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Wikipedia: More oneliners – less unassumingness?

04 18

Udgivet af henrik under Wikipedia, internettet, mennesker, reflektioner | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

On Danish there actually are two major Wiki-based encyclopaedias:

One is Den Store Danske (lit.: The Big Danish) (DSD) and the other is – of course – The Danish Wikipedia (DaWiki).

After a discussion on intelligence last night, we – as so many times before – ended up with the DaWiki article on the matter. Unfortunately – being slightly drunk and all – we didn’t find our answer there and moved on to DSD where the answer was clear and useful – and ultimately solved our debate (or at least, changed the direction of our debate).

Now here the first paragraph from DSD (my translation) on the subject of intelligence:

intelligence, (from lat. intelligent ‘insight’; the ability to perceive, comprehend, understand), expression of potential of or competence to ie solving problems, thinking and acquire new knowledge.

And here’s the first paragraph from DaWiki (again – my translation) on the subject of intelligence:

The world intelligence derives from the latin verb intelligere, which means “to comprehend”. There isn’t an agreement on, what the term intelligence implies. The common meanings are the ability to learn or the ability to solve new tasks, without any previous knowledge regarding the procedure. Intelligence is tied to the processes in the cerebral cortex. It might have something to do with the capacity of the brains neocortex, ie. how many neural process it is able to handle simultaneously while solving a task. In recent years it have become common to use the term, to describe the total sums of characters and skills; as a result of this, the term are watered down to a level, where it doesn’t relate much to the intellect.

Now for the DSD translation I had to do two dictionary lookups. For the DaWiki I had to do 12 – and I had to use the English Wikipedia to translate some Danish technical terms to their English counterparts.

Now. One of my accomplices in drinking yesterday is a teacher. Teaches 10-15 years old and they uses the internet. And they use the Wikipedia, because my friend is one of the younger and more rebellious teachers. Now while his older collegus don’t use Wikipedia their main argument is, that it isn’t a realiable source. The MediaWiki system (which runs all the wikipedias) has a function called Flagged Revisions, which is used to mark the content as releable. DSD already uses this function, and on DaWiki the discussion about introducing this function is already ongoing. But for my rebeloius teacher friend relaiablity isn’t the issue with DaWiki. It just makes DaWiki another platform which helps the pupils of the basic concept of source evaluation, which is to be developed as a basic skill in a modern world with a gazillion of sources.

His problem with DaWiki is that it is to correct for his young pupils. It’s a lack of ‘unassumingness’. The articles are mainly written by dedicated knowledgeable people, which of course tries to write it for an unassuming people. On DaWiki we actually have a template to be put on articles which contains expert-written texts, but that only takes us that far, because we’ll always value correctness above anything else. And at large that’s at a cost of unassumingness. And to be fair – this isn’t only relevant to the Danish Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia is also struck by this, though at a lesser degree, because of it’s more outspread base of editors.

At one point we – at least on the Danish Wikipedia – might have to begin reasserting at what direction the Danish Wikipedia is to take. A Wikipedia where unassumingness is allowed for or where every single sentence, has to be 100% correct, verifiable and unambiguous….

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Twitter and Danish copyright

03 16

Udgivet af henrik under Twitter, immaterielle rettigheder | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

It was actually this tweet by @kim_bach which spawned the first thought to this post. It translates to:

Just noticed that@shevy has a copy of my tweets on his blog http://bit.ly/czOjsG, this is a violation of my copyright

And later it is continued with:

@Illuminall well in Denmark Danish law applies, no matter stupid and illegal/non-valid TOS, yes it is crazy http://bit.ly/czOjsG

This provides several interesting topics for me to comment on :)

Validity of TOS

This is by far the simplest. A TOS (Terms of service), or parts thereof, might not be valid and/or legal in Denmark. As always when there is a contractual relationship across borders, where the law differs strongly, it is disputed whereas it is the legal standing in the country of the contract provider (here USA, home-country of Twitter) or the contract acceptor (here Denmark, home-country of the user @Kim_bach), which has the final validity. The TOS of Twitter clearly states that it is USA, but what if the TOS doesn’t hold water in Denmark?

