from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Writing with our readers in mind

body:
On 7/12/05, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 01:15:42PM -0000, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
> > > Starting from when I was a small child reading them on the living room
> > > floor, I've never fully grasped the reasons why an encyclopedia was
> > > not just a superset of the dictionary.
>         [snip]
> > But an encyclopedia tries to be somewhat independent of all this. It
> > tries to split the world up into concepts that make sense from the
> > point of view of our current state of knowledge. Those tails that have
> > enough in common to be usefully described together should form one
> > article, both in an English encyclopedia and an Icelandic one.
>
> Maybe.  But while the structure of our language might not overwhelmingly
> determine the thoughts that we can have in it (the infamous Sapir-Whorf
> conjecture) it certainly determines which thoughts are easier to
> communicate to readers of the same language.
>
> It seems to me that the central difference between a dictionary and an
> encyclopedia is that a dictionary is about the language, whereas an
> encyclopedia is about the world.  A dictionary sets out not to describe
> the world in which language-users live, but rather the language that
> they use to describe that world.  So a dictionary entry on the words
> "God" or "justice" does not need to discuss the issue of whether God
> exists, or whether justice can be accomplished -- only with what people
> _mean_ when they say or write "God" or "justice".
>
> A dictionary uses language as meta-language:  that is, to describe the
> language itself.  An encyclopedia uses language in the ordinary fashion:
> to describe the world.

Since languages are part of the greater world around them, and words
are parts of that world, I still think encyclopedias that do not
incorporate dictionaries are falling a little short of what they could
be.

In your example of a "frog", the dicdef could be the disambiguation
page that leads to the encyclopedic discussion of the amphibian, the
slang term for a French person, and even the use as a clothes
fastener.  Every word would be defined, and those with further
specific use would be simply have a larger article, or have several
child articles linked under them.

We already start many (perhaps even most) articles with a definition
of the term being discussed.   The primary difference I see is that
some of these "header definitions" could better serve the readers as
less specific disambiguation pages.

Although "frog" isn't the best example (and I can't think of a better
one on the spot right now), why *wouldn't* we present someone looking
up "frog" with the pronunciation and etymology of the word, along with
three branches to follow for a fuller explanation?  Isn't this much
better than having articles "Frog", "Frog (slang)" and "Frog
(fastener)" whose title only offers the barest description of what to
expect from the link?

The word is part and parcel of the overall value of the named concept
in the world, and therefore is also encyclopedic.  Encyclopedic
phrases that define a concept don't belong in a dictionary, but I
don't see a valid opposite corollary.

I still see a dictionary as a subset of a "true" encyclopedia.  I
suspect that this hasn't been considered for adoption as part of the
larger goal of Wikipedia in part because it is far more difficult (and
usually less interesting) to accomplish than producing encyclopedia
articles.

I don't know for sure where the "not a dictionary" part of [[WP:NOT]]
came from, but suspect it came from Mr. Wales.  I'd be interested to
know *why* being a superset of a dictionary is so taboo.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: FlaBot

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Interwiki-Link-Checker

body:
Hi !

1. Nein es gibt kein vergleichbares Tool.

2. Warum kann ich nix an die Liste posten ?

Gr??e Dirk


list: wikien-l

from_name: Peta Holmes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fair use claims

body:
While we're on the subject of copyrights I'd like to
try out a fair use claim to see what people think.

Currently there are two images of Sharbat Gula which
are claimed as fair use. This woman is soley famous
for appearing on the cover of National Geographic as a
Afghani refugee in 1985, in 2002 the same photographer
took her photo again, both images are used in the
article and the original is also included on the
photographers page (Steve McCurry). The photographer
explicitly forbids reuse of the images wihtout
permission. Neither image description pages gives a
rationale for fair use.

I think the fair use claim on these images is
extremely shaky, and the only image that would be fair
use in the Sharbat Gula article would be the National
Geographic cover since it is discussed in the context
of the article. The use of the image in the
photographers page is most likely not fair use.
Opinions?

If someone wants to set up a fair use verification
page along the lines of the image sleuthing page I'd
be happy to help out. Targeting images in featured and
FAC articles would probably be a good place to start.

Peta Holmes (nixie)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: Chad Perrin

subject:
[Foundation-l] Brilliant thinkers brainstorm over fate of the
	world

body:
On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 09:10:03AM +0000, Walter Vermeir wrote:
> Today in my news paper "Het Nieuwsblad" on page 8.
>
> "Oxford wil de wereld redden"
> /Oxford wants to save the world/
>
> subtitel;
> "Geniale denkers brainstormen over lot van de wereld"
> /Brilliant thinkers brainstorm over fate of the world/
>
> It is about TED-Global. It is an highly exclusive conference for the most most
> brilliant thinkers alive to think about the future.
>
> There will be 45 persons present. From those 45 there are 6 persons selected in
> the newspaper whit there picture and some info about what for people the are.
>
> One of those is .... Jimmy Wales!
>
> Whit the label "De allesweter" /the knowitall/
> occupation:  "internetspecialist uit Alabama" /internet specialist from Alabama/
>
> Goal;  "Iedereen moet gratis toegang tot kennis hebben" /Everybody must have
> free access to knowledge/
>
> http://www.ted.com/conference/flashpage.cfm?conferenceKey=TG2005

Awesome.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [WikiEN-l] disclaimer at the bottom of pages

body:
On 12/07/05, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, IANAL, just an Australian law student, but as far as I can tell,
> 17 USC 108 is linked because it is the part of US copyright law which
> allows libraries or archives to make legitimate copies of a
> copyrighted work.
>
<snip>
>
>
> --
> Stephen Bain

Ahhhhh, I see :-). Thank you!

Dan


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Orthography in interwiki links

body:
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This means that  should be general MediaWiki policy and it should not
> > be used only on Wikipedias where communities are strongly against it.
> > So, Names.php should be with small letters in the main distribution,
> > but it should be changed for Wikipedias where communities are strongly
> > against.
>
> Millosh, with this you are making the assumption that it is correct
> orthography for all those languages -- including some you've probably
> not heard of, like Venda, Herero, and Chamorro -- and this is not the
> case. In some cases it is correct orthography, HOWEVER in others it is
> not. It should be on a case-by-case basis, rather than switching all
> to lowercase.
>
> Obviously you know best about Serbian, Croatian, Serbo-Croatian, and
> Bosnian, but instead of changing all Wikipedias we should have a vote
> at each one, or find if it is correct orthography.

I heard that English speakers/writers write "English" with capital
letter at the beginning and I didn't think to ask en: community to
vote about that ;) (I am sorry if my English said that I think that
small letters should be implemented for English, too :) )

I don't have an idea what is Venda or Herero orthography; but if the
orthography says (and this is very simple if we are talking about
standardized language) that they should write their language name with
small letter at the beginning, it should be implemented in MediaWiki.
If community says that they want to write with capital letter,
Wikipedia should implement it with capital letter. And I think that
this is very simple: MediaWiki default is the matter of orthography,
Wikipedia is the matter of community (even it should not be).

If we are talking about non-standardized language, then community on
Wikipedia should standardize language and then it is the real matter
of community.

But... You should keep in mind that a lot of small Wikipedias have
standardized languages. (last year Serbian Wikipedia was very small
and Macedonian was existed only as "if you know this language, please
start to write something", but both of languages have standardized
language). And the relevant person who should be asked for what is
right and what is wrong is not Wikipedian (who is probably programmer)
but some linguist: in the cases like this we should ask some linguist
from MIT, Harvard... specialized for that language. For example, out
of developed communities, we should make some questionnaire for each
language: (1) Does language X has standard orthography? (2) If
language X has standard orthography, what is the right writing of the
language name in this language? ... And to send it to a couple of
universities. I am sure that we would get answers.

Of course, we can realize maybe a lot without asking any question;
examples are: (1) Sicilian is not standardized, but follows Italian
standard; (2) Klingon is not standardized, but follows English
standard; (3) Esperanto has a lot of grammars so we can see what the
rules are; etc. etc.

And, of course, it should be implemented in MediaWiki. For Wikipedias
communities should be asked with the question like this: Interwiki
links are not headings, but references. We found that your orthography
says that the name of your language is written with the starting small
letter; do you want to implement this in interwiki links or you prefer
to leave interwiki links like they are now?

And to add to the list Macedonian and Slovenian (I am sure that they
would agree about that).


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Special:Disambiguations fixed !

body:
Jakob Voss wrote:

>
> Is there any possibility to mark links to disambiguation page with CSS
> in a different color? This is a feature I am waiting for since years!
> People tend to link at disambiguation pages and nobody notices but if
> you mark the links (let's say orange or green) you see it like linking
> to missing articles.

Possible, yes. But it will require additional database activity, one
search for each link, worst case.

Magnus
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from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
Hot on the heels of my comments about the RfC procedure, I've created
[[Wikipedia:Wikimediation]], which I think will work much like I want
RfC to work, without leading to agonizing debates over whether to
change something. Basically, it's an opportunity for communal
mediation, where people can leave constructive comments on how
disputes and behavior might be handled better and more productively.

I encourage everybody to have a look at the page. I've started a test
slate of a few disputes that I think run a broad spectrum of issues
and behaviors, including my own conduct. I encourage people to go
weigh in on some of the cases. I'm particularly interested in input
on my own conduct, but I think there's a lot of good to be done over
on that page now.

