Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
George Herbert wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 10:18 PM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.yuwrote: On Wednesday 21 January 2009 03:23:51 Erik Moeller wrote: 2009/1/20 geni geni...@gmail.com: 1)This isn't legal within anything close to the current wording of the page. CC General Counsel has confirmed that our proposed attribution model is consistent with the language of CC-BY-SA. There is no need to use attribution parties - our proposed approach is consistent with 4(c)(i) and 4(c)(iii). Don't know about this wording thing, but as a Wikipedia author, I have to say that I do not think that attributing me in this way is sufficient. As a Wikimedian, I believe that a lot of people will feel the same. And as a programmer, I do not see why is this controversy necessary at all, as a number of people have presented a variety of solutions that make it possible to analyse the revisions and extract authors with satisfying accuracy. I disagree. The technical analysis misses contributions which remain in conceptual form (layout of a page, sections completely rewritten but not reconceptualized). It also is error prone. Original authorship of text There is no one single technical analysis. There are various methods of analysis proposed, including ones that could identify changes to layout without change of contents. Either way, it is better to identify authors 99% of the time, than not to identify them at all. There's nothing wrong with this method of attribution - it's better than we Yes, there is. I am an author, and I do not consider this method of attribution appropriate. have or require now. It's less than what GFDL says it requires, sure, but Wikipedia has never held to the letter of that, and anyone who's contributed to Wikipedia once they were aware of that can be held to have implicitly waived that particular GFDL clause in favor of what we're actually doing. Translation: what we are doing right now is wrong and no one complains too loudly, therefore we may get away with being even more wrong in the future. This improves what we actually do. Why would you think it's worse? No it doesn't. For example, German Wikireaders are published with a list of all the authors at the end, and after this change they wouldn't have to be. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Steward-Wahl
Please note that stewards are not an electoral college. Although it is positive if there are stewards around that have an understanding of a project in case there is something complicated going on, there is absolutely no necessity to have stewards from specific angles. It is not like stewards come together and vote on something, there are no ratio's to be held. Lodewijk 2009/1/20 Casey Brown cbrown1023...@gmail.com 2009/1/20 Jan Luca j...@jans-seite.de: Aber, wenn kein Steward von einen der Wikiversity-Projekte kommt und auch keiner dort mitarbeitet, ist es schwer das Projekt zu beurteilen, da man keinen Live-Mitarbeiter hat. Ich weiß, dass Stewards global sind und auf alle Projekte zugreifen können. Yes, you are right -- it's best to have well-rounded candidates. But in the end, stewards don't decide so they are just people to do the actions of the community. However, if you really want to get a Wikiversity candidate, the only way to do it is to encourage them to nominate themselves! You have a few days left. :-) -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 --- Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
George Herbert wrote: On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 1:09 AM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.yu wrote: Translation: what we are doing right now is wrong and no one complains too loudly, therefore we may get away with being even more wrong in the future. No, what we are doing now is not wrong. What we're doing now is uniformly and universally accepted in the en.wp community and nearly all the rest of them. Claiming that it's wrong is like calling black white. Something could be uniformly and universally accepted, and still wrong. This is one of such things. Anyway, you are missing the point entirely. Online, where everything is a click away, having a link to the article history is practically the same thing as reproducing the list of authors. Of course, it would be even better if we would have the ability to display a list of authors, better still if we could somehow separate major and minor contributors and so on. But the issue here is appropriate attribution offline. It is proposed that appropriate attribution in a print work is a printed URL of the list of authors. Me and other people believe that this isn't actually appropriate. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjes...@gmail.com wrote: Was this some sort of unilateral proclamation by Ting, or has the chapters committee officially made some sort of decision on this topic? A principal decision on sub-national chapters has been made by the *board* (the Framework... document), after *input* from ChapCom. M. -- Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
Hoi, Congratulations. As a consequence of the recognition of the Võro language, the Estonian language with the codes est and et has been made a macro language. This macro language contains two languages, Võro and Standard Estonian. Standard Estonian has the code of ekk. It is appropriate to rename the et.wikipedia.org as a consequence. Thanks, GerardM http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=est 2009/1/21 Jüvä Sullõv juva...@ut.ee Dear wikipedians! The Võro language has now its own ISO 639-3 language code - vro. So probably the temporary code fiu-vro for Võro Wikipedia has to be replaced soon. New download tables incorporating all the announced changes are now available at: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/download.asp The index of 2008 change requests (completed) may be found at: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/chg_requests.asp?order=CR_Numberchg_status=2008 Greetings from Võro, Jüvä Sullõv (Võrok) Võro Vikipeediä -- VVV - võro värk võrgon aoleht http://www.umaleht.ee sõnaraamat http://www.folklore.ee/Synaraamat entsüklopeediä http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org puutri http://math.ut.ee/~vlaan/vtk/vtk.htmlhttp://math.ut.ee/%7Evlaan/vtk/vtk.html multifilmiq http://www.lastekas.ee/?go=multikaq raadio http://www.vikerraadio.ee/kuularhiiv?saade=66kid=191 Tarto Ülikuul http://www.ut.ee/lekeskus Võro Instituut http://www.wi.ee ___ Wikipedia-l mailing list wikipedi...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 2:24 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: Wow!, just wow. Would you be okay with one country that was very tiny having two chapters? If the very tiny country had enough active wikimedians to create critical mass for two chapters, and if those two groups found that they absolutely could not work together and that it would be far easier for them to organize separately, then yes that would be okay. The size of the region isn't nearly so important as other factors like activity level. We also cannot pretend that we know how people in country X should organize better then those people do themselves. Organizers will tell us what's right for them, we do not tell them what is right for them (although we can always make thoughtful suggestions). --Andrew Whitworth ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Hoi, Without the five persons that make the difference, there is no chapter anyway. Andrew, the NYC does not need my approval but given what I know of their activities so far, they are doing great. This does however not mean that the issues that are raised have been answered, far from it. Your realisation that several national chapters have not been performing as they should is correct. It is however not the issue that we are discussing. At the same time Ting indicated that the board takes this seriously and this gives me hope that non performance is not without consequence. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/20 Andrew Whitworth wknight8...@gmail.com On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: When the right five friends come together, they do not need their dog to make a successful organisation. Five people are enough to make a bored, five people are enough to raise money. It takes dedication and a lot of effort. 5 people is not critical mass, and I cannot imagine that the chapcom would approve a potential chapter that has only 5 members. 5 people can do many wonderful things, but that does not make them a chapter. Ting ruled out the existence of an USA chapter because of the existence of the New York chapter. It is equally clear that the WMF organisation does not want to fulfill the role of an USA chapter. When Dan asks me and Anthere not to use the sub-chapter word, he is right in that the board names them a chapter, but the issue of the New York chapter having fewer abilities and responsibilities is conveniently swept under the carpet in this way. This is all blatantly false. What abilities and responsibilities are not available to WMNYC that our other national-level chapters have? Besides the fact that the WMF itself is based on the USA and therefore is more able to enter into business agreements with companies here then in other countries, I see no limitation on this or any other subnational chapter. Do not assume that this group is at any disadvantage compared to our other national chapters. In fact, this chapter is in BETTER shape then some of our national chapters are, having already sponsored a number of outreach projects, creating working relationships with other organizations, and soliciting high-profile donations from museums and other content repositories. We have national chapters that have not had as much activity in the last year that WMNYC has had in the last two months. The prefix sub indicates that it is less then the norm. For me it is obvious that some great five or more people will make the NYC a success. What I want to learn is in what way the national concerns that I expect a functional chapter to take care off will be handled for the USA. This is the crucial bit of thinking, information that is missing. And as long as this is not clear, the NYC is a sub-par to me. WMNYC does not need to impress you, and does not need your approval Gerard. Their success will be measured in volunteers, donation dollars, and media contributed to our projects. What national concerns do you expect that they will not be able to address? Our sub-national nomenclature indicates only that they are smaller in size then the country that contains them, nothing more. If I called them a super-municipal chapter or a regional chapter, would your opinion of them improve? If I called our current chapters sub-global or sub-continental, would that change your opinion of them too? --Andrew Whitworth ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Ziko van Dijk wrote: Emotional: Having a NYC chapter next to the French, German etc. makes France, Germany etc. look the equals to New York. And in some ways they are. If that makes you feel bad, that's your problem. Did you feel better when there was no chapter at all in the United States? Apparently, no nation-wide chapter was forming. Were you going to set one up? Having Wikimedia Deutschland (Germany) and France next to Wikimedia Sverige (Sweden) and Norge (Norway) make these countries look equal. How do you feel about that? The greater New York City urban area has a population (18 million) twice as big as Sweden's (9 million) and almost four times that of Norway (4.8 million). The distance from New York City to Chicago, where the next sub-national chapter might be, is 1000 km, or roughly that from Paris to Warsaw. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 4:29 AM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: I don't know that listing thousands of authors on popular pages is an improvement over a link saying Many people wrote and edited this and you can click here to see them all. What popular page has thousands of authors? Are you counting reverted vandals, or something? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
