Mailing List Archive

Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia?
http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/03/ourmedia_offers.html

A story on the Podcasting News website describes Wikipedia as one of the
"partners in the effort" to launch the Ourmedia project. Is this true? I
realize that Angela is one of their advisors, but I hadn't heard that
there was any kind of official partnership. Is there some kind of
ongoing discussion that the community doesn't know about, or are people
just being sloppy about the nature of the connection?

--Michael Snow
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
Michael Snow wrote:
> http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/03/ourmedia_offers.html
>
> A story on the Podcasting News website describes Wikipedia as one of the
> "partners in the effort" to launch the Ourmedia project. Is this true? I
> realize that Angela is one of their advisors, but I hadn't heard that
> there was any kind of official partnership. Is there some kind of
> ongoing discussion that the community doesn't know about, or are people
> just being sloppy about the nature of the connection?

Well, I've never heard of them, but the ourmedia.org site has a little
Wikipedia logo and link under 'Sponsors and partners' on every page of
their site.

http://ourmedia.org/mission/partners says:
"Wikipedia is the people's encyclopedia. The free content encyclopedia —
where anyone can write or edit an entry — produced more than 1 million
articles in less than four years. Wikipedia is already larger than any
other English-language encyclopedia, including the Encyclopædia
Britannica. What's most remarkable is that every word is written by
volunteers and no one gets paid for a submission. Wikipedia and Ourmedia
members are committed to creating sharing and sharing works of personal
media."

It sounds more like 'some similarities in mission' than a 'partnership',
and linking to Wikipedia instead of Wikimedia seems kind of odd if it
really is official and nobody's bothered to tell us.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 19:25:45 -0800, Michael Snow
<wikipedia@earthlink.net> wrote:
> A story on the Podcasting News website describes Wikipedia as one of the
> "partners in the effort" to launch the Ourmedia project. Is this true?

I'm not entirely sure what it means for Wikipedia to be listed as a
"partner", but my assumption was that it was a reflection of potential
collaboration or shared goals between the projects, rather than
anything more formal. I did speak to Jimbo about this a few weeks ago
when I first saw this on the Ourmedia site, since I wasn't sure if
this should be seen as a problem. He said he didn't care for it, but
when I suggested I could have it removed, he just said he had
complained a bit (I don't know who to), and also said that it was not
a ridiculous statement. He's met with Marc Canter (one of the founders
of Ourmedia) since then, but I don't know if they discussed this
point.

As far as I know, the "partnership" means no more than the people
involved in the projects they list as partners (including the Creative
Commons) are also involved with Ourmedia, which is possibly why they
list Wikipedia rather than the Wikimedia Foundation (though that could
just be an error). Certainly, no formal partnership has been
discussed. The only link between the two projects comes from the fact
that I, and other Wikipedians, have been involved with creating some
of the project's initial policies etc, and that ideas for potential
collaboration have been discussed on the Wikimedia Commons since last
August (when the page was still at Meta). See
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Collaboration_with_Ourmedia>

Angela.

--
Angela Beesley
Ourmedia.org
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
Note that I am not aware of any partnership with OurMedia myself, nor
was ever informed we could be or were.

The only thing I know... is that other associations started listing
themselves as being partners with wikipedia. I raised the topic on the
french mailing list about what could be a partner and how to decide who
was a partner and who was not.

The discussion was inconclusive and in spite of me saying to the
association representative we were actually not partners, they still
sort of more or less claim it.

After thought, I decided that
1) I could not do much if someone claimed himself partner of Wikipedia
2) As long as it was written nowhere on our project that we were (no
special page, no logo, no statement), well... we were not.

...

