[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/
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>
> --
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> <http://www.freeculture.org>
>
> Blog: http://thesilentnumber.me - StatusNet Microblog:
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