Hoi, There is a request to rename the no.wikipedia.org to nb.wikipedia.orgexactly for this reason. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/21 Jüvä Sullõv juva...@ut.ee Thanks for congaratulations, Gerard! I am not still very sure if the fact that codes est and et have made to a macrolanguage codes nessesserely means that et.wikipedia must be renamed to ekk.wikipedia. At least Norwegian (Bokmal) wikipedia exists as no.wikipedia though no is a macrolanguage code and Bokmål has its own code nob. I think that is normal and the et.wikipedia code could be left the same as well. J.S. 21.01.2009 15:51:27 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com kirot': Kuupäiv:Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:51:27 +0100 Teema: Re: [Wikipedia-l] vro Kost: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com Kohe: juva...@ut.ee, Language committee langco...@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Hoi, Congratulations. As a consequence of the recognition of the Võro language, the Estonian language with the codes est and et has been made a macro language. This macro language contains two languages, Võro and Standard Estonian. Standard Estonian has the code of ekk. It is appropriate to rename the et.wikipedia.org as a consequence. Thanks, GerardM http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=est 2009/1/21 Jüvä Sullõv juva...@ut.ee Dear wikipedians! The Võro language has now its own ISO 639-3 language code - vro. So probably the temporary code fiu-vro for Võro Wikipedia has to be replaced soon. New download tables incorporating all the announced changes are now available at: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/download.asp The index of 2008 change requests (completed) may be found at: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/chg_requests.asp?order=CR_Numberchg_status=2008 Greetings from Võro, Jüvä Sullõv (Võrok) Võro Vikipeediä -- VVV - võro värk võrgon aoleht http://www.umaleht.ee sõnaraamat http://www.folklore.ee/Synaraamat entsüklopeediä http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org puutri http://math.ut.ee/~vlaan/vtk/vtk.htmlhttp://math.ut.ee/%7Evlaan/vtk/vtk.html multifilmiq http://www.lastekas.ee/?go=multikaq raadio http://www.vikerraadio.ee/kuularhiiv?saade=66kid=191 Tarto Ülikuul http://www.ut.ee/lekeskus Võro Instituut http://www.wi.ee ___ Wikipedia-l mailing list wikipedi...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l -- VVV - võro värk võrgon aoleht http://www.umaleht.ee sõnaraamat http://www.folklore.ee/Synaraamat entsüklopeediä http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org puutri http://math.ut.ee/~vlaan/vtk/vtk.htmlhttp://math.ut.ee/%7Evlaan/vtk/vtk.html multifilmiq http://www.lastekas.ee/?go=multikaq raadio http://www.vikerraadio.ee/kuularhiiv?saade=66kid=191 Tarto Ülikuul http://www.ut.ee/lekeskus Võro Instituut http://www.wi.ee ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 9:14 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Andrew, the NYC does not need my approval but given what I know of their activities so far, they are doing great. This does however not mean that the issues that are raised have been answered, far from it. You have not raised any issues, only vague and unsupported statements about the inferiority of the chapter, or it's inability to perform certain activities. This chapter is at no disadvantage, and has no issues that all our other chapters do not have as well. If I have no addressed these issues you mention, it is because they do not exist. --Andrew Whitworth ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Gerard Meijssen wrote: These emotional arguments are not practical. In my opinion there is a need for a USA chapter because there are things that the Office should not handle and that should be handled by an USA chapter. First you say emotions are pointless, then you express your own emotions. Are you, Gerard, going to set up this nation-wide U.S. chapter or is it still the same hypothetical idea that it has been for the last five years? This discussion would be helped if we refrain from inventing hypothetical cases, and instead focus on the organizations that actually exist, such as the NYC chapter. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License There are over 100 Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike Licenses. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Thanks again for your explanations (I don't want to open a new mail for every bit). Some points: * Of the organizations Lars mentioned, only ISOC has chapters. I still find it not clear about whether the national organizations are independent or merely national agencies of the center (as it is the case with Greenpeace). * In this discussion, it is irrelevant how many people live in a sub national area, or how large the country is (there are chapters in small and in large countries already). * It is also irrelevant whether individuals choose to be member in a chapter that does not belong to the nation state they live in, like nationals of France living abroad (as Florence has explained well), or Belgians who go to the Dutch chapter as long as they don't have own of their own. * It is irrelevant whether the New Yorkers do a good job (I never doubted that). The Wikimedians of Cologne do a good job aswell, but they are no chapter. * If the Wikimedians in the USA did not manage to create a national chapter, it is not my fault. Why can't there be a Wikimedia US? I don't know the reason: Large and ethnically diverse countries have WM chapters, other movements have US chapters... * Hongkong and Taiwan are special cases; not nations or countries different to PR China, but different states or systems. * Sub national chapters in the US states make WMF the default Wikimedia US, dealing with American institutions and personalities in a way usually a chapter would. American Wikimedians have no reason to take effort for a WMUS if they see this and that they can have US states chapters. * The world is divided into countries, like it or not, and this has consequences for us. Ziko -- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
It is extraordinarily difficult to found a US chapter, because we are in essence a federation of 50 little nations. Every state has their own unique characteristics and their own unique laws. Also, we do not have interest for a national chapter. By empowering these state/city chapters, we provide the willing with an outreach organization while leaving it open for other regions. From: Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 7:44:55 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters) Thanks again for your explanations (I don't want to open a new mail for every bit). Some points: * Of the organizations Lars mentioned, only ISOC has chapters. I still find it not clear about whether the national organizations are independent or merely national agencies of the center (as it is the case with Greenpeace). * In this discussion, it is irrelevant how many people live in a sub national area, or how large the country is (there are chapters in small and in large countries already). * It is also irrelevant whether individuals choose to be member in a chapter that does not belong to the nation state they live in, like nationals of France living abroad (as Florence has explained well), or Belgians who go to the Dutch chapter as long as they don't have own of their own. * It is irrelevant whether the New Yorkers do a good job (I never doubted that). The Wikimedians of Cologne do a good job aswell, but they are no chapter. * If the Wikimedians in the USA did not manage to create a national chapter, it is not my fault. Why can't there be a Wikimedia US? I don't know the reason: Large and ethnically diverse countries have WM chapters, other movements have US chapters... * Hongkong and Taiwan are special cases; not nations or countries different to PR China, but different states or systems. * Sub national chapters in the US states make WMF the default Wikimedia US, dealing with American institutions and personalities in a way usually a chapter would. American Wikimedians have no reason to take effort for a WMUS if they see this and that they can have US states chapters. * The world is divided into countries, like it or not, and this has consequences for us. Ziko -- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
The CC wrote this license and are likely to be considered authorities if there was ever a court case. If their lawyer says this is acceptable, its probably acceptable. From: geni geni...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 6:57:25 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal 2009/1/21 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: CC General Counsel has confirmed that our proposed attribution model is consistent with the language of CC-BY-SA. There is no need to use attribution parties - our proposed approach is consistent with 4(c)(i) and 4(c)(iii). 4(c)(iii) is irrelevant. The foundation not the licensor and the URL is on top of other attribution and copyright stuff. The only way attribution methods can be controlled through CC-BY-SA-3.0 is through 4(c)(i). Again lets go through that section you have two things you can attribute to: the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied However since you reject that we have to move onto the second half: if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g., a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution (Attribution Parties) in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; So yes you can mess with the attribution requirements using that part of the clause but trying to define say http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canalaction=history; as an Attribution Party is somewhat unreasonable in the context of the paragraph and in the general legal use of the term party. Remember even if you do think you can somehow squeeze this though it still causes issues with wikipedia's habit of deleting things from time to time and prevent the import of CC-BY-SA 3.0 text from third parties. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
On Jan 21, 2009, at 2:13 AM, Florence Devouard wrote:
Nathan wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org
wrote:
2009/1/20 Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de:
Not quite. One criteria is that the chapters should have well
defined
geographical areas and they should not overlap. So an Amsterdam
chapter
beside a Dutch chapter is not possible.
