(NB: or you could just watch this Clay Shirky video)

I wrote this for a science librarians mailing list, and in lieu of having time to write another post (today is a big day for us at Wikimedia) reproduce it here.

—-

I’m a science librarian at UC Davis and sit on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia.

In a nutshell: it’s far easier to stop bills from being passed than it is to overturn them once they have been passed. Wikimedia stands with much of the rest of the internet community in being concerned that these bills, as written, don’t just threaten individual sites but indeed threaten the whole structure of the open Internet. SOPA/PIPA have provisions that would overturn  the DMCA “safe harbor”, by requiring not just sites to take down links to infringing content on request and without review, but also ISPs to block access through DNS hacks and payment networks to stop payment to targeted sites. This is a kind of blacklisting that to date has only been seen in repressive regimes. The target of the legislation is “foreign infringing websites”, but the entire internet’s architecture would be affected.[1]

So no, it’s not just our business model that Wikimedia is concerned about. We are concerned about the entire network that we all rely on to freely and openly access information. And while Wikipedia *articles* hold to a principle of neutrality, Wikipedia *the project* is political: our mission and belief is that that everyone on earth should have access to good information, and that is a position that is under constant threat from censorious actions around the world. Wikimedia is in a unique position in that we aren’t dependent on ad revenue or commercial interests, and don’t have ties to big media (like most news outlets do) or shareholders (like most big information companies); we are only dependent on the goodwill of our community, and that community has spoken quite loudly and clearly that they want to protest these bills.[2]

Day in and day out, we take the internet for granted — that the network is there as a public and common good, and will always be accessible. But in fact, the open internet as we know it is dependent wholly on the legislation regulating it, and the U.S. has been a leader in this way in the last couple of decades, with laws that have enabled the innovation of Silicon Valley and the most vibrant information-based economy in the world. Bills like this threaten that openness. We don’t take a protest lightly — it is a big decision, and there are many questions about timing and so on — but we are willing to stand up for our beliefs and what Wikimedia stands for.

The American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries have both spoken out against SOPA/PIPA, as the bills would also affect library and university networks and would serve to greatly expand copyright infringement penalties [3]. However, most major publishers have signed on as being in favor of the bills[4]. So while the next couple of days are indeed a chance for libraries to shine as places to get information even when major websites are offline — be aware that as institutions our services are also threatened by these bills.

– Phoebe Ayers

1. see for instance: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-web-and-wikipedia/, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech, http://www.cdt.org/paper/sopa-summary, http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57344028-281/vint-cerf-sopa-means-unprecedented-censorship-of-the-web/
2. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/
3. http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/archives/4574, http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/bm~doc/lca-sopa-8nov11.pdf
4. http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rogue%20Websites/List%20of%20SOPA%20Supporters.pdf

Tuesday. In the past four days I have discovered something about what it is like to be a part of a community in sudden crisis, to have your campus put squarely and nearly instantaneously on the map of vast public consciousness,  and to have that crisis turned into 24/7 news, a wickedly funny recursive internet meme and a symbol of vast outrage right before your eyes.

It means that you look to other people in that community for comfort, and talking, and an uncertain but very real need to come together.

General Assembly, 11/21/11, UC Davis Quad. Credit Jonathan Eisen, cc-by.

More pictures from Dr. Eisen here

And it means that you find yourself in the unenviable state of having your campus be the centerpiece of the facebook updates and twitterstreams of friends and the discussion topic of strangers’ cocktail parties, and of hard discussions in every department and email list and water-coolered hallway, for an event that you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Working for a university is a different kind of thing than attending one. I do not feel the same kind of alma mater loyalty that makes people nostalgic, or wear collegiate sweatshirts. Instead I realize — perhaps slightly queasily at times — that I do support this school, and have certainly affiliated myself with its success and prosperity, because I have put my labor and my best efforts (and perhaps my best years) into making it so. I have always believed that it matters where you work; that, given the privilege of choice (and it is a privilege, a deep one, to be able to choose) one’s labor shouldn’t go to something you don’t truly believe in.

