text:
User:Anthere/Wikimedia

References : Election Candidates

''The page below refers to the elections in 2004. The equivalent page in 2005 is here''.

- Hello,

First, I would like to say that 500 characters will never be enough for me to say what I think about the future of Wikimedia :-) So, I will take the liberty to add a little bit below in three major paragraphs.

'''The rest of the page will be entirely yours. Please add comments, ask questions, give your own vision, explain what you think Wikimedia is, and what the role of a board member should be to your opinion.'''

 * Note that you are also most welcome to fix all my typos or grammar flaws :-)

I have my own dreams, but I sure love to hear other people dreams. A board member is imho, just as should be a sysop, or should be a steward, someone to represent you and your dreams, and someone here to help the whole community achieve this common dream currently uniting us. Please read below my own vision of what Wikimedia is; And please share your own dream.

What Wikimedia Foundation is
My belief is that the Wikimedia Foundation should have essentially two goals.

 * One is to support the development of our dream, via the legal means with which it is empowered (ie, ownership of the servers, ability to collect member fees and receive donations, ability to spend it according to the project goals to distribute knowledge all over the world, ability to protect the content, to buy domain names, to protect participant's rights etc...).

 * The second goal is essentially, in my opinion, to guarantee that our common goal and our core values will be preserved, despite the risks our projects face. I would like the Foundation to be a stable base, acting as a central entity, to give birth to associated local branches, which will have a certain degree of independance but will  have to respect our common goals and principles. I firmly stand for diversity, mixed with unity. Each project should go on managing itself, as it has always been doing, its decisions dictated by participants, as long as it fits with the mission statement of Wikimedia.

Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project

 * Here is what I would have liked to put in my candicady statement. There is no way this can be shortened to 500 characters. How frustrating :-) So, I put everything here, and will try to sum it up on the candidacy page

I consider three levels in Wikimedia :

First, it is a community. Rather loose, very diverse, sometimes with disagreements, but a group of people nevertheless, who have together one common goal : creating or gathering free and organised content together... This community also share global values, initiated by Jimbo Wales, of neutrality, openness, love for others and genuine concerns for the diversity of opinions. I wish this community to nurture these values because
 * these are the path to succeed in our great projects (eg, a neutral, accurate and "extensive" encyclopedia requires the input of very diverse contributors)
 * these also are also the recognition we all have inner value, we all have knowledge and goodwill useful for the projects, for edition, typography, organisation, software development, server maintenance, legal issues, PR, mediators, arbitrators...
 * and finally because this community of people is also a teaching tool for all of us. We can all learn from others, and learn to work with them.

In my vision, the foundation should ensure the core values of the organization are preserved, while allowing diversity of local values on each project (eg, through the setting up of local associations branches, which will have to adhere to a common charter)

Second, Wikimedia is a project or rather a collection of projects. With all its technical requirements, data organisation etc. This is where we are giving the most energy right now. I do think the foundation should not be implicated in every day management of each project, but should aim at maintaining the integrity of the whole (eg, through support of common technical frame)

And last, Wikimedia is a collection of final products, wikipedias, wiktionaries etc... or any other final products made from the knowledge gathered (such as wikiReaders). These products have to be stabilized (cd and paper version), promoted (via press release, interviews), distributed (in as many countries and as many languages possible) and protected (respect of our copyright, brand name etc...). The products are to be provided to the public free of charge and with no advertising, which will require finding funds. The Wikimedia foundation may be involved in all those steps. It should in particular focus on finding and managing funds, providing legal protection of the content and participants rights, and be involved in the distribution of the products (eg, in Africa, where few participants are likely to be able to do it).

Concerns I hope to address
The goals of the Foundation are ambitious, but the Foundation itself is just starting...so there is a lot to do just to set it up. Hence, I'll be very specific : we need to do what is needed *right now *to get the Foundation started, with a solid base to stand on.

The Foundation requires from wikimedians both care on the short term and long term planification. A board of 5 people will not take care of it all, representants are mostly here at your service, and to guarantee that core principles will be respected, but what we need first of all, is that everyone feels empowered to act, and second that we do so together.

Aside from any duties assign to a Board Member, I would like to participate in particular in the following directions.

 * Improve communication, with
 * more detailed mission statement defining the purpose of the Fundation, and the community/organisation cores values.
 * internal feedback of the Foundation decision making, and activity to all the participants wikimedia wide,
 * ensuring that all participants opinions are communicated to the Foundation
 * more visibility and transparency for potential donators and/or partners (eg, refactoring of the wikimedia website).

 * Empower participants to help toward all these external activities, which will be increasingly necessary as the project grows : legal issues, money collecting, management and use, partnership establishment, edition and distribution of paper or CD products, servers purchase and management etc... see the brainstorming proposal on Official position. Wikipedia in itself (less so for other projects) is very " organised ", to the point it is sometimes a bit bureaucratic. I wish to avoid the Foundation to become paralysed by a too complex organisation. I hope the way to do this is to go toward decentralization, delegation and a flat decision-making structure.

I mean by " delegation " setting up official positions which will have the ability to take some decisions themselves, without having to necessarily get it full stamped by the board : for example, I believe a good part of the computer equipment could be bought by a couple of trusted and very involved users themselves, rather than the purchase being slowed down in a bottle neck organisation where only one person is allowed to make use of funds. A general budget could be set, and responsability to spent it in the best way be given to trusted developpers.

 * PR activities myself, such as contact with charitable organisations, either to make partnership for content exchange, or to improve our visibility and reputation, or to get funds. Internet will probably (hopefully !) always allow us to fully distribute our content free of charge. It is not so easy to ensure " free of charge " printed editions or CDs, as these generate costs of production and distribution, (and indeed the first attempt by the German Wikipedia is not one " free of charge "). However, if a low cost might potentially be acceptable for many users in developed countries, I would like to see our content be freely distributed to schools, public libraries, hospital, prisons, anyplace where it might be welcome, useful, and in reach of a public who can’t afford bying the product or freely accessing internet. I envision that some of these distributions might be funded by charitable organisations. I also think that some donations might be done to the Foundation for a specific purpose rather than to generally help the project. We should make this possible for the donator.

 * Setting local branches in other countries, which would all have a certain degree of independance, but suscribe to the mission statement of the central Wikimedia Fundation. I wish us to be strongly united, but that we respect the diversity and pecularities of each project. You probably all know that two wikipedias are currently working at setting up local associations. I would like to focus on how these local branches and the mother wikimedia could relate to one another, especially in financial terms as well as representation (ie, while local branches give part of their funds to the mother association, how could local representant be involved in decisions about how to spend the money).

Zeno and real name
Hi Anthere,

I am glad to here that you are running for the Board of Trustees. However, I have one question: Why don't you disclose your real name? There is no need to feel ashamed ;-)

--zeno 19:43, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

 * it is not a question of shame :-) I have a very pretty name... I am just not done filling up the form :-) SweetLittleFluffyThing

--

Tomos, availability issues, participation to policy
Hi, Anthere. I am also glad to know that you are running. :)

If I remember correct, you are steward, active sysop on fr., sysop on meta. You are also a mediator on en. You are a very active participant of discussions on multiple mailinglists. And aren't you one of the few people who communicate back-and-forth between fr. and the rest of the wikipedias? So I worry you may already be too busy. (Or you are one of those non-humans like mav is alleged to be :-p). Do you worry about it? Do you ever think about resigning from some of the positions?