-Snowspinner


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
On 7/12/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>So I guess my
> question would be whether you could go into Wikimediation with a
> sincere belief that it might help the problem. If you can, go for it.
> If you are just going because you want to check off the requirement
> for the arbcom, it's probably a lost cause.

Thanks, Phil, that's helpful. The tendency toward personal attacks
from this user is such that an arbcom case is probably the best way to
settle it.

I'll think about it some more. If I can figure out a way to present
the case so that it sounds constructive and helpful, rather than
accusatory, I'll give Wikimediation a shot.

Sarah


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Stephen Betts

subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Using Extensions within Templates

body:
On 7/12/05, Aerik Sylvan <aerik at thesylvans.com> wrote:
> Stephen Betts said:
> "... each extension needs to be aware of what extensions have already been used..."
>
> Instead of what you're doing with putting variables in templates, now about making your extensions themselves more intelligent by using a static variable to log which extensions have been used?
>
> I am currently doing something like this to prevent an extension being used more than once.

Ah, that sounds just right!  Thanks for the tip!

Yours,

Stephen.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
I certainly wouldn't think that Wikimediation rules out eventual
escalation to the arbcom. I mean, it would be stupid to guarantee
that Wikimediation will fix all problems. It won't. So I guess my
question would be whether you could go into Wikimediation with a
sincere belief that it might help the problem. If you can, go for it.
If you are just going because you want to check off the requirement
for the arbcom, it's probably a lost cause.

I'd personally hope the former is the case, and so encourage you to
try it, but I'm not inside your head and can't tell you if you think
it has any hope of working.

-Snowspinner

On Jul 12, 2005, at 4:45 PM, <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
<slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/12/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> Hot on the heels of my comments about the RfC procedure, I've created
>> [[Wikipedia:Wikimediation]], which I think will work much like I want
>> RfC to work, without leading to agonizing debates over whether to
>> change something. Basically, it's an opportunity for communal
>> mediation, where people can leave constructive comments on how
>> disputes and behavior might be handled better and more productively.
>>
>
> Phil, I think this is a great idea. Thanks for setting it up.
>
> I have a question. You wrote on the page that it's not intended as a
> dry run for an RfC or arbitration, because it's intended to be
> non-confrontational. However, if someone were to take a case through
> Wikimediation, do you envisage that it could be cited as part of the
> dispute-resolution process to allow a case to proceed before the
> arbcom? Or is your preference that the two be kept entirely separate?
>
> The reason I ask is that I'm currently dealing with an editor who's in
> the habit of launching personal attacks. I'm considering approaching
> the arbcom, and so I have to begin dispute resolution. I really
> dislike the RfC process because it becomes so vitriolic, and so I'm
> thinking about writing it up for Wikimediation instead. However, one
> of my aims in doing so would be to fulfill the arbcom requirement of
> having tried alternative means of resolving the issue.
>
> Would you see that as an inappropriate use of Wikimediation?
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Skyring wrote:

> I've just spotted this on the talk page of a user: "I will revert all
> edits to all articles on my watchlist by the LaRouche cult "editor"
> Cognition, or any other recognisable LaRouche editor. I will do this
> until either the LaRouche cultists are banned from Wikipedia or I am.
> I don't much care which, since an encyclopaedia which allows crackpot
> cultists to edit its articles is not worth writing for."
>
> Now, to my poor understanding, this user is threatening to revert any
> edits made to any article on his 1000+ witchlist, regardless of merit,
> so long as that edit is made by someone he identifies as a particular
> sort of crackpot.
>
> What I know about LaRouche could be summed up in one word, but surely
> Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the presence or absence of
> one particular editor?
>
Well, I happen to know that a case came before the ArbCom concerning
LaRouche followers who tried to add citations from their leader to a
number of unrelated articles, which resulted in a decision that was not
in their favor.

And I seem to remember that one of the editors involved in limiting
their attempts to flood Wikipedia with pro-Larouche citations was Adam
Carr. These wouldn't be Carr's words, would they?

I suggest you do more research: the ArbCom concluded these people
were POV-pushers, & a danger to Wikipedia. I doubt you will find much
support criticizing the person wrote this, no matter how ill-tempered
that editor might be.

Geoff


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New fair use tag proposal

body:
On 7/11/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Actually, a statement by the copyright holder that the use is considered
> fair use does serve an important purpose, and is distinct from granting
> a license or permission to use. The statement would probably prevent the
> copyright holder, should that particular use ever be litigated, from
> arguing a contrary position to the court. Effectively, the party
> claiming fair use is relieved of the obligation to prove that the use is
> indeed fair. See [[estoppel]]. The distinction is important because mere
> licenses can often be revoked at any time if no consideration is involved.

I find it unlikely that this would hold up in court, but I am not a
lawyer. Fair use is such a vague thing, and specifically NOT a
license, that a potential plaintiff could, in my mind, easily and
plausibly say, "well, it turns out that what we then thought was fair
we later didn't think was fair" and hardly be in bad faith. "We didn't
think it would cause us damages, but we later found out that this was
wrong," and then list off some hypothetical lost damages. Fair use is
not a license, it is in our case a pre-emptive defense -- these should
be not confused in any way, in my opinion.

> This is why copyright owners sometimes approach people about the way
> copyrighted content is being used, but still offer to give permission
> for its use. Very often they know well enough that the situation would
> qualify as fair use anyway, but phrase it as granting permission while
> carefully insisting that "all their rights are reserved." Openly
> agreeing that something is fair use is very rare, and PRA's willingness
> to do so is a generous gesture.

Saying someone can use something but you still reserve your rights is
still a form of license, however informal. The action is granting some
sort of right -- this is not what fair use is about, which is a
defense/assertion of a right.

I'm glad that the PRA thinks it is fair use, and no one is denying
their generosity or good will. But our labeling of fair use depends on
our own, independent decisions, not what the copyright holder thinks
one way or another (though I've got nothing against listening to them
and taking what they say into consideration!). Whether something is
"fair use" or not ought to be considered a factual matter (however
difficult and unpleasant it is to empirically test -- i.e., in
court!). If the PRA told us that dogs have five legs -- that's fine,
we'll listen to what they say, but it won't necessarily determine what
we write about dogs. If they tell us they think us using their table
is fair use, that's grand, we'll take their view into account, but it
is still ultimately up to Wikipedia to judge. This is unlike a license
of some sort, which is not a "factual" matter but is something to be
granted or withheld.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
I happen to share the view that the LaRouche people are a cult and a
pretty bonkers in general (I would behoove anyone who thinks LaRouche
is a good idea to go through the stuff he wrote in the 1970s in New
Solidarity before proclaiming him likely sane), but that's not the
point, of course -- Draconian is Draconian, and is not Wikipedian.

But as you said, "Surely Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the
presence or absence of one particular editor", which seems to apply to
this fellow and his rather extreme notice as well. While this message
isn't very civil (if you applied it to other political groups or
religious groups, it would be seen as quite offensive), and might be
in violation of some sort of "don't use your user page to be a jerk"
rule, I don't think it by itself is much of a threat to the project.

FF

On 7/12/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've just spotted this on the talk page of a user: "I will revert all
> edits to all articles on my watchlist by the LaRouche cult "editor"
> Cognition, or any other recognisable LaRouche editor. I will do this
> until either the LaRouche cultists are banned from Wikipedia or I am.
> I don't much care which, since an encyclopaedia which allows crackpot
> cultists to edit its articles is not worth writing for."
>
> Now, to my poor understanding, this user is threatening to revert any
> edits made to any article on his 1000+ witchlist, regardless of merit,
> so long as that edit is made by someone he identifies as a particular
> sort of crackpot.
>
> What I know about LaRouche could be summed up in one word, but surely
> Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the presence or absence of
> one particular editor?
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
Note: For some reason, often when I mean to write "encourage," I write
"behoove" instead. I'm not sure why this is, but it has happened a
number of times. So please, read it as "encourage". Theoretically I'm
aware that "behoove" does not mean the same thing, though I seem to
screw it up quite often in practice!

FF

On 7/12/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I happen to share the view that the LaRouche people are a cult and a
> pretty bonkers in general (I would behoove anyone who thinks LaRouche
> is a good idea to go through the stuff he wrote in the 1970s in New
> Solidarity before proclaiming him likely sane), but that's not the
> point, of course -- Draconian is Draconian, and is not Wikipedian.
>
> But as you said, "Surely Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the
> presence or absence of one particular editor", which seems to apply to
> this fellow and his rather extreme notice as well. While this message
> isn't very civil (if you applied it to other political groups or
> religious groups, it would be seen as quite offensive), and might be
> in violation of some sort of "don't use your user page to be a jerk"
> rule, I don't think it by itself is much of a threat to the project.
>
> FF
>


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use and Registered Trademarks

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
>
>> Actually, I don't think you can digitize some public domain work and
>> change its title unless you also change its content.
>>
>> At least in France, that would be forbidden by the moral rights
>> legislation.
>>
>>
> This is likely to be a huge, and perhaps incompatable difference,
> between American and French law.  Changing and modifying public domain
> works is commonly accepted, and often encouraged under many
> circumstances.  That appears to be precisely what has happened here
> with the Gutenberg Encyclopedia.

Indeed, there was a recent U.S. Supreme Court case unanimously
confirming this---a company (Dastar Corp.) republished a modified
version of a public-domain work of film and passed it off as if they had
produced it themselves, not attributing or mentioning at all the
original producrs.  The original producers (Twentieth Century Fox Film
Corp.) sued, and lost, because under U.S. law (as confirmed in this
case), the original author of a public-domain work has *no* rights of
any sort, not even the right to be credited, since by definition
public-domain works are not owned in any fashion by anyone.