It was my understanding from the sub-national chapters document that
such chapters might be permitted to form anyway:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sub-national_chapters
(Question: Aren't we setting up sub-national chapters to compete
for
funding with nation-based chapters?)
What I'm taking your statement to mean is that when a subnational
chapter is formed where a national chapter could be later formed,
the
overlap and potential harmful consequences of such overlap would
have
to be carefully considered before national chapter is approved.
Would
that be a fair characterization? Or are you meaning 'is not
possible'
truly in the sense of 'will never happen'?
Earlier in this thread, Ting clearly stated that recognition of a
sub-national chapter meant a national chapter could not later be
formed.
Andrew Whitworth indicated the same. Is that not the definitive
answer to
the question?
Nathan
This would be real bad, because it could exclude entire areas that do
not drain sufficient memberships or funds to be able to really
create a
sustainable chapter.
That could be typically the case of a country with two big cities
and a
big rural area. Two chapters could be created in each city, leaving
all
wikipedians in the rural areas helpless. If such was to happen, I hope
WMF would either accept the creation of a national chapter, or
negotiate
with the city-chapters so that they can extend membership to
neighbours.
Note that this is already the case for many national chapters. In the
French one, we host a couple of people living in Switzerland ('cause
they are French in nationality), as well as from Belgium and
Luxembourg,
('cause these nations have no chapter).
I suspect a consensus will need to be found, so that 1) no harm is
made
to current chapter and 2) no one be excluded which would defeat the
process.
As such, flexibility should be a must.
Ant
I agree with your concern here Florence, but I don't see anything
saying that national chapters cannot form if there is a sub national
chapter there. I don't quite know where Ting extrapolates chapters
should have well defined geographical areas and they should not
overlap into If we have a sub national chapter, we cannot have a
parent national chapter; it sounds like a misreading of Should not
into Must not.
I can think of several good reasons why sub-national chapters should
not preclude a national chapter; not the least of which being the
concerns raised by Florence, but also situations in places such as
China where subnational chapters in one area of the country may not
adequately represent the rest of the country.
Was this some sort of unilateral proclamation by Ting, or has the
chapters committee officially made some sort of decision on this topic?
-Dan
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
This is my conclusion out of the no overlapping areas criteria. I may
be wrong. I don't think that the concern of Florence is really a serious
one. In many countries, for example Agentina, where we already have a
chapter, a few cities are the absolute cultural center of the country,
but in these cases there's no sense to constrain a chapter only in the
cities. They can easily be established as national chapters, like
Agentina. Another example is NYC is not constrained in the city, but has
its area including the whole state. At the moment we have no cases where
we have conflicts here, and I see no situation, which cannot be
negotiated by one way or the other. Last but not least, if there are
indeed grave conflicts and it is unsoluble according to the current
rule, I don't see that rules are unchangable. We have come so far and
have solved so much problems I don't think that we would one day die on
this problem.
Greetings
Ting
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com wrote: * Of the organizations Lars mentioned, only ISOC has chapters. I still find it not clear about whether the national organizations are independent or merely national agencies of the center (as it is the case with Greenpeace). IEEE uses the term Sections, to basically describe the same construct. However, IEEE sections are arranged in a way that even we might find strange: They have several chapters in the US alone, and one chapter that covers all of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The reasons for this are the number and distribution of electrical engineers. * It is also irrelevant whether individuals choose to be member in a chapter that does not belong to the nation state they live in, like nationals of France living abroad (as Florence has explained well), or Belgians who go to the Dutch chapter as long as they don't have own of their own. Some chapters do stipulate in their bylaws that to become a member you must live or work in the chapter's geographic area. I don't know how common it is amongst our existing chapters, but I have seen it on more then one occasion. * If the Wikimedians in the USA did not manage to create a national chapter, it is not my fault. Why can't there be a Wikimedia US? I don't know the reason: Large and ethnically diverse countries have WM chapters, other movements have US chapters... Organizers decide what is best for themselves. If organizers in the USA think it's better to create community-oriented groups, that is their prerogative. It is not you who decides if there will be a Wikimedia US, and it is not me who decides it either: The organizers decide that, and they have decided to pursue locally-based chapters instead of a nationally-based one. There is no fault because there is no problem. * Sub national chapters in the US states make WMF the default Wikimedia US, dealing with American institutions and personalities in a way usually a chapter would. American Wikimedians have no reason to take effort for a WMUS if they see this and that they can have US states chapters. This is perhaps a factor, but then how do you explain situations like Canada and India where organizers have tried unsuccessfully to create a national chapter and are now pursuing sub-national ones instead? * The world is divided into countries, like it or not, and this has consequences for us. And countries are divided into states and provinces and municipalities, like it or not, and this has consequences for us. --Andrew Whitworth ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Anthony writes: the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License There are over 100 Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike Licenses. [citation needed] --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Attribution by reference to a URL only seems reasonable for online reuse to me. For content added directly to Wikimedia projects, you may be able to get by with including permission to do so in the terms of service, but for 3rd party content that doesn't work. If I write something on another site, release it under CC-BY-SA, and it is them incorporated into a Wikipedia article which is then printed and bound in a book, I expect my name (or pseudonym) to appear in that book. I'm easy going when it comes to the exact details of how it is included in that book, but I expect it to be there. Nothing else seems reasonable to me. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Andrew Whitworth wrote: On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 2:24 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: Wow!, just wow. Would you be okay with one country that was very tiny having two chapters? If the very tiny country had enough active wikimedians to create critical mass for two chapters, and if those two groups found that they absolutely could not work together and that it would be far easier for them to organize separately, then yes that would be okay. To clarify, I'm not sure that absolutely could not work together is the best description of the criteria. Our culture is built on collaboration and cooperation, and I expect that all chapters should be able to work together when the occasion calls for it. So the question is to me is whether there's value in having two different organizations, enough to justify the overhead of building the second one. Suppose we had a Wikimedia Istanbul, and hypothetically its members on either side of the Bosporus don't want to work together, that wouldn't be a reason to allow a separate chapter. But if it somehow actually mattered whether people were in Europe or in Asia, then that might be a reason to have two chapters there. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org wrote: Anthony writes: the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License There are over 100 Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike Licenses. [citation needed] There are 74 due to versioning and jurisdiction ports, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/index.rdf Apologies for lack of an HTML version of that list. In any case, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update and all previous discussion I've seen makes it clear the specific license considered is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Everywhere CC BY and BY-SA licenses are currently used (Wikinews and Commons) care has been taken to cite the specific version used. I would be incredibly surprised if the same care was not exercised if BY-SA is adopted as the main content license. Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 8:26 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: If the change to CC-BY-SA goes through I will be proposing a new wikimedia project to record what authors and reuses consider acceptable (and what people actually do if that happens) in terms of attribution for every form of reuse we can think of. This is an interesting suggestion for a thread calling for Wikipedia to keep it simple :) If the rules are too complex they will be either ignored (and broken) or avoided (eg users will go elsewhere). In particular, anything which involves attempting to extract meaning from the (arbitrarily long and constantly growing) edit histories or refer to a table of 'reuse scenarios' almost certainly falls into the 'too complex for your average [re]user' category. To use the cloud computing article again, there are almost 500 unique editors including chestnuts like 'RealWorldExperience, CanadianLinuxUser, MonkeyBounce, TutterMouse, Onmytoes4eva, Chadastrophic, Tree Hugger, Kibbled Bits and Technobadger'. About half are IPs (which probably still need to be credited) and there's even a few people I'd rather not credit were I to reuse it myself. In this case at least, attempting to credit individuals as currently proposed dilutes the value of attributions altogether and actually does more harm than good - I would much rather 'contribute' my attribution to Wikipedia. Allowing users to discuss 'recommended' attributions eg on the talk page could be another simple, effective solution. That way such claims could be discussed and a concise list of authors maintained (subject to peer review). It would ultimately be for the reuser to determine above and beyond the base 'Wikipedia' credit. I would hope to see something like this emerge, which is not far from Citizendium's relatively good example: *If you reuse Wikipedia content you must at least reference the license and attribute Wikipedia. You should also refer to the article itself and may include individual author(s) from the history and/or attribution requests on the talk page, using URLs where appropriate for the medium. * Unfortunately with wording like '*To re-distribute a page in any form, provide credit to all the contributors.*' in the draft it seems I shouldn't be holding my breath. In any case I hope this doesn't derail the migration - perhaps asking the question about CC-BY-SA separately from the implementation details would be best? Sam 1. http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=en.wikipediapage=cloud%20computing ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Checkuser ombudsmen