The Danish Law on Contractual Relationships (danish: Aftaleloven) §38b requires that any binding contractual deal (like a TOS) is the result of individual negotiations. With exceptions of TOS’ that are simply quotations of current legislations, to my knowledge no court decision in Denmark, has yet ruled in favor of a TOS being a valid contract (either on web-pages nor in programs), and thus the legal implications herein are not withstanding in Denmark. But for the sake of the rest of this post – let’s say they are :)

Are tweets protected by Danish copyright?

Unlike the common definition of copyright (which is based on English tradition), the Danish copyright is based on the French tradition of authors right (droit d’auteur). As a result of this, emphasis on Danish copyright is on the creators “ideal rights” to the created work (droit moral) as opposed to the UK copyright tradition, which allowed for a complete transfer of the creators rights, to the rights for unlimited copy and distribution (copyright).

The two major implications of this, is that the creator of work in Denmark always hold the ideal right (moral rights) of the work (a Danish derivative of the droit de retrait et de repentir) and thus the creator can only transfer the right to copy the work and distribute these within limits, but also that the creator can’t renounce the right to be attributed (the droit à la paternité) under any circumstances (actually it has been debated, wither this makes it legal for works created in Denmark or by Danish citizens, to be released under Creative Commons, but that’ll remain unclear until a court-decision has been made).

So far it would seem that the distinguished user @Kim_bach is actually correct. But! There is a very central definition to be debated.

What constitutes a work?

Now in order for tweets to be protected, they have to constitute as works. The base of what constitutes a work is pretty wide. The legal precedences for this is, that the two criteria has to be fulfilled:

  • The creator of the work, must have created the work by own (independent) effort, and
  • the work must be an expression of original thoughts.

There is no further specific rule for this, but there has been several court decisions that gives a guideline. In general editorial works (which tweets is most likely to be considered as) are protected by Danish copyright. But there has also been cases, which deem that notes and notices are not, because it is not possible to express original and independent thoughts in such short forms (cases 1976-700 U, 1976-552 H and 1974-1019 H). Unfortunately the court-decisions for this is rather old (1970’s), but as far as I have been able to research, there has not been newer court-decisions changing this, so these are most likely to stand.

So my short answer would be: In my opinion tweets are not protected by the Danish copyright act. Sorry Kim :(

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Free license based business model? No way. But that’s okay..

02 27

Udgivet af henrik under Forsvaret, IT, immaterielle rettigheder, medier, reflektioner, sociale medier | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

After my advocacy-like posting yesterday about Creative Commons (CC), I’ve received a mail which included the following question (my translation) from a Danish journalist student:

Your comments about the problems with Creative Commons does hold some merit, but I think that you are missing the main problem with Creative Commons licenses: That it isn’t possible to create a business model revolving around Creative Commons (or Public Domain and other similar free licenses for that matter).

She is right. At least from my point of view there is no solid business model, that can be made from using CC exclusively. But I don’t think there has to be anyway.

Talking about content and content propagation, one has to take a look at the three pillars of content: Content providers, content hosts and content consumers

The main argument for content providers to release content, under a free license is that it will most likely provide more exposure. The main draw is that the provider looses control of the content. For a happy amateur-photographer like me, the later isn’t really an issue: My photos are most likely never going to produce any income to me anyway.

For content hosts free licensing may work both way. In a world of advertising based hosting providers, the prospect of increased exposure for free media may be beneficial. But on the other hand I don’t see a long and happy future for on-line advertising (at least not as we know it now). It’ll probably turn out to be micro-payments presenting content or term-payments for hosting content. For the latter Flickr has surely shown, that it is possible.

The content consumers gain the most of free content. For students, Wikipedia, schools and others the increased availability of free content, will most likely bring them a larger source-base. And a larger source-base will most likely provide them with more possibilities to find the right content – or find better substitutes for content as of now.