See: [[en:Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox FilmCorp.]]

Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> From what I see, based on some research I've just done searching
> various web pages and trying to read court opinons, etc. (IANAL) the
> use of a trademark is reserved for the company who holds it.  In this
> case we (or at least I am) trying to advertise the project and discuss
> the project in public forums.  In this situation, I am not legally
> entitled to describe the project as "Wikisource Encyclopaedia
> Britianica, 11th Edition", because that implies endorsement from
> Encyclopaedia Britianica, Inc.  This puts the Wikimedia Foundation
> into a real legal bind if that trademark is used widely, for example
> as a hyperlink from Wikipedia articles to Wikisource, or even
> discussed outside of Wikimedia projects.

Well, this is a gray area of law, as most trademark law is.  There is
room for acceptable use of a trademark when reporting factual
information, however, even in advertising---Coca-Cola uses the work
"Pepsi" in some advertisements, for example those that report the
results of taste tests between the two companies' products.  Simply
stating that a verbatim copy of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica is in fact "The 11th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica"
seems like it might be a mere factual statement and permitted, but I
wouldn't be willing to bet anything on that.

-Mark


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
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On 7/12/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> As for LaRouche, it sounds like one of those nutty cult things that
> don't add up. Like Christianity, I guess.

I find it odd that atheists, while supposedly the "rational" ones,
feel the need to employ invective against people who disagree with
them whenever possible. But I'm just a redneck, bucktoothed
Jesuslander. What do I know?

- --Slowking Man

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from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Ultimately the issue is: Is there still a demand, from native
> speakers, for it to be changed?

No, the question is:

a) is it a good idea?
b) is someone prepared to do the research, change all the necessary
entries in languages/Names.php, make a patch and submit it to bugzilla?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: disclaimer at the bottom of pages

body:
I am not convinced.
*If* we need to protect ourselves against such an issue (copyrighted
content being in an old revision), then such a disclaimer should be on
all projects. This is not the case. So, what is the argument for saying
we should protect us in one project but not in others ?

And still, I find it strangely expressed, as someone not aware of
wikipedia editing process will read that the first reason we jump from
one revision to the next is because copyright content could be in it.
Which is not accurate.

I would gladly propose a rephrasing (though not sure everyone would like
my english :-)), but I currently do not see why one project needs such a
disclaimer and not others.

So, I am still confused.

When was this set up and by who ?

Anthere

Stephen Bain a ?crit:
> On 7/13/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>My point is - what has that bit of code got do with Wikipedia? Is that
>>the bit "fair use" comes from?
>>
>
>
> Well, IANAL, just an Australian law student, but as far as I can tell,
> 17 USC 108 is linked because it is the part of US copyright law which
> allows libraries or archives to make legitimate copies of a
> copyrighted work.
>
> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000108----000-.html
>
> I presume that this link is included to cover the possibility of a
> copyright holder coming across an old revision of an article which
> includes their copyrighted content. Basically it's saying "sorry, this
> might have accidentally included your copyrighted work, but this is an
> old revision, we have probably removed the content from the current
> version, and just in case you try to sue, we believe we're covered by
> this section." It's a sort of pre-emptive defence.
>
> I'm not sure it's ever been tested whether WP would classify as a
> "library", but WP would hopefully fall under 17 USC 108 (a) (1) - not
> intending a commercial benefit, (a) (2) - WP is open to the public,
> and (a) (3) the notice says "this work may be protected by copyright."
>
> "Fair use" is a separate sort of pre-emptive copyright defence which
> can be used by anyone (not just libraries and archives), which
> essentially says "I know this work is copyright, but I believe that I
> am reproducing this in a fair way."
>
> Of course, IANAL, and I may be completely wrong, but that's how I read it.
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Mark watch out you are trolling!

body:
Mark,

I'll try to make it short :-)

In the past, you have been considered bordering vandalism due to a
couple of weird actions.

As of today, I think you are recognised as part of the community and
most would agree you are an important element in it, even if not all
will always agree with you.

The fact is that you flood this mailing list. It is embarassing readers.
  You are correct that they can delete your mails, or jump over a thread.

Still, I think you sometimes say important things, and these important
words are lost in the amount of text you write. This is not beneficial.

Ant


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
On 7/12/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Kelly Martin" <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
> wrote in message news:bd4c411e05071206555cdd1908 at mail.gmail.com...
> > On 7/12/05, Phil Boswell
> > <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Maybe the ArbCom could "employ" some flunkies to janitorise the evidence
> > > and
> > > wrangle it into a standard, readable, format.
> > The idea of the ArbCom having a "special master" corral the evidence
> > into good order is a good one, but the problem is in finding people to
> > do that.  Finding people who are willing to do such tedious work
> > without compensation and also disinterested in the matter _sub judice_
> > is very difficult -- even harder than finding good arbitrators.
>
>
> Then you want someone like me, but with more regular access and more spare
> time, who could give less than two hoots about who's involved but will
> happily wrangle data into a nicer shape because it hurts less to look at.
>
> Happily I have never yet been involved in anything like this, but IMNSHO
> almost the worst aspect is just how painful it is to try to figure out what
> happened when.
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
You know what, I wouldn't mind doing a little grunt-work either. Wanna
start a [[Wikipedia:Wikicleks|wikiclerk office]]? I wouldn't mind
helping out a bit on arbcom cases.

- gkhan


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> It seems to me that the central difference between a dictionary and an
> encyclopedia is that a dictionary is about the language, whereas an
> encyclopedia is about the world.

Indeed. We have an article on [[fuck]], though :)
Do we have a criterion for determining when a word
is notable enough in itself and independently of
the phenomena it describes to deserve an article?

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zlatiborian Wikipedia: request for comments

body:
He seems to implying the main differences are in pronunciation:

"Zlatiborian uses the Ijekavian pronounce, while Serbian uses the
Ekavian. [...] Most of Zlatiborian words are differently stressed than
Serbian.

This isn't relevant to Wikipedia since it's only written, not spoken.
Where projects are moving towards spoken versions
([[meta:Wikisound]]), there's no reason to not record multiple
versions with different pronunciations.

Angela.


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

body:
>From: Angela <beesley at gmail.com>
>
>He seems to implying the main differences are in pronunciation:
>
>"Zlatiborian uses the Ijekavian pronounce, while Serbian uses the
>Ekavian. [...] Most of Zlatiborian words are differently stressed than
>Serbian.
>
>This isn't relevant to Wikipedia since it's only written, not spoken.
>Where projects are moving towards spoken versions
>([[meta:Wikisound]]), there's no reason to not record multiple
>versions with different pronunciations.
>
You can write any difference in pronunciation, except the really minor ones.
How big are the differences? Are the dialect groups mutually intelligible?
Are the differences comparable with English proper and London dialect?
English and Scots? Spanish and Portuguese? We must know that to judge
whether or not this Zlatiborian can get a Wikipedia on its own.

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Webmessenger doet het altijd en overal http://webmessenger.msn.com/


body:
The text is from [[MediaWiki:History copyright]]. The text on the
English Wikipedia was added by Jamesday last year following a
discussion on this mailing list where Tim made the addition to the
history footers possible. See
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-June/013706.html

There is also related discussion at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Terms_of_use#Title_17

Information is also at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Page_history which states the
Wikimedia Foundation's official view on this matter. See this diff
which Anthere and Jimmy both agreed to lasy July  -
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Page_history&diff=4805756&oldid=4516125

Angela.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
On 7/12/05, Snowspinner <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
A request for clarification on whether or not the parts of the ruling
> regarding the status of LaRouche sources are still in force would
> probably not be out of line.

The arbcom ruled that material stemming from LaRouche's publications
constituted original research, though I'd have to check the precise
wording. They ruled that LaRouche publications could be used, as
primary sources, in articles closely related to LaRouche, but material
stemming from LaRouche in articles not about him could be deleted on
sight by any editor.

This ruling didn't just apply to the particular LaRouche editors at
that time. It applied across the board, and there's no reason to
suppose it was intended to expire.

It's an important ruling because LaRouche's publications routinely
publish absolute nonsense - not just POV, but lunatic ramblings -
including my personal favorite, which gives the flavor of the thing
for those not familar with LaRouche, that an article in a British
woman's magazine was a code from MI6 that the royal household intended
to assassinate LaRouche because of his criticism of the Queen as a
drug dealer. LaRouche's security staff passed the coded threat to the
White House in case the Queen's people were also intending to harm the
president.

That's what we're dealing with here, the Platonic form of original research.

Sarah


from_name: Snowspinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
The exact standing of that arbcom ruling is in some doubt - mostly
because it did kind of consist of the arbcom making a content ruling
of the sort that they theoretically don't make. I know it came under
some fire (from me, largely) when it was applied to C Colden, who
appeared to be a new user, and who was blocked for violating the
ruling, despite not being covered by it. Of course, Colden turned out
to be a sock, but that's neither here nor there.

A request for clarification on whether or not the parts of the ruling
regarding the status of LaRouche sources are still in force would
probably not be out of line.

