Why the Wikimedia Foundation Has Not Signed on To the Contract for the Web (wikimediafoundation.org) 19
In November 2019, Tim Berners-Lee and the Web Foundation launched the Contract for the Web, a set of rules designed to address the challenges facing digital communication and participation -- from threats to online privacy and security to connectivity and digital inclusion. The multi-stakeholder effort outlines nine principles for governments, companies and citizens designed to safeguard the future of the Web. The Wikimedia Foundation has not yet signed on to the Contract and it has offered an explanation. From a blog post: The Wikimedia Foundation participated in the Core Group and the Working Group on Principle 6, "Developing technologies that support the best in humanity and challenge the worst," which aims to support positive technology that puts people first. The Contract aligns with our goal to foster a web where everyone can find and access knowledge freely. We deeply support the principles of the Contract for the Web. At Wikimedia, we are committed to fostering a digital information sphere that is accessible for everyone, that offers strong privacy protections, that supports free expression and open collaboration, and safeguards the web from bad actors that seek to monopolize and use it for harm. All of these principles align closely with the commitments underlined in the Contract for the Web.
We chose not to sign the Contract at this time because we still have open questions about how the Contract will be implemented to maximize its impact. In particular, we are exploring how each signatory will be held accountable to these commitments. We are especially interested in seeing concrete steps towards enforcement mechanisms that ensure big technology companies that endorse the Contract will change their attitudes and current practices that violate the principles in the Contract. The world's biggest challenges, from the global climate crisis to disinformation online, can only be solved if we work together and ensure that everyone is doing their part. Active reporting, transparency, and clear indicators for progress are critical to ensuring the implementation of the Contract for the Web. However, it will take clear, direct, and enforceable systems to ensure we're all contributing to a better internet for everyone.
We chose not to sign the Contract at this time because we still have open questions about how the Contract will be implemented to maximize its impact. In particular, we are exploring how each signatory will be held accountable to these commitments. We are especially interested in seeing concrete steps towards enforcement mechanisms that ensure big technology companies that endorse the Contract will change their attitudes and current practices that violate the principles in the Contract. The world's biggest challenges, from the global climate crisis to disinformation online, can only be solved if we work together and ensure that everyone is doing their part. Active reporting, transparency, and clear indicators for progress are critical to ensuring the implementation of the Contract for the Web. However, it will take clear, direct, and enforceable systems to ensure we're all contributing to a better internet for everyone.
TL;DR (Score:1)
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem." - Douglas Adams
TL;DR: We don't want to be slacktivists. (Score:5, Informative)
We don't want to make an empty gesture, to look like we're doing something, while not having to do anything.
We want to actually DO something!
That seems to be the gist of their reason.
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I support that.
Slacktivism is like false security: It demotivates people from doing something, "because something already has been done, so I don't need to, anymore", except with slacktivism, there hasn't. So overall, less has been done. Except for damage.
Re: (Score:3)
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Exactly. TBL, the W3C, and everything that comes out of it is entirely toothless.
Re: TL;DR: We don't want to be slacktivists. (Score:2)
The W3C is not only toothless, its entirely irrelevant because it took far too long to approve anything useful so all the major vendors just moved to WHATWG.
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There's a few whiffs of that as Principle 4 ("Make the internet affordable and accessible to everyone") has a sub-item related to systemati
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Respecting privacy and building trust is impossible with 4chan like sites. You can't effectively stop people posting personal information or organising attacks, and you can't build trust when everyone is anonymous and you have no control.
Tim Bernes-Lee (Score:2)
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Nope. You've got it wrong, like many Slashdotters. There's a huge difference between supporting a thing and trying to make the best of a thing you're stuck with. Simple absolutes are for children. Adults deal with the messy world we find ourselves in.
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Making the best of a thing or you'll lose your position as a figurehead. Doe TBL do any science anymore? At one point he was a CERN physicist.
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Only a Sith deals in absolutes. If both you and Obi-wan are right, that means children must be Sith.
Hot air... (Score:2)
Looks like Tim Berners-Lee's job is actually producing a lot of hot air. He's a distraction from issues on the WWW that matter & he's encouraging people to make empty gestures instead of actually doing something effective about them.
I'm glad the Wikimedia Foundation are (very politely) calling him out on his bullshit.
Mozilla agrees (Score:5, Informative)
Mozilla has taken essentially the same position. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/... [mozilla.org]
universe doesn't revolve around Tim Berners-Lee (Score:2)
Who cares? The Universe doesn't revolve around Tim Berners-Lee or the Web Foundation. Just because they have some document doesn't make it worthwhile. Tell them to get over themselves.
Why fo full CoC? (Score:1)
[Citation Needed] (Score:3)
What about the rest of it (Score:3)
What about the rest of it? Or do we now call it all the "web" because 99.9% of people think it's all about their web browser?
Too lazy to bother looking it up, but wasn't Tim responsible for blink and marquee?.
I mean if he is going to take credit for "inventing" a web base mark up language based on all the other markup languages that already existed, should he not take responsibility for that as well?