Free government media may be beneficial for content providers as well

But that said, I do see some situations where CC may be beneficial to content providers as well, like the future of the mail-writer. Danish governmental agencies produces quite a lot of material in the form of photographs and texts. Three obvious examples could be:

For the latter portions of the material are already free; certain texts like laws can’t achieve copyright status in any form. But other media on Folketingets homepage are released under a license, that’s not unlike (but isn’t quite) CC Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike 3.0. Which doesn’t allow for commercial use. The two former doesn’t (immediate) allow for any form of commercial use of their products. But why? The production of the media is most likely already paid by Danish tax-payers (and with a company tax of 25% and a personal income tax of 59% I’d say it’s paid), and whatever minor monetary income the institutions may produce by selling must be next to nothing compared to the tax-procurement. So release the products. Make them public domain, so that the companies and people in Denmark (and outside as well for that matter) may benefit from it. And so would the journalist who wrote the mail to me. On a side note: There is a  not entitlement to domestic copyright protection for certain media made by US government institutions, which works not unlike my above suggestion.

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The problem isn’t (entirely) Creative Commons – it’s people

02 26

Udgivet af henrik under IT, Wikipedia, immaterielle rettigheder, internettet, reflektioner | 1 kommentar

I just found this old post from the This Picture Sucks blog, about the New Jersey Local News‘ supposedly correct use of a Creative Commons image from Flickr in an article. But it isn’t. And this shows to problems with Creative Commons (as seen from a Danish point of view).

Most people only reads the human-friendly version of CC-licenses

Looking at the photo now it is licensed as CC Attribution 2.0 Generic, and I’d say it is safe to assume that this hasn’t changed, because the blog post also links to this. This license clearly states that:

You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform.

If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied; the title of the Work if supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative Work (e.g., “French translation of the Work by Original Author,” or “Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author”).

While the article actually does include a link to the photo-author, NJ.com doesn’t “include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy” and doesn’t “keep intact all copyright notices for the Work”.

And here is the problem. Most people only read the very user-friendly simplified presentation of the license but not the full legal text, which is only linked to by a small discrete link in the bottom of the user-friendly version.

Now there is a reason why the full legal text contains 1763 words compared to the 267 words in the user-friendly one. And that’s because parts of the full license text is skipped. Now this may be okay when you are little Ms. Moe, who is about to license your photos on Flickr or any other photo-sharing service. Because generally the user-friendly version presents less rights than the complete license text, so Ms. Moe doesn’t experience much of a loss (given that she has actually read and understands the user-friendly version – which is a common problem with people marking their photos as Creative Commons on Flickr).

But at the other end, there us the users of the CC-marked media. These people doesn’t often read the full license. And doesn’t conform to it. I’ve seen newspaper articles having used a photo from Wikimedia Commons simply attributing it to ‘Wikipedia’, though the image source page, clearly directs the manner, to which the photo should be credited. I’ve also seen one of my own photos used in a presentation by a Danish government official (whom actually turned out be a lawyer) without any sort of credit. Confronted afterwards he stated, that he thought that media from Wikipedia was “simply free”. Wrong. He didn’t even read the user-friendly version… As it is now, users of Creative Commons media, aren’t encouraged to use the full license, neither at Flickr, at Wikimedia or at most other sites – but they should be.

Model releases

Another point is model releases. In Denmark the penal code § 264 d states (my translation):

With fine or imprisonment for up to 6 months, a person whom unfounded distributes or uses messages or images, showing a person in private settings or showing a person during circumstances, which can be demanded deprived from the public. This provision also includes messages or media which shows a dead person.

By court decision this also extends to photos of people doing model work.

So I may actually put a picture on Flickr, license it as CC Attribution 2.0 Generic (the same as above), but that doesn’t give a newspaper the rights to use it without the models consent. Confusing? Yes.

And in June 2007 this actually became very much an issue, when Australian Virgin Mobile used a CC-licensed Flickr photo in an advertising campaign.

Of course there is the ever-lasting problem with the Internet: Which national legal code applies? If I as a Dane upload a photo of a person, pictured in Denmark, but the photo is used by an News-company in USA, does the Danish penal code apply to the American News Company’s usage?

For that very reason Wikimedia Commons has, and uses, the template Personality rights:

Wikimedia Commons Personality Rights Warning

But what if my photo is used by (insert what-ever group you wouldn’t want to use your photo here)?

That is the common problem with this kind of material. Like a friend of mine told me a couple of weeks ago:

I’d really like to release my photos as Creative Commons, but what if it ended up by being used by some neo-nazi group or a anti-gay-rights group?