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Cary Bass c...@wikimedia.org wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 In accordance with the recent board decision to increase the number of ombudsmen from 3 to 5, we have appointed the following users as successor ombudsmen. [[User:Schiste]] from frwiki [[User:PatríciaR]] from commonswiki [[User:Tinz]] from dewiki [[User:Sam Korn]] from enwiki [[User:Shizhao]] from zhwiki Please join me in thanking Rebecca, Mackensen, and Hei ber for their willingness to take on this commitment over the course of the last year. Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation Thanks to the three former ombudsmen, and congratulations of the appointments of these five people. Excellent choices, and I'm pleased to see more of a variety of projects involved, instead of mostly from enwiki. -- Alex (User:Majorly) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Wednesday 21 January 2009 17:28:23 Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Maybe people don't want to spend 2 hours sorting out authors? Also, the history link allows someone to look at every single contribution, How does the history link allow someone to look at every single contribution, when they don't want to spend 2 hours sorting out authors? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/20 geni geni...@gmail.com: 4(c)(iii) is irrelevant. The foundation not the licensor and the URL is on top of other attribution and copyright stuff. The only way attribution methods can be controlled through CC-BY-SA-3.0 is through 4(c)(i). You are making an unsupported assertion. CC-BY-SA is precisely structured (as are all BY licenses) to support attribution URIs; that is why 4(c)(iii) exists. CC metadata standards allow for attribution URIs [1], and when you license a work through the CC website, you can specify an attribution URI as an alternative to a name. You are confused by the attribution parties clause; it has nothing to do with the explicit provisions for URIs. [1] http://creativecommons.org/ns [2] http://creativecommons.org/license/ -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Mike Linksvayer wrote: There are over 100 Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike Licenses. [citation needed] There are 74 due to versioning and jurisdiction ports, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/index.rdf That sounds more likely than over 100, although the relevance of the total number is difficult to see, given that the only class of CC-BY- SA licenses we'd be working with is CC-BY-SA 3.x. In any case, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update and all previous discussion I've seen makes it clear the specific license considered is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Yes. Everywhere CC BY and BY-SA licenses are currently used (Wikinews and Commons) care has been taken to cite the specific version used. I would be incredibly surprised if the same care was not exercised if BY-SA is adopted as the main content license. Of course. See also rms's excellent discussion of the issue at http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/2008-12-fdl-open-letter/ . It's hard to make the argument that CC-BY-SA 3.0 is somehow weaker than GFDL when Stallman himself thinks it isn't. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/21 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: 2009/1/20 geni geni...@gmail.com: 4(c)(iii) is irrelevant. The foundation not the licensor and the URL is on top of other attribution and copyright stuff. The only way attribution methods can be controlled through CC-BY-SA-3.0 is through 4(c)(i). You are making an unsupported assertion. CC-BY-SA is precisely structured (as are all BY licenses) to support attribution URIs; that is why 4(c)(iii) exists. So you are claiming that it is section 4(c)(iii) that makes your approach valid. First problem comes with the opening to section 4(c) You must ... keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: That is an and command not an or. You have to meet everything from 4(c)(i) to 4(c)(iv) Still lets pretend you can treat 4(c)(iii) as the sole credit clause to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and First problem is that it clearly isn't a credit clause (since the license repeated views copyright notices and credit as two separate things) now it is possible we could consider licensing information to include credit but I find that definition highly questionable. Then there is the to the extent reasonably practicable bit. By claiming 4(c)(iii) is a credit clause you are arguing that credit only need be given to the extent reasonably practicable rather than as an absolute credit must be given (in a form reasonable to the medium or means). Yet again this is completely unacceptable. CC metadata standards allow for attribution URIs [1], It allows it but not in the way you are suggesting. cc:attributionName and cc:attributionURL are separate variables. Yes someone can put a URL into cc:attributionName but most wikipedians have pseudonyms or names that don't qualify as URLs and when you license a work through the CC website, you can specify an attribution URI as an alternative to a name. And you would be allowed to do exactly the same on wikipedia if the account creator didn't blacklist all URLs. That people can chose an URL as a pseudonym doesn't help your case at all. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
There are various problems with making a distinction between print and online use when it comes to name inclusion. The first problem is that there are related questions which immediately pop up: Is it reasonable for a one page print document to have half a page or more of author metadata? Is it reasonable for a t-shirt to have to include a metadata text-block? Is a DVD substantially different from a print product? Is a screen in a flight information system? So in order to deal with those cases, you start making more complex rules which, again, discourage meaningful re-use. This in spite of the fact that the usernames we are talking about, in a large number of cases, will only be unambiguous and meaningful if resolved to username URIs; the extent of their contributions can only be meaningfully ascertained when reviewing a page history. A lot of the problems you are having there are because you are trying to group things into print and online. The correct dichotomy is online and offline. Of course you are going to have problems classifying DVDs if your classifaction systems assumes all electronic data is only available on the internet. I don't see a problem with listing authors in fairly small print on the back of a t-shirt, seems perfectly reasonable to me. If instead of names there's just a URL on the t-shirt, does that mean I can't where it in China since people seeing it won't have any way (without significant technical know-how) to view the list of authors? People choosing to submit work under a pseudonym have clearly indicated that they are happen to be attributed under that pseudonym, I don't see any need to provide context. (It's good to do so where practical, of course.) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
Hoi, This change for Estonian is not special. It has happened before where other codes changed their meaning and became a macro language. German (de) is a completely different type of language, in several ways it is more like Italian. I do not understand where you got this standard Estonian from, it has always been Estonian and did not have any qualifiers. nl is Dutch not standard Dutch and en is English not standard English. I also fail to understand why ISO-639-1 had only standard languages.. what do you mean by a standard language? It is nice that you oppose, there are reasons why it might be a bad idea, but the ones that I know are not the ones you put forward. A reason why a change would be good is that it will prevent confusion. Hierarchically ekk and vro are on the same level and et is on a higher level. Thanks, GerardM 2009/1/21 Marcus Buck m...@marcusbuck.org I am happy, that Voro got its own code and I fully support to move 'fiu-vro' to 'vro'. But I think this also demonstrates, that ISO is to some degree out of touch with reality or at least quite inconsistent with its codes. Why did they declare 'et' to be synonymous to the macrolanguage? 'et' was always intended to mean 'Standard Estonian' in earlier revisions of ISO 639 (cause ISO 639 was created in a time when non-standard languages and minorities did not or were not supposed to produce books [and the internet wasn't invented]. There was no need for codes other than standard languages). 'de' for example is synonymous to 'deu' (Standard German), although there are several codes like 'bar', 'gsw' or 'ksh' that would fit under the roof of a 'de' macrolanguage just in the same way as 'vro' fits under the roof of an 'et' macrolanguage. But they are handled differently nonetheless. I oppose to move et.wikipedia to ekk.wikipedia and I think this would be a really bad service to the et.wikipedia community. Marcus Buck Gerard Meijssen hett schreven: Hoi, Congratulations. As a consequence of the recognition of the Võro language, the Estonian language with the codes est and et has been made a macro language. This macro language contains two languages, Võro and Standard Estonian. Standard Estonian has the code of ekk. It is appropriate to rename the et.wikipedia.org as a consequence. Thanks, GerardM http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=est 2009/1/21 Jüvä Sullõv juva...@ut.ee ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