-Snowspinner

On Jul 12, 2005, at 8:42 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Skyring wrote:
>
>
>
>> I've just spotted this on the talk page of a user: "I will revert all
>> edits to all articles on my watchlist by the LaRouche cult "editor"
>> Cognition, or any other recognisable LaRouche editor. I will do this
>> until either the LaRouche cultists are banned from Wikipedia or I am.
>> I don't much care which, since an encyclopaedia which allows crackpot
>> cultists to edit its articles is not worth writing for."
>>
>> Now, to my poor understanding, this user is threatening to revert any
>> edits made to any article on his 1000+ witchlist, regardless of
>> merit,
>> so long as that edit is made by someone he identifies as a particular
>> sort of crackpot.
>>
>> What I know about LaRouche could be summed up in one word, but surely
>> Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the presence or absence of
>> one particular editor?
>>
>>
>>
> Well, I happen to know that a case came before the ArbCom concerning
> LaRouche followers who tried to add citations from their leader to a
> number of unrelated articles, which resulted in a decision that was
> not
> in their favor.
>
> And I seem to remember that one of the editors involved in limiting
> their attempts to flood Wikipedia with pro-Larouche citations was Adam
> Carr. These wouldn't be Carr's words, would they?
>
> I suggest you do more research: the ArbCom concluded these people
> were POV-pushers, & a danger to Wikipedia. I doubt you will find much
> support criticizing the person wrote this, no matter how ill-tempered
> that editor might be.
>
> Geoff
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
It has been clearly demonstrated that LaRouchite POV is not a
blocking offense through the C Colden case. Whether or not removal of
LaRouche POV is de facto acceptable is less clear.

-Snowspinner

On Jul 12, 2005, at 9:05 PM, Jack Lynch wrote:

> I think it is especially important to clarify if a LaRouchite POV is a
> acceptable component of a pages NPOV, and if editors known to promote
> the inclusion of a LaRouchite POV are blockable for that alone.
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)
>
> On 7/13/05, Snowspinner <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The exact standing of that arbcom ruling is in some doubt - mostly
>> because it did kind of consist of the arbcom making a content ruling
>> of the sort that they theoretically don't make. I know it came under
>> some fire (from me, largely) when it was applied to C Colden, who
>> appeared to be a new user, and who was blocked for violating the
>> ruling, despite not being covered by it. Of course, Colden turned out
>> to be a sock, but that's neither here nor there.
>>
>> A request for clarification on whether or not the parts of the ruling
>> regarding the status of LaRouche sources are still in force would
>> probably not be out of line.
>>
>> -Snowspinner
>>
>> On Jul 12, 2005, at 8:42 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Skyring wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I've just spotted this on the talk page of a user: "I will
>>>> revert all
>>>> edits to all articles on my watchlist by the LaRouche cult "editor"
>>>> Cognition, or any other recognisable LaRouche editor. I will do
>>>> this
>>>> until either the LaRouche cultists are banned from Wikipedia or
>>>> I am.
>>>> I don't much care which, since an encyclopaedia which allows
>>>> crackpot
>>>> cultists to edit its articles is not worth writing for."
>>>>
>>>> Now, to my poor understanding, this user is threatening to
>>>> revert any
>>>> edits made to any article on his 1000+ witchlist, regardless of
>>>> merit,
>>>> so long as that edit is made by someone he identifies as a
>>>> particular
>>>> sort of crackpot.
>>>>
>>>> What I know about LaRouche could be summed up in one word, but
>>>> surely
>>>> Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the presence or
>>>> absence of
>>>> one particular editor?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Well, I happen to know that a case came before the ArbCom concerning
>>> LaRouche followers who tried to add citations from their leader to a
>>> number of unrelated articles, which resulted in a decision that was
>>> not
>>> in their favor.
>>>
>>> And I seem to remember that one of the editors involved in limiting
>>> their attempts to flood Wikipedia with pro-Larouche citations was
>>> Adam
>>> Carr. These wouldn't be Carr's words, would they?
>>>
>>> I suggest you do more research: the ArbCom concluded these people
>>> were POV-pushers, & a danger to Wikipedia. I doubt you will find
>>> much
>>> support criticizing the person wrote this, no matter how ill-
>>> tempered
>>> that editor might be.
>>>
>>> Geoff
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Skyring wrote:
> I've just spotted this on the talk page of a user: "I will revert all
> edits to all articles on my watchlist by the LaRouche cult "editor"
> Cognition, or any other recognisable LaRouche editor. I will do this
> until either the LaRouche cultists are banned from Wikipedia or I am.
> I don't much care which, since an encyclopaedia which allows crackpot
> cultists to edit its articles is not worth writing for."
>
> Now, to my poor understanding, this user is threatening to revert any
> edits made to any article on his 1000+ witchlist, regardless of merit,
> so long as that edit is made by someone he identifies as a particular
> sort of crackpot.
>
> What I know about LaRouche could be summed up in one word, but surely
> Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the presence or absence of
> one particular editor?
>

(why did you reply to the 'disclaimer at the bottom of wikipedia pages'
thread?)

Who is this user who has made this statement? The only reason, I can
see, for someone to make reverts to every edit a person makes is if that
person is hard-banned. I'm guessing (maybe hoping) that the person who
said this is just in a bad mood.

Chris

P.S. I also know nothing about LaRouche.

- --
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org
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from_name: Dejan Cabrilo

body:
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been asked to advocate for the creation of a Zlatiborian Wikipedia.

I am a native speaker of the Serbian language (actually, I would say
that I speak Serbocroatian, but many can take that as a political
statement. Let's just say that my native language class in school was
called "The Serbian language") from Belgrade, and I would like to give
my two cents on this.

I think that further balkanization of Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian etc.
Wikipedias is just silly. The differences pointed out here:

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Node_ue#Differences_between_Zlatiborian_and_Serbian

.. may only go as far as Ijekavian vs. Ekavian. The difference is that
in some words, "e" is substituted by "ije" or "je" (or the other way
around of course). For example, mleko becomes mlijeko. "Ja mnogo volim
mleko" would become "Ja mnogo volim mlijeko".

Some people in Serbia use Ijekavian, while the majority uses Ekavian.
But, the fact is, we can understand each other perfectly well. We all
listen to music, watch movies, possibly read books, etc. that use the
dialect which we don't use personally, and of course, we communicate
with people who speak in a different dialect, on daily bases. There
are no problems to this whatsoever. I say tomato you say tomato, with
added colour vs. color spelling difference kind of thing.

Pronunciation of words is different (different stresses, accent,
etc.), but so is between people from Belgrade and people from Novi
Sad, or New York and San Francisco (when I first went to New York, I
couldn't understand anything, but they still spoke English and after a
few hours, I got a hold of it).

As far as vocabulary differences pointed out on that page, that's just
silly. All of these words are really synonyms in the Serbian language,
and by no means are a set of words exclusive to certain regions. There
are words in colloquial speech used in different parts of the country
that are exclusive to one region, but it pretty much comes down to
"soda" vs. "pop".

If you assume that all contributors to Wikipedia are literate people,
who didn't spend their life in communicating only to their parents,
then you can assume that a person from Zlatibor has no problems
whatsoever communicating with people from Belgrade, and vice versa.
It's one language! If two editors can't agree on whether to use, e.g.
"regija" or "oblast" (example given in that link), then they are
pushing such a strong POV that both of them should be banned for life
from editing and possibly locked up with a key being thrown in an
especially deep river.

Creating Zlatiborian Wikipedia would be... well, like creating a
separate Wikipedia for New Zealand... Actually, no. Like creating a
new edition for Wellington, New Zealand.

Dejan

P.S. I have to admit that I have never been to Zlatibor, but it is a
popular tourist destination for people from Serbia, so many of my
friends and relatives went there at one point. Friends told me about
their skiing accidents, but never ever has somebody mentioned anything
about the way locals speak. This is the first time that I hear of it.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Phil Sandifer wrote:
> Hot on the heels of my comments about the RfC procedure, I've created
> [[Wikipedia:Wikimediation]], which I think will work much like I want
> RfC to work, without leading to agonizing debates over whether to
> change something. Basically, it's an opportunity for communal
> mediation, where people can leave constructive comments on how  disputes
> and behavior might be handled better and more productively.
>
> I encourage everybody to have a look at the page. I've started a test
> slate of a few disputes that I think run a broad spectrum of issues  and
> behaviors, including my own conduct. I encourage people to go  weigh in
> on some of the cases. I'm particularly interested in input  on my own
> conduct, but I think there's a lot of good to be done over  on that page
> now.

It's an interesting idea from an ideological view, but I'm not sure I
like this 'open airing of grievances'. From my experiences with this
(not on Wikipedia), the vast majority of times this will just exacerbate
the situation and will worsen the disputees' opinions of each other.

Going through a mediator who can rephrase, clarify and/or nicefy
people's disputes is really the only way to satisfactorily resolve
disputes. Far more credit and support needs to be given to mediators so
they can do this. It's an unrewarding task; people ought to make it
rewarding for them.

Chris

- --
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org
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from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
On 12/07/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Hot on the heels of my comments about the RfC procedure, I've created
> [[Wikipedia:Wikimediation]]...
>
> -Snowspinner
>

So now we have:

1. Official Mediation
2. Unofficial Mediation That Doesn't Exist (or whatever they call
themselves :-) )
3. RfCs (are you talking about content or editor ones here? Article
ones often become mediations anyway)
4. Wikimediation

Not to mention,

1. 3rd opinions
2. Wikiquette alerts
3. Probably some others I've forgotten

Erm...

Dan


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
Hi :)

The protection referred to there is not Wikipedia's Page Protection
mechanism, but the legal protection which copyrighted works are given
in courts. You should see that message whenever you view an old
revision of *any* page, protected or otherwise. That message is there
in case an old version of an article is a copyvio, and it is
subsequently reverted as a result. In such a situation, we do not
automatically remove the old revisions from the database, and so the
copyvio may live on in the page's history. This notice advises the
reader to the risk of this.

