subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
>> Comments?  I think Imran has a point.

> How about adding a column img_license to the image table
> and requiring the user to specify a license during upload:

That's precisely what the image's description page is for,
and its already being used for that (or should be wherever
it's not).  The Wikipedia:Copyrights page is about as clear
as I can make the muddy situation.  Yes, included images
may not be covered by the GFDL.  We cannot accept /text/
that is not licensable under the GFDL, but images are
different.  They are easy to separate, denying ourselves
"fair use" would be a great hardship, fair use wouuld apply
to most of our licensees anyway (though not all), and using
images does not detract from our goal of creating free text.

I think it /would/ be a mistake to use a non-free image
that the article /depended/ on (say, a diagram).  If there
are any cases like that, I think we should replace it with
our own image under GFDL.  But images that are just
illustrations to otherwise complete articles (like the
album covers) are fine.


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] cross-Wikipedia redirects

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>> Right now the #REDIRECT [[ns:link]] function doesn't
>> work with namespaces outside of www.wikipedia.org (such as meta, and the
>> various languages.
>> It would probably be good (and easy?) to change it so that redirects can
>> be set up naturally.
>
>
> Done.

Can I now redirect [[en:xyz]] to [[de:xyz]] and back, keeping the system
busy?

Also, I don't see any reason why one would redirect to another language.
If one reads the en wikipedia, I doubt s/he wants to be redirected to,
say, a chinese article. IMHO that should be restricted to wikipedia,
meta and the 9-11 site.

Magnus


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jason Richey

in_reply_to: <3DBF9E06.7010303@pobox.com>; from brion@pobox.com on Wed, Oct 30, 2002 at 12:53:26AM -0800

body:
We may be shooting ourselves in the foot by doing this...  With a URL
like the one you mention, I think it likely that it will disappear in
the future...

I would not be opposed to linking [[Site:Title]] for non-Wikipedia
wikis if their URLs looked like the administrator of the site intended
to support them forever... For instance, if the URL was
http://www.usemod.com/wiki/InterWiki or the like...

Jason

Brion VIBBER wrote:

>
> Which reminds me -- not for redirecting, but for interwiki linking in
> general. Do we want to allow convenient [[Site:Title]] linking to other
> non-Wikipedia wikis?
>
> Eg, [[MeatBall:InterWiki]] would get you to
> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?InterWiki

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] many connection errors

body:
this is what I get both on the fr and on the en. Yes,
I did the procedure... ??? Anthere

Warning:  Host 'localhost.localdomain' is blocked
because of many connection errors.  Unblock with
'mysqladmin flush-hosts' in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs-fr/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on
line 19
Connexion impossible ? la base de donn?es sur
127.0.0.1
Host 'localhost.localdomain' is blocked because of
many connection errors.  Unblock with 'mysqladmin
flush-hosts'
If this error persists after reloading and clearing
your browser cache,
        please notify the wikitech-l at wikipedia.com

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia photo squad?

body:
Erik Wrote:
>The image copyright discussion reminds me of an idea that has been going
>through my head for a while. How about an organized effort to create (shoot)
>public domain photos of important people/places/events? I am not a photographer
>so I would be a bad person to lead this WikiProject, but maybe there are
>people on this list who would be interested in it.
>
>Basically, the effort would have to be organized in such a way that
>- interested photographers put their names and locations on the page and put
>the page in their watchlist
>- interested users add people, places, things, events etc. to a To Do list.
>Photographers add their names to the list if they want to finish a task. The
>task is moved into a "Finished tasks" list later and the photos are uploaded.

This is IMHO a great idea, and one I'd love to participate in (once my FM2 returns from the shop).  If no one has started the page yet, let me know and I will.  If the page has been started, please point me to it.  :-)

kq


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Astrobiology encyclopedia and Wikipedia

body:
Magnus Wrote:
>Today, I contacted David Darling, creator of the Astrobiology
>encyclopedia (http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling) and asked him
>about possible relations between our projects. Here is the reply I got.
>IMHO the link he asks for is OK for new articles or major improvements
>("This article based on [http:... this one, with permission]"). Thought
>I'd ask the list first, though.

I personally wouldn't have a problem with it--many of the country articles state their original sources (CIA/U.S. Dept of state website), as do many other articles--*but* he should know that, as a wiki, we currently can't guarantee that the citation will remain there permanently since anyone could remove it.  So he'll have to decide if he wants to go ahead with it or not.  That is very generous of him to consider it, though.  :-)

kq


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Math markup

body:
>why not MathML? its a standard, its already supported by mozilla/netscape,
>and their derivatives, and sooner or later MS will have to add it to IE.. i
>just think this is the way to go...

As markup used for *input*???

HTML:
2 + 2 = 4

PediaWiki:
2 + 2 = 4

LaTeX:
$2+2=4$

MathML:
<math><mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow><mo>=</mo><mn>4</mn></mrow></math>

HTML:

    −b ± √(b2 − 4ac)
x = ----------------
           2a

PediaWiki:
     −b ± √(b2 − 4ac)
 x = ----------------
            2a

LaTeX:
$$x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$$

MathML:
<math><mrow><mi>x</mi><mo>=</mo><mfrac><mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mi>b</mi></mrow><mo>±</mo><msqrt><mrow><msup><mi>b</mi><mn>2</mn></msup><mo>-</mo><mrow><mn>4</mn><mo></mo><mi>a</mi><mo></mo><mi>c</mi></mrow></mrow></msqrt></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo></mo><mi>a</mi></mrow></mfrac></mrow></math>

-- Toby


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] the server is indeed down

in_reply_to: <200210301838.NAA21645@TheWorld.com>; from tompar@world.std.com on Wed, Oct 30, 2002 at 01:38:00PM -0500

body:
I'm working on this now.

Tom Parmenter wrote:

> Warning: Host 'localhost.localdomain' is blocked because of many
> connection errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts' in
> /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 19
> Could not connect to DB on 127.0.0.1
>
> Host 'localhost.localdomain' is blocked because of many connection
> errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'
>
> If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser
> cache, please notify the Wikipedia developers.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Feature Proposal: Certification

body:
[Note:  The post that I'm replying to didn't appear on <wikipedia-l>.
        Thus I copy it all, except for the technical aspects.]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>One key problem with a wiki encyclopaedia is that there's no quality
>control whatsoever. An article may have been vandalized 5 seconds ago,
>or be grossly non-NPOV etc. As we get more and more articles, this
>problem becomes more urgent.

>Fortunately, the solution is rather simple. Articles can be certified by
>contributors to be high quality. But who is allowed to certify articles?
>The system works by allowing groups of people to form certification
>teams. Anyone can submit a new team to be created, and anyone can apply
>to join an existing team and certify articles in its name. Users can
>then decide to view only article revisions certified by members of
>selected teams.

>So I could decide in my user preferences:
>	Certification: Approved Teams
>		Team Nupedia
>		Team Wiki-Fiction
>		Team Wiki-Maths

>Then there would have to be a way to display certified article
>revisions. This could be accomplished by having a "Certified Mode",
>showing *only* articles that have received certs, with the most recently
>certified revision shown. Somewhat weaker, where an article has been
>certified, a link "There is a version of this article certified by Team
>X" could be placed above the article, showing the certified revision
>when clicked (or a text "This article has been certified by .." if the
>current revision is the certified one). This could be the default view,
>making users aware of the cert system.

>Each team could have its own quality standards, policies, and subject
>preferences. I suggest that the creation of new teams would have to be
>approved by the Wikipedia cabal to avoid "Team Trolls". New team members
>would either be voted on or approved by team members that have a certain
>status flag ("can_approve_newcomers"). Teams could get their own
>namespace as well.

You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that
is neither derogatory nor ironic.  I find that highly disturbing.

>A decision would have to be made as to which teams to include in the
>default view, i.e. the one that anonymous and newly registered users
>get. In the short term such decisions may be made by the cabal, in the
>long term I would prefer voting.

If newcomers see only what is approved by a list of certification teams,
then Wikipedia will no longer be a wiki.  There will be a wiki underneath,
which you can get to by registering and then setting your preferences,
but that wiki would be dead without an influx of newcomers.

[technical aspects cut]

>Results:
>--------
>If this works as intended, it should solve the quality problem and allow
>users to browse Wikipedia as a high quality content only encyclopaedia.
>The more teams you would admit to your personal filter, the more content
>you would see, but quality standards of individual teams might not be up
>to par. By distributing the job of quality approval on several team
>leaders, we can get competition of quality standards and social methods,
>which is probably a good thing and reduces social problems.

>Potential problems:
>-------------------
>If too many people use highly customized views, caching will get harder.
>I don't see this as too big a problem as a) most people typically don't
>customize views, b) article retrieval is already very fast with or
>without caching.

>Too many teams may have undesired effects, such as teams deliberately
>inserting POV articles to certify them. This is not a problem with the
>team principle per se but with the way teams are approved and moderated.
>Generally, teams should have a clear NPOV commitment and respect
>Wikipedia policy, otherwise they should be deleted.

>Comments on this would be appreciated. This is something I probably
>won't have time to implement fully, but I will gladly help with any/all
>efforts. I consider it very necessary for Wikipedia in the long term.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Feature Proposal: Certification


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> >My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
> >use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
> >Sections".
>
> What!? how could this possibly be?
> Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?
> If I quote a line from a biography of Winston Churchill
> in my own FDL biography, why must that be invariant?
> This doesn't make any sense to me.