Also, I have been feeling that only a very small percentage of wikipedians (wiktionarians, wikibookians, etc.) are active in participating to policy and administrative discussions. Do you think this is just the way things are? Maybe people are not motivated to participate to those discussions partly because they feel things will go well without their input? Or is it a sign of failing democracy? Do you have any thoughts about it? If so, I would like to know.

Thanks, Tomos 18:59, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tomos. Thanks for your insightful questions (insightful, because they meet some of my concerns). As for being too busy...well, that is a concern to me as well :-).

It is perfectly correct I am sysop on meta, fr and en. I am a nearly inactive sysop on en in reality, as I hardly use these more than once a month. I actually make little use of sysop power of fr and on meta, as well, essentially for managing reasons, such a protecting a decision, but I hardly take care of cleaning any more. I mostly help those who ask :-) I have never been much of a dedicated cleaner :-) I mostly like organising things. So, resigning of being a sysop...no, because it is useful for administrative clean up, and...I might say...to take a couple of tough decisions sometimes against problematic users. But sysop duties are very little time consuming, and likely to be less and less I think.

I do not plan to resign from the MC, but I am definitly on a break of it for now. I expect not to participate to mediations much, essentially because it is very demanding on me for language issues. However, I would like to help it to further organise itself. But this may be done only when I find time. I also expect stewards issues to be less and less demanding as things get organised. And we are fortunately numerous enough to guarantee user confort (thank god we did not limited ourselves to 4 people !).

I tend to do things one after the other, in turns. Beginning of 2004, I mostly worked on articles (such as ecology, then I mostly took care of mediation stuff. Then, I switched to meta reorganisation for a while (it was a relief...). I then help setting a new blocking policy on fr. At the end of this month, I will present a meeting in a french city, so I am mostly focused on this this month. I try to turn my attention to various activities one after the other. Benefits are that I can meet numerous fascinating people :-)

So, resigning, probably not. But I expect that if elected, I will decrease the time spent on organisation and on policy setting on fr a lot; both to gain time, and to avoid confusion of roles.

This said, if some people think I should give a break to some activities, well, I might :-)

As for the small number of people involved in policy making and administrative discussions...yes, this is rather true. And I think it is just how things are. People often participate in more than one activity on wikipedia, but they usually have favorite fields. Some participate a lot in development, others love cleaning up, others setting up policies, and some only focus on making articles. I think this is good. We all have the opportunity to do what we feel like doing, when we feel like doing it, and what we are perhaps best at; I think this is important, and a major point of Wikipedia. We just give to people the opportunity to reveal themselves in what they are really good at, and what makes them happy. And we need all these various activities and preferences. Only editors, with no organisers will end up in anarchy. But an organiser without editors has nothing to organise. We all need the others for it to work fine.

I do not think it is a sign of failing democracy. I certainly sometimse find it depressing that no more people do participate to organisation, but in more cheerful moments, I see that those not participating usually trust what we do, just as I trust that they do well in their edition activities.

I try to remember that there are different types of silence. Silence of disinterest. Silence of disapproval. But very often, silence of agreement, of the one who trust per default, or the one who look at the proposal, and just think "this is all right". More frequent feedback would be nice, but well...we can't change people :-))))

So, no, to my opinion, this is not a sign of failing democracy. Which does not mean either that we are really in democracy. There is certainly work to do in that direction.

It is important though... not to confuse silence with total lack of interest and take the opportunity to do things alone in a corner, without saying anything to others. These silent people probably need a careful dosage of moments they are not asked anything, moments where they are asked their opinion and moments they are asked to vote. When not asked often enough, there is unfairness and unthoughtfulness. When asked too often, they get bored. That is where just providing people information is important. Access to information give them the opportunity to participate, but it does not force them.

Did I answer your questions proper ? Second point is only my opinion, but I feel that if you ask, it is that you may feel yourself that democracy on wikipedia is in trouble. If so, may you explain (publicly or privately) what is problematic to your opinion Tomos ?

 * Thanks for the answers, Anthere! I wanted to know about these things anyway, but thought this was a good opportunity. Regarding the first question, I just hope you will not burn out. Regarding the second question, no, I don't have particular strong opinion at this point. I recognize this tendency at mailinglist, en, meta, ja., and other places where I have been. I thought you knew this as well. So, I was curious about your opinion. I might form my own oponion sometime later. And at that point, I might talk to you, since you would be willing to listen to it. :) Tomos 06:08, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Whether as a board member or not, I will always try to take time to listen to it Tomos :-) ant.

Delirium, local branches
Hi Anthere! Glad to see you're running. I see you've written a lot of stuff here, so I don't have too much to ask, but I was wondering if you had particular thoughts on how to organize the international structure of Wikipedia, especially since you participate in more than one of the languages. Should there be local branches of the Foundation, and if so, how should those be related to the international parent one? Basically, how can we both serve the needs of each Wikipedia but also keep the project coherent as a whole? There's a bunch of other more minor concerns (what about the fact that de: is both the Wikipedia for Germany and the one for Austria—should there be two de: foundations or one?), but that's the gist of the question. --Delirium 00:32, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Hello ! Thanks for the comment !

I fear I will be long again...

I have a very clear opinion on whether we should have local branches or not. Yes. There should be. Wikipedia is growing exponentially. We needed a Foundation to have a legal structure to look for funds, to receive funds, to use these funds. We also needed a legal structure to "own" a couple of things such as servers or possibly a brand name. We also need a legal structure to defend some rights toward content in particular. I think specifically of any legal issues we might have with the use of "fair use" image or a problem with copyrighted content... And finally, to my opinion, the Foundation is there to preserve the spirit of openness, neutrality, respect for diversity. May we envision that some servers be hosted in Japan ? I say yes. Is "fair use" accepted in all countries ? No. May we envision that a french paper version of wikipedia has a legal issue with the french law ? I say yes. May we envision that german contributors would like to get tax deduction for their donation to a charitable organisation in the future ? I say yes. Could specific fundings be offered specifically for the development of one language ? I say yes. How much do non-english speakers feel like belonging to an association set in a language they do not speak at all ? Would they involve themselves more if such an association existed in their language ? I think they would feel more confortable. All this suggest me that local branches should exist. And two of the 4 biggest wikipedias aside from en, feel this is important already.

Now, as you mention it, there are a lot of questions. You mention german... but that is true for most languages. Most languages are spoken in several countries. Fr: has contributors from France, but also Belgium, Switzerland, Canada... Should there be an association in each country ? Well, no one is mentionning right now, setting up associations in Great Brittain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada... though these speak english... ;-) I think it is probably important that there is a legal entity for each language as soon as it is reasonably represented, and this will probably be set in the country with the highest number of participants, and where a lawyer or a judge is likely to be part of users. Which mean very likely, Germany, France, Japan, Spain etc... It is important to set these associations for the legal reasons listed above and because people speaking only one language need to identify themselves to an entity they understand.

