Brandon wrote:

There should be a political "arm" of PG, but have it be a seperate entity. Such entity falls under IRS section 527 (which is why they're called 527 groups). This would protect the tax-exmpt 501(c)3 status of PG.

As always, Wikipedia has the low-down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_group

Thanks for looking up the particulars on the IRS section dealing with political advocacy groups.

Thoughts?

I think there should not be a political 'arm' of PG, but rather a general organization devoted to protecting *and* expanding the public domain. PG people can certainly help get it going but it should strive for inclusion -- to not make it an "inhouse" PG affair, but to involve many organizations and advocates. That will increase the effectiveness of the organization in its political goals. It's sort of a "united we stand, divided we fall" way of doing things. I think studying the NRA and seeing why they are very successful will give ideas as to how to proceed. For example, a lot of their power base comes from the millions of ordinary people who are members. This indicates that a public domain (and less onerous copyright law) advocacy group needs to somehow mobilize the ordinary person to join (this is the flaw, for example, with EFF -- they don't provide incentives for large numbers of ordinary people to join their cause -- only the digiteratti join EFF.) A couple years ago I reserved the domain "dmua.org" (which recently expired) with the crazy idea of creating a "Digital Media User's Association", which would unite the ordinary Joe who listens to CDs, watches HDTV and digital tv, plays computer games, etc., etc. with certain electronic industry partners who wish no DMCA and no legal restrictions on technology. If DMUA could provide real perks to members for joining (like discounts on certain equipment, coupons to get media, whatever is doable), many would simply join to get the perks. But the act of joining, even by inactive members, does help build the power base of the organization and provide some real $$$ to lobby in Congress, like the NRA does. When an organization has a million members, and quite a few million dollars in the bank, it does get the attention of many politicos. But a "PG Advocacy Group", say with one thousand members and maybe $50,000 in the bank won't get anywhere -- it's like spitting in the wind. Now I'm not saying a DMUA with 5 million members will succeed in rolling back copyright laws and defanging the DMCA, but it certainly stands a better chance than a few small, elite organizations that represent no more than a few thousand people in total. Jon

Political activity is not necessarily complementary to the "core mission" of creating and preserving electronic texts. I would imagine a significant minority of PG's volunteers have would not support PG lobbying for more a more relaxed copyright regime, and until we have tapped out the public domain, there is no need to alienate their efforts. -- RS

No, I don't write any of the articles that appear in the Newsletters, but sometimes to avoid copyright infringement I do paraphrase. Also, sometimes I just take notes when the news is on, and can't find which news stories they were quoting so I have to rely on those quick notes I have jotted down [this is often followed by a ? to indicate parts I am not sure I am quoting correctly]. As often as I can I give source material for those who would wish to follow up in more detail. Newsscan has folded, so there are no longer quotes from them. Once in a while I cut and paste from other sources with a URL given. When people submit items for the Newsletter, I just cut and paste in from their emails. Of course, I did write much of the boilerplate that houses statistic implementations, but I usually get the actual data from those who do what they can to keep track of every single book we post. [Posted], sadly to say, doesn't seem to be getting through to me entirely: so we usually have to compare counts several times, and sometimes a day or two later we find out we need to make a correction. We've put in requests for new Newsletter editors for quite some time without much success, even though we have offered those who reply an enormous amount of freedom. If you'd like to see something different, all you have to do is make it your own way, and we'd be only too glad to give you a shot. Thanks!!! Michael On Wed, 14 Sep 2005, Michael Dyck wrote:

Aaron Cannon wrote:

...

Wow! I just read the news letter for this week. It's been a few months since last time. How long has it been this way? When did it go from the news of Project Gutenberg to the blog of Michael Hart?

It's been a long time since the PG newsletter was *just* news of Project Gutenberg. Back in March 1998 [1], the newsletter started including excerpts from Edupage. Then NewsScan in June 1999 [2]. (They shifted to the weekly newsletter when it was introduced in April 2001.) Although not news of PG, they were presumably news items that Michael Hart thought would be of interest to newsletter subscribers. He would often add editorial remarks [in square brackets], which were sometimes opinion, but were usually very short.