Well, now I'm confused about this myself.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
>use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
>Sections".

What!? how could this possibly be?
Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?
If I quote a line from a biography of Winston Churchill
in my own FDL biography, why must that be invariant?
This doesn't make any sense to me.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Math markup

body:
This is a useful analysis.  Is Toby being fair to each method?

It strikes me that we should be liberal about what we accept, and
conservative about what we print.  There are many complications, of
course.

Toby Bartels wrote:

> >why not MathML? its a standard, its already supported by mozilla/netscape,
> >and their derivatives, and sooner or later MS will have to add it to IE.. i
> >just think this is the way to go...
>
> As markup used for *input*???
>
>
> HTML:
> 2 + 2 = 4
>
> PediaWiki:
> 2 + 2 = 4
>
> LaTeX:
> $2+2=4$
>
> MathML:
> <math><mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow><mo>=</mo><mn>4</mn></mrow></math>
>
>
> HTML:
>

>     −b ± √(b2 − 4ac)
> x = ----------------
>            2a
>

>
> PediaWiki:
>      −b ± √(b2 − 4ac)
>  x = ----------------
>             2a
>
> LaTeX:
> $$x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$$
>
> MathML:
> <math><mrow><mi>x</mi><mo>=</mo><mfrac><mrow><mrow><mo>-</mo><mi>b</mi></mrow><mo>±</mo><msqrt><mrow><msup><mi>b</mi><mn>2</mn></msup><mo>-</mo><mrow><mn>4</mn><mo></mo><mi>a</mi><mo></mo><mi>c</mi></mrow></mrow></msqrt></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo></mo><mi>a</mi></mrow></mfrac></mrow></math>
>
>
> -- Toby
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Feature request

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 19:05, Imran Ghory wrote:
>
>
>>A useful feature to have would be automated list sorting, for instance if
>>you put some code above/below a list it would automatically sort the list
>>alphabetically before saving.
>>
>>
>>
>The best way to do this would probably be through a javascript
>add-on/external cgi the way that dmoz has editor tools that aren't
>integrated with the codebase.
>
I recommend having TextPad to hand when working on the 'pedia: it has
sorting tools & advanced search & replace.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:  Re: [Wikitech-l] cross-Wikipedia redirects

body:
On Wednesday 30 October 2002 04:00 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
wrote:
> Well, what's the benefit in not being able to? (Once the kinks are
> smoothed out, which you're more than welcome to do.)
>
>
> Which reminds me -- not for redirecting, but for interwiki linking in
> general. Do we want to allow convenient [[Site:Title]] linking to other
> non-Wikipedia wikis?

Heavens no! We should only be using interlanguage links to interlink Wikipedia
encyclopedia language versions. Everything else should either be an inline
intralink within the same language version or an inline external link to a
non-wikipedia encyclopedia page.

We should only be making magical inter-language links to and from pages that
directly relate to our main goal (hint: creating a huge multilanguage, NPOV
encyclopedia).

>.....

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Feature request (was: RE: Please list the IP address when deleting)

body:
On Wednesday 30 October 2002 04:00 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
wrote:
> If you're referring to the junk edits to Sukarno, Suharto, Adolf Hitler,
> etc; those came from various IPs, mostly from what looks like a school
> or library in Ohio (probably public machines or a cache/proxy); banning
> wouldn't help much.
>
> Suharto - 156.63.200.159
> Sukarno - 156.63.200.159, 156.63.205.5
> Image talk:Hitler.jpg - 156.63.205.5
> Talk:Hafez al-Assad - 198.234.102.59
> Hitler: The Last Ten Days - 156.63.205.5
>
> 156.63.205.5 and 198.234.102.59 also each vandalised Adolf Hitler once;
> both were quickly reverted.
>
> You'll notice that after cleaning the first batch, I added the IP in the
> deletion notice for "Hitler: The Last Ten Days". You'll also notice no
> further activity from these IPs, though no ban is in place.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Speaking of which, would it be possible to have the software run a traceroute
to find out this type of information and have it available via a single click
on the blocked IP page? I'm sure there are several blocked public computers
on the list that should have only been blocked for a couple of days at most.

We should make it easy for Admins to review this stuff instead of relying on
them to each periodically run traceroutes on their own. I for one am lazy and
rarely bother. I would, however click on a link to computer generated
traceroute report and read it.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia photo squad?

body:
On Wednesday 30 October 2002 10:35 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
wrote:
> Sounds good. I'm leaving South Korea, but I have an
> ameteur photographer friend staying behind, and she
> just bought a scanner. She's agreed to release many of
> her pictures under the GFDL.
>
> Stephen

Correct me if am I wrong somebody but I do believe that an image copyright
holder has the right to keep a restrictive copyright on a full resolution
image AND also spin off lower resolution versions under other less
restrictive licenses.

So for example I could take a digital photo at 1600 x 1200 pixels which is
automatically under a restrictive license and then create a downsized,
cropped, and web-friendly version at 250 x 200 and release the smaller
version under the GFDL or even into the public domain.

If this is in fact true then we should tell Wikipedia photographers that they
can keep a restrictive license on their high resolution originals if they
want.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Astrobiology encyclopedia and Wikipedia

body:
On Wednesday 30 October 2002 10:35 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
wrote:
> I personally wouldn't have a problem with it--many of the country articles
> state their original sources (CIA/U.S. Dept of state website), as do many
> other articles--*but* he should know that, as a wiki, we currently can't
> guarantee that the citation will remain there permanently since anyone
> could remove it.  So he'll have to decide if he wants to go ahead with it
> or not.  That is very generous of him to consider it, though.  :-)
>
> kq

Whatever happended with the idea of have a log-like credits:namespace for this
type of information?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] RecentChanges Performance

body:
Hi,

as promised, I have looked a bit into the RC code for the purpose of
possibly implementing a filter. Since Ram-Man seems to be finished with
his script, this is no longer an urgent issue, so we might want to take
a step back and look at the design of SpecialRecentchanges.php etc.
before any further changes.

I have taken the liberty to import the Wikipedia database locally to
find out which operations are fast and which ones are slow even locally.
Long RC queries are quite slow on my machine, in spite of cur_timestamp
being indexed. Even with an index, searching a 350 MB+ table with fairly
random row order may be heavy. (Is there any way to determine if the
index is used, BTW? MySQL has some weird conditions under which it
ignores indexes.) It certainly is slow on my system.

Since this is one of the most commonly accessed functions, we should
really do some performance tuning here, especially as we will sooner or
later have to do stuff like the aforementioned bot-filtering, making
queries even more complex. I noticed that there is already a
recentchanges table that new rows are inserted into upon edits. Is a
move away from SELECTs on the CUR table already in the works? If so,
what is its current status and who's doing it?

Regards,

Erik Moeller
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Toby wrote:
>> What!? how could this possibly be?
>> Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?
>> If I quote a line from a biography of Winston Churchill
>> in my own FDL biography, why must that be invariant?
>> This doesn't make any sense to me.

Speaking only for text, you'd have an ethical (and, quite possibly, a legal) obligation to leave the quotation as-is; otherwise you're saying someone said something they did not.

That's distinct from coypright, though, which allows for fair use *but* each person has to determine whether they have the right to fair use; it's not a blanket license.  E.g. I as an educator in school may pass the "fair use" test to show a film in class for free, whereas Joe Moneybags, who wants to show the same film for $10 in a theater without working out a deal with Paramount, would not.

IANAL,

kq


body:
mav wrote:
>Correct me if am I wrong somebody but I do believe that an image copyright
>holder has the right to keep a restrictive copyright on a full resolution
>image AND also spin off lower resolution versions under other less
>restrictive licenses.

I haven't heard about this.  Seems counterintuitive IMHO, and a bit picky, but I'd like to know if it's the case anyway.  :-)

kq


body:
One key problem with a wiki encyclopaedia is that there's no quality
control whatsoever. An article may have been vandalized 5 seconds ago,
or be grossly non-NPOV etc. As we get more and more articles, this
problem becomes more urgent.

Fortunately, the solution is rather simple. Articles can be certified by
contributors to be high quality. But who is allowed to certify articles?
The system works by allowing groups of people to form certification
teams. Anyone can submit a new team to be created, and anyone can apply
to join an existing team and certify articles in its name. Users can
then decide to view only article revisions certified by members of
selected teams.

So I could decide in my user preferences:
	Certification: Approved Teams
		Team Nupedia
		Team Wiki-Fiction
		Team Wiki-Maths

Then there would have to be a way to display certified article
revisions. This could be accomplished by having a "Certified Mode",
showing *only* articles that have received certs, with the most recently
certified revision shown. Somewhat weaker, where an article has been
certified, a link "There is a version of this article certified by Team
X" could be placed above the article, showing the certified revision
when clicked (or a text "This article has been certified by .." if the
current revision is the certified one). This could be the default view,
making users aware of the cert system.

Each team could have its own quality standards, policies, and subject
preferences. I suggest that the creation of new teams would have to be
approved by the Wikipedia cabal to avoid "Team Trolls". New team members
would either be voted on or approved by team members that have a certain
status flag ("can_approve_newcomers"). Teams could get their own
namespace as well.

A decision would have to be made as to which teams to include in the
default view, i.e. the one that anonymous and newly registered users
get. In the short term such decisions may be made by the cabal, in the
long term I would prefer voting.