Prevent confusion from whom? I think we should let the et.wp community vote on this change instead of letting Gerard push it on them. Võro Wikipedians know to go to http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org/, non-Võro Estonian Wikipedians know to go to http://et.wikipedia.org/ Introducing a new URL for Võro is one thing; forcing Estonians to have a new URL is entirely different and ridiculous in my opinion. Mark -- skype: node.ue ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 10:55 AM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/1/20 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: That doesn't really any of my questions, though I was more looking for an answer from Erik or Mike anyway. It's a fairly important question, since compatibility with other works under CC-BY-SA is allegedly the main reason for the relicensing. Is the question clear? Maybe I should be even more specific. How would one go about using content from Citizendium in Wikipedia, if Wikipedia relicenses content under CC-BY-SA? Assuming a large number of authors on Citizendium. Use the export function there to provide the file in a useful format and reactivate the import function on en to export it (at a pinch is should be possible to put together a script that can grab the relevant information and turn it into a file suitable for import to wikipedia without having to use the export function). I actually have such a script written in python already, and it would be trivial for others to wirite similar ones. I suppoose my point is that reusing content from other Wikis is easy if Import is turned back on (as you keep full edit histories). --Falcorian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org wrote: Mike Linksvayer wrote: There are over 100 Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike Licenses. [citation needed] There are 74 due to versioning and jurisdiction ports, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/index.rdf That sounds more likely than over 100, although the relevance of the total number is difficult to see, given that the only class of CC-BY- SA licenses we'd be working with is CC-BY-SA 3.x. Over 100 might have been a slight exggeration - I guesstimated rather than counting each one. The total number is completely irrelevant though, Mike, other than the fact that it's more than 1. You should spell things out before you have people work on them. There are over 1 different versions of CC-BY-SA 3.x. (I believe there are over 30 of them too, but I don't care to count them.) In any case, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update and all previous discussion I've seen makes it clear the specific license considered is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Yes. As in CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported? You know, the one that says You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation? That'll be a hilarious license to use on the encyclopedia that anyone can mutilate, modify or take derogatory action in relation to. Everywhere CC BY and BY-SA licenses are currently used (Wikinews and Commons) care has been taken to cite the specific version used. I would be incredibly surprised if the same care was not exercised if BY-SA is adopted as the main content license. Of course. It'd be nice if this were spelled out before removing this page is still a draft from the proposal, and in particular, before voting begins. All text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. By submitting an edit, you agree to release your contribution under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License... If you make modifications or additions to the page or work you re-use, you must license them under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. You may import content from other sources that is available under the CC-BY-SA license only What version(s), and what jurisdiction(s)? It's hard to make the argument that CC-BY-SA 3.0 is somehow weaker than GFDL when Stallman himself thinks it isn't. What about the argument that the differences between licenses can't be judged on a one-dimensional scale of weak vs. strong? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/21 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: As in CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported? You know, the one that says You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation? That quote is pulled out of context in a fashion that completely obscures its meaning and intent. When this issue was discussed on commons-l, Catharina Maracke, the head of CCi, provided the following explanation: Generally speaking, moral rights have to be addressed in the unported license to assure that this license would be enforceable by law in every jurisdiction, whether moral rights are exist or not. The criticism, that the wording of the moral rights section in the unported license could be read as if the licensee has the obligation to not distort, mutilate, modify or take any other derogatory action in relation to the work which would be prejudicial to the original authors honor or reputation in every jurisdiction, even if moral rights are do not exist, is not legally correct. The important phrase except otherwise permitted by applicable law refers to every jurisdiction, whether moral rights exist or not. This means, that in a jurisdiction, where moral rights do exist, this whole sentence is dispensable, because the applicable law does not permit anything else, meaning we have to respect moral rights (and in particular the moral right of integrity), meaning the licensee is not allowed to distort, mutilate, modify or take any other derogatory action in relation to the work which would be prejudicial to the original authors honor or reputation - whether we like it or not. In a jurisdiction, where moral rights do not exist, the first part of the sentence or as otherwise permitted by applicable law explicitly makes an exception to the rest of the sentence to not distort, mutilate, modify or take any other derogatory action in relation to the work which would be prejudicial to the original authors honor or reputation. This exception ensures that in a jurisdiction, where moral rights do not exist, the latter part of the sentence will not be applicable: except otherwise permitted by applicable law means except the respective copyright legislation permits every adaptation of the work, which is (only) the case, if moral rights are do not exist and not included in the respective law. The only problem here is the understanding of the wording as otherwise permitted by applicable law. The right to distort, mutilate, modify or take any other derogatory action in relation to the work which would be prejudicial to the original authors honor or reputation will not be explicitly allowed by applicable copyright law, but you need to know, that it is not prohibited, if moral rights are do not exist. However, I also see the point, that besides being legally correct, CC licenses should be easily to understand. If people don't use CC licenses, because they don't understand them, we would have failed, even if the licenses are accurate in view of the law. We need to find the balance between legally well drafted licenses and a simple language. I agree, that the wording of the moral rights section in the unported license could probably have been drafted in a simpler way and less confusing so that everyone understands and it does not have to be discussed and explained in lots of E- mails. As Catharine wrote then, this is an issue of clarity. I hope that it can be addressed in future revisions, but I don't regard it as a stumbling block for adopting the Unported license. Furthermore, per 4.b.iii., CC-BY-SA is mutually interchangeable with the various jurisdiction-specific licenses. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Is it reasonable for a t-shirt to have to include a metadata text-block? Is a DVD substantially different from a print product? I don't see a problem with listing authors in fairly small print on the back of a t-shirt, seems perfectly reasonable to me. Can someone remind me why this matters in the first place? Is there some real world practical use that I'm missing? Attribution by reference to a URL only seems reasonable for online reuse to me. Seems like a really simple and easy to apply rule to me. If you're distributing online, you can use a URL. If you're not, you can't. That's what at least some people thought they were agreeing to when they submitted their content, and it's absolutely wrong to not recognize their right to have that followed. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/21 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: A lot of the problems you are having there are because you are trying to group things into print and online. The correct dichotomy is online and offline. Of course you are going to have problems classifying DVDs if your classifaction systems assumes all electronic data is only available on the internet. I don't see a problem with listing authors in fairly small print on the back of a t-shirt, seems perfectly reasonable to me. If instead of names there's just a URL on the t-shirt, does that mean I can't where it in China since people seeing it won't have any way (without significant technical know-how) to view the list of authors? Nor would you be able to access the list of authors on a mirror that carries it by reference. Whether you draw the distinction between print or non-print, or between online and offline, is always somewhat arbitrary, as content can change from one state to another very easily. (A file downloaded to your harddisk becomes an offline copy; so does an email attachment.) A licensing regime that relies on such arbitrary transformations of attribution is fundamentally unworkable for re-users. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Whether you draw the distinction between print or non-print, or between online and offline, is always somewhat arbitrary, as content can change from one state to another very easily. (A file downloaded to your harddisk becomes an offline copy; so does an email attachment.) How is it arbitrary? A file downloaded to your harddisk becomes an offline copy. There's nothing at all arbitrary about that. If you're trying to imply that someone creating such a copy is thereby breaking the law, then you're being quite disingenuous. Whether it's fair dealing or fair use or legal precedent or whatever, it's clear that a court of law in any reasonable jurisdiction is going to excuse such incidental copying. Besides, in most any jurisdiction other than US (as well as under the Berne Convention), the right to attribution is inalienable and not covered by copyright law or licenses anyway. A licensing regime that relies on such arbitrary transformations of attribution is fundamentally unworkable for re-users. It's not at all arbitrary. The difference between attribution being a click away and attribution being provided over a completely different medium which may or may not be available is quite clear. It's also unclear how it's unworkable. Static Wikipedia has provided author lists for quite a while, and that's without much thought at all being put into culling down the authors. It's only if you invent some convoluted scenarios involving T-shirts or postcards that it becomes unworkable. