Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-25 Thread Thomas Dalton
On 25 January 2011 11:26, Alison M. Wheeler  wrote:
>
> - "Thomas Dalton"  wrote:
>> Very doubtful indeed. Wikipedia might, conceivably, be considered a
>> trusted third party, but there is no way the rest of world would and
>> we can't accept content that is licensed to Wikipedia only.
>
> I would think it likely that as the BBC have already made the decision, in 
> principle, to send h2g2 on its way then expanding the licence to drop any NC 
> requirement would be a highly probable parting gift. Certainly worth asking 
> them to change the licence anyway.

They aren't the copyright holder, though, so I don't think they can
change the license. They have a very broad license to use it
themselves and to re-license it to trusted third parties, but they
don't have the authority (as far as I can tell) to release it under a
free licence.

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-25 Thread David Gerard
On 25 January 2011 11:26, Alison M. Wheeler  wrote:

> I would think it likely that as the BBC have already made the decision, in 
> principle, to send h2g2 on its way then expanding the licence to drop any NC 
> requirement would be a highly probable parting gift. Certainly worth asking 
> them to change the licence anyway.


Is it forkable at all even on an -NC basis? WIkia has adopted -NC
communities before, e.g. Uncyclopedia.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-25 Thread Alison M. Wheeler

- "Thomas Dalton"  wrote:
> Very doubtful indeed. Wikipedia might, conceivably, be considered a
> trusted third party, but there is no way the rest of world would and
> we can't accept content that is licensed to Wikipedia only.

I would think it likely that as the BBC have already made the decision, in 
principle, to send h2g2 on its way then expanding the licence to drop any NC 
requirement would be a highly probable parting gift. Certainly worth asking 
them to change the licence anyway.

Alison

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-25 Thread Peter Coombe
On 25 January 2011 08:50, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 25 January 2011 07:11, Nikola Smolenski  wrote:
>> It is a question however if per
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/help/entry_faqs#copyright and
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/#4 "In certain circumstance the BBC may also
>> share your contribution with trusted third parties*." would allow for
>> such a release.
>
> Very doubtful indeed. Wikipedia might, conceivably, be considered a
> trusted third party, but there is no way the rest of world would and
> we can't accept content that is licensed to Wikipedia only.

It would be nice if the Foundation could help out h2g2, possibly with
funding to help get set up independent of the BBC. It's such a
historic predecessor to Wikipedia, it just feels like the right thing
to do. Unfortunately because it isn't under a free licence, this would
probably fall outside our mission.

We should reach out to any researchers who choose to leave though, and
we already have a fairly good introduction page for them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:H2g2

As that page says h2g2 researchers retain copyright to their own
entries, so if they want to relicense individual ones for use on wiki
projects, that's fine.

Pete / the wub

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-25 Thread Thomas Dalton
On 25 January 2011 07:11, Nikola Smolenski  wrote:
> It is a question however if per
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/help/entry_faqs#copyright and
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/#4 "In certain circumstance the BBC may also
> share your contribution with trusted third parties*." would allow for
> such a release.

Very doubtful indeed. Wikipedia might, conceivably, be considered a
trusted third party, but there is no way the rest of world would and
we can't accept content that is licensed to Wikipedia only.

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-24 Thread Nikola Smolenski
On 01/24/2011 05:09 PM, Magnus Manske wrote:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12265173
>
> Anything worth salvaging?

If released under a free license, it could find its place on Wikisource. 
I have found at least a few articles that could be used to improve 
Wikipedia ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/approved_entry/A592599 is much 
longer than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Word_%28radio_show%29 
and http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/approved_entry/A76282158 doesn't seem to 
have the article on Wikipedia at all). It is a question however if per 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/help/entry_faqs#copyright and 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/#4 "In certain circumstance the BBC may also 
share your contribution with trusted third parties*." would allow for 
such a release.

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-24 Thread Thomas Dalton
On 24 January 2011 18:02, geni  wrote:
> On 24 January 2011 16:09, Magnus Manske  wrote:
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12265173
>>
>> Anything worth salvaging?
>>
>
> Probably but I can't see it falling within our remit. Apart from
> anything else it's not under a free license.

If the BBC owns the copyright, or has permission to re-license the
work, then that isn't an issue. I can't remember the copyright system
for h2g2 (I was very active there before I became active on Wikipedia,
but that was years ago).

I don't think their content would be appropriate for us without a
major re-write, though. It tends to be (or at least, tended to be
while I was there) written in a very light-hearted, sometimes even
comedic, tone. It's not encyclopaedic. It isn't well-referenced either
(and certainly isn't a reliable source).

h2g2 was a fun community, but it wasn't really a useful project.

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-24 Thread David Gerard
On 24 January 2011 16:09, Magnus Manske  wrote:

> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12265173
> Anything worth salvaging?


Is it even under a CC-ish licence?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/forums/A639056/conversation/view/F77636/T8018187

"However, H2G2 is unusual. It is a pre-existing community that the BBC
brought into its fold, not a community that the BBC set up from
scratch. So rather than closing it, we've decided to explore another
option. This process has been referred to elsewhere as the "disposal"
of H2G2. I'll admit this is not a great choices of words, but what is
means is that we'll be looking for proposals from others to take on
the running of H2G2."

The actual machine it runs on is a years-out-of-warranty Dell server
running Windows 2000. Not sure if it still has an outboard USB disk in
the back. What I mean is, it's ridiculous levels of bespoke and
already running on something that should rightly be a discard.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-24 Thread geni
On 24 January 2011 16:09, Magnus Manske  wrote:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12265173
>
> Anything worth salvaging?
>

Probably but I can't see it falling within our remit. Apart from
anything else it's not under a free license. Some of their other stuff
might highlight areas we could perhaps move into but there isn't much
detail and nothing listed at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/2011/01/delivering-quality-first.shtml

Looks like it would really interest us.

-- 
geni

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[Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

2011-01-24 Thread Magnus Manske
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12265173

Anything worth salvaging?

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