Implementation:

There needs to be a teams table that at least has a TID and a TDesc, and
a team-member table that links TIDs and UIDs and grants individual users
certain permissions within the team, as well as a "pending" status flag
for newly applied members. A TCert table would link UIDs, TIDs certs and
article IDs (must include timestamp).

I am currently assuming that certifications would be simple "Good
article" binary flags. My reasoning is that a rating of "good, but not
good enough" may not be very helpful. Still, practice may prove that
wrong, and the table should therefore be designed to accomodate possibly
more flexible ratings.

Giving each individual member the power to rule an article certified in
the name of the whole team may be undesirable. Thus, teams should be
configurable to set their own min_number_of_certs, where certifications
would only be valid if so many team numbers agree that the article is
complete and high quality.

Finally, the PHP scripts of course have to be updated to reflect this
functionality. There needs to be some way to apply for team membership,
to approve team membership, and to submit a new team for cabal approval.

A module listing all articles approved by a certain team would be nice
and could substitute the "Brilliant Prose" page.

Results:
--------
If this works as intended, it should solve the quality problem and allow
users to browse Wikipedia as a high quality content only encyclopaedia.
The more teams you would admit to your personal filter, the more content
you would see, but quality standards of individual teams might not be up
to par. By distributing the job of quality approval on several team
leaders, we can get competition of quality standards and social methods,
which is probably a good thing and reduces social problems.

Potential problems:
-------------------
If too many people use highly customized views, caching will get harder.
I don't see this as too big a problem as a) most people typically don't
customize views, b) article retrieval is already very fast with or
without caching.

Too many teams may have undesired effects, such as teams deliberately
inserting POV articles to certify them. This is not a problem with the
team principle per se but with the way teams are approved and moderated.
Generally, teams should have a clear NPOV commitment and respect
Wikipedia policy, otherwise they should be deleted.

Comments on this would be appreciated. This is something I probably
won't have time to implement fully, but I will gladly help with any/all
efforts. I consider it very necessary for Wikipedia in the long term.

Regards,

Erik Moeller
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> > Tokerboy has uploaded a bunch of record album covers,
> > without permission of the various copyright holders.
> > I don't have the time or the sysop privileges
> > to delete them, so can someone else.  Cheers
>
> They should have the same "fair use" status as Isis's
> videotape box covers: as long as they're just being used
> to illustrate articles about the albums, they're fine.

My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
Sections".

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


from_name: Brion VIBBER

body:
Jason Richey wrote:
 > Brion VIBBER wrote:
 >>Do we want to allow convenient [[Site:Title]] linking to other
 >>non-Wikipedia wikis?
 >>
 >>Eg, [[MeatBall:InterWiki]] would get you to
 >>http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?InterWiki
 >
> We may be shooting ourselves in the foot by doing this...  With a URL
> like the one you mention, I think it likely that it will disappear in
> the future...
>
> I would not be opposed to linking [[Site:Title]] for non-Wikipedia
> wikis if their URLs looked like the administrator of the site intended
> to support them forever... For instance, if the URL was
> http://www.usemod.com/wiki/InterWiki or the like...

Hmm, isn't that exactly what this would solve?

The InterMap list is maintained and updated regularly. If we keep track
of that and update our copy (along with the general software maintenance
and development), then that neatly solves the problem of hand-copied
URLs in article text potentially becoming obsolete and difficult to
track down and correct manually.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>>Imran Ghory wrote:
>>
>>>My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
>>>use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
>>>Sections".
>>>
>>What!? how could this possibly be?
>>Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?
>>
>To ensure freedom to redistribute.
>
>Otherwise someone could take a GNU FDL document add sections to it, and
>claim that the additions were taken under "fair use" from another
>document, now if someone else comes along who wants to modify the
>additions they wouldn't be able to as the new "fair use" sections wouldn't
>be governed by GNU FDL.
>
This is starting to not make sense..How can having something more
restrictive possibly enhance freedom to redistribute?

The sections added to the GNU FDL document have nothing to do with "fair
use"; they are original work.  The original work including the way that
the "fair use" material is integrated with it is subject to a new
copyright. Then, each time that another Wikipedian comes along and edits
that material, that editing too is the subject of a new copyright.

If one of our readers uses "fair use" material from Wikipedia or uses
our GNU FDL material on a "fair use" basis, then it is his new fair use
claim that is the basis for him to be judged.

There is nothing in fair use that requires use with variations.  IIRC
the courts have allowed changes for parody as fair use.

Eclecticology


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Wednesday 30 October 2002 04:00 am, Brion Vibber wrote:
>>Which reminds me -- not for redirecting, but for interwiki linking in
>>general. Do we want to allow convenient [[Site:Title]] linking to other
>>non-Wikipedia wikis?
>
> Heavens no! We should only be using interlanguage links to interlink Wikipedia
> encyclopedia language versions. Everything else should either be an inline
> intralink within the same language version or an inline external link to a
> non-wikipedia encyclopedia page.

Eh?

The magic interlanguage links (which appear at the top of the screen in
a list by language name instead of inline) are *only* for the language
links, and *only* on the encyclopedic wikis. They are a magic subset of
interwiki links which behave funny because it's useful to us.

Interwiki links to meta and sep11 from the encyclopedia wikis are *not*
magic interlanguage links. Links to any language encyclopedia wiki from
meta or sep11 are *not* magic inter-language links. They appear as
inline links, and I wouldn't imagine suggesting anything else.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] the server is indeed down

body:
Warning: Host 'localhost.localdomain' is blocked because of many
connection errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts' in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 19
Could not connect to DB on 127.0.0.1

Host 'localhost.localdomain' is blocked because of many connection
errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'

If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser
cache, please notify the Wikipedia developers.


body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>>Correct me if am I wrong somebody but I do believe that an image copyright
>>holder has the right to keep a restrictive copyright on a full resolution
>>image AND also spin off lower resolution versions under other less
>>restrictive licenses.
>>
>You're correct, the full resolution graphic and the lower resolution
>graphics have seperate copyrights.
>
>However in our case it would be better if we had the full resolution
>graphics available as if a graphic ever needs to be resized to fit the
>article better it is far better to change the size and then reduce the
>resolution of a graphic than doing it the other way round.
>
Having the full resolution graphics for material (other than original
material from our contributors) would involve grater risks of copyright
violation than reduced resolution images.  Even assuming that there is
unlimited storage space for these images, we have no practical use for
most of the full resolution images anyway.  Why not store them at the
maximum resolution that we may reasonably require?

Storing reduced resolution images means that we have already addressed
the substantiality factor for fair use.  Anyone that copies from us
cannot make his images any more substantial than us.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Your message to Wikitech-l awaits moderator approval

body:
How can I "notify the developers" with this kind of response?

|From: wikitech-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:35:01 +0000
|X-Ack: no
|Sender: wikitech-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|
|Your mail to 'Wikitech-l' with the subject
|
|    the server is indeed down
|
|Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.
|
|The reason it is being held:
|
|    Post by non-member to a members-only list
|
|Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
|notification of the moderator's decision.
|


subject: [Wikitech-l] RecentChanges Performance

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

> Caveat; various things are _not_ currently registered in the
> recentchanges table:
> * Updates to deletion, upload logs
> * Creation of image description pages on file upload
> * Deleted pages remain listed as though they existed
>
> Those should be fixed. Any other problems?

How about the move function?


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
This is why I always unblock anyone whose IP I've blocked, after a few days.

I think I've done a total of about 10 blocks, but if you check the list you won't see my name by anyone.

--Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Mayer [mailto:maveric149 at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 1:56 PM

I'm sure there are several blocked public computers
on the list that should have only been blocked for a couple of days at most.

We shoul


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
koyaanisqatsi wrote:

>Toby wrote:

>>What!? how could this possibly be?
>>Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?
>>If I quote a line from a biography of Winston Churchill
>>in my own FDL biography, why must that be invariant?
>>This doesn't make any sense to me.

>Speaking only for text, you'd have an ethical (and, quite possibly, a legal)
>obligation to leave the quotation as-is; otherwise you're saying someone said
>something they did not.

As-is to an extent that avoids lying, yes,
but not to the extent that fixes an invariant section.
For example, if an original (by Dr. X) said
"Churchill was a pompous windbag that everybody hated.",
then I might write "Dr. X wrote "Churchill was a pompous windbag".",
which is fair use in the context of an encyclopaedia article,
and release that under the FDL.  Then a derivative FDL encyclopaedia
should be able to shorten it to "Dr. X called Churchill "a pompous windbag".",
but that wouldn't be possible if my FDL release classified the quotation
as an invariant section.

And I'd be surprised if writing "Dr. X said that Churchill was *not*
"a pompous windbag"." would be a violation of any ordinary copyright law,
although it would still be *intellectually* dishonest and unethical,
and possibly even illegal as a matter of *libel*
(if Dr. X felt that being cast as a supporter of Churchill's
was a defamation of character).

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Imran Ghory wrote:

>>>My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
>>>use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
>>>Sections".

>>What!? how could this possibly be?
>>Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?

>Otherwise someone could take a GNU FDL document add sections to it, and
>claim that the additions were taken under "fair use" from another
>document, now if someone else comes along who wants to modify the
>additions they wouldn't be able to as the new "fair use" sections wouldn't
>be governed by GNU FDL.