Back in April 2003, the weekly newsletter was split into 2 (then 3, then 2) parts, of which Part 1 was Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section, which continued to include the news excerpts and Michael's occasional remarks on them.

The October 1, 2003 weekly newsletter [3] contains what you might consider the start of "Michael Hart's blog". In it, after the NewsScan and Edupage items, Michael introduced a section entitled "[And A Few Articles That Didn't Get Enough Coverage]", including articles (apparently written by MH himself) about (1) presidential candidate Howard Dean and (2) cracking in the polar ice caps. This section soon became "More Headline News Mostly Avoided By The Major U.S. Media" and continues to this day.

In the July 7, 2004 newsletter, he added: STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK SIMPLE SOLUTION OF THE WEEK July 28, 2004: ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK August 11, 2004: ODD GOVERNMENTAL REGULATIONS OF THE WEEK October 20, 2004: PREDICTION OF THE WEEK January 26, 2005: "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village ..." March 23, 2005: DOUBLESPEAK OF THE DAY [later WEEK] June 8, 2005: POEM OF THE WEEK

Many of these sections continue to appear in the newsletter.

[1] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_1998_03-04.txt [2] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_1999_06_02.txt [3] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGWeekly_2003_10_01_Part_1.txt

-Michael Dyck

_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 12:27 PM 9/15/2005, you wrote:

None of these are my views, none written by me, or at my instigation.

Our readers send me various articles, synopses, URLs, etc., and I usually just put them in exactly as I receive them, and sometimes I ask our CEO if something should be included.

Then I suggest that it would be quite advantageous to exercise a little more discretion. I would advise only putting things in the newsletter which are directly relevant to the work of PG and the fulfillment of it's plans and expansion of its goals. Anything beyond that lowers the value of the newsletter and causes people to be less likely to read it because of its bulk. It also may, (as I mentioned previously), due to the hot-button nature of some issues cause rifts in the PG community which could easily be avoided.

I am not a political person, I am apolitical to the point of anti-political, and I don't have any political agenda, other than to stay pretty much as far away from politics as I can get, as many people are aware.

If you don't like something from one of those articles, the URL is usually there, and you are more than encouraged to send letters to the editors, and we will be only too glad to post any such letters that are published, and perhaps even some that haven't been [I'll probably ask our CEO first].

The point wasn't the issues raised by the article excerpts, the point was their relevance and appropriateness in the PG newsletter.

As for any changes in the last few months, none that I know of, we just cut the old Newsletter into two portions, but didn't change the content.

I suppose I just never paid close enough attention. It's been a while since I've even opened a newsletter because of its size and redundancy, and even longer since I've made it all the way through one.

If you read all the Newsletters over the years, you'll find a very smooth evolution from issue to issue, with the obvious changes when we switched from Monthly to Weekly, and then subdivided when we had volunteers to do the new versions. As you can see, most of the Newsletter is automated, or could/should be, and most of the rest is simply cut and pasted.

All of the "hot button" issues are simply taken from the lower echelon media coverage to point out how much they have been hidden, which is the primary point, not the actual content. However, if you have issues with the actual content, perhaps a letter to this Newsletter, as well as to the original media source would engender a conversation. Again, I would have to run this by our CEO.

Please note that no mention was made of the political events of Michael Brown, Judge Roberts, etc., or similar political "hot buttons."

If you have certain topics you would like to have covered, or, perhaps even NOT covered, just let us know, and perhaps we can make adjustments.

We've been quoting Edupage and/or Newsscan for years without any mention from a single one of our readers, other than to correct typos in their copy that was cut and pasted. A minimal number of scientific articles have also been referenced, but I presume those were not considered to be "hot button" issues.