If the group in subject is observing the license completely, the user will be let to the human-friendly page, which clearly states:

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

And that’s a vital point here: Using your photos is free. It has nothing to do with political views or anything. It’s simply free. For everyone. Actually I’ve been told, that one of my photos at one point was used by an Anti-War group in Denmark (the same as used by the government official above). Given my occupation as a naval officer, I really don’t endorse those groups. But I do endorse the freedom of speech and the ability to use my free images.

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Danish hosted blog-providers are loosing ground?

02 18

Udgivet af henrik under blogs | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

I’ve just read a post by Jon Lund, a Danish digital media analyst: The blogosphere’s alive and kicking, in which he claims the following:

I found wordpress.com and – especially – blogspot.com to have taken over from local Danish blog-services, accounting for far the largest number of monthly blog-posts, and having more than doubled their combined audience since January 2008, from 472,000 monthly readers to nearly 900,000 in December 2009. The blogging services of established Danish media however has not been able to keep up the pace.

It is always easy to claim “I thought so”, after the figures have been released, but really. I did. And here’s why.

On the top of my head, I’ll name the five major Danish hosted blog-providers as follows:

But as there is a plethora of other blog-providers as well, I could be wrong – I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but just googling for “Opret blog” (Danish term for “create blog”) reveals a lot of possibilities. So why is the Danish blog-providers loosing ground?

Blog-commenting made easier with Google Account and OpenID

Blog-commenting made easier with Google Account and OpenID

Because wordpress.com and blogger.com (former blogspot.com) now comes in Danish and offers a lot of features and constant development. Of course the possibility to printed in a daily paper-media like on Urbanblog and the potential of being read by journalists employed by the “Danish watchdog” Ekstra Bladet does count for something. Those does weigh in. But TV2 Blog appears to be simply a blog hosted on the tv2.dk-domain, with no apparent integration to the established media-portfolio by TV2. So I’m guessing they are loosing quick.

Unless… They could have a community. While writing my treatise on social media as leadership tools, it was apparent to me that communities is everything (it really is obvious when one gives this three seconds of thought) and TV2 blog, Urbanblog etc. provides that from the beginning. A lot of people actually have the opportunity to read the new bloggers “Hello world” post. But I think there might have been a shift in how we blog.

Danish bloggers are increasingly shifting from a start blogging in an established community to a creating a community after having started blogging approach. And this is possible thanks to things like Danish blog-indexes (i.e. overskrift.dk and Danske Weblogs) and easy integration into our other social media sphere (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and last – but certainly not least – the internetwork relationships through blogs. Most of the blogs I follow today are blogs I’ve learned about through Trackbacks and blogpost-comments which includes a link to the author’s blog. And integration with and between services like OpenID and Gravatar makes everything even easier.

And that makes the Danish blog-providers increasingly superfluous, because they lack behind with features and options… For now anyway :)

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Flickr stats meet ABSALON and a thought on free licensing

02 6

Udgivet af henrik under IT, Wikipedia, fotografering, immaterielle rettigheder, internettet, reflektioner | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

As a kind of follow-up to my previous posting about Interesting referrers to Flickr-photos, I’ve noticed that sometimes my photo-stream actually is a little give-away on what happens in the world outside (apparently there is a world outside!).

Today I found an huge rise in my photos of the Danish Navy flexible support-ship ABSALON:

That’s all to much to be a coincidence. And rightly so. It turns out that the boys and girls on ABSALON has freed a ship off Somalia after a pirate attack. But it doesn’t end here. During the last 24 hours or so, the first photo have had an explosion in usage on the internet. I count 10 usages on blogs and similar among the first 60 hits on Google Images. That’s one out of 6. A large cause for this is of course that it is also available on Wikimedia Commons as a freely licensed picture (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic) and as such it is heavily used on various Wikipedia sites. As such it does get a lot of exposure. Which is nice because in many cases I also get exposed as a photographer. And what photographer doesn’t like that? :)

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tweet cloud – en twittersk ordsky? For kvinder?

12 5

Udgivet af henrik under IT, Twitter | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

tweet cloud

tweet cloud

Jeg er nok ikke den eneste Twitter-bruger der er blevet ramt af #TweetCloud her på det seneste. Jeg har nu selv prøvet det.