Anthere

Angela a écrit:
> On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 19:25:45 -0800, Michael Snow
> <wikipedia@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>A story on the Podcasting News website describes Wikipedia as one of the
>>"partners in the effort" to launch the Ourmedia project. Is this true?
>
>
> I'm not entirely sure what it means for Wikipedia to be listed as a
> "partner", but my assumption was that it was a reflection of potential
> collaboration or shared goals between the projects, rather than
> anything more formal. I did speak to Jimbo about this a few weeks ago
> when I first saw this on the Ourmedia site, since I wasn't sure if
> this should be seen as a problem. He said he didn't care for it, but
> when I suggested I could have it removed, he just said he had
> complained a bit (I don't know who to), and also said that it was not
> a ridiculous statement. He's met with Marc Canter (one of the founders
> of Ourmedia) since then, but I don't know if they discussed this
> point.
>
> As far as I know, the "partnership" means no more than the people
> involved in the projects they list as partners (including the Creative
> Commons) are also involved with Ourmedia, which is possibly why they
> list Wikipedia rather than the Wikimedia Foundation (though that could
> just be an error). Certainly, no formal partnership has been
> discussed. The only link between the two projects comes from the fact
> that I, and other Wikipedians, have been involved with creating some
> of the project's initial policies etc, and that ideas for potential
> collaboration have been discussed on the Wikimedia Commons since last
> August (when the page was still at Meta). See
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Collaboration_with_Ourmedia>
>
> Angela.
>
> --
> Angela Beesley
> Ourmedia.org
Re: Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:46:53 +0100, Anthere <anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:

> The only thing I know... is that other associations started listing
> themselves as being partners with wikipedia. I raised the topic on the
> french mailing list about what could be a partner and how to decide who
> was a partner and who was not.

Related to this is that the Open Directory Project claims Wikipedia is
their sister project. See the end of <http://dmoz.org/Reference/>, for
example. This was mentioned at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:External_links#More_restrictive_policy_on_external_linking
but not really discussed on Wikipedia as far as I know. There is (or
at least used to be) a "Wikipedia now a Sister site?" thread at Dmoz
<http://forums.dmoz.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=908066> (you need to be
an editor there to read it, and my login has expired so I can't
guarantee that link still works).

Angela.
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/03/ourmedia_offers.html
>>
>> A story on the Podcasting News website describes Wikipedia as one of the
>> "partners in the effort" to launch the Ourmedia project. Is this true? I
>> realize that Angela is one of their advisors, but I hadn't heard that
>> there was any kind of official partnership. Is there some kind of
>> ongoing discussion that the community doesn't know about, or are people
>> just being sloppy about the nature of the connection?
>
> Well, I've never heard of them, but the ourmedia.org site has a little
> Wikipedia logo and link under 'Sponsors and partners' on every page of
> their site.

Ah, I didn't scroll down far enough to see that. I did check the story,
which was pretty obviously a regurgitated press release, against
Ourmedia's version, which didn't list Wikipedia as a partner, so I
couldn't figure out if Podcasting News was jumping to conclusions or if
Ourmedia was giving this impression themselves.

> It sounds more like 'some similarities in mission' than a 'partnership'

Yes, that's about how I would describe it.

Angela wrote:

>I did speak to Jimbo about this a few weeks ago
>when I first saw this on the Ourmedia site, since I wasn't sure if
>this should be seen as a problem. He said he didn't care for it, but
>when I suggested I could have it removed, he just said he had
>complained a bit (I don't know who to), and also said that it was not
>a ridiculous statement.
>
No, it's not ridiculous, just a little confusing.

Anthere wrote:

> The only thing I know... is that other associations started listing
> themselves as being partners with wikipedia. I raised the topic on the
> french mailing list about what could be a partner and how to decide
> who was a partner and who was not.

Oh, what other non-partner partners do we have?

In the particular case of Ourmedia, the similarities mean that it's not
something to get too worked up about. I don't mind if they want to do a
little name-dropping - it's nice that our name is worth dropping - but
it would be good to have an indication that the relationship basically
amounts to moral support and advice. If our fundraiser donors got the
mistaken impression that we're funneling money to outside projects,
rather than spending it to address our well-known needs, it would not be
a good situation. And we do need to be careful that people aren't
misrepresenting the position of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or
any other project of the Foundation.

--Michael Snow
Re: Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
Michael Snow wrote:

> Oh, what other non-partner partners do we have?


Our name is obviously worth something. What was the trademark status
again?


- d.
Re: Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:52:32 +0000, David Gerard
<fun@thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
> > Oh, what other non-partner partners do we have?
>
> Our name is obviously worth something. What was the trademark status
> again?