The nature of protest is that you care enough to act — that you believe that some part of the system you take part in can be made better. There have been dozens of commentaries the last couple of days on police brutality in America and on college campuses; there have been eloquent essays about the nature of protest. Many pieces of advice have been given to our suddenly-embattled chancellor; many eloquent letters from our faculty have been published online, some calling for resignation but many calling for support and strength. A piece that has stayed with me is one by Cathy Davidson, pointing out that really student protestors are on the side of everything university leaders should be on the side of; that these students are the best allies for going to a state legislator and an unwilling populace to ask for support. The students, in other words, care enough about the system they are in to act.

At UCD last night, some enterprising students built a 30-foot steel-framed geodesic dome to stand where the razed tents had stood (and where they reappeared last night). Whose education does this help? All of ours, we can hope.

Geodesic Dome, UC Davis quad. Credit Jonathan Eisen, cc-by.

tents on the UC Davis quad. Credit Jonathan Eisen, cc-by.

ETA: Katehi’s speech last night.

Today there is a hearing in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on a bill that is being called the “Stop Online Privacy Act”, or SOPA. It is the House companion to the PROTECT IP bill that came through the Senate earlier this year. Both bills are fundamentally flawed, and dangerous for all kinds of Internet platforms and networks.

The House bill is notable for who supports and who opposes it. On the supporting side — and, with one exception, the only people who are going to be allowed to testify on the bill this morning — are the MPAA, several unions with job ties in the motion picture industry, Pfizer, Mastercard, Chanel, and other organizations with a stake in current copyright (list). Opposing the bill is a growing coalition including:

• Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, eBay, Mozilla — all companies that have made a fortune thanks in large part to the Safe Harbor provisions in the DMCA, which this bill threatens to overturn (letter)
• The American Library Association and Association of Research Libraries– the largest library organizations in the US (letter)
• Creative Commons, EFF, The Free Software Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Wikimedia Foundation — free-culture and open access tech advocacy organizations
• Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, PPF — open government organizations (letter)
• Renowned law professors from across the land (letter)
• Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, US PIRG (letter)
• Human-rights organizations from around the world (letter)

This bill threatens user-generated content sites — sites like Etsy, or Flickr, whose users may post infringing material without the site’s knowledge. Although both of these sites comply with the DMCA provisions of seeking removal when such material is posted, these bills make it possible for private corporations to demand and achieve takedown by targeting site funding — search engine results and payment and ad networks.

These bills make it possible for the US. Government to censor the Internet — sending a clear message around to the world, including to dictatorships and repressive regimes, that it is actually ok to do so. The bills include far-reaching provisions that would require changes to DNS, changes that would endanger Internet security, and are so broadly written that although they target foreign file-sharing sites they could target just about any American website as well. There are also provisions about willful infringement and public performance that seek to rewrite current copyright law, putting libraries at risk (which means that this bill has the dubious distinction of endangering both my day job and my volunteer work). This set of bills, if passed, would surely have a chilling effect on one of the most vibrant sectors of our economy — and, in the case of Wikimedia, one of the largest and broadest-reaching educational projects in the world, which is why we have officially come out against the bill as well. One of the things that I have been slow to learn — and that not many people know — is that organizations like Wikimedia, or like many of the largest tech firms listed above, depend entirely for their continued safe existence on certain provisions of US copyright law. Take those away, and the Internet as we know it is at risk.

But don’t take my word for it — read that letter from law professors above. These bills must not pass.

This week marks, more or less, the sixth anniversary of my move to Davis in order to take a job in a library. Six years! I moved in mid-October and started work on November 1. My initial nervousness was quickly extinguished in a rush of things to do and to learn. That first month was all training and shadowing colleagues, frantically taking notes on our resources and how to do things. “Take advantage of this year,” my boss told me at the time, “because this is when you will learn how to do your basic job, and have the luxury to concentrate on it. Later, you will be juggling many other things.” Six years on, I certainly know what she meant. The core parts of my job — the collection development, reference, instruction — are still my favorite parts of the work, and still challenge and inspire me, but they often seem to get done now in the small spaces in between other projects.