It would be nice that several countries are covered, but as long as only a couple of people participate from this country, it is likely there will be not much trend toward setting an association. So, I think the setting up will happen just naturally, under the gentle pressure building up when several users from the same area will begin to gather. In a huge structure, it is a natural trend that people gather by affinity.

Now, in terms of representation, these associations should just be careful not to favor one country, one culture, the best they can. This is exactly what we are trying to do on the wikimedia Foundation right now. We may have a board made of 5 americans people, or we may have a more mixed board. They board may decide to spent all the money (aside structural expenses) on distribution in the USA, or it may decide to use money in various ways, perhaps wikireaders in Germany, leaflets in China, schoolbooks in Africa. The ways will rely on the projects set up by Wikimedians. If only german propositions are made for distribution, I guess it is just fair that money goes to support the propositions made by the Germans. If several propositions are made, then the best ones should be funded. This will rely a LOT on what wikimedians will propose, don't you think ?

In terms of relationships between associations, I really think these should be strong. That is why I support us working on a common charter. With the local associations agreeing to go by the charter. I would like also to suggest that all donations and membership fees are put in the same pot.

I would like that each project has representants on a sort of big international board, and that these representants discuss on a Wikimedia-wide provisional budget every year. After basic operating costs are covered, the big board could agree on how to use the funds globally (how much on PR, how much technical investment, how much for distribution, how much to hire an expert...). Depending on each budget, the biggest part could be used for fundings of global actions agreed in common, and perhaps the rest of it will be refunded to each association, and used independently by each association upon decisions by its local members.

That is a rough layout I can think of, but I think doing this would
 * Keep the project coherent as a whole, as we would decide together on how to use the money best. I think it would promote concerted moves to do this way.
 * Make it possible to give a "special help" to a language we specifically decide to help, but has no association on its own
 * Preserve a bit of independance at a local scale, with opportunity for a given language to use money for a local project

I also think it important to make it possible for donators to make a donation for a specific project.

Possibly, the key answer to preserve unity is to set some multilingual working groups on specific topics (committees ?). Possibly, if we decide to send some paper versions to some african countries, we should aim at sending them in three languages mixed, even though one language will be better covered than the others (for example, a version sent to Algeria could be in arabic and french). I think that will be useful over there, and this will be a way to promote cooperation between associations.

Obviously, there is a lot of thought to put in this, and we need help of all to decide what is best, and help of "legal" people to set all this up :-)

Oups, sorry I was so long :-) Hope that clarifies my position.^

Muriel, my contributions as an editor of articles
Just out of curiosity, and i am asking this to everyone who is standing, i would like to post a question. Could you point me to two or three of your favourite contributions in Wikipedia? Not the whole bunch of them, which I am sure you all have in powers of 10, but that special article you wrote, or made substancial changes to, and makes you happy. Just to see what you've been up to :) Cheers and all the best to you all, MvHG 14:54, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Muriel !

That is a funny question :-) A list of my major contributions (or those I prefer) is there User:Anthere/Contribs.

I probably authored 90% of Ecology. In french and in english. That is an article I like very much, for two reasons. One is that I just find it good now, and ihmo, basically finished. That doesnot mean I do not let it live its own life, but to my opinion, it is of publishing quality, and I do not feel I will add any more to it now. It took me two months to write it and translate it :-) The second reason is that, just as many articles, I did it in two languages, but to be certain it would be a good article here (I mean, not in broken english), I asked help to translate it. And I got that help from several people (such as Brian Corr). I thought that was a great cooperation, and I loved it. I am currently reworking biodiversity (which I essentially authored many months ago) along the same lines. I do it as a personal sub page at User:Anthere/biodiversity, and I hope some english people will help me again to translate it when I am done, so that we set a great article together.

In english, a twin set I worked on not a long time ago, is Islam in France and French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools. I like them, because many people worked on them with me and after me, so it was a nice experience and lead me to meet Fabiform. And because I know it is an informative article for many english people.

I also like a lot Trade war over genetically modified food. The initial version was entirely wrote by me, but excised by Graft from another article (Genetically modified food), so my authoring it was entirely lost in the move (I still feel pain over this :-)). I appreciated writing it a lot, and think again that is typically one of these articles important to help people from different countries understand each other culture.

Local food is quite typical of many articles I often write on fr. It is not finished.

And Donella Meadows' twelve leverage points to intervene in a system, which is of a rather unusual form, is a very sweet memory to me, and for those who wonder, is the approach I use with Wikipedia (and the approach I used when writing incivility).

Hope I did not put too many ;-)

Cheers.

 * Not at all! Its nice to see all the different kinds of answers to the question I made. Happy election! MvHG 10:55, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Due to the concerns of a number of people, we are considering adopting a new system to replace First Past the Post. What is your preference? Please respond to WikiElections AT aol DOT com. This is not an assurance that the system will be changed, but rather an attempt to gauge the will of the electorate. Danny 03:58, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

James and License compatibility issues
As you're probably aware, one of the issues the project has is the wide variation in what can and can't be used under copyright law in different jurisdictions and the differing definitions of free used by contributors to the project. How will you seek to resolve the inevitable tension between those who want a completely free to use public domain Wikipedia, those who want to make full use of all works they are free to use under the copyright law of their jurisdiction, those who want a GFDL only encyclopedia, those who want a copyleft encyclopedia and those who want the best possible encyclopedia and accept all content which doesn't infringe copyright, even if some of it might be hard for all reusers, or a small number of reusers? The most compatible license is public domain, so does that mean that you prefer public domain content over other content? Would you want to strongly favor public domain content to maximise the freedom to reuse the work? How do you believe that increasing or decreasing the acceptability of licensed content will increase or decrease the participation in the project? How do you believe it will increase or decrease the chance of a competing project to fill any gaps in what we accept? Jamesday 05:59, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi James. I know not why...I am not surprised by that question ;-) I will answer to it later today or tomorrow. ant

Thank you for your question James. Copyright issues are difficult questions as far as I am concerned, because I have little legal background in my education. Currently, I am fairly open on the topic, essentially because I consider I do not have enough information in my hands to have a serious informed-opinion. Any decision on copyright issues must take into account a lot of implications, and I think I do not perceive (yet ?) enough of them.

Now the good news is that I am not alone on Wikipedia, but sharing this project with many others participants, who have legal experience :-) And the other good news is that a representant is, imho, not one supposed to take decisions alone, but to listen to people who have knowledge on the topic, to foster discussion between these people, to learn all positions, benefits and drawbacks of options, and then perhaps, if necessary, to draw conclusions and suggest directions.

Question is... do I do that ?