What's that got to do with invariant sections?
What you're describing is modifying an FDL document to make a derivative work.
The GNU FDL requires that derivative works be released under the FDL.
Therefore, the new "fair use" sections would be part of a document
released under the FDL.  They don't need to be invariant sections
in order for this to work; OTC, if they're included as invariant sections,
then they can*not* be modified.

-- Toby


body:
Mav wrote in part:

>We should only be making magical inter-language links to and from pages that
>directly relate to our main goal (hint: creating a huge multilanguage, NPOV
>encyclopedia).

Then you believe that we shouldn't make magical links
to September 11 memorials either?

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
>
>
>>The sections added to the GNU FDL document have nothing to do with "fair
>>use"; they are original work.
>>
>
>You misunderstand, I wsa trying to give an example which the "fair
>use" doctrine could be used to exploit the GNU FDL. I could write a
>document on my computer and then incorporate parts of that document as
>"fair use" into the GNU FDL articles, no-one else would then be able to
>modify those sections as they wouldn't be licenced under the GNU FDL.
>
Let me see if I'm misunderstanding this correctly!  Are you suggesting
that you could take an extract from your own previously unpublished
original work and claim that the extract was subject to "fair use"
rules?  IMHO it seems that fair use doesn't apply because you already
have the permission of the original author.  Who could you  (as author
and copyright owner) possibly sue for copyright violation?  The simple
act of putting the material on Wikipedia is what would trigger the
application of GNU FDL.  Your reasoning would make it impossible for
anybody to edit anything at all on Wikipedia, and that seems contrary to
the basic intent of the project.

Rclecticology


in_reply_to: <3DC04EA9.5040102@pobox.com>; from brion@pobox.com on Wed, Oct 30, 2002 at 01:27:05PM -0800

body:
Oh, I see...  I don't know where my head was earlier...

Jason

Brion VIBBER wrote:

> Jason Richey wrote:
>  > Brion VIBBER wrote:
>  >>Do we want to allow convenient [[Site:Title]] linking to other
>  >>non-Wikipedia wikis?
>  >>
>  >>Eg, [[MeatBall:InterWiki]] would get you to
>  >>http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?InterWiki
>  >
> > We may be shooting ourselves in the foot by doing this...  With a URL
> > like the one you mention, I think it likely that it will disappear in
> > the future...
> >
> > I would not be opposed to linking [[Site:Title]] for non-Wikipedia
> > wikis if their URLs looked like the administrator of the site intended
> > to support them forever... For instance, if the URL was
> > http://www.usemod.com/wiki/InterWiki or the like...
>
> Hmm, isn't that exactly what this would solve?
>
> The InterMap list is maintained and updated regularly. If we keep track
> of that and update our copy (along with the general software maintenance
> and development), then that neatly solves the problem of hand-copied
> URLs in article text potentially becoming obsolete and difficult to
> track down and correct manually.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Matt M.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] photos

body:
> I hope you are all aware of [[Wikipedia:Requested pictures]]
> which is a place where editors and photographers perhaps should meet
> and cooperate.

Thanks for the info. It so happens that I am an avid (highly) amateur digital photographer, and I've incorporated a number of photographs from my travels into various Wikipedia articles such as [[Montreal]], [[Quebec City]], [[Ottawa]], [[Parliament of Canada]], [[Pride parade]], [[Sagrada Familia]], and of course [[Cat]]. More to come.

matt


subject: [Wikitech-l] RecentChanges Performance

body:
Am Mit, 2002-10-30 um 13.28 schrieb Brion VIBBER:

> Those should be fixed. Any other problems?

There should be an INDEX on the rc_timestamp column.

I think we should adopt a principle similar to KeptPages for RC logs,
that is, to maintain a consistent log for 14 days or so, no matter how
many entries happen in those days, instead of just saying "the last 5000
changes". So I guess we should just DELETE FROM the RecentChanges table
all entries that are older than n days regularly.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Feature Proposal: Certification

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that
>>is neither derogatory nor ironic.  I find that highly disturbing.

>You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like
>Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have
>more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in
>places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing
>over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.

If you're going to take this realist position towards the cabal,
then you should use the word in a derogatory way
(assuming that you don't want to disturb me, that is,
I presume that in reality you don't care if you disturb me).
For example: Jimbo can make high level decisions,
so in order to avoid a cabal we should create a nonprofit foundation
with an elected board of directors that Jimbo could sit on.
Or: Sysops have more power than ordinary users,
so to avoid a cabal we should turn ordinary users into sysops
automatically after they've made several edits over several months.
In this case: To avoid a cabal, we should allow anybody
to create a certification team; you just shouldn't expect me
to pay any attention to the certifications of Team Troll,
only to Team Cabal (an ironically named team ^_^).

>I have already suggested a voting scheme that would democratize the
>decision processes by the inevitable administration. Aside from extreme
>opinions like "voting doesn't work", I see few arguments against that. We
>need to talk openly about this kind of stuff, or what you find disturbing
>will turn into a nightmare eventually.

"voting doesn't work" is hardly an extreme position;
it's been the opinion of the vast majority of humankind
throughout the vast majority of human history.
That's really not much of an argument one way or another.
(You also seem to be conflating voting with democracy, which is wrong.)
My own position on democratic decision making matters is
that we rarely need to make any official decision,
but that we should vote when decisions *must* be made
(if there isn't a clear consensus that obviates that need).
For example: We shouldn't need to officially certify certification teams.
OTOH: We will have to vote (if we can't come to a consensus)
on the issue of whether to have certification teams in the first place,
since your proposal asks for software changes that recognise them,
and the software must be decided on.

>>>A decision would have to be made as to which teams to include in the
>>>default view, i.e. the one that anonymous and newly registered users
>>>get.

>>If newcomers see only what is approved by a list of certification teams,
>>then Wikipedia will no longer be a wiki.

>You misunderstand me.
[...]
>So what I am suggesting is an alternative viewing mode that would *never*
>be the default but optional.

Then I did misunderstand you.  In the paragraph that I was responding to,
you seemed to be saying that the default view might be restricted
to certified articles.  *That* would ruin the wiki nature.
If the default view is to always show the most recent edit,
then I have no objection to this matter; it's still a wiki.

In summary, I don't see why you think this is *necessary*,
but it'd be nice to be able to refer to certified versions
if I want to get a specific trusted group's opinion on something.
I can't imagine every surfing Wikipedia with a restricted view,
but I can certainly imagine checking out the certified versions.
I just hope that participating in this is always *optional*,
never *default* (at the main Wikipedia site).

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>A simpler example: GPL, GPL is more restrictive than public domain but
>enhances freedom to redistribute.

We're now talking past each other.
Of course the public licenses are more restrictive than public domain.
But they're not more restrictive than ordinary copyrights.
Making fair use invariant *is*.

-- Toby


body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>Ortonlan88 wrote:

>>How can I "notify the developers" with this kind of response?

>>|
>>|    Post by non-member to a members-only list
>>|
>>|Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
>>|notification of the moderator's decision.

>This means you need to subscribe to the list.

We should send people a different response to such posts.
Posts my nonmembers are *not* moderated; they disappear down a black hole.
Nonmembers that submit reasonable posts will expect to be published,
and they'll be surprised and discouraged that their posts never appear.

-- Toby


body:
Mav wrote:

>Whatever happended with the idea of have a log-like credits:namespace for this
>type of information?

I think that people decided that it wasn't necessary yet.
This is just one more sign that it might be time.

-- Toby


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Your message to Wikitech-l awaits moderator
	approval

body:
On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 13:51, Tom Parmenter wrote:
> How can I "notify the developers" with this kind of response?
>
> |
> |    Post by non-member to a members-only list
> |
> |Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
> |notification of the moderator's decision.

This means you need to subscribe to the list.


from_name: Jason Williams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia photo squad?

body:
On Wed, Oct 30, 2002 at 03:51:29PM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
> How about an organized effort to create (shoot)
> public domain photos of important people/places/events?

Ooh, sounds like a great idea.

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
> Comments?  I think Imran has a point.

How about adding a column img_license to the image table and requiring the
user to specify a license during upload:

* Public domain image
* Copyrighted, used with permission
* Fair use
* FDL
* FDL-compatible license (could be listed individually, if we have such a
list)

That way, we can keep track of the licenses in use and remove all images
under a specific license if problems with that license arise. We can also add a
standard text to pages containing images that are not FDL or PD ("The
following images on this page are not licensed under the FDL and may therefore only
be distributed, but not modified: foo, bar"). This is much better than
manually adding a copyright notice to each and every image, trying to keep track of
which images are PD and which are not etc.

This might make things a little more complicated for image uploaders, but we
already have a copyright checkbox anyway, so I don't see why we shouldn't
use a dropdown instead to gather meaningful information.

Regards,

Erik

--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f?r 1 ct/ Min. surfen!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia photo squad?

body:
The image copyright discussion reminds me of an idea that has been going
through my head for a while. How about an organized effort to create (shoot)
public domain photos of important people/places/events? I am not a photographer
so I would be a bad person to lead this WikiProject, but maybe there are
people on this list who would be interested in it.

Basically, the effort would have to be organized in such a way that
- interested photographers put their names and locations on the page and put
the page in their watchlist
- interested users add people, places, things, events etc. to a To Do list.
Photographers add their names to the list if they want to finish a task. The
task is moved into a "Finished tasks" list later and the photos are uploaded.

