[okfn-discuss] How to honor Aaron Swartz

Finn Årup Nielsen fn at imm.dtu.dk
Mon Jan 28 15:53:05 UTC 2013



"AcaWiki and Wikiversity for collaborative summaries of and notes
on books and academic papers"

Are Wikiversity used for summaries? I have never seen Wikimedia 
Foundation projects used for summaries and that was the reason I started 
my own wiki - Brede Wiki <http://neuro.imm.dtu.dk/wiki/>.

I think it would be a good idea if there was a WMF CC BY-SA site for 
summaries and research data, especially now since we are getting 
Wikidata that could store structured research data.


Finn Årup Nielsen


On 01/28/2013 03:05 PM, Kẏra wrote:
> I wonder if there's a way we could promote libre knowledge (which is
> freely licensed and in free formats) over individuals just posting links
> to their work.
>
> "Posting our PDFs is all fine and good, but the real way to honor Aaron
> Swartz is to combat this pervasive institutional fecklessness and do
> everything in our power to make sure no papers ever end up behind pay
> walls again."
>
>> http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/01/25/how-academia-betrayed-and-continues-to-betray-aaron-swartz/
>
> How can we promote
>   * Public Library of Science <https://www.plos.org/>, BioMed Central
> <https://www.biomedcentral.com/>, and other freely licensed academic
> journals
>   * AcaWiki <http://acawiki.org/> and Wikiversity
> <https://en.wikiversity.org/> for collaborative summaries of and notes
> on books and academic papers
>   * Connexions <http://cnx.org/> and Wikibooks
> <https://en.wikibooks.org/> as collaborative course materials and textbooks
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Students for Free Culture
> <webleader+rss-bot at freeculture.org
> <mailto:webleader+rss-bot at freeculture.org>> wrote:
>
>     _Rarely does the name of one person, lacking political office or seat of
>     power, echo across the internet so thoroughly as it did in the wake of
>     [Aaron Swartz's death][1]. How was the work of one person revered by so
>     many, from the front page of every major paper in the US, to radical
>     communities working against various axis of oppression?_
>
>     **Aaron Swartz recognized something. In his own words, "Information is
>     power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
>     themselves." —[Guerilla Open Access Manifesto][2]**
>
>     [![Aaron Swartz][3]][3]
>
>     Based on an image by [Jacob Applebaum][4] via [Wikimedia][5]. [CC-BY-SA
>     3.0][6]
>
>     Many of us have spent time grieving together on message boards, email
>     lists, and with friends. While we mourned the loss of a brilliant hero
>     to a [broken and backwards criminal justice system][7], an outpouring of
>     support for his work roared to life. Almost overnight, recognition of
>     the importance of his mission spread across every corner of the web.
>     What now?
>
>     Aaron understood that the way we experience and interact with the world
>     is [inseparable from the media and technology around us][8]. He knew
>     that only when they are [free from private ownership][9] can we hope to
>     harness their liberatory potential and gain control over our own lives.
>     He has been an invaluable force in the free software and free culture
>     movements, working against the privatization of information, culture,
>     and knowledge.
>
>     Aaron fought to tear down the walls that hide big secrets and lock up
>     human knowledge for the profit of the gatekeepers. The pressures which
>     drove him to suicide — up to 50 years in prison and $4 million in fines
>     — were brought against him for a victimless crime. These egregiously
>     harsh punishments for [releasing public domain papers][10] locked up on
>     JSTOR may have been due to Aaron's support of [ Private Breanna
>     Manning][11] and [ties to Wikileaks][12]. Either way, Aaron should have
>     been rewarded.
>
>     There is already far too much fear in resisting the powers that Aaron
>     stood up against. **We can only carry on his fight by turning this fear
>     into indignation, and indignation into action, just as he did.**
>
>     In efforts to carry on his work, [global hackathons][13] have been
>     planned in his memory; a graduate student made [a commitment to free
>     knowledge][14] by boycotting locked-down journals; the [Memorial JSTOR
>     Liberator][15] continues the task of releasing public domain documents
>     by crowdsourcing; [#PDFTribute][16] was started [for authors of academic
>     papers to share their works][17]; and Anonymous defaced the United
>     States Sentencing Commission website with [a video][18] threatening a
>     massive exposure of government secrets  in the style of WikiLeaks'
>     [insurance][19] [files][20].
>
>     While individual efforts are admirable, Aaron's work involved much [more
>     than opting out][21] of the systems he recognized as broken. He targeted