Six years. This has been an interesting, challenging and deliberate period of my life. I have taken this time — and I feel like I have needed all of this time — to figure out how to be self-sustaining; to figure out myself. Sometimes this kind of self-inquiry is a midlife experience for people. I took my late twenties for it, instead of having a child or being hedonistic or going to grad school or I suppose any of a number of other possibilities. I do not know if I will regret this choice later on in life, or be pleased at my own deliberateness. I do not know if I am just being pretentious about something everyone goes through anyway. In the Eighties I would have been a new career woman. In the Oughties I just feel lucky to have gotten a job in the first place. Time will tell.

Space for reflection is important. I have lived in one house since I moved here. I have made it my own. I have hung pictures. I have assembled bookcases. I have learned to live with my own lack of housekeeping, which never pleases me. Before Davis, I have always had housemates or partners, roommates or parents to keep me company. Here I have lived alone, aside from a month or two here and there when a friend stayed with me, and frequent visitors. But this is my house (though I don’t own it, I have claimed it). I have spent a lot of time inside it. My genetic lineage is to be a homebody, I suppose; like my father before me, I feel comfortable when I am at home. I love to travel but do not like to move. The thought is mildly horrifying to me.

I have kept myself to myself here. A good friend only became that way because she pestered me. “You’re hard to get to know, Phoebe” she said. Since then we’ve traveled together, lived together, I went to her wedding the other month. I guess persistence pays off.

Not only am I hard to get to know but I don’t put much effort into it, either. I am not especially social. I have not dated seriously in six years (an occasional cause of angst, but not something, if I am honest with myself, that often actually worries me). I’m pleased in fact that I have managed to figure out how to take care of myself, in all of those elaborate planning-for-emergencies ways that single people do and that people with a strong social network don’t have to think about as much. I think it is fair to say that this is my personality showing through at this point rather than the hardship of moving to a brand-new place and starting from scratch; I have a number of good friends here that I love spending time with, a number of communities that intersect in pleasing ways. I am even occasionally internet-famous in a small way here; I once sat at a table of people at a cocktail party in SF and people started talking about my book. They didn’t know I had written it. I was cool with that.

I suppose it is more conventional to take a look back when you reach five years, but aside from a mention at work I didn’t pay much attention to that anniversary last year. I was busy. That’s perhaps the most notable thing about my time in Davis: I’ve done a hell of a lot. I co-wrote a book (though I am still working on that impossible goal of writing well). I have done a different big project at work every year. I have gotten to be known as someone who is pretty good at planning and facilitating events, which wasn’t true when I started. I’ve also learned how to give a talk comfortably in front of just about anyone — also not true when I started.

And then there’s Wikimedia. That first winter here, lonely and a bit bored, I volunteered to help plan a conference in Boston, threw myself into it, and haven’t looked back since. I have made many of my closest friends doing this work, and have been absorbed pretty much continuously in what I think is the most exciting project of our generation. I could not have dreamed back in 2006 that I would end up on the Board this year; but my interest in it has actually grown since then in a fairly linear way, as I became interested in community governance and what that means. This Board service is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do for Wikimedia; I am full of self-doubt and often exhausted. But I cannot imagine anything more important, either.

Over the last six years I have also learned, simultaneously and in large part because of Wikimedia, most of what I know about copyright politics, and free knowledge as a movement, and open access. They did not focus on these things when I was in library school. I hope they do now; I think these are also the core issues of our profession. I’ve thought that I wouldn’t mind becoming a full-time scholarly communications librarian, but I think I would miss science and engineering if I did that. At any rate, it is fair to say that after six years of being a professional librarian — which means that I’ve worked in libraries now for a decade! — I know how the field is shaped, and I know what I am interested in, and that is valuable as well.