Additionally, people who are willing to scan photos sent to them (for people
without scanners or digicams) might enter themselves into a third list --
don't know if that would be necessary.

What do you think? Given the international nature of Wikipedia, I really see
the potential for a large and impressive effort to get relevant photos from
all around the world.

Regards,

Erik Moeller

--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f?r 1 ct/ Min. surfen!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 08:30, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Comments?  I think Imran has a point.
>
>
> Imran Ghory wrote:
> >
> > My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
> > use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
> > Sections".

I am not an IP lawyer, but I've made a careful study of these issues in
general and the GFDL specifically, and I've interviewed IP lawyers.
Point #1 is the main consideration, and point #3 is the one that people
can argue circles around, unless we have any IP lawyers who have dealt
with current fair use/DMCA issues.

1. I'm extremely uncomfortable about contaminating the Wikipedia feed
with content that can't be used by downstream licensees. If we didn't
use any GFDL content ourselves, then we wouldn't be limited by the GFDL
conditions, but we do (or at least would like to be able to).

Whatever the case, it's certainly not in the spirit of the GFDL to
include non-free (the RMS def.) images.

This is the main consideration.

2. I certainly think that it's crazy to imagine a legal setup in which
image use as we do would be forbidden, but we live in a crazy world,
with DRM around the corner.

3. Finally, "fair use" is, unfortunately, a defense (Good Faith Fair Use
Defense, Section 504(c)(2)
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/504.html). If someone challenges
the use of their images, we would have to prove "fair use" in court,
after the injunction. The fair use defense is sadly weak.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

See #4, #7

See also
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm#rules

Note that Wikipedia does not fall under the University of Texas's
recommended "safe" fair use examples. See also the section below:

1) publishers clearly believe fair use has time limits;

2) courts seem increasingly willing to let the fourth factor of the fair
use analysis trump all the other factors so that where there is a market
for permissions, "fair use is negated." This was the position
articulated by the majority in the recent MDS decision.

etc. Fair use is not a safe defense.


body:
On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 12:20, Magnus Manske wrote:
>   Today, I contacted David Darling, creator of the Astrobiology
> encyclopedia (http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling) and asked him
> about possible relations between our projects. Here is the reply I got.
> IMHO the link he asks for is OK for new articles or major improvements
> ("This article based on [http:... this one, with permission]"). Thought
> I'd ask the list first, though.
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: David Darling <daviddarling at angelfire.com>
>
> Dear Magnus,
>
> Thanks for your message and kind words about my encyclopedia. The
> wikipedia is a marvelous idea and resource, which I have used myself
> many times. I would be happy to "donate" or adapt some of my a-z
> entries to the wikipedia. Would it possible to include a link to my
> website at the end of each such article? I am quite happy to offer my
> time and effort freely on the Internet but must try to subsidise
> myself through (hopefully!) additional book sales that come about
> through visitors to my site.

If Darling licenses his encyclopedia under the GFDL then we will
automatically have to provide at least one prominent link to the
encyclopedia on our site, as will any downstream users of Wikipedia.

Otherwise we certainly should include the link on pages (or at least in
the talk), but we cannot make any promises that the link will remain
there in perpetuity.


from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Happy Halloween (off topic!)

body:
If you'll indulge me--happy Halloween!  Here's an interesting
holiday-related story, which may or may not be true.  (I didn't write it,
but I thought it was entertaining.) --Larry

--------

Apparently the owners of this house had been seeing images and hearing
voices for quite a while. They did some research and found that a lady
once lived in the house who lost her husband during the civil war.

Legend says that she used to sit at the table and look across the
fields in anticipation of her loved one returning home. He never came.

So, they say she still waits. They caught this photo (using digital
imaging and sound) of what they claim to be her.

This one is wild and a little spooky once you find the ghost in the
picture.   It took me about 20 seconds to find it, but when you do, it
just stands out.   Like one of those optical illusions.

To save you some time, concentrate around the table and sort of towards
the window.  Also, if you have volume, turn it up as you can hear some
faint murmurings which they say is the ghost talking.

Click on the following link for the picture.

http://home.attbi.com/~n9ivo/whatswrong.swf


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Math markup

body:
On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 04:00:35PM -0600, Lightning wrote:
> why not MathML? its a standard, its already supported by mozilla/netscape,
> and their derivatives, and sooner or later MS will have to add it to IE.. i
> just think this is the way to go...

MathML only works together with XHTML, which is not compatible to HTML.
MathML is not easy to edit, TeX is much easier (Sic!).
It is possible to create MathML from TeX-input if we plan
to go that way any time in the future.

JeLuF

>
> > The question of TeX markup for equations & obscure symbols has cropped
> > up a few times -- consider it bumped again :)
> >


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
  Today, I contacted David Darling, creator of the Astrobiology
encyclopedia (http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling) and asked him
about possible relations between our projects. Here is the reply I got.
IMHO the link he asks for is OK for new articles or major improvements
("This article based on [http:... this one, with permission]"). Thought
I'd ask the list first, though.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Astrobiology encyclopedia and Wikipedia
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 10:05:36 -0600
From: David Darling <daviddarling at angelfire.com>
Reply-To: daviddarling at angelfire.com
Organization: Angelfire (http://email.angelfire.mailcity.lycos.com:80)
To: Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at epost.de>

Dear Magnus,

Thanks for your message and kind words about my encyclopedia. The wikipedia is a marvelous idea and resource, which I have used myself many times. I would be happy to "donate" or adapt some of my a-z entries to the wikipedia. Would it possible to include a link to my website at the end of each such article? I am quite happy to offer my time and effort freely on the Internet but must try to subsidise myself through (hopefully!) additional book sales that come about through visitors to my site.

Best wishes,
David Darling

P.S. Your English appears to be flawless!

On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 15:13:14
 Magnus Manske wrote:
>Dear Dr. Darling,
>
>I have just recently discovered your fascinating astrobiology
>encyclopedia (http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/), and hope the
>following might be of interest to you.
>
>Studying biology myself, I have worked on software and articles at
>Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), a free internet encyclopedia. We
>are now approaching 90000 more-or-less complete articles, which are
>freely available under the GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License).
>
>As our "members" (everyone can edit any article) come from every
>imaginable scientific background, we might have some information that
>would help you fill the (minor) gaps in your topic list, or complete others.
>
>Likewise, we would be very interested in you becoming a contributor to
>our project. Though our articles are not credited to any author, a new
>and extensive article can be marked with a line like "this article is
>based on...".
>
>Hoping the above will be helpful, or at least fun,
>Magnus Manske
>
>P.S.: Please excuse my bad English, I am from Germany.
>
>

____________________________________________________________
Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus!
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from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia photo squad?

body:
On 30-10-2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote thusly :
Hi all,

I hope you are all aware of [[Wikipedia:Requested pictures]]
which is a place where editors and photographers perhaps should meet
and cooperate. It is a pity that there seems to be little teamwork
between intl Wikipedias in this respect.

Regards,
Kpjas.
> Sounds good. I'm leaving South Korea, but I have an
> ameteur photographer friend staying behind, and she
> just bought a scanner. She's agreed to release many of
> her pictures under the GFDL.
> --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> > The image copyright discussion reminds me of an idea
> > that has been going
> > through my head for a while. How about an organized
> > effort to create (shoot)
> > public domain photos of important
> > people/places/events? I am not a photographer
> > so I would be a bad person to lead this WikiProject,
> > but maybe there are
> > people on this list who would be interested in it.
> >
> > Basically, the effort would have to be organized in
> > such a way that
> > - interested photographers put their names and
> > locations on the page and put
> > the page in their watchlist
> > - interested users add people, places, things,
> > events etc. to a To Do list.
> > Photographers add their names to the list if they
> > want to finish a task. The
> > task is moved into a "Finished tasks" list later and
> > the photos are uploaded.
> >
> >
> > Additionally, people who are willing to scan photos
> > sent to them (for people
> > without scanners or digicams) might enter themselves
> > into a third list --
> > don't know if that would be necessary.
> >
> > What do you think? Given the international nature of
> > Wikipedia, I really see
> > the potential for a large and impressive effort to
> > get relevant photos from
> > all around the world.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Erik Moeller
> >
> > --
> > +++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net
> > +++
> > NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f? 1 ct/
> > Min. surfen!
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> >
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now
> http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] survey on www.wikipedia.org

body:
On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 18:42, elian wrote:
<snip>
You failed to include my vote against voting. You may consider that a
"blank", if you wish.

> Possible proceedings:
> 1) Doing nothing and leave things as they are
> 2) put a redirection in place
> 3) put a portal in place
> 4) since the majority seems to favor the portal solution, further
> discussion could be directed towards developping a portal solution which
> is acceptable for its opponents, too. For doing this it would be necessary
> to know what the portal should include to be acceptable..
> 5) Any other ideas???

Hmm...this doesn't seem like a survey intended for your personal use.
This seems like an attempt to force decisions based on a push poll.

There has been more than enough discussion on what the opponents of the
portal "solution" consider the problems. It should not be necessary to
reiterate them.

Numerous other ideas have been presented.

It would be best if you somewhere stated explicitly in one place how you
perceive the problem and what your proposed solution is. For example,
see [[Wikipedia talk:Bots]].


body:
On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 16:33, erik_moeller at gmx.de wrote:
> > You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that
> > is neither derogatory nor ironic.  I find that highly disturbing.
>
> You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like
> Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have
> more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in
> places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing
> over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.