Groft sagt er det blot et system, der generer en ordsky ud fra de ord der anvendes i ens Tweets.  Den virker fortræffeligt. Næsten. Som nogle måske husker havde Google på et tidspunkt et system, der filtrerede gængse ord (common words) som f.eks. ‘the’, ‘is’, ‘am’ o.s.v. fra. Funktionen kom så vidt jeg husker aldrig til at køre på dansk og gav til tider nogle lidt sjove problemstillinger.

Men ideen med den, kunne såmænd godt blive brugt på tweet cloud systemet – også med danske ord. Jeg har lige prøvet at lave en top 10 over mest gængse ord brugt af de Twitter-brugere jeg følger:

skal, ikke, google, thanks, lige, lidt, bare, yeah, nice og iphone

Og det viser svagheden ved systemet: Ord som skal og ikke er altså ikke særligt interessante (mere overraskende er det til gengæld at yeah lander på en 8. plads og iphone på en 10. plads).

Men det er da en meget sjov lille fætter, som giver Twitter-brugere mulighed for at præsentere deres indhold på en anden måde og på sigt kunne den måske (med sprog- og nationalitets-genkendelse), bruges til at finde trending topics blandt danske Twitter-brugere – både nu men også over tid. Det kunne da være sjovt :o)

Og så var der en ting, der rent faktisk kom bag på mig – kønsfordelingen af brugerne. De par gange jeg har kigget på tweet cloud’ens seneste produkter, har der været en klar overvægt af kvinder. Jeg har tilladt mig at give hankønsvæsnerne et let grønligt skær (og virksomheden et gulligt ditto):

Fordeling

Der er 43 Twitter-brugere – af dem er 27 (svarende til 63%) kvinder. Indrømmet – min empiri er ikke imponerende. Og alligevel har jeg siddet med den opfattelse hver gang jeg har kigget på “most recent clouds”. Jeg har tidligere skrevet om statistisk herlighed og man skal passe på med at konkludere noget på så tyndt et datagrundlag som jeg har her, men det er da nærliggende at komme til den antagelse at kvinder er mere fremme i skoene end mænd, når det kommer til denne type af værktøjer (som jeg ikke lige ved hvad jeg skal kalde…).

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Flickr – eller ej? Og hvis det er ej, er det så 23hq?

09 13

Udgivet af henrik under fotografering, internettet, sociale medier | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

Jeg har brugt Flickr siden starten af april 2007, og har egentlig principielt været glad for det. Men flere ting har fået mig til at kigge efter nye græsmarker:
  • Flickrs halv-skæve brug af censur-lignende handlinger. Som f.eks. den halv-gamle men ikke desto mindre relevante sag om Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, der fik fjernet en collage af egne billeder, som blev lagt op i protest over et firmas tyveri af nogle af hendes billeder); indførelsen af begrænsninger på hvilke billeder der kan ses fra Tyskland; eller manden der fik lukket sin konto, fordi han kom med kritiske kommentarer i det Hvide Hus’ foto-stream.
  • Deres åndsvage tag-system, hvor tags er adskilt med mellemrum og ikke kommaer som i stort set resten af verden.
  • Især èn af deres meget aktive staff-personers evindelige insisteren på overdreven politisk korrekthed, grænsende til Morten Korch-lignende sødheds-kvalme.
  • Deres tunge og ikke altid lige intuitive brugerflade (efter 2½ år farer jeg stadigvæk vild en gang i mellem).
  • Man kan ikke selv vælge baggrundfarven på ens billed-side. Onexposure har sort baggrund, Fotopedia har sort baggrund, en hel del brugere bruger hacket ‘View on black‘ til at præsentere deres billeder på sort baggrund. Det er ikke tilfældigt. Mange billeder ser bare bedre ud mod en sort baggrund.

Jeg har således kigget rundt. Prøvet mig frem på 23hq, Picasaweb, Panoramio, PhotoBucket, photoSIG samt Zoomr. Ud fra let brug og et par uploads er den hurtige konklusion, at det mest brugbare alternativ til Flickr er 23hq, som jeg har leget lidt med.