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/21 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: 2009/1/21 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: A lot of the problems you are having there are because you are trying to group things into print and online. The correct dichotomy is online and offline. Of course you are going to have problems classifying DVDs if your classifaction systems assumes all electronic data is only available on the internet. I don't see a problem with listing authors in fairly small print on the back of a t-shirt, seems perfectly reasonable to me. If instead of names there's just a URL on the t-shirt, does that mean I can't where it in China since people seeing it won't have any way (without significant technical know-how) to view the list of authors? Nor would you be able to access the list of authors on a mirror that carries it by reference. Ideally, a mirror would carry a local copy of the history page and link to that. Even if they don't, the problem is caused by the Chinese government being inconsistent with their polices (blocking the original while not blocking the mirror), so I think it's fair to make allowances. Whether you draw the distinction between print or non-print, or between online and offline, is always somewhat arbitrary, as content can change from one state to another very easily. (A file downloaded to your harddisk becomes an offline copy; so does an email attachment.) A licensing regime that relies on such arbitrary transformations of attribution is fundamentally unworkable for re-users. I don't think there's an ambiguity there - when you view anything online it becomes a local copy, but I think it's perfectly clear in the vast majority of cases whether it's an online or offline source (there may be the odd corner case, there often is, there is rarely any option beyond common sense for dealing with them). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Florence Devouard wrote: The confusion mostly came from the fact I had absolutely not understood that chapters at the national level, or chapter at any other level would have exactly the same rights and roles than the currently existing chapters. I'm confused by your description of chapters as a tool for having rights or having roles. I'm also skeptic to the chapters voting for board members of the foundation. That is a privilege that I never asked for. (This is just my personal view.) For me, a chapter is a tool to achieve things locally that I can't achieve as an individual Wikipedia contributor (because they require cooperation and money), and which the central organization of the Foundation wouldn't do in my local area (because they are local), such as organizing the Wikipedia Academy. That's all a chapter is to me. And for this, both Wikimedia Sverige and Wikimedia New York City seem to be of the appropriate size. Coming from a small European country, I also fear that if Europeans insist that the U.S. should only have a single nation-wide chapter, some Americans might insist that the European Union should only be allowed one single chapter. I wouldn't like that. And I will protest against any plan to formalize the bond between European chapters. I want each chapter to communicate directly with the Foundation, instead of going through some EU level intermediary. Again, this is my personal view. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Anthony writes: Over 100 might have been a slight exggeration - I guesstimated rather than counting each one. My goodness. I can't believe you'd ever exaggerate a factual claim. I'm astonished. There are over 1 different versions of CC-BY-SA 3.x. They are sufficiently interchangeable or interoperable, however, that they can be treated as one license for our purposes. (I believe there are over 30 of them too, but I don't care to count them.) I'm sure if *you* counted them there would be over 100 at least. As in CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported? You know, the one that says You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation? That'll be a hilarious license to use on the encyclopedia that anyone can mutilate, modify or take derogatory action in relation to. As Erik has explained, this is part of the moral-rights language necessary to the license such that it can be applied in moral-rights- honoring jurisdictions. Perhaps you could write us a little essay on how you well you think GFDL addresses the moral-rights question. I look forward to your sharing your expertise, Counselor. It's hard to make the argument that CC-BY-SA 3.0 is somehow weaker than GFDL when Stallman himself thinks it isn't. What about the argument that the differences between licenses can't be judged on a one-dimensional scale of weak vs. strong? That argument requires that you analyze GFDL on every dimension that you analyze CC-BY-SA 3.0 on. I look forward to your analysis, Counselor. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Re-licensing
By repeating false things they will be not more true. IT'S ABSOLUTELY FALSE THAT GFDL HAS A PRINCIPAL AUTHOR CLAUSE. This clause only refers to a title page. READ THE LICENSE PLEASE. Wikipedia hasn't such a thing. Attribution in the GNU FDL is done by copyright notices or the section called History. To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page: Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License. This means: Follwowing this way of attribution the name of the autor can never dissapear. Verbatim copying: You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the COPYRIGHT NOTICES, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies (my empasis). Modification: D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document. Important is the following clause: I. Preserve the section Entitled History, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled History in the Document, create one stating the title, year, AUTHORS, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence. (my emphasis) It is possible to ignore this? I do not think so. There is a strong obligation that every GFDL document which is modified must have a section entitled History. The only thing in the Wikipedia which can be regarded as a section history is the version history which is also the way in which authors are given credit. One entry with the name/IP of the contributor and the date in the version history has two functions: 1. it is a substitution of the copyright noctice, 2. it is part of the section history. A lot of people in the German Wikipedia believe that the only way to fulfill the GFDL strictly is to reproduce the whole version history resp. the names of all contributors. Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band was a cooperation between Bertelsmann and the German chapter. It has a long list of ALL contributors see e.g. http://books.google.com/books?id=BaWKVqiUH-4Cpg=PT979 The Directmedia Offline Wikipedia CDs/DVDs have reproductions of the version histories. I would like to say one thing very clear: IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE AUTHOR AND NOT A THIRD PARTY RIGHT TO CHOOSE THE WAY OF ATTRIBUTION IN THE CC-BY-SA LICENSE. The attribution in the GFDL is described by the license. WMF or FSF has NO RIGHT to choose a specific interpretation. WMF has NO RIGHT to relicense the old content according to the proposed Copyright Policy containing the CC-BY-SA attribution expectations. Each user has to agree EXPLICITELY to the Copyright Policy as part of the contract between the WMF and him. May be it is legal to make this agreement valid for older contributions of the same user. But the policy cannot bind users no more active. Third party CC-BY-SA text content cannot be imported if there is'nt an EXPLICITE statement that the creator allows the attribution policy. It is possible to substitude the normal attribution by giving instead an internet adress BUT ONLY THE CREATOR CAN CHOOSE THIS POSSIBILITY. If you will import CC-BY-SA content you have to obey the author's way of attribution. If there is no specification the name has to be mentioned. For this contribution the attribution policy (incl. link to a list of authors if more than five) ISN'T VALID! Klaus Graf ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
Gerard Meijssen wrote: It is nice that you oppose, there are reasons why it might be a bad idea, but the ones that I know are not the ones you put forward. A reason why a change would be good is that it will prevent confusion. Come on, nobody is confused about what language Estonian is. If giving a language code to a local dialect means we have to rename all URLs for one of the major Wikipedias (Estonian is the 34th biggest, Bokmål is the 13th biggest), this only means we have to oppose all future assignments of new ISO language codes. It is OK to use the standard when naming new Wikipedias, but it's not OK to suddenly change a well-known address. We're here to spread free knowledge. That is not helped by renaming all of our URLs just because of some random ISO standard change. The no and et Wikipedias should be kept as they are. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing
