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Global Strategy and Practice of E-Governance
by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it Feb. 14, 2011

Feb. 14, 2011

Esce domani, stampato costa solo 180 euro ;-) Global Strategy and Practice of E-Governance: Examples from Around the World http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/titledetails.aspx?TitleId=46168&Details… ********************** “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” – John Gilmore

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gender gap & Wikipedia
by Andrea Cairola Feb. 14, 2011

Feb. 14, 2011

Interessante: solo il 15% dei volontari di Wikipedia sono donne. ciao A http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=… Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor ListBy NOAM COHEN<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/noam_cohen/ind…>Published: January 30, 2011 - RECOMMEND - TWITTER - SIGN IN TO E-MAIL<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=…> - PRINT<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&sq=wikipe…><http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&sq=wikipe…> - REPRINTS<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=…> - SHARE<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=…> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytim…> In 10 short years, Wikipedia<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/wikipedia/index.html?…> has accomplished some remarkable goals. More than 3.5 million articles in English? Done. More than 250 languages? Sure. Enlarge This Image<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=…> <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=…> Jim Wilson/The New York Times Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, with an assistant, James Owen. Related - Times Topic: Wikipedia<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/wikipedia/index.html> ROOM FOR DEBATE <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/02/where-are-the-women-in-wiki…> Where Are the Women in Wikipedia?<http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/02/where-are-the-women-in-wiki…> Why are there so many more men than women contributing to a "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"? But another number has proved to be an intractable obstacle for the online encyclopedia: surveys suggest that less than 15 percent of its hundreds of thousands of contributors are women. About a year ago, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia, collaborated on a study<http://www.wikipediasurvey.org/docs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf> of Wikipedia’s contributor base and discovered that it was barely 13 percent women; the average age of a contributor was in the mid-20s, according to the study by a joint center of theUnited Nations<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_…> University and Maastricht University. Sue Gardner, the executive director of the foundation, has set a goal to raise the share of female contributors to 25 percent by 2015, but she is running up against the traditions of the computer world and an obsessive fact-loving realm that is dominated by men and, some say, uncomfortable for women. Her effort is not diversity for diversity’s sake, she says. “This is about wanting to ensure that the encyclopedia is as good as it could be,” Ms. Gardner said in an interview on Thursday. “The difference between Wikipedia and other editorially created products is that Wikipedians are not professionals, they are only asked to bring what they know.” “Everyone brings their crumb of information to the table,” she said. “If they are not at the table, we don’t benefit from their crumb.” With so many subjects represented — most everything has an article on Wikipedia — the gender disparity often shows up in terms of emphasis. A topic generally restricted to teenage girls, like friendship bracelets<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_bracelet>, can seem short at four paragraphs when compared with lengthy articles on something boys might favor, like, toy soldiers or baseball cards, whose voluminous entry includes a detailed chronological history of the subject. Even the most famous fashion designers — Manolo Blahnik<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/manolo_blahnik…> or Jimmy Choo — get but a handful of paragraphs. And consider the disparity between two popular series on HBO<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/home_box_office_inc/i…>: The entry on “Sex and the City” includes only a brief summary of every episode, sometimes two or three sentences; the one on “The Sopranos” includes lengthy, detailed articles on each episode. Is a category with five Mexican feminist writers impressive, or embarrassing when compared with the 45 articles on characters in “The Simpsons”? The notion that a collaborative, written project open to all is so skewed to men may be surprising. After all, there is no male-dominated executive team favoring men over women, as there can be in the corporate world; Wikipedia is not a software project, but more a writing experiment — an “exquisite corpse,” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse> or game where each player adds to a larger work. But because of its early contributors Wikipedia shares many characteristics with the hard-driving hacker crowd, says Joseph Reagle, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. This includes an ideology that resists any efforts to impose rules or even goals like diversity, as well as a culture that may discourage women. “It is ironic,” he said, “because I like these things — freedom, openness, egalitarian ideas — but I think to some extent they are compounding and hiding problems you might find in the real world.” Adopting openness means being “open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists,” he said, “so you have to have a huge argument about whether there is the problem.” Mr. Reagle is also the author of “Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia.” Ms. Gardner, citing an example that resonates with her personally, pointed to the Wikipedia entry for one of her favorite authors, Pat Barker, which was a mere three paragraphs when she came across it. Ms. Barker is an acclaimed writer of psychologically nuanced novels, many set during World War I. She is 67 and lives in England. By contrast, Niko Bellic had an article about five times as long as Ms. Barker’s at the time. It’s a question of demographics: Mr. Bellic is a character in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV; he is 30 and a former soldier. The public is increasingly going to Wikipedia as a research source: According to a recentPew survey<http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Wikipedia.aspx>, the percentage of all American adults who use the site to look for information increased to 42 percent in May 2010, from 25 percent in February 2007. This translates to 53 percent of adults who regularly use the Internet. Jane Margolis, co-author of a book on sexism in computer science, “Unlocking the Clubhouse,” argues that Wikipedia is experiencing the same problems of the offline world, where women are less willing to assert their opinions in public. “In almost every space, who are the authorities, the politicians, writers for op-ed pages?” said Ms. Margolis, a senior researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/univ…> . According to the OpEd Project <http://www.theopedproject.org/>, an organization based in New York that monitors the gender breakdown of contributors to “public thought-leadership forums,” a participation rate of roughly 85-to-15 percent, men to women, is common — whether members of Congress, or writers on The New York Times and Washington Post Op-Ed pages. It would seem to be an irony that Wikipedia, where the amateur contributor is celebrated, is experiencing the same problem as forums that require expertise. But Catherine Orenstein, the founder and director of the OpEd Project, said many women lacked the confidence to put forth their views. “When you are a minority voice, you begin to doubt your own competencies,” she said. She said her group had persuaded women to express themselves by urging them to shift the focus “away from oneself — ‘do I know enough, am I bragging?’ — and turn the focus outward, thinking about the value of your knowledge.” Ms. Margolis said she was an advocate of recruiting women as a group to fields or forums where they are under-represented. That way, a solitary woman does not face the burden alone. Ms. Gardner said that for now she was trying to use subtle persuasion and outreach through her foundation to welcome all newcomers to Wikipedia, rather than advocate for women-specific remedies like recruitment or quotas. “Gender is a huge hot-button issue for lots of people who feel strongly about it,” she said. “I am not interested in triggering those strong feelings.” Kat Walsh, a policy analyst and longtime Wikipedia contributor who was elected to the Wikimedia board, agreed that indirect initiatives would cause less unease in the Wikipedia community than more overt efforts. But she acknowledged the hurdles: “The big problem is that the current Wikipedia community is what came about by letting things develop naturally — trying to influence it in another direction is no longer the easiest path, and requires conscious effort to change.” Sometimes, conscious effort works. After seeing the short entry on Ms. Barker, Ms. Gardner added a substantial amount of background. During the same time, Niko Bellic’s page has grown by only a few sentences.