23hq har en dejlig og simpel brugerflade, der er let og intuitiv at navigere rundt i. 23hq tillader mig at definere udseendet på min profil (en ting jeg virkeligt! har savnet hos Flickr!). 23hq har et fantastisk kommentarsystem, hvor der er en høj grad af sammenhæng og basis for interaktion.

Men det er heller ikke et sted uden udviklingspotentiale (okay – alle steder bør altid være åben overfor et udviklingspotentiale). Jeg savner lidt mere geotagging integration (man kan se hvor et billede er taget, men ikke se hvilke billeder der er taget et givent sted), og 23hq har samme tossede tilgang til tags som Flickr. Men det er småting.

Mine to største problemer med 23hq er dels, at jeg ikke kan bruge den normale flash-baserede uploader fra Mac OS X (den virker tilgengæld fint fra Windows 7), og dels at der ikke er så mange brugere, så specialist-grupperne er sjældnere og mindre.

Spørgsmålet er så om de to ting bliver opvejet af at komme væk fra Flickr… Jeg har endnu ikke besluttet mig og er endnu ikke færdig med at lege.

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Min første #cphTwestival

09 11

Udgivet af henrik under happenings, mennesker, sociale medier | 3 kommentarer

The Storm playing

The Storm spiller med tweets i baggrunden

Jeg havde i går fornøjelsen af at deltage i min første #cphTwestival. Hvis det er et sort ord for dig, er her forklaringen:

En Twestival er en Twitter Festival. Hvis du nu tænker Roskilde 2007, når du hører ordet festival, bliver du nok slemt skuffet. Der var ikke 75.000 våde, fulde mennesker der væltede rundt i en stank af øl og pis. Der var til gengæld 160 rolige mennesker, der nød en øl (eller vand) i et godt og interessant selskab.

Hvordan ideen helt præcis opstod ved jeg ikke, men konceptet er som følger: Med baggrund i Twitter-tjenesten, er der et par frivillige, der stabler et arrangement på benene. De reklamerer så for det på Twitter og nogle mennesker deltager. Der er ikke noget egentlig tema, men der bliver blot skabt et grundlag for at Twitter-brugere i et lokalt område kan mødes. Samtidigt bliver det krydret med lidt events, som i dette tilfælde var:

  • Forfatteren til bogen The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Mike Michalowicz, gav et brief om motivation og entrepreneurship (dansk ord?) generelt.
  • Nikolaj Nyholm, der er CEO på web-tjenesten Polar Rose, gav et brief om hvordan evolutionen er for internet-virksomheder og forretningsmodeller.
  • Bandet The Storm fyrede den af med tre numre. Yeay!
  • Og så var der et lotteri, hvor der kunne vindes alskens ting og sager (fra et James Bond DVD-sæt, til Pokens og de obligatoriske t-shirts).

Ud over dette blev der løbende vist tweets om #cphTwestival på en stormskærm (festligt præsenteret via visibletweets.com og udmærket middel til at starte samtaler), serveret noget ganske lækkert kage (nom-nom-nom – hvor kommer det udtryk egentlig fra?!??) og løbende langet kolde øl og vand over baren. Alt sammen med til at skabe en god og hyggelig stemning og for mit vedkommende gav det også en håndfuld ret interessante diskussioner med nogle spændende mennesker jeg aldrig havde mødt.

En anden – og måske ikke helt uvæsentlig ting – er, at arrangementerne har et godgørende formål. I dette tilfælde er det Børnecancer Fonden der var de glade modtagere af et større beløb. Så samtidigt med at man hygger sig, støtter man faktisk en god sag :)

Jeg tør såmænd godt sige, at dette her ikke var min sidste Twestival. Vel mødt og tak til @solberg og @marks for et godt arrangement, som der i øvrigt efterhånden findes findes over 100 billeder af på Flickr :).