Well, I think I do. I will share my little experience on copyright matters with you. It is perhaps going a bit in details, but I think you may find it interesting :-) About 9 months ago, an editor started uploading a large number of images on the french wikipedia, images obviously under copyright, but with no labelling whatsoever. The images were mostly copied from the english wikipedia, where no labelling existed either at that time. After requesting information from the user, I was answered that all these images could go along the "fair use doctrine". I proceeded to look for information from french editors, then on the mailing lists. Some editors answered me that I should not care, since the information was stored on US servers, so legal under the fair use doctrine. I got deeply concerned by the topic. This answer was not acceptable to me, because very obviously, french versions of Wikipedia will be printed, or distributed on CDs, or may simply be downloaded, on many territories aside from USA. In such cases, distributions of Wikipedia would not be legal, we would be liable and it would be hurting our global image. The second point was also that end users (those reusing our contents) had no way to know whether they could or could not use these pictures, since these were not labelled). In short, we could be responsible for putting the users in trouble, or worried users could decide not to reuse our content. I also read several times, questions from users about using other licenses, such as pd, copyleft, creative... At this point, I felt there was a major need for structuring a bit this area in wikipedia, and figured that labelling had to be mandatory. After I read in length many discussions on the mailing lists, I headed for the person who was most likely to help me on this at that point, User:Alex756. As a lawyer, someone working in the art business, and speaking french, I felt he was a person who could teach us, answer our questions, help us figure out what fair use was and help us set that labelling thing. Alex756 very willingly brought us help on this. I was not aware really of any legal person able to help us then, but I suppose I would today gather information from more people, probably ask Michael and you James and Eloquence and others, more advices and opinions, before setting my mind on what should be done :-) But at that point, there was only one counsellor really and I consider him a good counsellor.

I launched a sort of campaign : I read all the pages Alex756 suggested me on the english Wikipedia, to understand the various cases surrounding fair use. Then, I gathered a small team of interested people on fr:, we translated the fair use article the best we could, and set a bunch of policy pages for image uploading, a page dedicated on fair use images... (see perhaps fair use, w:fr:Wikipédia:Fair use, w:fr:Wikipédia:Image among others). I think that was a great working team, and in a couple of weeks, we had a much clearer view of what to accept and what not to accept and how to label it and so on. We also tried to push the setting up of forms in the upload page on the tech list. And we started inforcing the new policy. We are fairly liberal in our acceptance of licenses, but labelling is something very important to us. I gather that, once the pictures are labelled, it won't be a huge issue later on, to set a category system, which will allow to download or print only pictures which are legal in a given country and serve end users the best we can.

Note : our labelling system is not perfect, It needs a bit of review and improvement again, in particular since we have the mediawiki now. But the most important thing, clearing up the area, and beginning to label was a very important step. We set it as soon as november 2003, earlier than the english wikipedia. I think the french system is a fairly inclusive system, and various licences are authorized, as long as they are clearly indicated. In short, what happened was, listening around, becoming aware that an issue was cooking, then trying to set a working team on that topic, first for understanding the matter and deciding what to do, second to implement it, and third to enforce it.

I think this is part of what a representant should be. Listening to what is happening, listening to people. When an issue becomes a problem, try to gather people so that they can work on it together and reach an agreement together. Perhaps could this require to set some "working committee" for some topics. If the board needs to take a decision, make that decision taking into account the opinion voiced by this "working committee", as long as this opinion is befitting the core principles of the project.

As there are two members who can help make the board into more than a rubber stamp for Jimbo these people need to be communicators. They also need to be people who will listen to the members, not just take their own opinions to the Board, but engage in an active dialogue with the Wikipedia communities.

I may not answer to your last questions here James, I have some ideas about this myself, but I think a candidate that has a lot of fixed ideas or opinions, is not someone who will help to make the organization more flexible. A board member with a lot of fixed ideas won't be so open to the community feedback, and I think hearing the feedback is what will be good for a representant. It will be best to transmit opinions of the participants to the board, so that it may be more effectively discussed in the board context.

I hope this answer your questions, even if perhaps not directly so ;-) If not, please say it. I know this is an important topic to you and others.

Life with the candidate
--

Hi Anthere

I would like to ask you to reconsider standing for only one of the two available board positions, but rather to stand for both. Both you and Eloquence address my concerns, and I would hate to see only one of you on the Board! Greenman 00:37, 22 May 2004 (SAST)

Hi Greenman. I first want to thank you for your support. I find interesting that you support both Erik and I, but I agree we balance each other a lot. The good news is that you can vote for both of us if you wish. Why am I interested by the contributing position ? Well, in particular because I wish to expand Wikimedia across the world, with local daughter associations, so that we can better benefit of donations and subventions, and more efficiently spread the word. The relationship between all these associations will be moral certainly, juridical yes, but financial a lot as well.

title: User:Anthere/Wikimedia


text:
Vertical bar

The vertical bar, |, is a glyph with various uses in mathematics, computing, and typography. It has many names, often related to particular meanings: Sheffer stroke (in logic), pipe, bar, or (literally, the word "or"), vbar, and others.

Mathematics
The vertical bar is used as a mathematical symbol in numerous ways. If used as a pair of brackets, it suggests the notion of the word "size". These are:
 * absolute value: $$|x|$$, read "the absolute value of x"
 * cardinality: $$|S|$$, read "the cardinality of the set S" or "the length of a string S"
 * determinant: $$|A|$$, read "the determinant of the matrix A". When the matrix entries are written out, the determinant is denoted by surrounding the matrix entries by vertical bars instead of the usual brackets or parentheses of the matrix, as in $$\begin{vmatrix} a & b \\ c & d\end{vmatrix}$$.
 * order: $$|G|$$, read "the order of the group G", or $$|g|$$, "the order of the element $$g \in G$$"

Likewise, the vertical bar is also used singly in many different ways:
 * conditional probability: $$P(X|Y)$$, read "the probability of X given Y"
 * distance: $$P|ab$$, denoting the shortest distance between point $$P$$ to line $$ab$$, so line $$P|ab$$ is perpendicular to line $$ab$$
 * divisibility: $$a \mid b$$, read "a divides b" or "a is a factor of b", though Unicode also provides special 'divides' and 'does not divide' symbols (U+2223 and U+2224:∣, ∤)
 * function evaluation: $$f(x)|_{x=4}$$, read "f of x, evaluated at x equals 4" (see subscripts at Wikibooks)
 * restriction: $$f|_{A}$$, denoting the restriction of the function $$f$$, with a domain that is a superset of $$A$$, to just $$A$$
 * set-builder notation: $$\{x|x<2\}$$, read "the set of x such that x is less than two". Often, a colon ':' is used instead of a vertical bar
 * the Sheffer stroke in logic: $$a|b$$, read "a nand b"
 * subtraction: $$f(x) \vert _a ^b$$, read "f(x) from a to b", denoting $$f(b) - f(a)$$. Used in the context of a definite integral with variable x.
 * A vertical bar can be used to separate variables from fixed parameters in a function, for example $$f(x|\mu,\sigma)$$, or in the notation for elliptic integrals.

The double vertical bar, $$\|$$, is also employed in mathematics.
 * parallelism: $$AB \parallel CD$$, read "the line $$AB$$ is parallel to the line $$CD$$"
 * norm: $$\|A\|$$, read "the norm (length, size, magnitude etc.) of the matrix $$A$$". The norm of a one-dimensional vector is the absolute value and single bars are used.
 * Propositional truncation: (a type former that truncates a type down to a mere proposition in homotopy type theory): for any $$a : A$$ (read "term $$a$$ of type $$ A$$") we have $$|a| : \left\| A \right\|$$ (here $$|a|$$ reads "image of $$a : A$$ in $$\left\| A \right\|$$" and $$|a| : \left\| A \right\|$$ reads "propositional truncation of $$A$$")

In LaTeX mathematical mode, the ASCII vertical bar produces a vertical line, and  creates a double vertical line (  is set as $$a | b \| c$$). This has different spacing from  and , which are relational operators:   is set as $$a \mid b \parallel c$$. See below about LaTeX in text mode.