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Perplessità utilizzo licenze Creative Commons per opere musicali
by Enrico Feb. 14, 2011

Feb. 14, 2011

Ciao a tutti. Ascoltando opere musicali su Jamendo, CCmixter e varie Netlabel, mi sono accorto di un fenomeno che mi ha creato un po' di perplessità, e volevo sentire i vostri pareri. Più di una volta mi è capitato di constatare che gli artisti rilasciano alcune delle loro opere attraverso portali come quelli che ho citato o netlabel che utilizzano creative commons, ed altre, invece, attraverso canali commerciali. In particolare, capita di trovare in CC versioni "demo" delle opere, ad esempio "radio edit" da 3 minuti (chi suona dj set sa bene che sono poco utilizzabili), oppure versioni estese, ma solo di alcune delle opere dell'artista (suppongo, ma non posso affermarlo con certezza, che i canali commerciali abbiano ritenuto di non rilasciare tali brani o versioni). Andando a visitare i siti web degli artisti in questione si trovano poi opere commerciali. Una cosa che vorrei sottolineare, riguardo agli artisti che agiscono in questo modo, è che effettivamente (almeno a mio avviso) sono tra i migliori del panorama CC. Per correttezza non faccio nomi, se qualcuno fosse interessato ad approfondire mi mandi una mail a parte. Quanto ho affermato mi porta a riflettere: premesso che ognuno è libero di fare quello che vuole con ognuno dei propri lavori, non è che CC tende a diventare esclusivamente un "trampolino di lancio" per gli artisti e che chi può, appena può, se ne va ed entra nei circuiti commerciali tradizionali? Se così fosse, penso, sarebbe un problema, perché ne andrebbe della credibilità dell'opera CC, in quanto diventerebbe a tutti gli effetti un'opera di "serie B". Il mio è un discorso generale e teorico, non voglio assolutamente dire che gli artisti che rilasciano in CC non producano opere di valore. Tuttavia, se la situazione che ho esposto diventasse la regola, cioè se i migliori artisti CC entrassero sempre nel panorama commerciale, la gente sarebbe portata a pensare che le opere suonate in eventi CC siano di scarso valore, di "serie B" appunto, mentre negli eventi con musica commerciale ci sia musica di "serie A", promossa e validata da un filtro. Quindi, anche se le CC prendessero sempre più piede, poco cambierebbe rispetto alla situazione tradizionale. A fronte di questo discorso, mi sembra utile sottolineare che uno dei pilastri di CC (almeno, da quanto ho capito, forse ho capito male...) sia proprio offrire la possibilità agli artisti emergenti di far conoscere le loro opere. Ma una volta che si sono fatti conoscere e che si sono affermati? Cosa ne pensate?