*clunk clunk clunk* [1]

-tc

[1] (sound of head banging against wall; do I really need to unearth
"How to Destroy Wikipedia"?)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Toby Bartels wrote:

> Imran Ghory wrote:
>
> >My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
> >use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
> >Sections".
>
> What!? how could this possibly be?
> Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?

To ensure freedom to redistribute.

Otherwise someone could take a GNU FDL document add sections to it, and
claim that the additions were taken under "fair use" from another
document, now if someone else comes along who wants to modify the
additions they wouldn't be able to as the new "fair use" sections wouldn't
be governed by GNU FDL.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


body:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:

> Correct me if am I wrong somebody but I do believe that an image copyright
> holder has the right to keep a restrictive copyright on a full resolution
> image AND also spin off lower resolution versions under other less
> restrictive licenses.

You're correct, the full resolution graphic and the lower resolution
graphics have seperate copyrights.

However in our case it would be better if we had the full resolution
graphics available as if a graphic ever needs to be resized to fit the
article better it is far better to change the size and then reduce the
resolution of a graphic than doing it the other way round.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Toby wrote:
>As-is to an extent that avoids lying, yes,
>but not to the extent that fixes an invariant section.
>For example, if an original (by Dr. X) said
>"Churchill was a pompous windbag that everybody hated.",
>then I might write "Dr. X wrote "Churchill was a pompous windbag".",
>which is fair use in the context of an encyclopaedia article,
>and release that under the FDL.  Then a derivative FDL encyclopaedia
>should be able to shorten it to "Dr. X called Churchill "a pompous windbag".",
>but that wouldn't be possible if my FDL release classified the quotation
>as an invariant section.

*lightbulb*!

Sorry.  Now I follow you.

kq


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Imran Ghory wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Toby Bartels wrote:
> >
> >>Imran Ghory wrote:
> >>
> >>>My understanding of the GNU FDL is that we can't incorporate "fair
> >>>use" material unless we implictly declare those sections as "Invariant
> >>>Sections".
> >>>
> >>What!? how could this possibly be?
> >>Why would the GNU FDL be stricter than ordinary copyright law?
> >>
> >To ensure freedom to redistribute.
> >
> >Otherwise someone could take a GNU FDL document add sections to it, and
> >claim that the additions were taken under "fair use" from another
> >document, now if someone else comes along who wants to modify the
> >additions they wouldn't be able to as the new "fair use" sections wouldn't
> >be governed by GNU FDL.
> >
> This is starting to not make sense..How can having something more
> restrictive possibly enhance freedom to redistribute?

A simpler example: GPL, GPL is more restrictive than public domain but
enhances freedom to redistribute.

> The sections added to the GNU FDL document have nothing to do with "fair
> use"; they are original work.

You misunderstand, I wsa trying to give an example which the "fair
use" doctrine could be used to exploit the GNU FDL. I could write a
document on my computer and then incorporate parts of that document as
"fair use" into the GNU FDL articles, no-one else would then be able to
modify those sections as they wouldn't be licenced under the GNU FDL.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


body:
On 30-10-2002, Daniel Mayer wrote thusly :
> On Wednesday 30 October 2002 10:35 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
> wrote:
> > Sounds good. I'm leaving South Korea, but I have an
> > ameteur photographer friend staying behind, and she
> > just bought a scanner. She's agreed to release many of
> > her pictures under the GFDL.
> Correct me if am I wrong somebody but I do believe that an image copyright
> holder has the right to keep a restrictive copyright on a full resolution
> image AND also spin off lower resolution versions under other less
> restrictive licenses.
> So for example I could take a digital photo at 1600 x 1200 pixels which is
> automatically under a restrictive license and then create a downsized,
> cropped, and web-friendly version at 250 x 200 and release the smaller
> version under the GFDL or even into the public domain.
So is Wikipedia only destinied to be in the web medium ?
Eventually "The Great Wikipedia Encyclopedia in xxx volumes" might appear
in print someday. Then we will need hi-res photos.
> If this is in fact true then we should tell Wikipedia photographers that they
> can keep a restrictive license on their high resolution originals if they
> want.

Regards,
Kpjas.


from_name: erik_moeller at gmx.de

body:
> You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that
> is neither derogatory nor ironic.  I find that highly disturbing.

You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like
Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have
more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in
places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing
over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.

I have already suggested a voting scheme that would democratize the
decision processes by the inevitable administration. Aside from extreme
opinions like "voting doesn't work", I see few arguments against that. We
need to talk openly about this kind of stuff, or what you find disturbing
will turn into a nightmare eventually.

>> A decision would have to be made as to which teams to include in the
>> default view, i.e. the one that anonymous and newly registered users
>> get. In the short term such decisions may be made by the cabal, in the
>> long term I would prefer voting.

> If newcomers see only what is approved by a list of certification teams,
> then Wikipedia will no longer be a wiki.  There will be a wiki underneath,
> which you can get to by registering and then setting your preferences,
> but that wiki would be dead without an influx of newcomers.

You misunderstand me. I am absolutely in favor of creating and keeping a
site that is immediately accessible to the newcomer, where the newbie
quickly notices that WP is editable and joins the process. I love wikis!
My idea centers around the facts that
- there will always be many people who just read and who will never be
contributors,
- even for contributors, it is sometimes desirable to quickly find
trustworthy information,
- some contributors would like there to be some distinction between the
work they have invested much time in and the vandalism of a bored Internet
hooligan.

So what I am suggesting is an alternative viewing mode that would *never*
be the default but optional. It would allow me to browse a Wikipedia where
the article about Mozart *can* not just have been replaced by an image
from goatse.cx. Instead, I would view the last certified version of that
article, which hopefully would be brilliant prose.

Instead of just telling people to use Britannica if they want trustworthy
information, we should substitute this part of Britannica -- quality
control -- as well. That doesn't mean we have to give up any part of the
massively collaborative project that WP is becoming. As a matter of fact,
it would hopefully attract all those skeptics that are afraid that
something like the above happens to their sacro-sanct articles -- it could
still happen, but they could find peace of mind in the fact that the
vandalized version would never be certified.

Last but not least, we should not forget that WP is intended to be a
useful tool, not just for those who like to write, but for those who like
to read, too. Be it interested adults or curious children, rich or poor,
we want Wikipedia to be accessible. We may want to distribute it on CD-
ROMs and on paper. Then how on Earth are the schoolchildren in India going
to wade through megabytes of Middle Earth mythology and stubs, if not if
we supply them with at least the option to filter articles according to
criteria developed collaboratively by various teams, working together to
find the sparkling gems among the ocean we are creating?

"Being a wiki" doesn't mean that we shouldn't extend the original wiki
functionality. Had we stayed with that, Wikipedia would have never become
that big. We would still be using CamelCase.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Toby Bartels wrote:
> >Speaking only for text, you'd have an ethical (and, quite possibly, a legal)
> >obligation to leave the quotation as-is; otherwise you're saying someone said
> >something they did not.
>
> As-is to an extent that avoids lying, yes,
> but not to the extent that fixes an invariant section.
> For example, if an original (by Dr. X) said
> "Churchill was a pompous windbag that everybody hated.",
> then I might write "Dr. X wrote "Churchill was a pompous windbag".",
> which is fair use in the context of an encyclopaedia article,
> and release that under the FDL.  Then a derivative FDL encyclopaedia
> should be able to shorten it to "Dr. X called Churchill "a pompous windbag".",
> but that wouldn't be possible if my FDL release classified the quotation
> as an invariant section.

Yes it would be, as Invariance only make a specific section
non-modifiable, it does not stop you from deleting the invariant section
and replacing with an equivalent statement.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


body:
erik_moeller at gmx.de wrote:

>>You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that
>>is neither derogatory nor ironic.  I find that highly disturbing.
>>
>>
>
>You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like
>Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have
>more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in
>places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing
>over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.
>
Hush! ;-)

>I have already suggested a voting scheme that would democratize the
>decision processes by the inevitable administration. Aside from extreme
>opinions like "voting doesn't work", I see few arguments against that. We
>need to talk openly about this kind of stuff, or what you find disturbing
>will turn into a nightmare eventually.
>
Which reminds me:
For future issues, we could set up a special "voting" page at the
wikipedia, where proposals can be submitted (with several options to
choose from, including "just leave it as it is"), where every logged-in
wikipedian can vote (once!), with a time limit (say, one or two weeks)
so everyone get a chance to vote, but it won't hang there forever.
Democratic enough?

<snip explanation>

Why not use Larry's proposed read-only 'pedia instead? A new skin and a
few restrictions (that would be set to "unrestricted" for wikipedia, of
course), a nice little server, done :-)

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Toby Bartels wrote:

> The GNU FDL requires that derivative works be released under the FDL.
> Therefore, the new "fair use" sections would be part of a document
> released under the FDL.