If you weren't looking at an old version of the protected page when
you came across this disclaimer, then you may have encountered a bug.

~Mark Ryan

On 7/12/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> While I was reading a protected article, I discovered at the bottom of the page the following disclaimer
>
>
>
> This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108.
> This version of the article has been subsequently revised.
> Besides normal editing, the reason for revision may have been that this version contains
> factual inaccuracies, vandalism, or material not compatible with the GFDL.
>
>
> ----------------
>
> I am *very* perplex. There are MANY reasons why an article can be protected on Wikipedia, and I would dare saying that having part of its content under copyright is probably the least probable reason for it to be restricted in edition. Protection is most of the time against vandalism or to cool down spirits. On the contrary, if an article contains factual inaccuracies or copyrighted material, it should be OPEN to editing so that it can be fixed as quickly as possible.
>
> I perceive this disclaimer as possibly be meant to protect ourselves... but also as giving a very inacurate reason why we protect articles...
>
> Second, WHY this reference to the US law code here?
>
> Anthere
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>  Sell on Yahoo! Auctions  - No fees. Bid on great items.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
On the other hand, this is the same dispute resolution procedure we
use on Wikinews, where it's been effective.  So while I for one am
losing track of avenues one can have a bit of a moan in, this one may
well be useful. Mind you, we've only needed it three times in six
months on WN.

Dan


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>On 7/11/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Actually, a statement by the copyright holder that the use is considered
>>fair use does serve an important purpose, and is distinct from granting
>>a license or permission to use. The statement would probably prevent the
>>copyright holder, should that particular use ever be litigated, from
>>arguing a contrary position to the court. Effectively, the party
>>claiming fair use is relieved of the obligation to prove that the use is
>>indeed fair. See [[estoppel]]. The distinction is important because mere
>>licenses can often be revoked at any time if no consideration is involved.
>>
>>
>I find it unlikely that this would hold up in court, but I am not a
>lawyer. Fair use is such a vague thing, and specifically NOT a
>license, that a potential plaintiff could, in my mind, easily and
>plausibly say, "well, it turns out that what we then thought was fair
>we later didn't think was fair" and hardly be in bad faith.
>
It doesn't matter whether it's done in "bad faith", but a court probably
won't allow the plaintiff to change their position like that after
they've already told the defendant they believe it to be fair use. If
you're not a lawyer, I'm not surprised if the concept of estoppel is
unfamiliar and difficult to follow, but this is a situation that would
typically call for it to be applied.

>>This is why copyright owners sometimes approach people about the way
>>copyrighted content is being used, but still offer to give permission
>>for its use. Very often they know well enough that the situation would
>>qualify as fair use anyway, but phrase it as granting permission while
>>carefully insisting that "all their rights are reserved." Openly
>>agreeing that something is fair use is very rare, and PRA's willingness
>>to do so is a generous gesture.
>>
>>
>Saying someone can use something but you still reserve your rights is
>still a form of license, however informal. The action is granting some
>sort of right -- this is not what fair use is about, which is a
>defense/assertion of a right.
>
>
You seem to be misunderstanding, I intended to _distinguish_ this
hypothetical from the case of PRA's acknowledgment that Wikipedia is
making fair use. The fact that PRA is also granting us permission is a
separate matter. But the fact that they agree that we would have a fair
use defense means that they can't object to that defense in litigation
(unless our use changes).

>Whether something is
>"fair use" or not ought to be considered a factual matter
>
In legal analysis, fair use is a question of law, *not* a question of
fact. It may call for interpretation of facts, but it is not something
that can be determined simply by resorting to the facts.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Chris Lüer

body:
A quick search of a couple of linguistic reference books turns up no trace
of Zlatiborian, neither as a language nor as a dialect. Google finds all of
18 hits for "Zlatiborian", worldwide. And they are all from
Wikipedia-related sites.

As Dejan said, Balkanization is probably what's going on here.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 7/12/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Although "frog" isn't the best example (and I can't think of a better
> one on the spot right now), why *wouldn't* we present someone looking
> up "frog" with the pronunciation and etymology of the word, along with
> three branches to follow for a fuller explanation?  Isn't this much
> better than having articles "Frog", "Frog (slang)" and "Frog
> (fastener)" whose title only offers the barest description of what to
> expect from the link?
> Michael Turley
> User:Unfocused
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
That's why there's disambiguation notices for the top of articles and
the {{otheruses template}}.

''This is the article about the small amphibian. Frog is also
derigatory slang for a Frenchman and a fastener.''

In some occasions, when a complete article on a subject can't be
written, linking to wiktionary wouldn't hurt either.

-- Mgm


body:
Angela wrote:

>The text is from [[MediaWiki:History copyright]]. The text on the
>English Wikipedia was added by Jamesday last year following a
>discussion on this mailing list where Tim made the addition to the
>history footers possible. See
>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-June/013706.html
>
>There is also related discussion at
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Terms_of_use#Title_17
>
>Information is also at
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Page_history which states the
>Wikimedia Foundation's official view on this matter. See this diff
>which Anthere and Jimmy both agreed to lasy July  -
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Page_history&diff=4805756&oldid=4516125
>
>
I'm puzzled as to who came up with the idea that 17 USC 108 applies to
page histories. The section applies to "libraries and archives", but I
think it's a very strained reading to try and say it has anything to do
with Wikipedia.

Section 108 makes several references to premises, which suggests to me
that it has in mind libraries and archives as physical facilities in
"meatspace". Also, it limits reproduction/distribution to a single copy
(three for unpublished works). If we have copyright infringements in
page history, in many cases there will be more than one copy; the
violation may not have been discovered until a number of revisions passed.

The application of this section is quite limited, and I do not think we
should be relying on it. Congress apparently intended this section to
cover things like preservation or replacement of documents, and
interlibrary loans of excerpts or out-of-print materials. The notes for
this section are instructive:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000108----000-notes.html

While I understand the concern about potentially infringing materials in
page histories, I don't think it warrants a special disclaimer. Since
every revision of an article is arguably licensed separately under the
GFDL, it would therefore require a statement that the GFDL applies. The
current software message does not satisfy that. I think it would be
better to use the same message that appears on current versions, which,
after all, have the same potential problem. I don't see this message on
history pages for our other projects, and we ought to keep this consistent.

If a copyright holder complains specifically about infringement in the
page history, I believe we can deal with the issue at that point. Based
on the discussions I've seen, I understand the developers can purge
portions of text from individual revisions if necessary. In the
meantime, I think this is an unnecessary and ultimately ineffective
disclaimer.

--Michael Snow


from_name: steve v

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
In general I like the idea of Mediation reform, but
there are some things to sort out, namely that
specific proposals require some practical
justification. First of all, having "Mediation" and
"Wikimediation" steps in the same WP:DR process can be
confusing -- where's the line with regard to roles
between the two? Secondly, WP:MC is so out of the loop
vis-?-vis the WP:AC, that its not proper to claim that
there is a direct line of process there.

I always thought it silly for MC to be an AC lite
anyway. WP:MC was originally built in as an
afterthought to the AC, and to assert a finer
difference, some strict bounds were implemented,
because 1) it was thought that mediators should be
prevented from becoming like the Arbcom, and 2) so
that somehow through strict WMIN (~WWIN) definitions,
its role would be more defined and sensible. IMHO
whats happened is that its generally been a bit
confused. MC was defined relative to AC, but without a
clear vision to what MC could do that would persist
through WPs since quadrupling in size and users.
Having no binding authority, and otherwise bogged down
with a "mutual acceptance" policy (now experimentally
being torched BTW), the result has been a bit
disorganized, and slow.

For what purpose does MC exist, then? The values
promoted by the mediating role are ones which should
be  promoted for everyone, not just a committee. I
think that weve had some things backwards with MC for
a while, and I think WP would be better served with an
open Mediation process.

Then what should the current MC committee do? Oversee
the open committee? I dont know. Ive suggested an NPOV
committee would be useful, which sort of interprets
NPOV issues case by case, and makes a centralized
reference database for how to approach these cases.
Depending on your view of disputes on WP and the
disruptiveness of these toward articles and their
improvement, then you can say an NPOV committee is
either a great thing or waste of time.

Recap: Promote open mediation / moderation principles
-- consolodate specific NPOV debates to a committee.