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European Patent: FSFE urges European Parliament to wait for legal advice
by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it Feb. 14, 2011

Feb. 14, 2011

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FYI: Presentazione del Rapporto sull’Innovazione nell'Italia delle Regioni
by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it Feb. 14, 2011

Feb. 14, 2011

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ricerca giuridico-sociologica sul diritto d'autore nell'era digitale
by Simone Aliprandi Feb. 13, 2011

Feb. 13, 2011

***Comunicato con preghiera di diffusione*** Oggetto: Ricerca di carattere giuridico-sociologico sul tema "Il diritto d'autore nell'era digitale: comportamenti, percezione sociale e livello di consapevolezza" Per il mio dottorato di ricerca ho realizzato un progetto mirato ad indagare alcuni aspetti di carattere sociologico inerenti al diritto d'autore nell'era digitale. Molte ricerche si sono impegnate ad indagare i comportamenti degli utenti di Internet in materia di contenuti protetti da diritto d'autore ma solo poche hanno voluto approfondire gli aspetti relativi alla percezione e al livello di consapevolezza. Quello che vorrei indagare è quindi non tanto come/quanto la gente acquisisce contenuti coperti da diritto d'autore, ma come in generale percepisce il problema "diritto d'autore" e qual è il livello di consapevolezza delle varie problematiche connesse. Ho quindi predisposto un questionario compilabile interamente online, in forma del tutto anonima (non verrà tenuta traccia nemmeno dell'indirizzo IP), in cui in circa 15 minuti potete esprimere le vostre opinioni riguardo alle principali tematiche emergenti in materia di diritto d'autore nell'era digitale. I dati raccolti entreranno a far parte della mia tesi di dottorato e verranno rilasciati in modalità open access/copyleft (come è sempre stato per le mie pubblicazioni e attività). Si tratta di un'iniziativa indipendente e condotta con il mero scopo di ricerca sociale, senza sponsor o finanziatori che non siano la mia borsa di dottorato. Il contributo di ciascuno di voi è davvero prezioso, sia nel rispondere al questionario personalmente, sia nel diffondere la notizia di questa ricerca ad amici e colleghi così da ampliare il più possibile il campione. Il questionario è disponibile in versione sia italiana che inglese. E' quindi possibile (e auspicabile!) diffondere la notizia anche al di fuori della mera cerchia italiana, così da dare respiro internazionale al progetto. ECCO IL LINK PER LA COMPILAZIONE: http://www.aliprandi.org/it/survey Vi ringrazio per la collaborazione. Simone Aliprandi – Dottorando di Ricerca presso il Centro Qua_SI dell'Università di Milano-Bicocca [Segue il comunicato in versione inglese. Per chi gentilmente volesse far circolare il comunicato in circuiti prettamente internazionali, si consiglia di omettere la parte in Italiano e inoltrare solo la parte in inglese seguente.] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Object: A survey about some sociological issues related to copyright in the digital age By this message I would like to introduce a survey that I recently created in order to go more in depth with the study of some sociological issues on the topic "Copyright in the digital age: attitudes, social perception and level of awareness". The questionnaire takes approximately 15 minutes to complete; it is online and completely anonymous (we do not ask your name and we do not record your IP address; so please relax and answer sincerly to the questions). The results of this research will be included in my Ph.D. thesis and made available with an open access/copyleft approach. Each person's attendance is important in order to accomplish my research, so I hope that you will be able to dedicate the time to answer the survey. It would also be very useful and appreciated if you could share this announcement with your friends and collegues. HERE IS THE WEBPAGE FOR THE SURVEY: http://www.aliprandi.org/en/survey Thanks. Simone Aliprandi – Ph.D. candidate at Centro Qua_SI of Bicocca University of Milan. -- Simone Aliprandi - http://www.aliprandi.org [in San Francisco till 30/03/2011]