Chemistry
In chemistry, the vertical line is used in cell notation of electrochemical cells.

Example,

Zn | Zn2+ || Cu2+ | Cu

Single vertical lines show components of the cell which do not mix, usually being in different phases. The double vertical line ( || ) is used to represent salt bridge; which is used to allow free moving ions to move.

Physics
The vertical bar is used in bra–ket notation in quantum physics. Examples:
 * $$|\psi\rangle$$: the quantum physical state $$\psi$$
 * $$\langle\psi|$$: the dual state corresponding to the state above
 * $$\langle\psi|\rho\rangle$$: the inner product of states $$\psi$$ and $$\rho$$
 * Supergroups in physics are denoted G(N|M), which reads "G, M vertical bar N"; here G denotes any supergroup, M denotes the bosonic dimensions, and N denotes the Grassmann dimensions.

Pipe
A pipe is an inter-process communication mechanism originating in Unix, which directs the output (standard out and, optionally, standard error) of one process to the input (standard in) of another. In this way, a series of commands can be "piped" together, giving users the ability to quickly perform complex multi-stage processing from the command line or as part of a Unix shell script ("bash file"). In most Unix shells (command interpreters), this is represented by the vertical bar character. For example:

where the output from the grep process (all lines containing 'blair') is piped to the more process (which allows a command line user to read through results one page at a time).

The same "pipe" feature is also found in later versions of DOS and Microsoft Windows.

This usage has led to the character itself being called "pipe".

Disjunction
In many programming languages, the vertical bar is used to designate the logic operation or, either bitwise or or logical or.

Specifically, in C and other languages following C syntax conventions, such as C++, Perl, Java and C#,  denotes a bitwise or; whereas a double vertical bar   denotes a (short-circuited) logical or. Since the character was originally not available in all code pages and keyboard layouts, ANSI C can transcribe it in form of the trigraph, which, outside string literals, is equivalent to the   character.

In regular expression syntax, the vertical bar again indicates logical or (alternation). For example: the Unix command  matches lines containing 'fu' or 'bar'.

Concatenation
The double vertical bar operator "||" denotes string concatenation in PL/I, standard ANSI SQL, and theoretical computer science (particularly cryptography).

Delimiter
Although not as common as commas or tabs, the vertical bar can be used as a delimiter in a flat file. Examples of a pipe-delimited standard data format are LEDES 1998B and HL7. It is frequently used because vertical bars are typically uncommon in the data itself.

Similarly, the vertical bar may see use as a delimiter for regular expression operations (e.g. in sed). This is useful when the regular expression contains instances of the more common forward slash delimiter; using a vertical bar eliminates the need to escape all instances of the forward slash. However, this makes the bar unusable as the regular expression "alternative" operator.

Backus–Naur form
In Backus–Naur form, an expression consists of sequences of symbols and/or sequences separated by '|', indicating a choice, the whole being a possible substitution for the symbol on the left.

Concurrency operator
In calculi of communicating processes (like pi-calculus), the vertical bar is used to indicate that processes execute in parallel.

APL
The pipe in APL is the modulo or residue function between two operands and the absolute value function next to one operand.

List comprehensions
The vertical bar is used for list comprehensions in some functional languages, e.g. Haskell and Erlang. Compare set-builder notation.

Text markup
The vertical bar is used as a special character in lightweight markup languages, notably MediaWiki's Wikitext (in the templates and internal links).

In LaTeX text mode, the vertical bar produces an em dash (—). The  command can be used to produce a vertical bar.

Phonetics and orthography
In the Khoisan languages and the International Phonetic Alphabet, the vertical bar is used to write the dental click. A double vertical bar is used to write the alveolar lateral click. Since these are technically letters, they have their own Unicode code points in the Latin Extended-B range: U+01C0 for the single bar and U+01C1 for the double bar.

Some Northwest and Northeast Caucasian languages written in the Cyrillic script have a vertical bar called palochka (палочка), indicating the preceding consonant is an ejective.

Longer single and double vertical bars are used to mark prosodic boundaries in the IPA.

Literature
In medieval European manuscripts, a single vertical bar was a common variant of the virgula / used as a comma, or caesura mark.

In Sanskrit and other Indian languages, a single vertical mark, a danda, has a similar function as a period (full stop). Two bars || (a 'double danda') is the equivalent of a pilcrow in marking the end of a stanza, paragraph or section. The danda has its own Unicode code point, U+0964.

Poetry
A double vertical bar $\langle||\rangle$ or $\langleǁ\rangle$ is the standard caesura mark in English literary criticism and analysis. It marks the strong break or caesura common to many forms of poetry, particularly Old English verse. It is also traditionally used to mark the division between lines of verse printed as prose (the style preferred by Oxford University Press), though it is now often replaced by the forward slash.

Notation
In the Geneva Bible and early printings of the King James Version, a double vertical bar is used to mark margin notes that contain an alternative translation from the original text. These margin notes always begin with the conjunction "Or". In later printings of the King James Version, the double vertical bar is irregularly used to mark any comment in the margins.

A double vertical bar symbol may be used to call out a footnote. (The traditional order of these symbols in English is *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶, so its use is very rare; in modern usage, numbers and letters are preferred for endnotes and footnotes. )

Music scoring
In music, when writing chord sheets, single vertical bars associated with a colon (|: A / / / :|) represents the beginning and end of a section (e.g. Intro, Interlude, Verse, Chorus) of music. Single bars can also represent the beginning and end of measures (|: A / / / | D / / / | E / / / :|). A double vertical bar associated with a colon can represent the repeat of a given section (||: A / / / :|| - play twice).

Solid vertical bar versus broken bar
Many early video terminals and dot-matrix printers rendered the vertical bar character as the allograph broken bar ¦. This may have been to distinguish the character from the lower-case 'L' and the upper-case '' on these limited-resolution devices, and to make a vertical line of them look more like a horizontal line of dashes. It was also (briefly) part of the ASCII standard.

An initial draft for a 7-bit character set that was published by the X3.2 subcommittee for Coded Character Sets and Data Format on June 8, 1961, was the first to include the vertical bar in a standard set. The bar was intended to be used as the representation for the logical OR symbol. A subsequent draft on May 12, 1966, places the vertical bar in column 7 alongside regional entry codepoints, and formed the basis for the original draft proposal used by the International Standards Organisation. This draft received opposition from the IBM user group SHARE, with its chairman, H. W. Nelson, writing a letter to the American Standards Association titled "The Proposed revised American Standard Code for Information Interchange does NOT meet the needs of computer programmers!"; in this letter, he argues that no characters within the international subset designated at columns 2-5 of the character set would be able to adequately represent logical OR and logical NOT in languages such as IBM's PL/I universally on all platforms. As a compromise, a requirement was introduced where the exclamation mark (!) and circumflex (^) would display as logical OR (|) and logical NOT (¬) respectively in use cases such as programming, while outside of these use cases they would represent their original typographic symbols: ) and logical NOT (¬) respectively."