They always seemed rather neutral to me, if not a little irrelevant to PG. That's not to say they weren't interesting, but I'm just not sure they belong in a PG newsletter. Anyway, that's my $0.02. Sincerely Aaron Cannon -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) - GPGrelay v0.959 Comment: Key available from all major key servers. iD8DBQFDKb7LI7J99hVZuJcRAtE6AJ9b8c/DToo/jNF3iPnqwcRfXYU/IACgqym6 JzPF/PQoSp2E4f52EHL/fkw= =Sl95 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Michael Dyck wrote:

Michael Hart wrote:

...

None of these are my views, none written by me, or at my instigation.

So are you saying that you did *not* write the following sentences, and that they do *not* reflect your views?

-- "No mention is made of what to do about those for whom no transportation is available. . .those were obviously beneath the radar scope of planning."

-- "Somehow it seems that those farthest from the situation are the only ones willing to state what is obvious locally."

-- "I supposed the strangest words of the week were those NOT heard, as NBC censored Kanye West's comments"

-- "5/8 of Bush's emergency management appointees had no experience"

These are all things I received from readers such as yourself, and I always ask if they want a credit line before putting any attributions. Often I receive no answer by time to send.

And are you saying it's *not* your view that the various comments on how the Katrina relief efforts are going (from the President, VP, and First Lady) are "doublespeak"?

There are several doublespeak lists out there, and I presume lots of this gets forwarded from them. As for my own views, I only put my own views in the [brackets], and try to make them very brief comments. 99% of what you see is lifted straight from sources, and the 1% is usually plainly marked by brackets.

Given that these items appear in 'Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter', I think the natural inference is that any un-attributed comments are yours, and represent your views.

My views usually appear in the [brackets], which is usually stated each time, whether such [brackets] are used or not at the time. In the same vein that I try NOT to choose the books, I also try not to impose my own views on other subjects, or to make it obvious when I feel it is necessary.

...

Our readers send me various articles, synopses, URLs, etc., and I usually just put them in exactly as I receive them, and sometimes I ask our CEO if something should be included.

And is that the case for any of the items listed above?

...

I am not a political person, I am apolitical to the point of anti-political, and I don't have any political agenda, other than to stay pretty much as far away from politics as I can get, as many people are aware.

If you were staying as far away from politics as you could get, you wouldn't be including political items in the newsletter.

Obviously some people are going to view something as political that other people don't, but I assure you that my own goals are anything BUT political.

...

If you don't like something from one of those articles, the URL is usually there,

There were no URLs or other attribution for the following items: -- reports of racism in US media -- New Orleans refugees turned back at Gretna (other than the attribution of a headline to the LA Times) -- 40 Died In A Hospital, There Was No Evacuation Plan For Them. -- Palestinians Burn Gaza Synagogues -- Comments on How The Katrina Relief Efforts Are Going -- 5/8 of Bush's emergency management appointees had no experience -- Meat consumption in China us up 400% in 20 years. -- One Ohio high school was reported to have 63% of the girls pregnant. -- In some communities blacks are 9 times as likely to be pulled over for traffic stops than are whites. -- Nearly 3/4 of a million dollars for 30 second American Idol ad!

Many of these are just snippets I heard while channel surfing, and I couldn't find the direct quotes to use. . .though I do presume they eventually surface on the Web and can be found via most of the various search engines, though I, personally, do not subscribe to those that require subscriptions, so I do not always find things from those sources. Some are from multiple surfed news shows, but I still didn't find the orginal source. I don't even know which network American Idol is on, but I'm sure this is something they promoted heavily enough, since I heard it twice. . .and actually made a correction, since I wrote it down wrong the first time around. $560,000 for Desperate Housewives, not ~$600,000, or perhaps the second report was just being more accurate.

...

Please note that no mention was made of the political events of Michael Brown,

What about this?: "Michael Brown was simply the college roommate of the original FEMA chief, not other recommendation or expertise, not even a real job on his resume, other than the Arabian Horse group."

