User talk:Alex756
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Alex756 never thought when granting a GFDL license to the foundation that his membership rights would be unilaterally terminated and he hereby gives notice that he also revokes all GFDL and CC licenses due to said misrepresentation of the Board of Trustees (BoT) and herewith demands that all his contributions to the Wikipedia encyclopedias prior to this page be removed because they are infringements on his copyrights.
Comments?
The concept of membership was started with the approval of the first bylaws. That was well after you first started to contribute. How is the current situation different than that of before the creation of the foundation? Contributors are still able to vote for member reps on the board even without membership rights per se (something that never really was set-up). I’m also curious as why there would necessarily be a link between the GFDL and membership or lack thereof. -- mav 16:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
- It was discussed since I first got here mav, also you will see my posts about the Association of Wikipedians, the group of Wikipedians is not the same as the Foundation and it exists when I first started contributing, it required no formalities just the fact that we were contributing. Your statement, "contributors are still able to vote for member reps" How can you vote for a "member rep" when there are no memebers, there is just a vague promise that people from the "community" will be allowed to participate in some kind of "election" that the Board decides. Sounds to me like the way the Communist Party used to have elections, it is all at the discretion of the powers that be. As far as the link between GFDL and membership? Well, I thought I was participating in a collaborative venture, I was personally told by Jimbo Wales that he wanted it to be a communal undertaking and yet any rights that I might have had, to make grievances, to be taken seriously, to be treated with respect, where unilaterally terminated on December 11, 2006. If they can terminate my membership rights, why can't I terminate my copyright license? Seems like the founder(s) of Wikipedia are going back on the promises they made, so if they want people to contribute it should be voluntarily not by coersion and misrepresentations about their intentions. If Jimbo wanted a membership organization why did he just get rid of it without any consultation with the so called "community"? It seems to me that this ability to participate as memebers meant very little to him and the rest of the board members who decided to get rid of membership without giving any notice to the members. That is my opinion and I think I am entitled to express it. Thank you for your comment. Alex756 16:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Do you know of a good summary of just what the h*** is going on with the foundation? I'm a relatively new entity to the wpworld, and read your user page and the petition, but find it a bit confusing (maybe due to the lack of background). Thanks. Citicat 04:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] Re: I don't agree with you.
Please see my response at User talk:The Thadman/Give Back Our Membership#Re: I don't agree with you. Thank you – Qxz 09:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
- Since you moved my posting I think it is ok to move your posting and I have returned it to your talk page. You are entitled to your opinion, but you ended it with a personal attack. That is not nice. BTW you were never a member because you started contributing after the Board passed these new bylaws, so you really don't have standing to ask for your old status back now do you? Alex756 05:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Comments and Questions
Hello Alex. I would like to make some comments and ask some questions.
First, I am personally not so sure if the tone of the argument is warranted. I respect you a lot, but then I respect Jimbo, Anthere, and others.
For example, to me, associating the Board with "absolutism" does not make sense. I could be naive and wrong you might say, and I am quick to admit that I do not have knowledge on how a non-profit organization like the Wikimedia Foundation is run, or what's really going on in the inner circle. But then I would appreciate if you could explain more concretely how bad the bylaw change was, what the potential consequences are, etc. that led you to use such strong languages. That would empower me or others who are interested but naive enough not to understand your points well, don't you think?
Second, I am wondering if the change in bylaw is really irrevocable. Here again, I think you know far more about the workings and inside baseball among the Trustees than I do, but I have a general expectation that if you or some others can come up with a counter-proposal, and gain support from other Wikimedians, I guess the Board will implement it or try to come up with a reasonable concensus.
Do you think that is a possible course of action? Have you already expressed some of these concerns via some more internal route and was rejected?
Third, you are criticizing the board's hiring and appointment decisions. I would like to ask a little clarification on that. For example, when you write "a mistaken belief that a membership organization could only have directors from amongst its members," I am not sure what you are referring to. The Board of Trustees has such a mistaken belief? Are you referring to the Trustees by "its members"? I am sorry to show you my poor understanding of your points, but obviously I need some help..
I have been learning from you for a long time, and I feel I owe you a lot. Sorry that I am still asking questions. But I thought you might be kind enough again to respond, like you were so many times..
Respectfully, Tomos 11:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Statement of support
I want you to know that I admire your stand against the increasingly authoritarian and unaccountable behaviour of Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation. I have signed the "Give Back Our Membership!" petition, and would like to help in whatever other way that I can. Walton monarchist89 19:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] The GFDL
I don't know if you realised this or not, but:
- Publishing material under the GFDL "grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use [the material] under the conditions stated herein", and that "Any member of the public is a licensee";
- There is no provision in the license for terminating the license, other than if the licensee "attempt[s] to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document" except in the ways set out in the license.