>     them. He aimed to uproot them. **Everything Aaron wrote, whether
>     vernacular or code, was free, but what he died doing was freeing the
>     work of others.**
>
>     There are already plenty of places to publish and share [free cultural
>     works][22], but this is only half of the battle. The remaining question
>     is how to usurp proprietary knowledge sources. The answer, then, is to
>     eliminate their value by taking the knowledge they amass and release it
>     into the world. **Our own rejection of locking up knowledge should be
>     taken for granted.** **To continue Aaron's work, we must create an
>     organized movement to take down the gatekeepers which keep hoards of
>     information secret and lock our cultural productions behind their
>     walls.**
>
>         [1]: http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/statements/family.html
>
>         [2]:
>     http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly20
>     08_djvu.txt
>     <http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt>
>
>         [3]: http://freeculture.org/files/2013/01/Aaron_Swartz.jpg
>
>         [4]: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/44289662@N00/335161549
>
>         [5]:
>     https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aaron_Swartz_23c3_day_0.jpg
>
>         [6]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
>
>         [7]: http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/memories/the-inspiring-heroism-
>     of-Aaron-Swartz.html
>     <http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/memories/the-inspiring-heroism-of-Aaron-Swartz.html>
>
>         [8]: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/09/13/digital-
>     dualism-and-the-fallacy-of-web-objectivity/
>     <http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/09/13/digital-dualism-and-the-fallacy-of-web-objectivity/>
>
>         [9]: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/09/07/who-fights-
>     for-the-users/
>     <http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/09/07/who-fights-for-the-users/>
>
>         [10]: https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6554331
>
>         [11]: http://feministing.com/2011/12/22/why-does-the-media-and-her-
>     supposed-supporters-continue-to-misgender-breanna-manning/
>     <http://feministing.com/2011/12/22/why-does-the-media-and-her-supposed-supporters-continue-to-misgender-breanna-manning/>
>
>         [12]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130122/18260621757
>     /concerns-raised-about-aaron-swartzs-prosecution-wikileaks-
>     connection.shtml
>
>         [13]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130121/14473121743/global-
>     hackathons-prepared-to-carry-forward-work-aaron-swartz.shtml
>     <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130121/14473121743/global-hackathons-prepared-to-carry-forward-work-aaron-swartz.shtml>
>
>         [14]: http://alexleavitt.com/oa/
>
>         [15]: http://aaronsw.archiveteam.org/
>
>         [16]: http://pdftribute.net/
>
>         [17]: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414241,00.asp
>
>         [18]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPni5O2YyI
>
>         [19]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-
>     file/
>     <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-file/>
>
>         [20]: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/23/1067565/-WikiLeaks-
>     new-65-GB-Insurance-file-following-Spy-Files-release
>     <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/23/1067565/-WikiLeaks-new-65-GB-Insurance-file-following-Spy-Files-release>
>
>         [21]:
>     http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/01/25/how-academia-betrayed-and-
>     continues-to-betray-aaron-swartz/
>     <http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/01/25/how-academia-betrayed-and-continues-to-betray-aaron-swartz/>
>
>         [22]: http://freedomdefined.org/
>
>     URL: http://freeculture.org/blog/2013/01/27/how-to-honor-aaron-swartz/
>     _______________________________________________
>     Discuss mailing list
>     Discuss at freeculture.org <mailto:Discuss at freeculture.org>
>     http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>     FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
>
>
>
>
> --
> Board of Directors, Students for Free Culture: www.freeculture.org
> <http://www.freeculture.org>
>
> Blog: http://thesilentnumber.me  -  StatusNet Microblog:
> http://identi.ca/kxra
> Email: kxra at freeculture.org <mailto:kxra at freeculture.org>  -  SMS:
> +1.617.340.3661 <http://1.617.340.3661>
> Jabber/XMPP: kxra at riseup.net <mailto:kxra at riseup.net>  -  IRC: kxra
> @freenode @oftc @indymedia
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> okfn-discuss mailing list
> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/okfn-discuss
>





More information about the okfn-discuss mailing list