At the very least, we should convince them to use the Wikimedia logo
instead of the 'pedia logo. Though the latter has more brand
recognition.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
Re: Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
On 3/24/05 1:18 AM, "Angela" <beesley@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:46:53 +0100, Anthere <anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> The only thing I know... is that other associations started listing
>> themselves as being partners with wikipedia. I raised the topic on the
>> french mailing list about what could be a partner and how to decide who
>> was a partner and who was not.
>
> Related to this is that the Open Directory Project claims Wikipedia is
> their sister project. See the end of <http://dmoz.org/Reference/>, for
> example. This was mentioned at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:External_links#More_restrictive_po
> licy_on_external_linking
> but not really discussed on Wikipedia as far as I know. There is (or
> at least used to be) a "Wikipedia now a Sister site?" thread at Dmoz
> <http://forums.dmoz.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=908066> (you need to be
> an editor there to read it, and my login has expired so I can't
> guarantee that link still works).

And this torques me off, because Dmoz is a frighteningly corrupt and
autocratic community and their licensing and copyright policy is diametrical
to Wikipedia's. Maybe if they were willing to admit to being our evil
stepsister.
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
I've sent Ourmedia a note through their contact form asking for
clarification.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
Michael Snow wrote:
> http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/03/ourmedia_offers.html
>
> A story on the Podcasting News website describes Wikipedia as one of the
> "partners in the effort" to launch the Ourmedia project. Is this true? I
> realize that Angela is one of their advisors, but I hadn't heard that
> there was any kind of official partnership. Is there some kind of
> ongoing discussion that the community doesn't know about, or are people
> just being sloppy about the nature of the connection?

I complained very strongly to them about it before they launched their
site publicly, and so I really don't know what else to say about it.
It is not my style to speak ill of people, so I think I'll just say
nothing at all.



--Jimbo
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
On Mar 28, 2005 11:19 PM, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
> I complained very strongly to them about it before they launched their
> site publicly, and so I really don't know what else to say about it.
> It is not my style to speak ill of people, so I think I'll just say
> nothing at all.

Wikipedia has been removed from the partners page as a result of this
complaint.

I contacted the founders of Ourmedia about this, who basically felt
that the link suggested a potential collaboration, much in the same
way that the page at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Collaboration_with_Ourmedia
does. It also reflected the fact that Ourmedia uses Wikipedia as a
resource on pages such as http://ourmedia.org/help/publish-audio and
has had the imput of many Wikipedians into its policies.

JD said "Partnership, to us, means that we are pursuing the same
goals. If you look at our Partners page, it makes no claim about any
formal relationship between Ourmedia and Wikipedia. This is simply a
list of sites that we're working with" and Marc said the partnership
shows that we both "support the notion of shared repositories".

The issue is also being discussed on our forums at http://ourmedia.org/node/1552

Angela.
Re: Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia? [ In reply to ]
Angela wrote:
> On Mar 28, 2005 11:19 PM, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
>>I complained very strongly to them about it before they launched their
>>site publicly, and so I really don't know what else to say about it.
>>It is not my style to speak ill of people, so I think I'll just say
>>nothing at all.
>
>
> Wikipedia has been removed from the partners page as a result of this
> complaint.

I'm glad that's been resolved, at least.

> I contacted the founders of Ourmedia about this, who basically felt
> that the link suggested a potential collaboration, much in the same
> way that the page at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Collaboration_with_Ourmedia
> does.

The Wikipedia logo was displayed prominently under a heading "Sponsors
and Partners" on *every page of the site*, and again prominently
displayed with the Wikipedia listing on their Partners page.

How's that even *vaguely* on the same level as having a single
discussion-oriented page on a community-built site that starts off with
text like "Since Ourmedia share one of the goals of the Wikimedia
Commons, it would be good if we could collaborate with them in some way.
Please use this page to brainstorm ways in which we could do this. Ideas
left here will be fed back to the ourmedia group on their wiki." ?

> JD said "Partnership, to us, means that we are pursuing the same
> goals. If you look at our Partners page, it makes no claim about any
> formal relationship between Ourmedia and Wikipedia. This is simply a
> list of sites that we're working with" and Marc said the partnership
> shows that we both "support the notion of shared repositories".

Perhaps we should chip in and buy JD a dictionary? Sooner or later the
poor fellow's going to be at the wrong end of a trademark lawsuit.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)