But all of that aloofness aside I’ve worked hard since moving here to keep up with my friends, who are neatly divided between the northwest, the east coast, my hometown and the rest of the world (which is problematic for deciding where to go on long weekends). I rely a lot on those friendships; I am grateful to them. My best friends would say that the above about being self-reliant is all rot and that in fact I need them for validation and shoulders to cry on all the time, as if I were homesick, which perhaps I am. It is unclear where I would call truly home at this point. I sometimes feel like I am a tiny pioneer; a pioneer with IM and facebook. What is this land of aged hippies and college students that I have found myself in? Are they savage, or kind? Shall I investigate, and report back?

I like to practice having a detached eye, it seems. I wanted to go to every continent before I was 30. I came close. I am missing Australia and Antarctica. I could really care less about Antarctica so basically it’s just Australia. Also sub-saharan Africa, to be fair. And also I have never been to either India or China, which are practically continents; at any rate my list won’t be complete without them. And I haven’t really spent enough time in South America, and hardly any at all in Latin America. Suffice it to say I still have a lot of places to go. But I have flown a lot in the last six years; for quite a bit of the time I’ve lived here I’ve averaged a trip a month somewhere. I know it makes me kind of an asshole considering all the poverty and climate change and inequitable resource distribution in the world, but I really love to fly. I don’t think that was true before I moved here. Now there’s something about the takeoff of a plane that thrills me every time.

Which means I suppose that the last six years have been as much about learning how to leave as learning how to stay. I have gone places, and discovered things, that I only dimly imagined six years ago, and some things that I didn’t imagine at all — and those have been the best.

Followup: Thanks Brad, Delphine, Anthere, SebMol & Ilario for your responses. Everyone else: post yours too (I like starting a discussion on blogs, btw; it is less immediate than mailing lists but it feels more personal in a way, and gives everyone a chance to really expand and explore their own thoughts).

Anthere raises great points about what actually happens now for small chapters. I have been thinking the last few days (actually much longer than that, but I have been reminded of it recently) that I have no real idea how the current non-fundraising chapters feel about fundraising. If you’re in a smaller chapter, what do you think: would it be helpful to have base operating expenses funded with grants every year? Would it be helpful to get some other kind of guidance, or only project-based grants? What would make it more possible to do more projects in your home country (the end goal!)

Lots of people bring up controls and better controls. I think it is likely that we will all be on the same page about a few ideas (phrased here in my words, not Stu’s):
* We (everyone) have a responsibility to manage donor’s money well, legally and transparently
* Every group that handles money should be able to give assurance to every other part of the organization that it is doing so well and legally, with good documentation and reporting

In other words: we are accountable to the donors first and foremost, to each other, and to responsible stewardship of the projects. (And if we can’t agree on this, why not?)

Delphine talks about fiduciary duty. As I wrote below, here’s my layperson (non-accountant) understanding — the WMF board is not the only entity that should be worried about financial controls, but we have a specific and clear duty to do so, and to make sure that money that comes in through Foundation-run projects (i.e. project banners) is handled well. Our “duty” is corporate — to the organization and to the donors.

Part of this is a moral duty. We are a serious organization; we want to be around for a long time; we believe in information transparency; and we need to get it right. That duty remains regardless of organizational structure (i.e. whether there is a US chapter or an international audit committee or whatever), and whatever structures are set up should make sure that it is addressed.

I like ideas about increased international reporting structures. I am still trying to sort out what the best ideas would be, both philosophically and practically. Delphine is right: the WMF is totally worried; we take the fundraising seriously and want to get it right, as we all do. As for why these questions are still/again on the table — things have changed since the beginning. We’re raising 2-3x more money now than just a couple years ago; there are way more chapters; and priorities for the WMF have changed (taking on mission-based work like the global south). We’d be fools not to revisit the question of funding.

All that said, I personally think the principles of good process and good communication are very important; we shouldn’t have this conversation in a closed room. (Either the board room or WMF office or the chapters list!) I’m grateful that Stu started this blog conversation; and I will try my best to make this an open process as we go through this round of discussion.

I have to say, I’ve never been especially fond of the term “the Wikimedia movement.” Apologies to Anthere, who to the best of my knowledge coined it, but the term “movement” always seemed a little vague, and to connote a certain kind of social movement that isn’t quite right.

