipedia is installed. Supporting and promoting the distribution of free knowledge in developing countries is one of the five major goals identified by the Wikimedia Foundation in its five-year strategic plan. (Source: Asaf Bartov, Wikimedia Israel)

Wikimedia Argentina at the Frankfurt book fair

Two members of the Argentine Wikimedia chapter presented a book about the copyright situation in Argentina at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest annual book fair. Beatriz Busaniche and Patricio Lorente from Wikimedia Argentina worked with the Vía Libre Foundation and the German Heinrich Böll Foundation to produce the book Argentina copyleft. Edited by Beatriz, the book collects contributions by various authors to the copyright debate in Argentina, where the issue of copyright is considered particularly restrictive. The book is now available in English, German and Spanish, all under a Creative Commons licence. (Source: HaeB and Ziko, Wikipedia Signpost)

Wikimedia Serbia & Hungry goes camping

Sixteen Wikipedians gathered from all around Hungary and Serbia to take part in the first multi-day Wikipedia camp. Based in Nagykanizsa, a small town in the southwestern part of the country, the editors shared their experiences through Wikipedia quizzes, lectures and movie screenings and had a genuinely good summer time barbecuing, hiking and sightseeing in the nearby nature reserves and towns. (Source: Bence Damokos, Wikimedia Hungary)

WMF set up office in India

Wikimedia Foundation plans to set up a new office in India in the coming six months. The office, to be established in Bangalore, will be Wikimedia Foundation's first permanent office outside the United States. Three to five members of staff will be employed by the office full-time, and they will support the 1500-strong Wikimedian volunteer community in India, especially those working for projects in Indian minority languages. India will also be a testing ground for making Wikipedia available on low-end mobile phones.

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Hongkongais en Gdansk

Wikimania 2010 was held from 9th to 11th July in Danzig, Poland. Wikimania is an annual international conference for enthusiasts of Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. This year, the slogan of the conference is "free knowledge in the city of freedom", referring to the pivotal role played by Danzig during many important turning points of history.

The city of Danzig is no stranger to historians. The Pomeranian city inherits a thousand years of heritage brought by both the Poles and the Germans. Because of its prestigious geography as a natural trade harbour on the Baltic Sea, it has been strategic military port throughout history. The city changed hands tens of times in the past millennium, and as a result English names referring to the city include both the German "Danzig" and the Polish "Gdańsk". Twice the city of Danzig even gained independence as a "free city": first during the era of Napoleon, then between the two World Wars as administered by the League of Nations. It is as the Free City of Danzig between the two World Wars that the city is best known to history. In 1980, the trade union Solidarity was formed in Danzig and contributed significantly to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Once again, Danzig precipitated a turn in history and fulfilled its role as the city of freedom.

The conference itself is no less exciting: three days of debates on dozens of topics, including Wiki technologies and free software; communities and conflicts; internationalisation, translation and language conservation; and the relationship between Wikimedia and the academia. In particular, a debate on whether Catalonia should have its own local Wikimedia chapter independent of Spain and France caused much controversy. Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation behind the Wikimedia projects, also announced changes to its board of directors.

Apart from serious business, the conference attendees also had a lot of relaxing time and entertainment. Informal though inspirational chats over dishes of Polish food for lunch and dinner fostered many new friendships in the Gdańsk Philharmonic Orchestra Concert Hall. In the first evening of the conference, the Gdańsk Philharmonic Orchestra even performed a special concert for Wikimania, presenting songs written by Władysław Szpilman, who was portrayed in the film The Pianist by Roman Polanski. Truth in Numbers, a documentary film about Wikipedia, also staged its world première on the second evening of the conference. After the film-show, everyone was taken to the Danzig dockyard area for a party in a disco club and art gallery which was built in a disused warehouse.

Off the conference programme, the delegation from Hong Kong had chances to experience various aspects of Poland and Danzig as well. They visited Westerplatte, the peninsula on which the first shots of World War II were fired when Nazi Germany declared war on Poland. They also cycled to Sopot, a resort town just north of Danzig, dipped their feet in smooth Baltic sand and sea-water, and strolled along the longest wooden pier in Europe.

Asian Community News

Wikimedia Asia

During the Wikimania 2010 in Gdańsk, Poland, Morgan Chan (then board member of Wikimedia Hong Kong) announced the launch of Wikimedia Asia, an initiative which seeks to bring together various local Wikimedia chapters and Wikimedian groups in Asia for the purposes of fundraising and organising regional events to promote free culture. Wikimedia Asia will liaise with galleries, libraries and museums in Asia to arrange for opening their archives' access and copyright to Wikimedia projects, so that more readers from around the world may access the treasures in the archives. Wikimedia Asia also hopes to mobilise the expertise and experience of existing local Wikimedia chapters in Asia to help other Asian countries to set up their own Wikimedia chapters.

Approval of Wikimedia India

In June, Wikimedia Foundation approved Wikimedia India as a local chapter. Local chapters are self-dependent organizations that share the goals of the Wikimedia Foundation and support them within a specified geographical region. They support the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia projects from a local perspective, and provide a local point of contact for volunteers and potential working partners of Wikimedia. (Source: Wikimedia Foundation)

Wikimedians in Kansai

Launched in August, Wikimedians in Kansai is an unofficial group of Wikimedians who gathered in the region of Kansai, Japan. They aim to promote participation in Wikimedia projects in the region, and facilitate communication between Wikimedians in the area and external organisations or interested parties. Wikimedians in Kansai is the first Wikimedian group to be established in Japan, and there is currently no plan for the group to become Wikimedia Foundation's legal representative in the region. (Source: Kizu Naoko, Wikimedians in Kansai)

Wikimedia Australia board changes

Wikimedia Australia announced changes to its committee after an annual general meeting in September. John Vandenberg and Adan Jenkins were elected president and vice-president respectively, to replace Steve Peters and Liam Wyatt, neither of whom stood for re-election. Steve and Liam will continue to serve as non-office-bearing volunteers for the Wikimedia movement. (Source: Wikimedia Australia)