Berkman Buzz: Week of May 26, 2008

May 30, 2008

BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations. If you'd like to receive this by email, just sign up here. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School

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*CC announces an RFP for ccMixter
*The Internet & Democracy Project highlights the Kenyan government's effort to silence whistle blowers
*CMLP offers an overview of trade secrets
*Persephone Miel looks at the state of the 4th estate
*Doc Searls helps us get a clue about conversational marketing
*David Weinberger explains why Wikipedia articles are so boring
*Weekly Global Voices: "Bangladesh: Compromised Media"
*Weekly Publius essay: "Lewis Hyde: Freedom of Listening: An Eighteenth Century Root for Net Neutrality"

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The full buzz.

"Late last year we started a process for moving ccMixter.org, the remix community we launched November 2004, to an entity or person(s) that could take the community to the next (several) levels. eMXR describes ccMixter: 'trend setting web destination … which has become the premier on-line artist’s village for music makers from around the world, who sample, cut-up, share and remix each other’s music legally, creatively and joyfully...'"
Mike Linksvayer for Creative Commons, "ccMixter to the max: Request For Proposals"

"According to Mwalimu Mati, Kenya is trying to limit access by government employees to the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission’s whistle-blower website. The site is supposed to allow users to anonymously report incidents of corruption for the commission to investigate. However, the government is apparently trying to monitor who is posting to it and prevent public sector employees from accessing the site–making it much less likely that government employees will use the site to report cases of possible corruption..."
The Internet & Democracy Project, "Kenya Tries to Block and Monitor Access to Anti-Corruption Website"

"This is the tenth in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on trade secrets, which describes the limitations imposed on publishers who rely on or publish certain confidential business information and offers practical advice to citizen media creators on how to avoid liability for publishing trade secrets..."
The Citizen Media Law Project, "Highlights from the Legal Guide: An Overview of Trade Secrets"

"The World Bank and the Shorenstein Center have gathered a terrific international group here at the Kennedy School to discuss 'The Role of the News Media in the Governance Reform Agenda.' [Warning - semi-live blogging ahead, expect inaccuracy and incompleteness. Details in conference papers here.] This morning, we discussed a framework put forward by Pippa Norris (McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) and Sina Odugbemi (Program Head, CommGAP, The World Bank Group)..."
Persephone Miel, "Media and Governance"

"I don’t begrudge anybody going after advertising money. And I don’t have anything against advertising itself. For many products and services advertising will remain the best way for supply and demand to get acquainted. But advertising also involves guesswork and waste, and always will. It is also, by its shout-to-the-world nature, not a 'conversation'..."
Doc Searls, "Clues vs. Trains"

"Mark Bauerlein has a terrific piece in The Chronicle of Higher Ed that compares the flat style of Wikipedia to that of other encyclopedias. It suffers from taking a single example — the entry on Moby-Dick — but it rings true. At least for some of Wikipedia. Mark is undoubtedly right that Wikipedia’s stylistic flatness is due in part to the fact that professional writers often write better than amateurs and crowds do. But, it also seems likely to result from Wikipedia’s commitment to neutrality. Perhaps in the process of constructing this article together, the color was driven out as non-neutral..."
David Weinberger, "The Wikipedia style"

"Ever since Bangladesh was put under a state of emergency by an interim government supported by the military it was a testing time for Bangladesh media. An exclusive report in the Himal South Asian magazine in June 2007 pointed out that Bangladesh’s Bangla and English-language press has lost its credibility: 'Bangladeshis have been looking to the press for leadership in a time of military rule, but the journalists have allowed themselves to be bullied by populism and cowed by fear of authority...'"
Rezwan for Global Voices, "Bangladesh: Compromised Media"

"In 1739 the Methodist minister George Whitefield arrived in Philadelphia to preach evangelical Protestantism. At first the local clergy shared their pulpits with the visitor, but soon they turned against him and forced him to deliver his message in the streets and fields. Benjamin Franklin, though he did not usually agree with Whitefield, objected to the way that the established churches denied him a roof and thus he and a group of friends raised a fund to build a large lecture hall..."
Lewis Hyde for the Publius Project, "Freedom of Listening: An Eighteenth Century Root for Net Neutrality"