That's the whole problem we can't release "fair use" material under the
GNU FDL as we're not legally capable of allowing people to modify the
"fair use" material. The only way to satisfy the legal requirements is for
us (a) to declare all "fair use" material as invariant section or (b) not
use any "fair use" material.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> >>The sections added to the GNU FDL document have nothing to do with "fair
> >>use"; they are original work.
> >>
> >
> >You misunderstand, I wsa trying to give an example which the "fair
> >use" doctrine could be used to exploit the GNU FDL. I could write a
> >document on my computer and then incorporate parts of that document as
> >"fair use" into the GNU FDL articles, no-one else would then be able to
> >modify those sections as they wouldn't be licenced under the GNU FDL.
> >
> Let me see if I'm misunderstanding this correctly!  Are you suggesting
> that you could take an extract from your own previously unpublished
> original work and claim that the extract was subject to "fair use"
> rules?  IMHO it seems that fair use doesn't apply because you already
> have the permission of the original author.

Just assume for arguments sake that you had a seperate legal entity who
entered it into the article. For instance a dummy organization. The rest
of the arguement is sound.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


subject: [Wikipedia-l] survey on www.wikipedia.org

body:
Let's count how many people never go past the multilingual portal.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


body:
> Which reminds me:
> For future issues, we could set up a special "voting" page at the
> wikipedia, where proposals can be submitted (with several options to
> choose from, including "just leave it as it is"), where every logged-in
> wikipedian can vote (once!), with a time limit (say, one or two weeks)
> so everyone get a chance to vote, but it won't hang there forever.
> Democratic enough?

I've been thinking about this for a while, and currently I'm tending
towards a scheme where a user would insert a magic link into a page (talk
or otherwise)

        [[=poll=]]

or something like that. Rendered, this would first show a red link

        Create a poll

On that page, the user could then set poll questions and voting type (I
would love to allow both preferential voting and normal voting, and more
voting systems could be added later). The poll would then be given an ID
and the magic link would be changed to

        [[=poll:id=]]

where id would be the poll's internal ID number. Rendered, this would then
put a nice selection box

        option     [ ]
        option     [ ]

on the page. For preferential voting, the [ ] would be an entryfield where
the user enters a number from 1 to n, n being the number of options.
Otherwise the standard radiobutton.

The poll creator and sysops would have permission to modify the poll. On
modification, the poll votes would be reset.

There should be a way to show recent polls, and the poll creation page
should require a textfield like this:

        Please describe the purpose of the poll in terms that are
        understandable to people not yet involved in the debate
        who might be interested.
        _______________________________
        _______________________________

I'm currently torn as to whether we want to record and possibly show who
voted how. This has benefits in many situations, it makes abuses visible
and creates a better picture of the opinion spectrum. The downside is
possible peer pressure to vote a certain way. If it's visible, it should
probably only be shown once a user has voted. Abuses could become a
serious issue as accounts are trivial to create on WP. IP recording (maybe
as hash? we record them clearly in many places anyway) is essential to
avoid duplicate votes from a single IP.

If we have such a system in place, we can give sysops the permission to
create special polls:

        [[=spoll=]]

which would be a poll only usable by sysops but visible to anyone. Such
polls could show up in another list, Recent admin polls, so that admins
could easily see what new issues have come up.

What do you think about such a scheme?

Regards,

Erik


body:
On 30 Oct 2002 erik_moeller at gmx.de wrote:

> > You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that
> > is neither derogatory nor ironic.  I find that highly disturbing.
>
> You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like
> Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have
> more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in
> places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing
> over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.

TINC.

Cabal implies secrecy, what we have here is a benevolent dictatorship.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>For example, if an original (by Dr. X) said
>>"Churchill was a pompous windbag that everybody hated.",
>>then I might write "Dr. X wrote "Churchill was a pompous windbag".",
>>which is fair use in the context of an encyclopaedia article,
>>and release that under the FDL.  Then a derivative FDL encyclopaedia
>>should be able to shorten it to "Dr. X called Churchill "a pompous windbag".",
>>but that wouldn't be possible if my FDL release classified the quotation
>>as an invariant section.

>Yes it would be, as Invariance only make a specific section
>non-modifiable, it does not stop you from deleting the invariant section
>and replacing with an equivalent statement.

What is the derivative author's justification
for using the phrase "a pompous windbag"?
Is that fair use of Dr. X?  No, the derivative author never read Dr. X.
Is that fair use of my article (that is,
mostly they're making a derivative work of my article under the GFDL,
but at one point they're separately making fair use of my article instead)?
No, because they're not attributing anything to me or commenting on me;
they're attributing things to Dr. X and commenting on Dr. X.

Ultimately, what the heck is the difference between
changing an invariant section
and replacing an invariant section with something very similar,
when the similar replacement is, in actual fact,
based on the invariant section?
If I release something under the GFDL with an invariant section,
I won't take to kindly to it if you alter my invariant section
and then claim that you were really *replacing* my invariant section!

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>The GNU FDL requires that derivative works be released under the FDL.
>>Therefore, the new "fair use" sections would be part of a document
>>released under the FDL.

>That's the whole problem we can't release "fair use" material under the
>GNU FDL as we're not legally capable of allowing people to modify the
>"fair use" material. The only way to satisfy the legal requirements is for
>us (a) to declare all "fair use" material as invariant section or (b) not
>use any "fair use" material.

We don't have to allow them to modify the fair use material,
they can modify it anyway!  One can *ordinarily* modify fair use,
just as I modified Dr. X's statement when I wrote about Churchill.
(And one classic example of fair use, parody, is all about modification.)

-- Toby


body:
I wrote in last part:

>In summary, I don't see why you think this is *necessary*,
>but it'd be nice to be able to refer to certified versions
>if I want to get a specific trusted group's opinion on something.
>I can't imagine every surfing Wikipedia with a restricted view,
>but I can certainly imagine checking out the certified versions.
>I just hope that participating in this is always *optional*,
>never *default* (at the main Wikipedia site).

The middle line should begin "I can't imagine ever surfing Wikipedia".
That's "ever", not "every".

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 23:39, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> Toby wrote:
> >As-is to an extent that avoids lying, yes,
> >but not to the extent that fixes an invariant section.
> >For example, if an original (by Dr. X) said
> >"Churchill was a pompous windbag that everybody hated.",
> >then I might write "Dr. X wrote "Churchill was a pompous windbag".",
> >which is fair use in the context of an encyclopaedia article,
> >and release that under the FDL.  Then a derivative FDL encyclopaedia
> >should be able to shorten it to "Dr. X called Churchill "a pompous windbag".",
> >but that wouldn't be possible if my FDL release classified the quotation
> >as an invariant section.
>
> *lightbulb*!
>
> Sorry.  Now I follow you.

The only problem with this is that invariant sections can't be included
willy-nilly in the main content of the document (that is, Wikipedia). In
other words, this is a enjoyable exercise, but a misinterpretation of
the GFDL.

All Invariant Sections are Secondary Sections.

A Secondary Section must be "a named appendix or a front-matter section
of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject
(or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly
within that overall subject."

In other words, there can be no Invariant Sections within Wikipedia
entries.

There are many gray areas about GFDL use, but this isn't one of them.


from_name: Anthere

body:
--- Karen AKA Kajikit <kaji at labyrinth.net.au> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> > Imran Ghory wrote:
> >
> > >On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > violation than reduced resolution images.  Even
> assuming that there is
> > unlimited storage space for these images, we have
> no practical use for
> > most of the full resolution images anyway.  Why
> not store them at the
> > maximum resolution that we may reasonably require?

> It seems very silly to store 1000 pixel images just
> because somebody
> MIGHT want to print them out or resize them one
> day... Before I upload
> my pics I reduce them to a useful screen display
> size - 200 or 300
> pixels across depending on how much detail is in the
> image. If there is
> some kind of detail that I want people to be able to
> see in 'closeup'
> I'll also upload a fullsized version, but most of
> the time that's just
> not necessary. It's just inviting somebody to steal
> my work and make it
> their own!

When we write a text, we "try" to write it "full
resolution" and we know it is inviting somebody to
steal our work and make it their own also. What is the
difference ?

I am probably one of these "silly" persons who like to
have a fully detailed text, as well as a full
resolution image available. Of course, the full
resolution image should not be directly displayed on
the screen (now at least, I hope connection time will
improve worldwide:-)), but I believe, making it
available could be a *real bonus* in many cases
(technical pictures...).

An encyclopedia such as wikipedia is amha, not only
done for the purpose of being consulted quietly at
home, on a dsl, between peanuts and beer. It could
also to be of use for educational purposes, in
underdeveloped countries, or at least in all these
places where only one computer is available for a full
group of people, such as in most european schools. In
the latter cases, parts of the encyclopedia will be
*printed*, and a 72 dpi is not likely to give
something very pretty.

In any case, a printed page of wikipedia, with a 72dpi
image, will not be of the quality of a paper
encyclopedia.

Another part of education, for those who are
specialists in one field, is to prepare "talks" that
they give in local clubs, local communities (about
minerals, fungi, stamps, next planned trip, whatever).
During these "shows" are displayed slides, pictures,
photos...that one have to find somewhere...usually on
the net. And the two big issues one met are : one need
the images to be 1)free of use and 2)of quality enough
to be printed.

We can provide the "free of use", why not the
"quality" for all purpose ?