The original vertical bar encoded at 0x7C in the original May 12, 1966 draft was then broken as ¦, so it could not be confused with the unbroken logical OR. In the 1967 revision of ASCII, along with the equivalent ISO 464 code published the same year, the code point was defined to be a broken vertical bar, and the exclamation mark character was allowed to be rendered as a solid vertical bar. However, the 1977 revision (ANSI X.3-1977) undid the changes made in the 1967 revision, enforcing that the circumflex could no longer be stylised as a logical NOT symbol, the exclamation mark likewise no longer allowing stylisation as a vertical bar, and defining the code point originally set to the broken bar as a solid vertical bar instead; the same changes were also reverted in ISO 646-1973 published four years prior.

Some variants of EBCDIC included both versions of the character as different code points. The broad implementation of the extended ASCII ISO/IEC 8859 series in the 1990s also made a distinction between the two forms. This was preserved in Unicode as a separate character at U+00A6 BROKEN BAR (the term "parted rule" is used sometimes in Unicode documentation). Some fonts draw the characters the same (both are solid vertical bars, or both are broken vertical bars).

Many keyboards with US, US-International, and German QWERTZ layout display the broken bar on a keycap even though the solid vertical bar character is produced. This is a legacy of keyboards manufactured during the 1980s and 1990s for IBM PC compatible computers, as the IBM PC continued to display the glyph for the broken bar at codepoint 7C on displays from MDA (1981) to VGA (1987) despite the changes made to ASCII in 1977. The UK/Ireland keyboard has both symbols engraved: the broken bar is given as an alternate graphic on the "grave" (backtick) key; the solid bar is on the backslash key.

The broken bar character can be typed (depending on the layout) as or AltGr or AltGr on Windows and  on Linux. It can be inserted into HTML as ¦

The broken bar does not appear to have any clearly identified uses distinct from those of the vertical bar. In non-computing use — for example in mathematics, physics and general typography — the broken bar is not an acceptable substitute for the vertical bar. In some dictionaries, the broken bar is used to mark stress that may be either primary or secondary: covers the pronunciations  and.

Unicode code points
These glyphs are encoded in Unicode as follows:
 * (single vertical line)
 * (single broken line)
 * (double vertical line ( $$\|$$ ): used in pairs to indicate norm)
 * (Fullwidth form)
 * (and various other box drawing characters in the range U+2500 to U+257F)
 * (and various other box drawing characters in the range U+2500 to U+257F)
 * (and various other box drawing characters in the range U+2500 to U+257F)
 * (and various other box drawing characters in the range U+2500 to U+257F)
 * (and various other box drawing characters in the range U+2500 to U+257F)
 * (and various other box drawing characters in the range U+2500 to U+257F)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Vertical bar


text:
Paul Cornu

Paul Cornu (15 June 1881 – 6 June 1944) was a French engineer.

Life
Paul Cornu, of Romanian origins, was born in Glos la Ferrière, France and was one of thirteen children. At a young age, he helped his father in his transports company. He made history by designing the world's first successful manned rotary wing aircraft.

Cornu first built an unmanned experimental design powered by a 2 hp Buchet engine.

His manned helicopter was powered by a 24 hp Antoinette engine. He piloted this construction himself at Normandy, France on 13 November 1907. Previously, a French helicopter, the Breguet-Richet Gyroplane I, had managed to lift off under its own power, but it had been held in position by men standing on the ground. Cornu's performance was a considerable progress because his aircraft flew without additional support and lifted Cornu about 30 cm (1 ft) for 20 seconds. Unfortunately this early helicopter was scarcely maneuverable and had only a few additional flights. The construction was not much further developed by this technical pioneer, who had to keep on making a living by manufacturing bicycles.

Death
Paul Cornu died aged 62 in 1944 in Lisieux, France, when his home was destroyed during the bombardment by the Allies that accompanied the Normandy landings of World War II.

title: Paul Cornu


text:
Brail

Brails, in a sailing ship, are small lines used to haul in or up the edges (leeches) or corners of sails, before furling. On a ship rig, these brails are most often found on the mizzen sail. The command is, hale up the brails, or, brail up the sails. The word brail comes from Middle English brayle, from Anglo-French braiel belt, strap, brail, alteration of Old French braiuel belt, probably ultimately from Latin braca pant.

A brail net is a type of net incorporating brail lines on a small fishing net on a boat or castnet.

A brail net used for casting is also referred to as an English net as opposed to a Spanish net.

title: Brail


text:
Tikkun olam

Tikkun olam (תִּקּוּן עוֹלָם) is a concept in Judaism, which refers to various forms of action intended to repair and improve the world.

In classical rabbinic literature, the phrase referred to legal enactments intended to preserve the social order. In the Aleinu prayer, it refers to the eradication of idolatry. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the "repair" is mystical: to return the sparks of Divine light to their source by means of ritual performance.

In the modern era, particularly among the post-Haskalah movements, tikkun olam has come to refer to the pursuit of social justice or "the establishment of Godly qualities throughout the world" based on the idea that "Jews bear responsibility not only for their own moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the welfare of society at large".

In the Mishnah
The earliest use of the term tikkun olam comes in the phrase mip'nei tikkun ha-olam, "for the sake of repairing the world", which appears in the Mishnah (Gittin 4:2–9) with the meaning of amending the law in order to keep society well-functioning.

A number of legal enactments appear in this passage with mip'nei tikkun ha-olam given as justification:
 * One cannot convene a court in another place in order to nullify a get (divorce document). (4:2)
 * One must fully specify the names of the husband and wife on a divorce document. (4:2)
 * A widow can collect her ketubah even without a formal oath. (4:3)
 * Witnesses must sign the divorce document. (4:3)
 * Prozbul was instituted. (4:3)
 * If an enslaver set aside an enslaved person as a designated repayment for his debts, the enslaved person is freed but the responsibility to repay the debt is transferred to them. (4:4)
 * If two people enslave one person, and one enslaver frees that person, the formerly enslaved person is forced to repay the second enslaver his share of the value of the enslavement. (4:5)
 * Captives are not redeemed for more than their monetary value. (4:6)
 * Captives are not aided in their attempts to escape (so that captors do not make the conditions of captivity more restrictive, or else so that captors do not take revenge on other captives). (4:6)
 * Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot are not purchased from non-Jews for more than their value. (4:6)
 * Once when a husband made a vow requiring him to divorce his wife, they were then allowed to remarry. (4:7)
 * One who sold their field to a non-Jew must purchase and bring the first fruits from that field. (4:9)

More generally, tikkun can mean improvement, establishment, repair, prepare, and more. In this Mishnaic context it generally refers to practical legal measures taken in the present to ameliorate social conditions. In the legal language of the Talmud, however, the verb took on a much more legalistic role, in that a "Takkana" – literally, "Affixation" – was a category of legal enactment made by the Sages.

In Aleinu
A conception of tikkun olam is also found in the Aleinu, a concluding part of most Jewish congregational prayer, which in contrast to the Mishnah's usage, focuses on the end of time. The Aleinu beseeches God:
 * Hebrew: ""
 * Translation: "to speedily see Your mighty splendor, to cause detestable (idolatry) to be removed from the land, and the (false) gods will be utterly 'cut off', to takein olam – fix/repair/establish a world – under the Almighty's kingdom"

In other words, when all the people of the world abandon false gods and recognize God, the world will have been perfected.