But maybe that vagueness is part of the power of the idea of the Wikimedia projects, contributors and groups being a movement, because the term has certainly stuck. And it’s as convenient a shorthand as any to refer to the complex ecosystem of partners, individuals, groups and organizations that make up what we call “Wikimedia” (the network that lies behind what most of the world sees simply as a set of reference websites).

There are many hard problems that come along with this complexity and decentralization. Communication is a major one — collectively we use open internet-based communication tools with more native facility and readiness than any other organization I know of, but it’s still not easy across cultures, languages and time. Determining roles is another — while this has naturally evolved over the years with a kind of “do it yourself” premise, there are real institutional questions facing particularly the Foundation, the chapters, and project groups about who should take on what; see “movement roles“, which has been working on this for some time. Another hard problem is that of how to collect and distribute resources — time, people, and money — among all of the parts of the Wikimedia movement.

The Board has recently begun again discussing this last question, and specifically the piece of it that relates to collecting money — that is, Wikimedia’s fundraising. Stu West, our excellent treasurer and vice-chair, recently started a public discussion by posting a detailed blog post with his thoughts and concerns. SebMol of the German Chapter quickly posted a thoughtful and philosophical reply.

If you are involved in chapters, fundraising, or the Wikimedia movement generally, I encourage you to read Stu’s post, and post your own thoughts and reactions as well. The WMF Board is thinking about this topic because it’s our job — part of the responsibility of the board is to be the ultimate fiduciary responsibility for the Foundation and the projects it runs. (It is not our job alone or exclusively — everyone involved in Wikimedia and fundraising should be thinking about these questions — but it is certainly our job specifically). That means worrying about the lifecycle of all donations that come in through the WMF websites (Wikipedia et al); and worrying about the financial health of the Foundation itself and our ability to keep those projects running. It also means — because we are a movement — recognizing that the Foundation doesn’t stand alone; that we need to think about the financial health of all of Wikimedia’s parts to truly understand and to be effective stewards of Wikimedia’s resources. While the Board delegates the job of running the fundraiser on a day to day basis to Foundation staff and volunteers, from approving banners to working on the various fundraising agreements, and largely delegates responsibility for chapter-collected funds to the chapters — it is our job to look at the big picture, financially, and make sure we are going in the right direction.

Stu raised four questions, all of which are serious ones:
* Is it right that 50% of rich country donations stay in those rich countries? [NB: the 50% figure is arguable, as Sebastian points out; it's more accurate to say 50% of the contributions made to chapters per the fundraising agreement, which account for the bulk of non-US donations. Regardless, the point is that a lot of money stays in the global north for various reasons]
* How do we establish solid movement-wide financial controls to protect donor funds? How do we ensure transparency of the use of those funds? [this isn't something we can shirk or put off; as I said, the Board's job description is to be responsible for finances, and we will be failing at our job to not address it across Wikimedia, painful and boring as that may be].
* Who is ultimately responsible for stewarding donors’ contributions? [A philosophical roles question, but certainly practically related above -- if we suggest certain controls, who implements them?]
* How do we address the above questions while maintaining the decentralization that has made our movement so great? [On everyone's mind; it's a Wikimedia movement, after all].

The board has been discussing these points on and off for a long time; and they are certainly not new questions for the chapters and the WMF. They are also not questions with especially easy answers. We welcome your thoughts about what you want and need to see happen, from your perspective in Wikimedia. And I personally would love to see some creative thinking about how we can make all aspects of fundraising — from collecting to reporting to distributing — easier, cleaner, more effective and more trackable everywhere, while holding ourselves to the highest ethical, legal and fiduciary standards that we can.

A new part of the WikiSym conference launched yesterday — the first ever WikiViz visualization contest. This is super cool — details below or here. If you know any great viz teams encourage them to participate!

WikiViz 2011: Visualizing the impact of Wikipedia

What is WikiViz 2011

How to participate

Important dates

Awards

The Jury

Contact