That was from before his removal from New Orleans and resignation.

...

Judge Roberts, etc., or similar political "hot buttons."

So if you quote someone as saying "George Bush doesn't care about black people", you think that *isn't* a political hot button?

Actually, it was the censorship I tried pointing out, not the statement. The whole reason for pointing out what doesn't get covered is to avoid the censorship in the news.

On 9/15/05, Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:

As you can see, most of the Newsletter is automated, or could/should be, and most of the rest is simply cut and pasted.

I don't see the value in an automated, cut and pasted newsletter filled with anything but a simple list of the new books. Useful content isn't that simple.

On 9/16/05, Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, David Starner wrote:

...

On 9/15/05, Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:

...

As you can see, most of the Newsletter is automated, or could/should be, and most of the rest is simply cut and pasted.

I don't see the value in an automated, cut and pasted newsletter filled with anything but a simple list of the new books.

Then you probably want PT2 and/or the Monthly Newsletter.

So there's no Project Gutenberg news? I want to keep up on Project Gutenberg news; shouldn't the newsletter provide that?

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Scott Lawton wrote:

Michael Hart typed:

...

None of these are my views, none written by me, or at my instigation.

???

That's certainly not how it looks from the newsletter. And, independent of who wrote them, someone chose to include many, many items that have nothing to do with PG (and chose particular items that reflect a specific worldview).

If you send something you would like included, it will probably appear. We get lots of these, often several people send in the same piece, or make references to it.

...

I am not a political person, I am apolitical to the point of anti-political, and I don't have any political agenda, other than to stay pretty much as far away from politics as I can get, as many people are aware.

I'm not sure what you mean by "political", but there sure is an awful lot in the newsletter that would fall under what many (most?) people would call "politics" or "the political realm".

Still, if the word "politics" is a stumbling block, how about "current events that are unrelated to PG". The newsletter has always had far too much of that (IMHO).

Obviously the current situation has a lot more political people in or out of the news, usually it's not quite so thick.

...

If you don't like something from one of those articles, the URL is usually there, and you are more than encouraged to send letters to the editors, and we will be only too glad to post any such letters that are published, and perhaps even some that haven't been [I'll probably ask our CEO first].

i.e. you're inviting even MORE coverage of politics (er, current events)?

It's pretty much up to our readers, as we tend to include what they talk about, however straight political polemics are not our forte.

...

We've been quoting Edupage and/or Newsscan for years without any mention from a single one of our readers

That may well be true, though doesn't indicate whether readers would (in general) prefer a PG-specific newsletter vs. the current expanded version.

That's why we have several different newsletters.

Just as one example, I've never spoken out against the newsletter since I'm not willing to edit it and am happy just to ignore it. But, now that the subject has been raised....

I suspect that many people would read a short, focused newsletter that emphasized "what's new" at the top.

If someone would care to create such a newsletter, we would be only too happy to send it out.

I'm pretty skeptical how many people are fans of the tedious stats and other repeition; if they were moved to a separate newsletter, how many would subscribe?

Again, that's why we have tried the various separations. There is no need for anyone to even open the parts they don't want to see. For some the stats and lists are the most important part, you just never know until they email you. mh

Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:

All of the "hot button" issues are simply taken from the lower echelon media coverage to point out how much they have been hidden, which is the primary point, not the actual content. However, if you have issues with the actual content, perhaps a letter to this Newsletter, as well as to the original media source would engender a conversation. Again, I would have to run this by our CEO.

Shouldn't the purpose of the weekly PG newsletter be to only communicate news directly relevant to PG's activities? Let me suggest that the PG community be properly polled, asking them what *they* would like the newsletter to contain, its total length, etc. Then structure the newsletter per the prevailing view. It's clear that quite a few major PG and DP volunteers don't read the newsletter any more, and some have cited the length and the inclusion of stuff not related to PG as factors. To not listen to them is sort of self-defeating, since PG *is* the many volunteers who contribute thousands of hours of time to the cause. Jon