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.org
Year: 2006 Week: 13 Number:19 Extra
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== The WMF is closing the French Wikiquote ===
The French language Wikiquote is closed by the foundation.
This notice is placed on the main page of the locked wiki;
<quote>
After analyzing the data contained in the fr.wikiquote site, the Wikimedia
Foundation has determined that the material stored in the fr.wikiquote database
does not provide the basic assurance of legal soundness necessary to the
permanence of the project. Therefore, the site will be entirely taken down to
be erased and relaunched. A policy requiring greater traceability of quotations
will be put in place on fr.wikiquote version II. This action has been taken for
the benefit of all Wikimedia Foundation projects.
</quote>
http://fr.wikiquote.org
The new FR Wikiquote is announced to re-open for editing on 1 April with a new
empty database.
The origin of the this dates back to August 2005. Wikim?dia France received a
letter from a company maintaining a
quote database. They claim Wikiquote extracted a substantial part of their
database.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Closure_of_French_Wikiquote
The closing now of FR Wikiquote seems to be the end result of this.
On Meta a FAQ about this is posted;
*What was wrong with the French Wikiquote?
**Some contributor had apparently inserted material from copyrighted databases
and other sources.
*What was the extent of the problem?
**It was sufficient to render the majority of the French Wikiquote database
suspect, which is why it was deemed necessary to delete it.
*Was this a legal settlement?
**Yes, we reached an agreement with an outside party, and we are quite
satisfied with the outcome.
*Can you tell us who the settlement was with, what the terms were, etc.?
**What we are doing now is fulfilling the terms. Not every precise detail
should be or needs to be disclosed, in order to protect future relationships
and negotiation strategies, but the terms that matter are reflected in the
official announcement. The project should not incur any legal liability as a
result.
*What about the French Wikiquote community?
**There isn't really a substantial community there. Activity significantly
declined after this problem was discovered. Affected contributors have already
been notified.
*Couldn't you have tried to salvage something?
**It would have required extensive work by the community to identify and remove
the problems, much like the German Wikipedia recently did in a similar
situation, but on a significantly larger scale this time. Since there isn't
much of a community, the resources to do this don't exist. That's why we agreed
to start it over.
*Are there problems on other Wikiquotes?
**It's possible, and those communities should let us know if they have any
suspicions so that the problems can be addressed without involving outside
parties. They should also look at adopting policies similar to the French
Wikiquote's new citation policy.
*Will this sort of thing happen again? Is my project in danger of being deleted?
**No, not at all. Certainly not if you have an active community that is willing
to respect copyright and is capable of responding to problems. Obviously if
you're involved enough to be concerned about the welfare of your project, then
there should be sufficient community oversight to ensure that problems like
this do not arise, or are dealt with long before they reach this stage.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Press/2006/03/28_fr.Wikiquote_brief
There has not yet been a official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation about
this to the community beside the service announcement on fr.wikiquote
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 241
Editor(s): Walter
E-mail: ihavenews AT wikizine DOT org
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Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of validity.
Wikizine.org is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Publisher:[[meta:user:Walter]]