So this means that the Foundation is not the one you have given the license to, you've given the license to everyone, and it also means that there is no way under the license to revoke the license. --bainer (talk) 00:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you for your comment. However I should point out that if you do something on the basis of a misrepresentation, i.e. I gave my contributions on Wikipedia because I believed that Wikipedia was an open organization that would be kept open and that the structure of controlling it would also be keep open (i.e. if I wanted to attend board meetings I would be allowed to do so). However on December 11, 2006 I was asked to leave a Board meeting after the bylaws were reviewed and I was not even able to see what they were discussing because I did not have the secret password (sounds like some kind of freemasonic fraternity) to see what was being voted on. Effectively I was lied to and induced to contribute under the misconception (either negligent or wilful) that I would be participating in the development of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia organization/association. I feel that this agreeement was broken, therefore what I gave up to gain this status of being part of a collaborative venture can be retaken by me. Is that a clear explanation or do you have further questions? Note that I would agree with you if I had released my work on another web site and WMF had republished it, but thought I was agreeing to the license because Wikipedia was going to be a transparent activity not just a way for people to take my work make lots of contributions and use that to hire people and pay them six figure salaries. Is that even fair to all the poor people who have given five or ten dollars to support Wikipedia? It seems to me the repeat of the same old story, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer...Alex756 02:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Re: YOU WERE NEVER A MEMBER
Indeed, I wasn't. It's possible that this does indeed make me unworthy of participation in this discussion; if so, I apologise. However, I don't feel I'm missing out on anything; I've spoken to a few people who have been involved with the project for longer than I have, and they don't seem to feel that way either.
A couple of things:
- If you wish to be notified of changes in Foundation matters via email, subscribe to the mailing list. I doubt the bylaws are intended to require the Foundation to mass-mail all 5,000,000 registered user accounts across all projects.
- You claim that the Foundation has four fundraisers a year. As far as I can tell, from here and various other places, there were fundraisers in January 2004, July 2004, September 2004, March 2005, October 2005, December 2005 and December 2006 (running over into January 2007). So there were never more than three per year, and more importantly in the past year there has only been one.
- You also suggest "We don't need employees, it is a waste of money ... Let us just use the money to pay for servers and stuff rather than having all these self proclaimed "big shots" being paid to do all kinds of things." According to this week's Wikipedia Signpost, the Foundation has nine employees; hardly excessive, and actually pretty small considering the size of the Foundation's projects. This staff includes an intern, a PHP programmer, a lawyer, a guy who looks after the hardware... hardly what I'd call "big shots", and I'm sure their salaries don't measure up to that description either.
- I don't see how the $300,000 figures you quote for the salaries of some NPO CEOs apply here. I've looked at the financial statements; the Foundation simply doesn't have that kind of figure available, and the money that the last fundraiser brought in will, as I said, barely cover hosting and bandwidth until the end of the year.
I'm a little taken aback to see allegations that I am a "sockpuppet", though a little browsing suggests to me that it happens rather a lot on this project, so I shan't take it too personally. You ask what my motivation is for supporting the authority of the Wikimedia Foundation. It seems to me that the projects could not exist as they do now without it; is that reason enough?
Finally, I apologize if you view anything that I said as a personal attack; that was in no way indended. I recognize that we have different views on this matter, and I feel that your comments have at times strayed from the issue at hand (I don't intend to engage in discussion about Jimbo Wales or his actions as an individual), but I don't hold that against you. I feel at this stage it's probably best if you try to resolve your issues with the Foundation directly, so I won't take things any further. Thanks for your understanding – Qxz 13:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
One other thing; on the subject of personal attacks:
- "You" recommend that "I" check pages on Wikipedia? Have you checked my user contributions? You don't know who I am? I was writing Wikipedia articles when you did not even know about wiki software. Ha!
I must confess ignorance; I did not know who you were, and in fact I'm still not entirely sure. You have indeed been around a lot longer than I have, and were indeed writing Wikipedia articles fully three months before I first heard the word "wiki" (I didn't really understand what it meant then, of course). However, I'd appreciate a little less discrimination against newcomers. Thanks – Qxz 13:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Telautograph-01.gif listed for deletion
An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Telautograph-01.gif, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. BigrTex 16:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
