Talk:Meetings/2013-02-25

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I propose we put all of the votes up front, I would like the Wikilivres vote to go first, followed by banking and then mailing address. I think Wikilivres will have some discussion. The banking discussion will lead nicely into the mailing address subject as bank/financial communication is probably our main source of mail.Alan.ca 21:41, 28 January 2013 (EST)

  • The banking, server and charitable status discussions should all come before the Wikilivres discussion because affect inform our ability to host Wikilivres. Eclecticology 06:10, 29 January 2013 (EST)
    • Yes agree with Ray as the Wikilivre stuff will probably take the longest. Doc James (talk) 05:36, 22 February 2013 (EST)

Server usage[edit]

Since the claim has been made that hosting Wikilivres has put too much stress on our server, no meaningful decision about this aspect of Wikilivres hosting can be made without this information.

  1. How much are we paying monthly for our server?
  2. Does the service provider have lower rates if services are purchased on a quarterly or annual basis?
  3. What capacity are we getting for our money?
  4. If additional capacity is needed what would it cost?
  5. How does this compare with other services available on the market?
  6. What other websites are we hosting on that server?
  7. What part of the server's capacity is used for this website? -for Wikilivres? - for any other site?

Eclecticology 06:01, 29 January 2013 (EST)

Charity status[edit]

We have heard nothing about this for a long time. If the government has made no reply to our application it should not be a problem for Jit to simply say so. If there are problems with the application we should be informed. Knowing how this is going is essential for our future planning. Eclecticology 04:05, 31 January 2013 (EST)

It would also help to know the status of our continuance under the new act, and whether we are up to date in our filings with Industry Canada. Eclecticology 07:43, 6 February 2013 (EST)

Wikilivres[edit]

Wikilivres was started by Yann Forget. It's primary purpose at that time was to accept material which could not be accepted in Wikisource because that project must follow U.S. copyright law. Since then Wikilivres has also hosted some media files that could no longer be accepted by Wikimedia Commons.

Although Wikilivres also functions as the public name for the French language version of Wikibooks, that project's official domain name remains fr.wikibooks.org. The editorial policies of the two projects are so sufficiently different that in nearly seven years I know of no editorial conflicts that have arisen between them. Shortly after the Wikilivres database was transferred from wikilivres.info to Wikilivres.ca I realized that the .org and .net domains were not owned by anyone, and I immediately acquired both of those domains.

As agreed with Wikimedia Canada, Wikilivres no longer permits the addition of material with non-commercial or no-derivative licences. The remaining files that are so designated, are gradually being deleted or having their licence changed. 268 247 remaining files have been thus categorized, but others likely remain unidentified. As a by-product of this acivity, one previously very active contributor has transferred his Russian language NC material to a new site at wikilivres.ru. I foresee no name-conflict problems with this new site.

A Canadian site is the best option for the continued hosting of Wikilivres because of Canadian copyright law. Three factors in Canadian copyrght law are most significant for this: the shorter (life plus 50 years) term of Canadian copyrights, the rule of the shorter term for international copyrights, and a very liberal interpretation of fair dealing in Canada. In the short term there are no plans to directly invoke fair dealing, but it remains a backup rationale in some cases where the law is otherwise uncertain. There are a few countries with a shorter term, but one cannot be sure that they will provide adequate and secure high-speed internet access. All steps need to be taken to avoid coming within U.S. rules.

Alan provided a report showing that Canadian users of Wikilivres were not in the top five countries in the world. That's true enough. Canada was 6th, and with traffic only marginally less than from the 4th and 5th place countries.

The question has been raised about whether the Wikilivres site should be owned by Wikimedia. Eventually, yes. However, I don't think that the time has yet arrived for that. It would not be to the benefit of wiklivres for a person of my age to be the sole owner indefinitely; it would be important to have wider ownership so that someone else could take command if I am no longer able to do so. I think that an important condition on the Wikimedia Canada side is that the organization have reached a degree of stability. It would be of no benefit if the WM-CA organization were to collapse, and I have my doubts about its viability. I think too that the present ownership provides considerably more legal flexibility in copyright matters. It is important to maintain a copyright policy that is courageously aggressive without being reckless. This involves a certain degree of risk, and an ability to evaluate how much risk is acceptable. Eleven yeas of association with Wikimedia projects has taught me that groups tend to be risk-averse in the extreme, and prone to interpret laws to the group's disadvantage. In the present situation WM-CA's relationship to Wikilivres is as a bare ISP. This makes WM-CA much less vulnerable to legal action.

In the absence of a full report on server usage I am unable to make any informed comments about how much pressure Wikilivres has been putting on the WM-CA server.

There is no doubt that there should be some clarification of the financial arrangements for the maintenance of Wikilivres, but this must be an orderly process and not a knee-jerk reaction to a single person's objections. Once Wiki Canada's charitable status is clarified there would be no problem with running a banner on the Wikilivres site explaining that donations to WM-CA would benefit Wikilivres. Other arrangements are possible, and they must be worked out with the entire group of directors, not just one person working on his own.

I think that the present association between Wikilivres and WM-CA should be continued, but without the choking that has been applied to the site. An understanding needs to be reached on financial arrangements based on a factual background. No transfer of ownership of wikilivres.ca should take place at this time. The relationship between the two parties should be reviewed annually. Eclecticology (talk) 04:14, 22 February 2013 (EST)