Among modern liberal Jewish movements, a common but more modern understanding of this phrase is that we share a partnership with God, and are instructed to take the steps towards improving the state of the world and helping others, which simultaneously brings more honor to God's sovereignty.

Some scholars have argued that the Aleinu prayer is actually not a valid source for the concept of tikkun olam, claiming that the original prayer used a homonym "l'takhen" (spelled differently, ) meaning "to establish" (rather than "to fix" or "to repair"); this wording is still used by Yemenite Jews. However, among European Jews, Aleinu has used the word "to fix" since at least the first recorded texts in the 11th–12th centuries. Thus, Aleinu's influence on the concept of tikkun olam can date to at least this time.

Maimonides
Over the course of Jewish intellectual history, tikkun olam has at times referred to eschatological concerns, as in Aleinu, and at times to practical concerns, as in the Mishnah, but in either context, it refers to some kind of social change or process that is for the betterment of Jews or Goyim or the world. Whether that happens primarily within Jewish society or primarily in relation to the nations of the world, whether that happens primarily through acts of justice and kindness, or equally through ritual observance, whether primarily through internal work of an individual or through external deeds, is something that changes from one source to the next. For example, Talmudic scholar and eminent philosopher of the Middle Ages Maimonides saw tikkun olam as fully inclusive of all these dimensions when he wrote "Through wisdom, which is [represented by] Torah, and the elevation of character, which is [represented by] acts of kindness, and observing the Torah’s commandments, which are [represented by] the sacrifices, one continuously brings tikkun olam improvement of the world, and the ordering of reality." Yet he also saw justice as a fundamental component, as for example when he wrote, "Every judge who judges truth unto its [deepest] truth, even for one hour, it’s as if he fixed the whole world entirely / tikein et kol ha’olam kulo and caused the Shekhinah to rest upon Israel."

Lurianic Kabbalah
Lurianic Kabbalah dwells on the role of prayer and ritual in tikkun of the upper worlds. According to this vision of the world, God contracted part of God's infinite light (Ohr Ein Sof)—concealing Himself—to create the world. The vessels (kelim) of the first universe—Olam HaTohu, i.e., the "world of chaos"—shattered (Shevirat HaKelim) and their shards became sparks of light (neẓuẓot) trapped within the next universe—Olam HaTikun, i.e., "the world of rectification." Prayer, especially contemplation of various aspects of the divinity (sephirot), releases these sparks of God's light and allows them to reunite with God's essence. The “rectification” is two-fold: the gathering of light and of souls, to be achieved by human beings through the contemplative performance of religious acts. The goal of such repair, which can only be effected by humans, is to separate what is holy from the created world, thus depriving the physical world of its very existence, destroying the material universe. This restores all things to a world before disaster within the Godhead.

According to Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in his book Derech Hashem, the physical world is connected to spiritual realms above that influence the physical world, and furthermore, Jews have the ability, through physical deeds and free will, to direct and control these spiritual forces. God's desire in creation was that God's creations ultimately will recognize God's unity and overcome evil; this will constitute the perfection (tikkun) of creation. While the Jews have the Torah now and are aware of God's unity, some believe that when all of humanity recognizes this fact, the rectification will be complete. In recent years Jewish thinkers and activists have used Lurianic Kabbalah to elevate the full range of ethical and ritual mitzvot into acts of tikkun olam. The belief that not only does prayer lift up divine sparks, but so do all of the mitzvot, including those traditionally understood as ethical, was already a part of Kabbalah, but the contemporary emphasis serves the purpose of finding a mystical depth and spiritual energy in ethical mitzvot. The application of the Lurianic vision to improving the world can be seen in Jewish blogs, High Holiday sermons and on-line Jewish learning resource centers.

The association between the Lurianic conception of tikkun and ethical action assigns an ultimate significance to even small acts of kindness and small improvements of social policy. However, if this is done in a manner that separates the concept of tikkun olam from its other meanings as found in rabbinic literature and the Aleinu prayer, there is a risk of privileging actions that have no real religious significance and represent personal agendas more than Judaism itself.

The application of Lurianic Kabbalah to ethical mitzvot and social action is particularly striking because Lurianic Kabbalah saw itself as repairing dimensions within the spiritual, the mystical worlds, rather than this world and its social relations. Author Lawrence Fine points to two features of Lurianic Kabbalah that have made it adaptable to ethical mitzvot and social action. First, he points out that a generation recovering from the tragedy of the Holocaust resonates with the imagery of shattered vessels. Second, both Lurianic Kabbalah and ethical understandings of tikkun olam emphasize the role of human responsibility and action.

Modern developments
The original context of the Aleinu prayer, in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, is accompanied by the hope that "all [people/creatures] will form a single union to do Your will with a whole heart". In many contexts this is interpreted to be a call to universalism and justice for all mankind – sentiments which are common throughout Jewish liturgy. For example, in the American Conservative movement's prayer book, Siddur Sim Shalom, "A Prayer for Our Country" elaborates on this passage: "May citizens of all races and creeds forge a common bond in true harmony to banish all hatred and bigotry" and "uniting all people in peace and freedom and helping them to fulfill the vision of your prophet: 'Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they experience war anymore. Both lines express wholeheartedly the idea of universal equality, freedom, and peace for all.

In the liberal movements of Judaism, most especially in the United States, this sentiment is especially embedded in the idea of acting compassionately for all people, as for example in the 1975 New Union prayer book, used by the movement for Reform Judaism Gates of Prayer, which includes the text "You [Lord] have taught us to uphold the falling, to heal the sick, to free the captive, to comfort all who suffer pain". These aspects of Judaism already have a traditional name however, gemilut chasadim, and some have criticized the tendency to emphasize social action as a kind of disregard for other aspects of Judaism traditionally connected to tikkun olam, like learning, prayer, repentance, and ritual commandments.

Perhaps the first Jewish thinker to use the phrase "tikkun olam" in the modern sense of "fixing the world" by building a just society was Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935). According to Jewish scholar Lawrence Fine, the first use of the phrase tikkun olam in modern Jewish history in the United States was by Brandeis-Bardin Camp Institute founder Shlomo Bardin in the 1950s. Bardin interpreted the Aleinu prayer, specifically the expression le-taken olam be-malchut shaddai (typically translated as when the world shall be perfected under the reign of the almighty), as a responsibility for Jewish people to work towards a better world. However, while Bardin was a significant popularizer of the term, one also finds it being used in similar manner in the late 1930s and early 1940s by Alexander Dushkin and Mordecai Kaplan. As left-leaning progressive Jewish organizations started entering the mainstream in the 1970s and 1980s, the phrase tikkun olam began to gain more traction. The phrase has since been adopted by a variety of Jewish organizations, to mean anything from direct service to general philanthropy. It was presented to a wide international audience—itself an indication of how widely tikkun olam had now permeated American Jewish life—when Mordecai Waxman used the phrase in a speech during Pope John Paul II's visit to the United States in September 1987.