~S

I like the idea of opening up the

--- Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> I certainly wouldn't think that Wikimediation rules
> out eventual
> escalation to the arbcom. I mean, it would be stupid
> to guarantee
> that Wikimediation will fix all problems. It won't.
> So I guess my
> question would be whether you could go into
> Wikimediation with a
> sincere belief that it might help the problem. If
> you can, go for it.
> If you are just going because you want to check off
> the requirement
> for the arbcom, it's probably a lost cause.
>
> I'd personally hope the former is the case, and so
> encourage you to
> try it, but I'm not inside your head and can't tell
> you if you think
> it has any hope of working.
>
> -Snowspinner
>
> On Jul 12, 2005, at 4:45 PM, <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
>
> <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 7/12/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Hot on the heels of my comments about the RfC
> procedure, I've created
> >> [[Wikipedia:Wikimediation]], which I think will
> work much like I want
> >> RfC to work, without leading to agonizing debates
> over whether to
> >> change something. Basically, it's an opportunity
> for communal
> >> mediation, where people can leave constructive
> comments on how
> >> disputes and behavior might be handled better and
> more productively.
> >>
> >
> > Phil, I think this is a great idea. Thanks for
> setting it up.
> >
> > I have a question. You wrote on the page that it's
> not intended as a
> > dry run for an RfC or arbitration, because it's
> intended to be
> > non-confrontational. However, if someone were to
> take a case through
> > Wikimediation, do you envisage that it could be
> cited as part of the
> > dispute-resolution process to allow a case to
> proceed before the
> > arbcom? Or is your preference that the two be kept
> entirely separate?
> >
> > The reason I ask is that I'm currently dealing
> with an editor who's in
> > the habit of launching personal attacks. I'm
> considering approaching
> > the arbcom, and so I have to begin dispute
> resolution. I really
> > dislike the RfC process because it becomes so
> vitriolic, and so I'm
> > thinking about writing it up for Wikimediation
> instead. However, one
> > of my aims in doing so would be to fulfill the
> arbcom requirement of
> > having tried alternative means of resolving the
> issue.
> >
> > Would you see that as an inappropriate use of
> Wikimediation?
> >
> > Sarah
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
Dan Grey (dangrey at gmail.com) [050712 22:51]:

> Have the arbcom ever considered reducing the amount of evidence
> presented? I know there are already guidelines but 100 diffs seems a
> bit too many... surely any worthwhile case could be presented with a
> fraction of that number. Some of the essays seem a bit more than 500
> words (is that the limit?) too.

It's a tricky one - not enough evidence and an allegation won't be taken
seriously; too much and it'll never get read in too many cases.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Image permissions, a case study

body:
All right. Here's a very specific example
of what I want to do. There's a species
of bird called the Horned Grebe or the
[[Slavonian Grebe]].

Our current image of it, [[Image:Slav.JPG]],
is a low resolution scan of a drawing with
no licensing information. It is currently
tagged as "unverified" with the suggestion
that it "may be usable under fair use".

Now, here are three recent photographs of
the same bird species:

http://www.aves.is/birds/loons/grebe_horned.php

The first one nicely illustrates the distinctive
colours of the Slav Grebe's head. The bird is in
focus and the resolution is reasonable. It's not
featured material but it's a pretty decent picture.

I can upload this image with the following license:

"? 2005 Jakob Sigur?sson. Anyone can use this image
for encyclopedia articles and other educational
purposes as long as it is attributed to me."

This is not a completely free license but I'd
argue that it's good enough for >90% of our
downstream users - most of which would want to
use the image in the context of encyclopedia
articles or other educational materials.

Now, I regret that I was unable to obtain this
image under a GFDL-compatible license. When a
(reasonably good) picture of the bird under such
a license comes along I'll be happy to use it as
a replacement. I'll take it myself if I get the
chance.

But, you say, using a not-quite-free image in
the meantime scratches the itch and discourages
people from trying to obtain a free one. Now,
I've never completely bought this argument to
begin with since a "fair use" image gives me a
worse itch than no image at all. But in this
case I'm talking about *replacing an image*,
one which which has *no licensing information*.

So, if anyone else thinks that this suggested
replacement would be a good move then please tell
me. If no-one says anything I will assume that
the consensus is that I should not add images
with this license under any circumstances. Then
I will not attempt to obtain images under such
a license in the future and end my efforts when
the contacts refuse to license under the GFDL
(as they are wont to do).

That would be a somewhat frustrating conclusion
for me but I won't stomp off in anger or anything
like that so please tell me what you think.

Regards,
Haukur

> Dear colleagues,
>
> One of my primary interests on Wikipedia is
> to increase and improve coverage of matters
> related to Iceland, my native country. Recently
> I've become interested in the fauna of this
> barren land - which consists mostly of birds.
>
> I came upon a webpage by a countryman of mine
> which has a number of good bird pictures in
> high resolution. I thought it would be nice
> to include some of them in Wikipedia since
> some of the species are currently not illustrated
> and many only have a low resolution picture.
>
> The web page in question is here:
>
> http://www.simnet.is/jakobs/birds/birds.html
>
> I contacted the photographer and asked him if
> he was willing to license the pictures under
> the GFDL or CC-BY so they could be used on
> Wikipedia. He took the matter under consideration
> and told me that he felt those licenses were
> too broad, but he was willing to license the
> pictures for use on Wikipedia.
>
> I told him that Wikipedia doesn't currently
> accept exclusive licenses and added a squirt
> of ideology. As a last resort I asked him if
> he'd be willing to license his pictures with
> the following notice:
>
> "? 2005 Jakob Sigur?sson. Anyone can use this image
> for encyclopedia articles and other educational
> purposes as long as it is attributed to me."
>
> He agreed.
>
> Is this "free enough" for Wikipedia or will any
> images I upload with such a notice be deleted?
>
> Regards,
> Haukur


subject: [WikiEN-l] Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
Jon (thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk) [050712 05:55]:

BTW, thanks for this. A lot of your suggestions are actually close to ideas
we've been floating already, so I expect the problems can be called obvious
;-)

The AC is a fairly heavy duty to do properly - you have to be able to cope
with unbelievable amounts of crap without becoming flustered - and burnout
is far too easy. Dealing with relentless obnoxiousness and stupidity is
intrinsically not fun. A number of prospective mid-term draftees have
turned the job down already ...

I'm not sure how to get it to scale. I can only see the workload going up
as the editor population goes up, and hence the problem children in
proportion.

Some people also seem to regard the AC as a parent-like authority to run to
in case of conflict, or to try to use a RFAr as a way to bludgeon their
opponent in debate. This is considered less than ideal.

- d.


body:
Dan Grey (dangrey at gmail.com) [050712 23:22]:
> On 12/07/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure how to get it to scale. I can only see the workload going up
> > as the editor population goes up, and hence the problem children in
> > proportion.l.

> You could increase the deterrent factor. Longer, more frequent bans etc.

Long bans basically don't work. Sockpuppetry seems to be the rule rather
than the exception. And that seems only to provide incentive to *bring*
querulous cases, in the hope of punishing one's opponent more.

> BTW wasn't Raul suggesting a month or two ago that the workload was
> actually going _down_?

Serious problem users tend to get shown the door (then the alley outside,
then the garbage bins opposite) in reasonably short order. It's the
knottier conflicts that are the lengthy and painful ones.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
Phil Boswell (phil.boswell at gmail.com) [050712 23:31]:
> "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote in
> message news:B845F36D-E8A8-4C7C-B5F1-A683CE6FAC55 at ctelco.net...

> > We have restricted the amount that can be presented. But what is  really
> > needed is better organized evidence. Most time and energy  expended by
> > Arbitrators goes into trying to figure out what is  significant.

> Many is the time when I've tried to puzzle out badly-formatted evidence and
> my editing fingers have been itching to re-format into some sort of readable
> state, but there's this notice which says not to.
> Maybe the ArbCom could "employ" some flunkies to janitorise the evidence and
> wrangle it into a standard, readable, format.

The evidence talk page welcomes you! Note that in the Baku Ibne case, we
thanked Tony Sidaway for his good work untangling the mess and making it
clearer just what was going on :-) If not an involved party, it may be an
idea to get the person who presented it to check over your rendition as
well.

- d.


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Announcing $wgExtensionCredits

body:
Per the suggestion of Tim Starling I implemented a way for extensions
to display their credits on Special:Version ( see it live at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Version ), to add your
credits to the page just include the following in your extension:

$wgExtensionCredits[$type][] = array(
        'name' => 'Example extension',
        'author' => 'Foo Barstein',
        'url' => 'http://wwww.example.com/Example%20Extension/',
);

Where $type is one of 'specialpage', 'parserhook', or 'other'.

Happy hacking.


list: textbook-l

from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Textbook-l] Forking of Wikipedia content on Wikibooks

body:
Before I begin, I have CC'ed this message to the Wikipedia mailing
list, as there is some relevance there.  For Wikipedia list members,
the original discussion refers to a proposal to modify deletion
policy to allow a limited form of Wikipedia article forking in order
to create a more in-depth guide to a topic in Wikibooks (which is
currently against policy, see [[WB:WIN]]).  It has evolved somewhat
into a debate on what Wikibookians think of Wikibooks vs. what others
(eg. Wikipedians) think of Wikibooks.

>>> I guess that I'm trying to modify the deletion policy somewhat
>>> to  allow *some* forking of Wikipedia content, provided that the
>>> content on Wikibooks really is an expansion of the Wikipedia
>>> article and not just some POV fight or fork of Wikipedia
>>> content.   The nature of Wikibooks certainly allows almost any
>>> article on  Wikipedia to be turned into a book, provided there
>>> are interested  parties willing to write the content.  Forbidding
>>> any fork would,  in effect, kill almost any Wikibook stub right now.
>>>
>>
>>
>> We do not allow any content that isn't considered to be
>> instructional  material.  The spirit of WB:WIN is that if you want
>> to expand a WP  article, then do it on WP.  Personally, I am
>> opposed to any Wikipedia  forking in general because of the fact
>> that I consider encyclopedia  articles are not by itself
>> instructional material.  Based on your  post, [[The Biography of
>> Nikola Tesla]] would have been deleted  whether we have the
>> changed policy or not, due to it originating from  an edit war.
>>
>> I have to say that, to some real extent, the "books" part of
>> Wikibooks is really a misnomer: it's not clearly intuitive that
>> we  are writing textbooks of instructional material on this wiki.
>>
> From following discussion on Foundation-l, it seems as though a
> number of people at Wikipedia and Meta have a very different
> opinion of what Wikibooks is all about, and it seems as though
> Wikibooks has in effect been turned into a general repository of
> non-fiction book-length topics. In particular, discussions around
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects seem to
> indicate a more general attitude toward Wikibooks.
>

The original concept for Wikibooks, according to its founder,
[[User:Karl Wick]] I believe, is a wiki for building textbooks.
However, Wikipedians for some odd reason decided to offload their
unwanted goods to Wikibooks: for examples, the VFD precedent there
regarding recipes has largely been the driving force behind
[[Cookbook]], even though a cooking textbook should focus little on
recipes and more on general cooking techniques.  Many of the books
here have since defied their original intent: for example, [[Computer
and video games bookshelf]] (originally [[Game Guides and Strategy]])
- a textbook on beating a computer game sounds ludicrous to me.