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I dag er det Commons fødselsdag… hurra hurra hurra :o)

09 7

Udgivet af henrik under Wikipedia, fotografering, kommunikation, medier | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

Søgning på 'volkswagen' i Commons-arkivet via Mayflower-søgemaskinen

Søgning på 'volkswagen' i Commons-arkivet via Mayflower-søgemaskinen

I virkeligheden synes jeg lidt det er noget pjat at fejre teknologier. Jeg har f.eks. aldrig rigtigt dyrket det der med at fejre dyrenes fødselsdag, da det var aktuelt, og har slet ikke gjort noget særligt ud af bilens første år. Når jeg nu alligevel bruger 20 minutter på at forfatte et blogindlæg omkring en teknologisk fødselar, er det fordi jeg rent faktisk synes at det er en fødselar, der har været med til at gøre en forskel. Det drejer sig nemlig om ingen ringere end:

Wikimedia Commons, der fylder fem år.

Hvis du ikke ved hvad Wikimedia Commons (COM) er, så er den ultrakorte beskrivelse her: COM er en åben mediedelingstjeneste, hvor alle kan lægge mediefiler (video, lydfiler m.m. men især billeder) op. Der er dog et krav: Mediefilerne skal være frie. Det vil sige at alle må bruge dem til alt. Oprindeligt var det med henblik på anvendelse på Wikipedia, hvor Commons gav en fælles fil-base der kunne anvendes på alle Wikimedia projekter (dansk Wikipedia, engelsk Wikipedia, Wikiquotes, Wikibooks o.s.v.), men med tiden har det udviklet sig til et frit medie-arkiv, der også bliver brugt uden for Wikimedias paraply, typisk på blogs og små online-medier. Selvfølgeligt har dette givet lidt små-skurren i hjørnerne hos de fotografer der lever af at fotografere, hvilket måske også er grunden til at de store medier (endnu?) ikke har anvendt billeder fra COM i større grad. Det hører så også med til historien at kvaliteten af billederne er stærkt svingende, men de billeder der har modtaget klassifikationerne fremragende billede, quality image og/eller valued image er faktisk af ganske høj kvalitet.

I forbindelse med fødselsdagen har Wikimedia Danmark udsendt følgende pressemeddelse:

Den frie mediedatabase Wikimedia Commons, der bl.a. leverer illustrationer til Wikipedia, fylder den 7. september 5 år. Samtidig med, at det skarpe hjørne rundes, runder databasen 5 millioner filer – alle til fri afbenyttelse. Fil nummer 5.000.000 er således forsiden af Kjøbenhavnsposten fra 28. november 1838, indscannet af brugeren Saddhiyama.

Wikimedia Commons blev startet den 7. september 2004 med det formål at samle illustrationer, lyde og andre multimediefiler ét sted for Wikimedia Foundations mange forskellige projekter på varierende sprog. Ved at opbevare filerne i et centralt arkiv opnås en mere smidig og pålidelig struktur. Den frie mediedatabase blev en succes og nåede allerede 24. maj 2005 100.000 frie filer. I forbindelse med, at man fejrede fil nr. 1.000.000 den 30. november 2006, skabte brugere i fælleskab en mosaik bestående af 1.200 forskellige billeder.

Ligesom Wikipedia-projekterne er Wikimedia Commons en wiki, som alle og enhver frit kan redigere. I forlængelse af Wikimedia Foundations ånd om fri information, er det et krav at filerne skal være udgivet under en fri licens – alternativt helt uden ophavsret. Wikimedias bestyrelse besluttede i juni 2009 at konvertere databasen til Creative Commons-licenser. Dermed er det blevet lettere for undervisere, kunstnere og netbrugere i almindelighed at udveksle og genbruge viden, kultur og filer lovligt.

Udover de almindelige brugere, har også etablerede fotoarkiver doneret værker til projektet: I december 2008 offentliggjorde det tyske nationalarkiv (Das Bundesarchiv), at de ville donere 100.000 billeder. Ved udgangen af marts 2009 meddelte Deutsche Fotothek, der er en del af Sachsens statsbibliotek, at de donerede intet mindre end 250.000 billeder.

Mange brugere går op i projektet med liv og sjæl for at kunne skabe flotte og særdeles professionelle billeder. For at hylde disse værker, er der projekter dedikerede til hhv. kvalitetsbilleder (høj teknisk kvalitet) og fremhævede billeder (de fineste værker). Sidst men ikke mindst er der et projekt, der fokuserer på værdien af anvendeligheden.

Du kan læse mere om Wikimedia Commons her (engelsk).

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