Performance of mitzvot
Classical Jewish texts teach that performing of ritual mitzvot (good deeds, commandments, connections, or religious obligations) is a means of tikkun olam, helping to perfect the world, and that the performance of more mitzvot will hasten the coming of the Messiah and the Messianic Age. This belief dates back at least to the early Talmudic period. According to Rabbi Yochanan, quoting Rabbi Shim'on bar Yochai, the Jewish people will be redeemed when every Jew observes Shabbat twice in all its details. Some explain that this will occur because Shabbat rest (which is considered a foretaste of the Messianic Age ) energizes Jews to work harder to bring the Messianic Age nearer during the six working days of the week. It is expected that in the messianic era there will be no injustice or exploitation, a state comparable with tikkun olam.

Ethical behavior
In Jewish thought, ethical mitzvot as well as ritual mitzvot are important to the process of tikkun olam. Maimonides writes that tikkun olam requires efforts in all three of the great "pillars" of Judaism: Torah study, acts of kindness, and the ritual commandments. Some Jews believe that performing mitzvot will create a model society among the Jewish people, which will in turn influence the rest of the world. By perfecting themselves, their local Jewish community or the state of Israel, the Jews set an example for the rest of the world. The theme is frequently repeated in sermons and writings across the Jewish spectrum: Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox.

Also, the mitzvot often have practical worldly/social effects (in contrast to mystical effects as held by Lurianic Kabbalah).

Tzedakah
Tzedakah is a central theme in Judaism and serves as one of the 613 commandments. Tzedakah is used in common parlance as charitable giving. Tzedek, the root of tzedakah, means justice or righteousness. Acts of tzedakah are used to generate a more just world. Therefore, tzedakah is a means through which to perform tikkun olam.

Philanthropy is an effective tool in performing tikkun olam as it supports organizations that perform direct service. There are many different philanthropic organizations devoted to repairing the world. The Jewish Federations of North America, one of the top ten charities in the world, counts tikkun olam as one of the three main principles under which it operates. Similarly, the American Jewish World Service supports grassroots organizations creating change in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

The intersection between tzedakah, philanthropy, and tikkun olam is captured by Yehudah Mirsky in his article "Tikkun Olam: Basic Questions and Policy Directions". Mirsky writes:"The rich tradition of tzedakah is a model of communal social responsibility in the absence of a strong welfare state; it also connects to the burgeoning area of Micro Philanthropy, which pools large numbers of small donations resulting in more direct interaction between donors and recipients, or "givers" and "doers," higher resolution in the focus of giving and the creation of new networks of cooperation."

Building a model society
By performing the mitzvot, it is believed that the Jewish people will become a model society. This idea sometimes is attributed to Biblical verses that describe the Jews as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" and "a light of the nations" or "a light to the nations" ( and ). The philosophies of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag are prominent in this field, the former rationally and in terms of a kehilla (community) of Jews in galut (the diaspora) influencing their non-Jewish neighbors, and the latter mystically and in Zionist terms of a Jewish state influencing the other nations of the world. Some other Orthodox rabbis, many but not all of them Modern Orthodox, follow a philosophy similar to Hirsch's, including Joseph H. Hertz, Isidore Epstein, and Eliezer Berkovits. The philosophy of Religious Zionism follows Kook in his philosophy.

In Modern Orthodox philosophy (which often is intertwined with Religious Zionism, especially in America), it is commonly believed that mitzvot have practical this-worldly sociological and educational effects on those who perform them, and in this manner, the mitzvot will perfect the Jews and the world.

According to the rationalist philosophy of Hirsch and others, the social and ethical mitzvot have nearly self-explanatory purposes, while ritual mitzvot may serve functions such as educating people or developing relationships between people and God. As examples, prayer either inculcates a relationship between people and God or strengthens beliefs and faith of the one who prays, and keeping kosher or wearing tzitzit serve as educational symbols of moral and religious values. Thus, the ultimate goal of mitzvot is for moral and religious values and deeds to permeate the Jewish people and ultimately the entire world, but the ritual mitzvot nevertheless play a vital role in this model of tikkun olam, strengthening what is accomplished by the ethical.

Hirsch's Horeb is an especially important source, as his exposition of his philosophy of the mitzvot. He classifies the mitzvot into six categories:
 * (1) toroth (philosophical doctrines);
 * The ethical mitzvot fall under (2) mishpatim and (3) chukim (commandments of justice towards (living) people and the natural world (including the human body itself) respectively) and (4) mitzvot (commandments of love);
 * The ritual mitzvot under (5) edoth (educational symbolic commandments) and (6) avodah (commandments of direct service to God).

Aside from the fact that by perfecting themselves, the Jews set an example for the rest of the world, there is thus the additional distinction that mitzvot have practical, worldly effects—for example, charity benefits the poor materially, constituting tikkun olam by its improvement of the world physically or socially, in contrast to the mystical effects of mitzvot as held by Lurianic Kabbalah.

Improving the world
For some Jews, the phrase tikkun olam means that Jews are not only responsible for creating a model society among themselves but also are responsible for the welfare of the society at large. This responsibility may be understood in religious, social or political terms and there are many different opinions about how religion, society, and politics interact.

Jane Kanarek, a Conservative rabbi, argues that discussions of tikkun olam in the Mishnah and Talmud point to the importance of creating systemic change through law. She concludes that contemporary tikkun olam should also focus on systemic and structural changes to society.

While many non-Orthodox Jews have argued that tikkun olam requires socially liberal politics, some have argued for the validity of a conservative political approach to tikkun olam. Michael Spiro, a Reconstructionist Jew, draws on a conservative tradition that emphasizes free markets precisely because they believed that was the path to the greatest public good. In addition, conservatives have always emphasized the importance of private efforts of gemilut chasadim (benevolence) and tzedakah (charity or philanthropy), and Spiro argues that tikkun olam should be carried out through such private efforts rather than through government.

Jewish youth organizations
Tikkun olam is used to refer to Jewish obligations to engage in social action in the Reform and Conservative movements as well. For example, in USY, the Conservative youth movement, the position in charge of social action on chapter and regional boards is called the SA/TO (social action/tikkun olam) officer. Furthermore, USY has the Abraham Joshua Heschel Honor Society. A requirement of acceptance to the honor society is to perform one act of community service a month. In NFTY, the American branch of Netzer Olami, the Reform youth movement, the position in charge of social action on chapter and regional boards is called the social action vice president (SAVP).

In addition, other youth organizations have also grown to include tikkun olam has part of its foundation. BBYO has community service/social action commitments in both of its divisions, AZA and BBG. BBG includes two different programming areas specific to tikkun olam—one for community service, and another for social action. AZA includes a combined community service/social action programming area. In addition, both divisions include "pledge principles," principles by which to guide them. For BBG girls the "menorah pledge principles" include citizenship, philanthropy, and community service. For AZA members, the "7 cardinal principles" include charity.

Jewish fundamentalism
Elon University professor Geoffrey Claussen has asserted that concepts of tikkun olam have inspired Jewish fundamentalists such as Meir Kahane and Yitzchak Ginsburgh. According to Claussen, "while visions of tikkun olam may reflect humility, thoughtfulness, and justice, they are often marked by arrogance, overzealousness, and injustice."

title: Tikkun olam