2009/1/21 Klaus Graf klausg...@googlemail.com: IT'S ABSOLUTELY FALSE THAT GFDL HAS A PRINCIPAL AUTHOR CLAUSE. This clause only refers to a title page. READ THE LICENSE PLEASE. Wikipedia hasn't such a thing. I've already explained our position on this issue in the prior thread on the topic; we do not share the interpretation that the change tracking obligations in the GFDL are relevant to the attribution terms we use under CC-BY-SA; we do believe that the principal authors requirement and the established practices regarding re-use under the GFDL are relevant. The attribution issue is so divisive, however, that I increasingly wonder whether it wouldn't be sensible to add at least a set of preferences to the licensing vote to better understand what people's preferred implementation would look like, within the scope of what we consider to be legally defensible parameters. Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Erik Moeller wrote: 2009/1/21 Thomas Dalton: A lot of the problems you are having there are because you are trying to group things into print and online. The correct dichotomy is online and offline. Of course you are going to have problems classifying DVDs if your classifaction systems assumes all electronic data is only available on the internet. I don't see a problem with listing authors in fairly small print on the back of a t-shirt, seems perfectly reasonable to me. If instead of names there's just a URL on the t-shirt, does that mean I can't where it in China since people seeing it won't have any way (without significant technical know-how) to view the list of authors? Nor would you be able to access the list of authors on a mirror that carries it by reference. Whether you draw the distinction between print or non-print, or between online and offline, is always somewhat arbitrary, as content can change from one state to another very easily. (A file downloaded to your harddisk becomes an offline copy; so does an email attachment.) A licensing regime that relies on such arbitrary transformations of attribution is fundamentally unworkable for re-users. Think on it like in GPL terms. The site presents you both the bianry and the source. You decide only to download the binary. Well, that's your option. The point is, you CAN download the sources. So, if you save the page into your harddisk, and only the page, choosing not to save the authors, you're not breaking the license. Whereas if you handed anyone else book pritned from wikipedia, you must be able to answer the question Who wrote this? And no, some Wikipedians is not a valid answer, just like a bunch of geeks is neither an acceptable answer to Who wrote the Linux kernel? If you're providing DVDs with the articles you'll have a hard time to convince me not to add the author list. However, if you're copying an article into a friend's usb key I may accept leaving the history info aside, depending on things like his means to get online, his technical abilities to find it or your knowledge that he doesn't want it. Instead of placing the proposed guidelines into the 'Attribution' section, I think we may be able to better if instead it just said 'You must provide proper attribution to the authors' and link to a FAQ listing recommended ways to do that on a case-per-case basis. Making a definition suitable for everything, someone will always dispute it based on some obscure use case, whereas it's much easier to agree on how could attribution be provided for a postcard. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] vro
I agree on 'et', but the 'no' case is different. the codes 'no', 'nb' and 'nn' were present in ISO 639 since the beginning. 'no' is the code that covers both 'nn' and 'nb'. When 'nn' split from 'no' it would have been good, if 'no' had been moved to 'nb' the same time. The main difference between the cases of Voro/Estonian and Bokmal/Nynorsk is, that Bokmal and Nynorsk speakers would both agree if you ask them Do you speak Norwegian? But Voro speakers do not agree when asked Do you speak Estonian? They'd say No, I speak Voro. So, both Nynorsk and Bokmal are contesters to the code 'no', but Voro has few interest to be covered by 'et'. That shouldn't surprise, since Nynorsk and Bokmal are two different standardizations for the same language, when Voro and Estonian are different languages. Marcus Buck Lars Aronsson hett schreven: Gerard Meijssen wrote: It is nice that you oppose, there are reasons why it might be a bad idea, but the ones that I know are not the ones you put forward. A reason why a change would be good is that it will prevent confusion. Come on, nobody is confused about what language Estonian is. If giving a language code to a local dialect means we have to rename all URLs for one of the major Wikipedias (Estonian is the 34th biggest, Bokmål is the 13th biggest), this only means we have to oppose all future assignments of new ISO language codes. It is OK to use the standard when naming new Wikipedias, but it's not OK to suddenly change a well-known address. We're here to spread free knowledge. That is not helped by renaming all of our URLs just because of some random ISO standard change. The no and et Wikipedias should be kept as they are. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Because I don't think it's good to discuss attribution as an abstract principle, just as an example, the author attribution for the article [[France]] is below, excluding IP addresses. According to the view that attribution needs to be given to each pseudonym, this entire history would have to be included with every copy of the article. Needless to say, in a print product, this would occupy a very significant amount of space. Needless to say, equally, it's a significant obligation for a re-user. And, of course, Wikipedia keeps growing and so do its attribution records. The notion that it's actually useful to anyone in that list is dubious at best. A vast number of pseudonyms below have no meaning except for their context in Wikipedia. I think requiring this for, e.g., a wiki-reader on countries makes it significantly less likely for people to create such products, and I think that the benefit of free knowledge weighs greater than the benefit of credit to largely pseudonymous individuals who have never, at any point, been promised or given to understand that their name would be given a significant degree of visibility through the lifetime of the article they contribute to. The idea that we can meaningfully define the number of cases where this requirement is onerous and the number where it isn't through simple language is not at all obvious to me. Whether something is onerous is in part a function of someone's willingness and ability to invest effort, not whether they are creating something that's intended for online and offline use. Ironically, heavy attribution requirements advantage publishing houses with armies of lawyers over individuals. People who don't care about rules will ignore any requirement we set (and realistically we have no energy or ability to enforce those requirements in most cases); unreasonable requirements primarily affect people who are trying to do the right thing, like any unnecessary emergence of bureaucracy. But, I do not want to rehash every single argument a hundred times. As I said in a different thread, I think it may be useful to include at least a preference poll in the licensing vote to better understand where different people are on this issue. Attribution-by-URL under certain circumstances is consistent with many people's expectations and preference, but clearly not with everyone's. If there's a predominant conception of an acceptable attribution regime, that would make developing a consistent model easier. Erik (aeropagitica), - 45, -Midorihana-, ..p, 03md, 6ty7u89i, 14 tom 1406, 334a, 041744, ^demon, Aaker, Abeg92, Abilityfun, Academic Challenger, Acadienne, Acemaroon, Acroterion, ACV777, Addshore, Adrian Robson, AdrianCo, Adrille, Aesopos, Aeusoes1, Aflin, AgarwalSumeet, Agateller, Agillet, Ahoerstemeier, AirdishStraus, Airhead5, Aitias, Akanemoto, AkifSarwar, Alcatar, AlefZet, Alensha, Alethiophile, AlexisMichaud, AlexiusHoratius, AlexLibman, Alientraveller, AlleborgoBot, Alll, AlnoktaBOT, Alopex, Alphachimp, Alphachimpbot, Alphador, Amateaurhistorian411, Ambafrance, AndersBot, AndonicO, Andrew Levine, Andrewhalim, AndrewHowse, Andrewpmk, Andy Marchbanks, Andy wakey, Andygharvey, Angela, Angelo De La Paz, Anger22, Angusmclellan, Ann O'nyme, Annalaurab, Antandrus, Antennaman, AnthroGael, AntiSpamBot, AntiVandalBot, Antonrojo, Antwon Galante, Aol kid, Appleseed, Aquarelle, Aranherunar, ARC Gritt, AreJay, Arenrce, ArmenG, Arnehalbakken, Arnoutf, Aronlevin, Arpingstone, Arsenal666, Arthur Rubin, Arwack, ASDFGH, Asidemes, Asm82, Asterion, Atlant, Aude, Avala, Avenue, Awien, AxG, AySz88, Azertymenneke, Backburner001, Bahaab, BalkanFever, Bamsucks123, Bangvang, Bardhylius, Baristarim, Baronnet, Barryob, Basawala, Baseballnut290, Bathrobe, Bazonka, Bcnviajero, BdB-18, BDpill359, BECASC, Beerus, Behemoth, Bellahdoll, Benhealy, BenoniBot, Bertilvidet, Betacommand, BetacommandBot, Beyond silence, BigBrotherIsWatchingYou, Bigordo11, Bigtimepeace, Billinghurst, Billposer, Birnuson, Blablablob, Black Kite, Blahblahx12, Blain123, Blastwizard, Bluecheese333, BlueMars, Bob not otis, Bob9000, Bob1234567890123456789, Bobblewik, Bobo192, Bobthellama9, BodhisattvaBot, Bogdan, Bolonka, Bona Fides, Bonadea, Bongwarrior, Boomshanka, Boonaone, Booner47, Bootstoots, BorgQueen, Bot-Schafter, BOT-Superzerocool, Bota47, BotMultichill, Bourkeazoid, BradBeattie, Brahmaputra, Brandon.macuser, Brazo622, Bre29, BrendelSignature, Brianga, Brianruyle814, Bridesmill, BritishWatcher, Britsrule06, Buchanan-Hermit, Buckunit50, Bunny-chan, Buybooks Marius, Byrialbot, C5mjohn, Cactus.man, Caesarjbsquitti, Calliopejen1, Callum+Jacob's Fetish, CALR, Caltas, Camulod, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, CanadianCaesar, Canadianism, CanadianLinuxUser, Caniago, Captain Disdain, CaptainVindaloo, Carl Logan, Carl.bunderson, Carlon, Casaubon, CaseyPenk, Casper2k3, Casperdc, Cassini83, Catgut, Cbmoney132, Ccady, Ccraccnam, Certh, ChaChaFut, CharlotteWebb, Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, Check two you,
Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)