Wikibooks also suffers from the fact that there are few active admins
and few active users of action (and thus suffering from repeated
vandal attacks).  Prior to myself becoming an admin, there were over
200 pages on speedy deletion, some of them being marked for months
(although half of these were due to technical constraints).  There
are possibly another 200 pages that could be easily moved out of en:
and onto their respective Wikibooks if only Special:Import was
complete (or someone did hard transwiking).  Because of this, few
Wikibookians are willing to put down concrete policies that are
followed and enforced (consider that key pages such as [[WB:HNS]],
[[WB:FP]] and even [[WB:WIN]] were in constant flux).  Furthermore,
Wikibookians tend to be within their own group of books, and rarely
venture into collaborating in other books (this is perhaps due to a
lack of a consistent Manual of Style).  This makes it difficult to
judge the purpose of Wikibooks.  Only recently have users decided to
put their foot down in respect to what Wikibooks is about, and what
it is about is instructional material.  It could very well be the
case that longtime existing books such as [[Jokebook]] could be put
up in VFD for not being instructional material.

> One of the problems that Wikibooks is suffering from right now is
> that Wikiversity is not really a successful project in itself.
> Yes, there is content there, but even project like Virtual
> University (http://www.vu.org/) show more of a real academic
> environment.  Another one is Diversity University (http://
> www.du.org/).  Even if Wikiversity were brought up to these
> somewhat modest standards, the auxuallary role of Wikibooks would
> be considerably more apparant.  Instead, Wikibooks is percieved as
> an auxuallary role to Wikipedia and the other "sister projects" of
> the Wikimedia Foundation, which has in effect a broading of scope
> effect to Wikibooks.
>

Last I checked, Wikiversity is more popular on de: than on en: to the
point of making a separate wiki for it (de.wikiversity.org).  The
English version suffers from repeated content (the school for CS has
a page on data structures when we already have [[Data Structures]],
for example), and has been a frequent target for vandals, making it
seem like (to me) an anachronism.

Part of the blame perhaps lies with the structure of Wikibooks:
Wikiversity, as it was originally designed, is supposed to be broader
in scope with the rest of Wikibooks, yet the wiki is -books and not -
versity, implying that the books is bigger than the university, or
that the university is a book...  Now it's no more than a book that
has special sidebar privileges.

> On Wikibooks itself I've been involved with a minor edit war where
> some people have tried to come into one of the Wikibooks I've
> created and try to turn it into a subject-based Wikipedia, and I've
> resisted the effort, particuarly on the talk pages.  Somehow the
> idea that content on Wikibooks should be a book rather than a bunch
> of web pages loosely connected does not always get across.
>

Point them to [[WB:WIN]].  A good many users are Wikipedians that
think of Wikibooks as more in-depth.  Wikibooks tries to teach as
well, and that's something that isn't put across clearly in many
books.  Considering that it takes longer to write a book than a
single encyclopedia article, I wouldn't consider it a surprise.

> I guess what I'm trying to say is that Wikibooks is drifting from
> its original and noble foundations, and I really don't see
> significant effort to try and go back to those roots.  Nor do I see
> any desire by the newer Wikibookians to try and follow that ideal,
> at least to the letter as supplimental materials to Wikiversity or
> to support specific academic standards requirements.  Let me put it
> more directly and specifc then:  How many Wikibooks that can be
> used as a textbook for any major college or university, or follows
> state or national academic requirements to be used as the basis for
> curriculm development as a textbook?  The FHSST books are based on
> this type of standard, but that does come from outside Wikibooks to
> at least get it started.  Books like "How to Build a Pykrete Bong"
> are more typical to Wikibooks, unfortunately.
>

You do have a point here.  In this sense, Wikibooks as a project has
been a failure.

I truly believe the original purpose has been lost, in part due to
[[WB:FP]] forcing Wikibookians to perhaps making a one-size-fits-all
book.  A good many books today are "one-page books" (eg. How to do
xxx), and may need to be merged together.

Furthermore, many of the books, such as our COTM, literally take
"instructional material" to its limit.  Is a travel guide considered
instructional material?  Only a trip to VFD can we find out - there
has been no precedent in many cases where we could establish what we
consider instructional material.  The only major VFD debate going on
with ramifications on how instruction material is defined is whether
collaborative fiction for the purposes of education is allowed
([[Ardvark the Aardvark]]).

To date, the only real hardened concrete policies that we have is
[[WB:AT]], as it deals with Wikisource (which seems to have its
policies better enforced).

> I fail to see what the origin of motivation for creating a Wikibook
> has to do with if it gets deleted or not.  It should IMHO (and
> apparently this opinion is not shared) stand on its own merits
> independently of other content on other Wikimedia projects.  I have
> posted requests for deletion for content that seems to be a pure
> fork of Wikipedia content (and nothing added) to Wikibooks, and
> there are several Wikibook modules that really do need to be
> deleted on this basis.
>

Agreed.  Be bold and put it on VFD.  In some cases put it on speedy.

> There really isn't an effort on Wikipedia to allow book-length
> material either, which is one reason why the Nikola Tesla
> information was put here on Wikibooks.  While part of an edit war,
> it seems as though contributors at Wikipedia are being told to go
> away, and that some admins at Wikibooks are saying the same thing.
> This is not a good thing to do in either case, and weakens both
> communities as a result.  If, as you seem to suggest, that
> Wikibooks should be for pure textbook content, perhaps Wikibooks
> itself needs to fork and a separation between academic books and
> other non-fiction materials needs to take place.

Book-length material is inappropriate in Wikipedia because it goes
too in-depth.  It may or not be appropriate material in Wikibooks
depending on whether the material is instructional in nature.  For
noninstructional material that could be book length (ie. a
macropedia), we are truly stuck.  IMO, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
and its comprehensiveness should be able to take any reasonable topic
and bring it to an arbitrary and acceptable level of depth.
Wikibooks is an instructional resource - the same level of depth can
only be reached only through tutoring its readers, and thus the two
necessitate different approaches.  A good example on what Wikipedia
and Wikibooks should be in comparison to each other is how an article
on arithmetic is clearly different from a book on arithmetic: the
Wikipedia article should not teach you how to do arithmetic beyond
"doing it", while the Wikibooks module should concern itself with
strategies (eg. use manipulatives such as beans or candy) for doing
it and less to do with the history of arithmetic, which is adequately
covered by Wikipedia.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Textbook-l] Forking of Wikipedia content on
	Wikibooks


from_name: Anthere

body:
Angela a ?crit:
> The text is from [[MediaWiki:History copyright]]. The text on the
> English Wikipedia was added by Jamesday last year following a
> discussion on this mailing list where Tim made the addition to the
> history footers possible. See
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-June/013706.html
>
> There is also related discussion at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Terms_of_use#Title_17
>
> Information is also at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Page_history which states the
> Wikimedia Foundation's official view on this matter. See this diff
> which Anthere and Jimmy both agreed to lasy July  -
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Page_history&diff=4805756&oldid=4516125
>
> Angela.

Hum

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Page_history&diff=4805756&oldid=4516125
does not prove I agreed with it.

Actually, my previous edit was this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3APage_history&diff=4516125&oldid=4515080

It may be that we later had a mail on the topic, I have no memory of
this and looking in my mail box for mails a year old is basically ...
well. I won't even try :-)

In a private mail, you mention a juriwiki mail where the topic is
mentionned, yes, you forwarded a mail on the topic. I did not put any
comment about it. Nor of agreement, nor disagreement. I find new
interest at it now.

Now, I really think the current disclaimer is confusing.

Actually, last july version of the template was :
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:History_copyright&oldid=6207979

It has changed a lot since then.

May I suggest we make it shorter and link it to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Page_history

?

Ant


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] disclaimer at the bottom of pages

body:
On 7/12/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi :)
>
> The protection referred to there is not Wikipedia's Page Protection
> mechanism, but the legal protection which copyrighted works are given
> in courts. You should see that message whenever you view an old
> revision of *any* page, protected or otherwise. That message is there
> in case an old version of an article is a copyvio, and it is
> subsequently reverted as a result. In such a situation, we do not
> automatically remove the old revisions from the database, and so the
> copyvio may live on in the page's history. This notice advises the
> reader to the risk of this.
>
> If you weren't looking at an old version of the protected page when
> you came across this disclaimer, then you may have encountered a bug.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
>

Mark is absolutely right. All current revisions are generally presumed
to be GFDL-compatible, however there is absolutely no guarantee that
previous revisions are GFDL-compatible. There might be a case for
including in the MediaWiki software a method for deleting individual
revisions from an article's history when it is revealed that an edit
incorporated copyvio content.