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from_name: elian

body:
Summary:
- 1 for no change.
- 1 blank
- 2 for Neil's proposal
- 6 for redirect
- 15 for multilingual portal

(3 people counted two times because they voted for two options)

Detailed results (I tried to include all I found on the mailinglists and
metawikipedia, if someone is left out, please add yourself. I also added a
summarized version of comments I found)

1) multilingual portal
	Kurt Jansson
	Krzysztof P. Jasiuto (kpjas)
	elian
	Magnus Manske
	Giskart
	Martin Aggel
	Thomas Diel
	Ray Saintonge (Eclecticology)
	Erik Zachte (especially no automatic redirect)
	Chuck Smith (especially no automatic redirect)
	Fam. Spaans (especially no automatic redirect)
	Toby Bartels (+other remarks, Neil's proposal)
	Daniel Mayer (mav) (portal should by wikipage, changes should be made
	after moving all wikipedias into one database)

2) redirect
	Tom Parmenter
	Guillaume Blanchard (Aoineko)
	Erik Moeller (Eloquence)
	Stephen Gilbert: redirection page should make the existence of other
	language projects more prominent, option to set default language in
	user prefs

3) other
	Will Smith (redirect or portal)
	Sven Burkhardt (redirect or portal)
	Anthere: blank, neither automatic redirect nor the proposed draft for
	the multilingual page (as I understood, please correct if I am wrong)

4) Neil's proposal: Neil, Toby Bartels
5) no change: Jeff Bronks

Possible proceedings:
1) Doing nothing and leave things as they are
2) put a redirection in place
3) put a portal in place
4) since the majority seems to favor the portal solution, further
discussion could be directed towards developping a portal solution which
is acceptable for its opponents, too. For doing this it would be necessary
to know what the portal should include to be acceptable..
5) Any other ideas???

greetings,
elian


body:
Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> writes:

> In summary, I don't see why you think this is *necessary*,
> but it'd be nice to be able to refer to certified versions
> if I want to get a specific trusted group's opinion on something.
> I can't imagine every surfing Wikipedia with a restricted view,
> but I can certainly imagine checking out the certified versions.
> I just hope that participating in this is always *optional*,
> never *default* (at the main Wikipedia site).

I was also thinking about ways of establishing a sort of quality
control for the future. Random article, an overfull recentchanges, pages
needing attention and search for short articles may not ever suffice for
quality control.

Why not put a little rating system (which could be turned on or off in
user settings) below each article?
four checkboxes:
- major improvements needed (pure stub or really bad article...)
- minor improvents needed (some information missing, bad spelling or style...)
- fine article
- excellent article

People looking for articles to work on could consult a function which
lists articles with bad ratings
People looking for excellent articles could call a opposite function.

This would serve as a future, easier to handle equivalent of "pages
needing attention" and "excellent articles"  (without necessarily
giving these pages up)

If we do rating, let's do it the wiki way ;-)

greetings,
elian


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>>>The sections added to the GNU FDL document have nothing to do with "fair
>>>>use"; they are original work.
>>>>
>>>You misunderstand, I wsa trying to give an example which the "fair
>>>use" doctrine could be used to exploit the GNU FDL. I could write a
>>>document on my computer and then incorporate parts of that document as
>>>"fair use" into the GNU FDL articles, no-one else would then be able to
>>>modify those sections as they wouldn't be licenced under the GNU FDL.
>>>
>>Let me see if I'm misunderstanding this correctly!  Are you suggesting
>>that you could take an extract from your own previously unpublished
>>original work and claim that the extract was subject to "fair use"
>>rules?  IMHO it seems that fair use doesn't apply because you already
>>have the permission of the original author.
>>
>
>Just assume for arguments sake that you had a seperate legal entity who
>entered it into the article. For instance a dummy organization. The rest
>of the arguement is sound.
>
For it to be sound you and the dummy organization would need to be
dealing at arm's length, and not acting collusively.
Eclecticology


from_name: Giskart

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia photo squad?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
 > The image copyright discussion reminds me of an idea that has been going
 > through my head for a while. How about an organized effort to create
(shoot)
 > public domain photos of important people/places/events? I am not a
photographer
 > so I would be a bad person to lead this WikiProject, but maybe there are
 > people on this list who would be interested in it.

This is a good idea but this would be a big, special, very international
project. "Photopedia, a collaborative project to create a free and
complete database of images about every thing on earth. The content of
Photopedia is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License"  Whit its
one Wiki. If it is only a page on a wikipedia the responds will not very
high i think.

If al Wikipedians of all Wikipedias make photographes we would get fast
a very nice, international collection of images.

Giskart


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Webserver stats

body:
I took our inhumanly long server log for www.wikipedia.org, which
extends back to the end of August, and ran it through Webalizer. The
results you can see at http://www.wikipedia.org/stats/

(I haven't bothered to tweak the settings yet, so it's kind of rough.
Among other things, hostnames are not resolved, referers and user agents
aren't noted -- our referers are currently in a separate log that
webalizer doesn't read and we're not recording user agents. Perhaps the
log format will be changed to be friendlier to this kind of analysis in
the future. And, this is just on the English wikipedia's log.)

Still, lots of big numbers that should make one extra grateful Jimbo is
donating the server and bandwidth. Thanks, Jimbo!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Webserver stats

body:
Jason Williams wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 02:00:36AM -0800, Brion VIBBER wrote:
>>http://www.wikipedia.org/stats/
>
> 13 9118 0.09% 436328 0.34% /wiki/Famous_French_People
>
> Seems a bizarre article to be the most popular "real" article :-)

Type in "famous french people" to Google and check the results. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Webserver stats

body:
> 13 9118 0.09% 436328 0.34%
> /wiki/Famous_French_People
>
> Seems a bizarre article to be the most popular
> "real" article :-)

Prince_Albert_piercing also gets a good rating

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Francophone wikipedia converted to new software

body:
tarquin wrote:
> Brion -- bad news.
>
> I have already found a bug:

No -- good news! You found it, means we can fix it. :)

> on Wikipedia-FAQ, there is an interlink to [[en:Wikipedia:FAQ]].
> However, the accent twweak leads to Wikip?dia:FAQ on the *english* pedia
> -- which doesn't exist.

Hmm, it probably shouldn't be trying to parse the namespace of a link
with an interwiki not the current one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> We should send people a different response to such posts.
> Posts my nonmembers are *not* moderated; they disappear down a black hole.
> Nonmembers that submit reasonable posts will expect to be published,
> and they'll be surprised and discouraged that their posts never appear.

Toby is right that the message should read differently.

I am aware when such posts happen.  For regular contributors, I just
ignore them.  For newcomers, I try to respond.  But the present system
is imperfect, to be sure.  I don't know how to change the message that
the system sends out.  (I mean, I don't know how to change it quickly,
but of course the code is available so I could figure it out.)

--Jimbo


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>Mav wrote:

>>Whatever happended with the idea of have a log-like credits:namespace for this
>>type of information?

>I am uncertain if a complete namespace is really necessary. I'd settle
>for a single line to edit, below the summary. That would be appended to
>the article prior to display, in a special style (say, "size=-1 color=grey>"). It would still be in wiki-markup, for ease of
>linking to an external site. If there's a lot of info to put there
>(though I can't see why, "Based on ...,with permission" should do), we
>just write an article about the person/organization/etc. and link there.

Well, first it starts out based on an article from FOLDOC.
Then it incorporates additional material translated from EL.
Later, somebody adds an example code fragment written by the FSF.
All of these (including the free license stuff) requires credits and links.

Of course, that's a pretty extreme example,
and it *could* be done with your version still.
In any case, we probably ought to do one thing or another.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violations

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>We don't have to allow them to modify the fair use material,
>>they can modify it anyway!  One can *ordinarily* modify fair use,
>>just as I modified Dr. X's statement when I wrote about Churchill.

>Take for instance a box cover of some disney movie involving Mickey Mouse,
>if the box cover was under GNU FDL people could modify the picture and use
>it for whatever they want, however if instead it was under "fair
>use" regulation it could be used solely for purposes relating to that
>movie. Thus "fair use" is non-compatible with the GNU FDL.

I guess that modification isn't really the issue here then,
since they could just as badly take the picture unmodified
and then use it for unfair purposes in a different context.
I guess that the GFDL lets them use our document as they see fit,
but they're still responsible for following other laws,
such as respecting trademarks and copyrights of other documents.
Should it work to point out when we're making fair use of things,
so that they will realise that they can't keep just the picture
and throw away the rest of the encyclopaedia --
not because of our copyright (with is free under the GFDL),
but because of the original?

>However seeing as this argument doesn't seem to be going anywhere I think
>we should request a decision on the issue from the FSF.

That's fair.  How do we go about doing that?
Just find RMS's email address on their website?

-- Toby


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Francophone wikipedia converted
 to new software

body:
> tarquin wrote:
>> on Wikipedia-FAQ, there is an interlink to [[en:Wikipedia:FAQ]].
>> However, the accent twweak leads to Wikip?dia:FAQ on the *english*
>> pedia -- which doesn't exist.
>
> Hmm, it probably shouldn't be trying to parse the namespace of a link
> with an interwiki not the current one.

Fixed. Lee, please take a look over Title.php and make sure my changes
to secureAndSplit() look okay for general consumption.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Your message to Wikitech-l awaits moderator
 approval

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>>We should send people a different response to such posts.
>>Posts my nonmembers are *not* moderated; they disappear down a black hole.
>>Nonmembers that submit reasonable posts will expect to be published,
>>and they'll be surprised and discouraged that their posts never appear.
>
> Toby is right that the message should read differently.

Possibly we should be directing them to the bug tracker, or to some kind
of 'Wikipedia alert' reflector?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)