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IPEC US
by MANTELERO ALESSANDRO Feb. 13, 2011

Feb. 13, 2011

2010 U.S. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ENFORCEMENT COORDINATOR ANNUAL REPORT ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ENFORCEMENT febbraio 2011 http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/IPEC/ipec_annual_report_f…

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Egitto: Mubarak si e' dimesso
by Eleonora Pantò Feb. 11, 2011

Feb. 11, 2011

Mubarak si e' finalmente dimesso!! l'editor mediorientale di GlobalVoicesOnline Amira Al Hussaini (@justamira) 10 minuti fa, ha scritto su Twitter "What an emotional roller coaster those 18 days have been - with all that said and done: We've tweeted a revolution! We wrote history #Jan25 <http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Jan25>" Nonostante la rivista Internazionale la settimana scorsa abbia pubblicato la traduzione dell'articolo dello scettico Gladwell (qui in originale http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell) che sostiene che la rivoluzione non si fa con twitter, non tutti la pensano cosi... e anzi che questi fatti potranno avere importanti ricadute sulla governance di Internet (gia' peraltro dimostrato ad esempio dal caso Vodafone) http://internetsgovernance.blogspot.com/2011/02/egypt-crisis-and-internet-r… Chissa quale pagina di storia stiamo scrivendo noi ... Eleonora -- Interactivity is a property of the technology, while participation is a property of culture (H. Jenkins) ========================================== *Eleonora Pantò* www.csp.it <http://www.csp.it> CSP - Innovazione nelle ICT s.c.a r.l. via Livorno, 60 - 10144 - Torino - Italy +390114815111

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Torino Open Data Contest (Biennale Democrazia)
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 11, 2011

Feb. 11, 2011

OPEN DATA >>> IDEE >>> APPS >>> DEMOCRAZIA Proponi unʼidea, una demo o anche una versione completa di un’applicazione che faccia uso di almeno un dataset della Città di Torino. I progetti migliori saranno presentati durante Biennale Democrazia e vinceranno un tablet, abbonamenti ai musei e la possibilità di proporre la propria idea allʼIncubatore del Politecnico di Torino e l’accesso al Development Program di TOP-IX. Scadenza: 21 marzo 2011 Bando: http://biennaledemocrazia.it/bando-opendata/ Dataset disponibili: http://biennaledemocrazia.it/dataset/ Ulteriori informazioni: http://biennaledemocrazia.it/opendata/

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Stallman - WikiLeaks protests: mass demo against control
by Federico Guerrini Feb. 11, 2011

Feb. 11, 2011

"In the physical world, you can buy a book with cash, and you own it. You are free to give, lend or sell it to someone else. You are also free to keep it. However, in the virtual world, e-readers have digital handcuffs to stop you from giving, lending or selling a book, as well as licences forbidding that. Last year, Amazon used a back door in its e-reader to remotely delete thousands of copiesof 1984, by George Orwell. The Ministry of Truth has been privatised. "In the physical world, we have the right to pay money and to receive money – even anonymously. On the internet, we can receive money only with the approval of organisations such as PayPal and MasterCard, and the “security state” tracks payments moment by moment". "Punishment-on-accusation laws such as the Digital Economy Act extend this pattern of precarity to internet connectivity. What you do on your own computer is also controlled by others, with non-free software. Microsoft and Apple systems implement digital handcuffs – features specifically designed to restrict users. Continued use of a program or feature is precarious too: Apple put a back door in the iPhone to remotely delete installed applications and anotherin Windows enabled Microsoft to install software changes without asking permission". http://www.p2pnet.net/story/48470 -- www.pcworld.it/blogs/viveresocial privacy.blogosfere.it www.facebook-reloaded.com

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