The reference to the US Code is there because the Wikipedia servers
(or at least most of them - aren't there some in France now?) are
physically located in Florida.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: separate Wikipedias for
	cultures, peoples, and countries, or for languages?

body:
I mentioned this thread to Robin Patterson since he is not subscribed
to the list and he has replied at
http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Robin_Patterson#More_lies_from_node-ue

Angela.


body:
Dan Grey (dangrey at gmail.com) [050713 00:41]:
> On 12/07/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > Long bans basically don't work. Sockpuppetry seems to be the rule rather
> > than the exception

> Are you saying banning doesn't work?

Really long ones don't seem to actually be respected at all as a rule.

- d.


body:
On 7/13/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My point is - what has that bit of code got do with Wikipedia? Is that
> the bit "fair use" comes from?
>

Well, IANAL, just an Australian law student, but as far as I can tell,
17 USC 108 is linked because it is the part of US copyright law which
allows libraries or archives to make legitimate copies of a
copyrighted work.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000108----000-.html

I presume that this link is included to cover the possibility of a
copyright holder coming across an old revision of an article which
includes their copyrighted content. Basically it's saying "sorry, this
might have accidentally included your copyrighted work, but this is an
old revision, we have probably removed the content from the current
version, and just in case you try to sue, we believe we're covered by
this section." It's a sort of pre-emptive defence.

I'm not sure it's ever been tested whether WP would classify as a
"library", but WP would hopefully fall under 17 USC 108 (a) (1) - not
intending a commercial benefit, (a) (2) - WP is open to the public,
and (a) (3) the notice says "this work may be protected by copyright."

"Fair use" is a separate sort of pre-emptive copyright defence which
can be used by anyone (not just libraries and archives), which
essentially says "I know this work is copyright, but I believe that I
am reproducing this in a fair way."

Of course, IANAL, and I may be completely wrong, but that's how I read it.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Poll on templates

body:
Polls are evil and stupid and tend in practice on en: to be used to force
through stupid ideas in the hope no-one will notice the poll. For further
evidence, check:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_locations

Apparently started by some new users and sent under the radar. Go help kill
some of these stupid ideas.

- d.


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
I think it is especially important to clarify if a LaRouchite POV is a
acceptable component of a pages NPOV, and if editors known to promote
the inclusion of a LaRouchite POV are blockable for that alone.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 7/13/05, Snowspinner <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> The exact standing of that arbcom ruling is in some doubt - mostly
> because it did kind of consist of the arbcom making a content ruling
> of the sort that they theoretically don't make. I know it came under
> some fire (from me, largely) when it was applied to C Colden, who
> appeared to be a new user, and who was blocked for violating the
> ruling, despite not being covered by it. Of course, Colden turned out
> to be a sock, but that's neither here nor there.
>
> A request for clarification on whether or not the parts of the ruling
> regarding the status of LaRouche sources are still in force would
> probably not be out of line.
>
> -Snowspinner
>
> On Jul 12, 2005, at 8:42 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:
>
>
> > On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Skyring wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> I've just spotted this on the talk page of a user: "I will revert all
> >> edits to all articles on my watchlist by the LaRouche cult "editor"
> >> Cognition, or any other recognisable LaRouche editor. I will do this
> >> until either the LaRouche cultists are banned from Wikipedia or I am.
> >> I don't much care which, since an encyclopaedia which allows crackpot
> >> cultists to edit its articles is not worth writing for."
> >>
> >> Now, to my poor understanding, this user is threatening to revert any
> >> edits made to any article on his 1000+ witchlist, regardless of
> >> merit,
> >> so long as that edit is made by someone he identifies as a particular
> >> sort of crackpot.
> >>
> >> What I know about LaRouche could be summed up in one word, but surely
> >> Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the presence or absence of
> >> one particular editor?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > Well, I happen to know that a case came before the ArbCom concerning
> > LaRouche followers who tried to add citations from their leader to a
> > number of unrelated articles, which resulted in a decision that was
> > not
> > in their favor.
> >
> > And I seem to remember that one of the editors involved in limiting
> > their attempts to flood Wikipedia with pro-Larouche citations was Adam
> > Carr. These wouldn't be Carr's words, would they?
> >
> > I suggest you do more research: the ArbCom concluded these people
> > were POV-pushers, & a danger to Wikipedia. I doubt you will find much
> > support criticizing the person wrote this, no matter how ill-tempered
> > that editor might be.
> >
> > Geoff
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
I agree that alot needs to be done about stress. A successful
mediation method would be a big step in that direction.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 7/13/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/13/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Skyring wrote:
> >
> > > I've just spotted this on the talk page of a user: "I will revert all
> > > edits to all articles on my watchlist by the LaRouche cult "editor"
> > > Cognition, or any other recognisable LaRouche editor. I will do this
> > > until either the LaRouche cultists are banned from Wikipedia or I am.
> > > I don't much care which, since an encyclopaedia which allows crackpot
> > > cultists to edit its articles is not worth writing for."
> > >
> > > Now, to my poor understanding, this user is threatening to revert any
> > > edits made to any article on his 1000+ witchlist, regardless of merit,
> > > so long as that edit is made by someone he identifies as a particular
> > > sort of crackpot.
> > >
> > > What I know about LaRouche could be summed up in one word, but surely
> > > Wikipedia is not going to be destroyed by the presence or absence of
> > > one particular editor?
> > >
> > Well, I happen to know that a case came before the ArbCom concerning
> > LaRouche followers who tried to add citations from their leader to a
> > number of unrelated articles, which resulted in a decision that was not
> > in their favor.
> >
> > And I seem to remember that one of the editors involved in limiting
> > their attempts to flood Wikipedia with pro-Larouche citations was Adam
> > Carr. These wouldn't be Carr's words, would they?
>
> They would indeed. However, who said them is essentially irrelevant.
> What is important is the attitude behind making such a statement.
>
> > I suggest you do more research: the ArbCom concluded these people
> > were POV-pushers, & a danger to Wikipedia. I doubt you will find much
> > support criticizing the person wrote this, no matter how ill-tempered
> > that editor might be.
>
> I'm not for a moment trying to support LaRouche POV pushers. Seems to
> me that the system is working as intended to limit their penetration
> to the extent allowed by agreed wikipolicy i.e. not a lot.
>
> What bothers me is the fact that long established editors seem to get
> to a point where they can't continue any longer and go off the rails
> and off the rules. Adam Carr isn't the first to do so in the six
> months or so that I've been here.
>
> I mentioned earlier that his "ultimatum" sounded like a teenager's
> statements just before an unsuccessful suicide attempt. A plea for
> attention. This in itself is a fairly serious thing to do, indicating
> that the person making such a statement has reached the end of his own
> resources and needs external help. But I know for a fact that Adam has
> his own wikisupport network in place.
>
> If these sorts of dramatic exits are common on Wikipedia, then I
> venture to suggest that something should be done to reduce their
> recurrence. I don't want to feel in a year or so that I can't go any
> further and that Wikipedia is doomed and that I'm following in the
> footsteps of a large number of burnt-out editors.
>
> Regardless of my own differences with Adam (and those have almost
> always been over attitude rather than content), he made a valid point
> about a system that allows vandals and cranks to have a significant
> impact. If the cost of defending against people who dedicate their
> existence to pushing a POV is a string of burnt-out editors, then it
> may be too high, especially as nobody here is being paid for their
> time. Can we really expect unpaid volunteers to put themselves under
> heavy and unrelenting pressure?
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Odd

body:
Thats why I don't believe in atheism. IMO there are agnostics, and
then their are people who are angry at God. I think this is off topic
tho ;)

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 7/13/05, Christopher Larberg <christopherlarberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 7/12/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > As for LaRouche, it sounds like one of those nutty cult things that
> > don't add up. Like Christianity, I guess.
>
> I find it odd that atheists, while supposedly the "rational" ones,
> feel the need to employ invective against people who disagree with
> them whenever possible. But I'm just a redneck, bucktoothed
> Jesuslander. What do I know?
>
> - --Slowking Man
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
>
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> YjgbmD6VmP//vUw+IO3U01s=
> =w4Cn
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
And yet he still didn't reply to anything I said -- just accused me of
lying and dodged what I said.

Mark

On 12/07/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> I mentioned this thread to Robin Patterson since he is not subscribed
> to the list and he has replied at
> http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Robin_Patterson#More_lies_from_node-ue
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


body:
Phil Boswell (phil.boswell at gmail.com) [050713 00:41]:
> "Kelly Martin" <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
> wrote in message news:bd4c411e05071206555cdd1908 at mail.gmail.com...
> > On 7/12/05, Phil Boswell
> > <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:

> > > Maybe the ArbCom could "employ" some flunkies to janitorise the evidence
> > > and
> > > wrangle it into a standard, readable, format.

> > The idea of the ArbCom having a "special master" corral the evidence
> > into good order is a good one, but the problem is in finding people to
> > do that.  Finding people who are willing to do such tedious work
> > without compensation and also disinterested in the matter _sub judice_
> > is very difficult -- even harder than finding good arbitrators.

> Then you want someone like me, but with more regular access and more spare
> time, who could give less than two hoots about who's involved but will
> happily wrangle data into a nicer shape because it hurts less to look at.

Heh - the volunteer efforts of people who like things ordered :-)

It will be of course *very* important not to tread on the toes of the
people who presented the evidence, if you're not presenting it on your own
behalf.

> Happily I have never yet been involved in anything like this, but IMNSHO
> almost the worst aspect is just how painful it is to try to figure out what
> happened when.

Um, yes.

- d.