PLANET P2P » P2P Foundation » May 13, 2008

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• 

  Links for 2008-05-13 [del.icio.us]

  Posted: May 13th, 2008, 10:00pm PDT

  • Changing the change
    changing the world through design conference in Torino, with Ezio Manzini
  • Designing connected places
    italy summer school with ezio manzini
  • Kunnafoni Mali
    open source kiosk to knowledge and free software in bamako, mali
  • Ubuntu Mali Team
  • Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights
    discusses the issues in intellectual property protection for traditional knowledge. After discussing the defintional issues in traditional knowledge, it examines the current global debates on this issue.
  • Shine Unconference for social entrepreneurship and social change - London
    This year is the first ever SHINE, a new kind of event that offers a truly entrepreneurial environment to connect, inform and inspire people interested in social change.
  • National Strategy to secure cyberspace
    part of our overall effort to protect the Nation. It is an implementing component of the National Strategy for Homeland Security and is complemented by a National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets.
  • DoD must prepare to fight the net as weapons system
    DoD's "Defense in Depth" strategy should operate on the premise that the Department will "fight the net" as it would a weapons system."
  • Replacing territorial sovereignty by functional sovereignty
    Participation and social control suggest a functional rather than a territorial interpretation of sovereignty, or jurisdiction over determined uses rather than geographical space. Conceptually, this interpretation will make possible the progressive intern
  • The undeciders: More decision-makers bring less efficiency
    a study relating (in a loose way) the efficiency of a national government with the size of its cabinet. Researchers in Vienna found that the development level of countries, as a proxy for the efficiency of their governments, is in general lower for count
  • The Dot-Root consortium
    an Internet Global Community test bed for the DNS root system evolution
  • Google corporate structure
  • Harry Halpin bio
  • Manufactured Scarcity - The Profits of Deindustrialisation
    'Green capitalism': a new paradigm of sustainable production or a license to shut down plants and print money? James Heartfield looks at the case of influential pioneer in increasing profits by cutting output, Enron

  
• 

  Wikimedia Foundation board refuses community participation

  Posted: May 13th, 2008, 7:19am PDT by Michel Bauwens

  Wikipedia is definitely showing itself to be a good example of what happens when peer governance goes wrong.

  To quickly recall my vision of peer governance: the commons-oriented peer production format combines the self-aggregation of effort by self-governing communities, and a for-benefit institution which should preserve and develop the infrastructure of cooperation.

  In the community, after the deletionist reforms and the requirement of notability, the editors are dominating the process, to the detriment of the more expert contributors of articles, and growth has stopped; on the side of the Foundation, it now transpires that the Board wishes to diminish the influence of the community and its voting rights.

  Legal councel Brad Patrick is quite sanguine and cynical about it:

  “Within the spirit of civil discourse, to those who are feeling frustrated and demanding action, I submit - “so what are you going to do about it?” I suggest you be pragmatic. You do not have any means of grabbing the reins of power from the Board, and you don’t have any entitlement to anything except your ability to participate in a project, if you choose, a chapter, if you choose, or to speak up in some forum. You don’t have a “right” to vote on anything, and the Board could just as easily have a contest than an election to fill Board seats.”

  A counter-petition of community volunteers has been launched:

  “We, volunteers, ask the Board to give the volunteer community a fair voice in Foundation governance. During its most recent meeting, the Board of Trustees not only rejected a proposal to improve community input in Foundation matters, but implemented an unexpected restructuring to reduce the community seats on the board. The community was not consulted about this reduction in representation and the board provided no explanation for this change.

  That is not a good way to treat people who donate their time and labor. The volunteer base made this the seventh most popular website in the world. We expect courtesy and respect, but received neither. That hurts morale.

  Please provide a full explanation for recent board decisions and reconsider your top-down approach.”

  That things can be better, i.e. that peer governance can guarantee excellence, while the institutional side is governed democratically, is shown in this study of the Debian community.