Thats why i said state/city. Even within states, business licenses have to be procured for each city/county From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 8:36:24 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters) 2009/1/21 Geoffrey Plourde geo.p...@yahoo.com: It is extraordinarily difficult to found a US chapter, because we are in essence a federation of 50 little nations. Every state has their own unique characteristics and their own unique laws. Also, we do not have interest for a national chapter. By empowering these state/city chapters, we provide the willing with an outreach organization while leaving it open for other regions. If the US sub-national chapters were clearly done along state lines, that argument would work, but that doesn't seem to be the case. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/22 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: Because I don't think it's good to discuss attribution as an abstract principle, just as an example, the author attribution for the article [[France]] is below, excluding IP addresses. According to the view that attribution needs to be given to each pseudonym, this entire history would have to be included with every copy of the article. Needless to say, in a print product, this would occupy a very significant amount of space. Needless to say, equally, it's a significant obligation for a re-user. And, of course, Wikipedia keeps growing and so do its attribution records. Well, the attribution list is about 1/6 the length of the article (in terms of bytes). Given that it can be in significantly smaller font size, doesn't have lots of whitespace and has no images, it's going to take up far less than 1/6 as much space on the page. It will be a significant amount of space, but not an impractical one (to the extent that copying and pasting into Word gives meaningful results, the article takes up 35 pages, the attribution list takes up 2). The notion that it's actually useful to anyone in that list is dubious at best. A vast number of pseudonyms below have no meaning except for their context in Wikipedia. I think requiring this for, e.g., a wiki-reader on countries makes it significantly less likely for people to create such products, and I think that the benefit of free knowledge weighs greater than the benefit of credit to largely pseudonymous individuals who have never, at any point, been promised or given to understand that their name would be given a significant degree of visibility through the lifetime of the article they contribute to. That's as may be, but I don't think it's our decision to make. But, I do not want to rehash every single argument a hundred times. As I said in a different thread, I think it may be useful to include at least a preference poll in the licensing vote to better understand where different people are on this issue. Attribution-by-URL under certain circumstances is consistent with many people's expectations and preference, but clearly not with everyone's. If there's a predominant conception of an acceptable attribution regime, that would make developing a consistent model easier. Whether or not something is sufficient to comply with licensing requirements isn't something that can be decided democratically. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/21 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Whether or not something is sufficient to comply with licensing requirements isn't something that can be decided democratically. We're operating in a space with a high degree of ambiguity. The point would be to determine whether there's a clear and shared expectation of what constitutes reasonable attribution requirements or not. It would be an information gathering poll, rather than a decision-making vote. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Hear hear! Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band[1] is another stunning example of attribution gone mad and reusers would always have the option of crediting authors anyway (perhaps guided by author preferences expressed on the talk page or some other interface). Most critically however, the benefit of free knowledge weighs greater than the benefit of credit to largely pseudonymous individuals who have never, at any point, been promised [anything]. Well said - thanks for this enlightening and comprehensive review of the situation. I would hope that URLs point to the article itself which is far more useful (and cleaner) than the history page, and that they would be optional depending on the medium (eg web/pdf vs paper/print). Aside from that agree 100% with everything you've said and look forward to seeing what the poll and/or vote. Sam http://books.google.com/books?id=BaWKVqiUH-4Cpg=PT979 On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 1:11 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Because I don't think it's good to discuss attribution as an abstract principle, just as an example, the author attribution for the article [[France]] is below, excluding IP addresses. According to the view that attribution needs to be given to each pseudonym, this entire history would have to be included with every copy of the article. Needless to say, in a print product, this would occupy a very significant amount of space. Needless to say, equally, it's a significant obligation for a re-user. And, of course, Wikipedia keeps growing and so do its attribution records. The notion that it's actually useful to anyone in that list is dubious at best. A vast number of pseudonyms below have no meaning except for their context in Wikipedia. I think requiring this for, e.g., a wiki-reader on countries makes it significantly less likely for people to create such products, and I think that the benefit of free knowledge weighs greater than the benefit of credit to largely pseudonymous individuals who have never, at any point, been promised or given to understand that their name would be given a significant degree of visibility through the lifetime of the article they contribute to. The idea that we can meaningfully define the number of cases where this requirement is onerous and the number where it isn't through simple language is not at all obvious to me. Whether something is onerous is in part a function of someone's willingness and ability to invest effort, not whether they are creating something that's intended for online and offline use. Ironically, heavy attribution requirements advantage publishing houses with armies of lawyers over individuals. People who don't care about rules will ignore any requirement we set (and realistically we have no energy or ability to enforce those requirements in most cases); unreasonable requirements primarily affect people who are trying to do the right thing, like any unnecessary emergence of bureaucracy. But, I do not want to rehash every single argument a hundred times. As I said in a different thread, I think it may be useful to include at least a preference poll in the licensing vote to better understand where different people are on this issue. Attribution-by-URL under certain circumstances is consistent with many people's expectations and preference, but clearly not with everyone's. If there's a predominant conception of an acceptable attribution regime, that would make developing a consistent model easier. Erik (aeropagitica), - 45, -Midorihana-, ..p, 03md, 6ty7u89i, 14 tom 1406, 334a, 041744, ^demon, Aaker, Abeg92, Abilityfun, Academic Challenger, Acadienne, Acemaroon, Acroterion, ACV777, Addshore, Adrian Robson, AdrianCo, Adrille, Aesopos, Aeusoes1, Aflin, AgarwalSumeet, Agateller, Agillet, Ahoerstemeier, AirdishStraus, Airhead5, Aitias, Akanemoto, AkifSarwar, Alcatar, AlefZet, Alensha, Alethiophile, AlexisMichaud, AlexiusHoratius, AlexLibman, Alientraveller, AlleborgoBot, Alll, AlnoktaBOT, Alopex, Alphachimp, Alphachimpbot, Alphador, Amateaurhistorian411, Ambafrance, AndersBot, AndonicO, Andrew Levine, Andrewhalim, AndrewHowse, Andrewpmk, Andy Marchbanks, Andy wakey, Andygharvey, Angela, Angelo De La Paz, Anger22, Angusmclellan, Ann O'nyme, Annalaurab, Antandrus, Antennaman, AnthroGael, AntiSpamBot, AntiVandalBot, Antonrojo, Antwon Galante, Aol kid, Appleseed, Aquarelle, Aranherunar, ARC Gritt, AreJay, Arenrce, ArmenG, Arnehalbakken, Arnoutf, Aronlevin, Arpingstone, Arsenal666, Arthur Rubin, Arwack, ASDFGH, Asidemes, Asm82, Asterion, Atlant, Aude, Avala, Avenue, Awien, AxG, AySz88, Azertymenneke, Backburner001, Bahaab, BalkanFever, Bamsucks123, Bangvang, Bardhylius, Baristarim, Baronnet, Barryob, Basawala, Baseballnut290, Bathrobe, Bazonka, Bcnviajero, BdB-18, BDpill359, BECASC, Beerus, Behemoth, Bellahdoll, Benhealy, BenoniBot, Bertilvidet, Betacommand, BetacommandBot, Beyond silence, BigBrotherIsWatchingYou, Bigordo11, Bigtimepeace,
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
2009/1/22 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org: 2009/1/21 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: Whether or not something is sufficient to comply with licensing requirements isn't something that can be decided democratically. We're operating in a space with a high degree of ambiguity. The point would be to determine whether there's a clear and shared expectation of what constitutes reasonable attribution requirements or not. It would be an information gathering poll, rather than a decision-making vote. You need to be very careful how you interpret it, since it's a self-selecting sample. The people sufficiently committed to the projects to vote (eg. not people that edited once or twice and then left) are more likely than the general population of editors to be tolerant of bending the rules for the benefit of the projects, I would think. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band[1] is another stunning example of attribution gone mad A few pages of names in a 1000 page book doesn't seem that mad to me. I think it makes an excellent point about how Wikipedia works. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:07 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band[1] is another stunning example of attribution gone mad A few pages of names in a 1000 page book doesn't seem that mad to me. I think it makes an excellent point about how Wikipedia works. Perhaps, but it delivers ZERO benefit to the pseudonymous individuals listed and exacts a non-trivial toll on the reuser. This is further amplified for partial reuse of a resource, reuse of multiple resources, reuse with tangible mediums (esp non-print e.g. t-shirts) and so on. Carrying on with the France example[1], you can double the length of that list with IP numbers (which would likely have to be included too) and consider that if the article has accrued 5,000 contributors over the last 5 years or so, how many will it have in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? While the toll can be reduced by automation it cannot be removed altogether and this does not change the fact that the result delivers ZERO value to anyone (authors, readers, reusers, the environment and Wikipedia as a whole). Sam 1. http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=en.wikipediapage=france ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Mike Godwin mgod...@wikimedia.org wrote: Anthony writes: Over 100 might have been a slight exggeration - I guesstimated rather than counting each one. My goodness. I can't believe you'd ever exaggerate a factual claim. I'm astonished. I can believe that you'd focus on such drivel rather than respond to the actual issues raised. Grow up, Mike. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Sam Johnston s...@samj.net wrote: On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:07 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band[1] is another stunning example of attribution gone mad A few pages of names in a 1000 page book doesn't seem that mad to me. I think it makes an excellent point about how Wikipedia works. Perhaps, but it delivers ZERO benefit to the pseudonymous individuals listed and exacts a non-trivial toll on the reuser. Depends on the pseudonym, but for the most part you're right. On the other hand, Mediawiki has long supported the real name preference, and even says Real name is optional. If you choose to provide it, this will be used for giving you attribution for your work. Regrettably, Wikipedia chose not to enable that field. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
