from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
On 11/28/05, Mike Finucane <mike_finucane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> In answer to that; I can only say that this seems to be the very
> antithesis of what I thought Wikipedia to be; people providing free
> material, for a free resource.

In English there are (at least) two meanings of the word "free", what
Stallman distinguishes "free as in freedom" versus "free as in beer".
The former, when applied to intellectual property, is a radical
notion. The latter is a tired story we all know well.

The "free" in Wikipedia's "Free Encyclopedia" refers primarily to the
former. The fact that it is also the latter is almost inconsequential
(though in practical operations, it is of course entirely essential).

True freedom, in an intellectual property sense, gives you the ability
to make a buck off of something. Shakespeare's works are "free" in
that sense because their copyright has expired, so any shmoe on the
street can publish his own edition of "Hamlet", or can create a movie
version of "Hamlet", or can perform "Hamlet" on a street corner for a
few stray bucks. That's the kind of "free" we are talking about, here.

There's no reason that intellectual property freedom has to be opposed
to profits. Its calling is a higher one -- a freer culture. If
somebody can make a living off of that, then more power to them. Sure,
there will be some slimey abuses -- after all, let's not forget how
Kenneth Branagh butchered the Bard! But that's life, and in the end,
that ends up being pretty inconsequential on the whole.

FF


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images to be

body:
On 27/11/05, Mike Finucane <mike_finucane at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm going to have to re-evaluate contributing to wikipedia if its based
> on providing source material for commercial companies.
>
> Feel free to explain WHY you have this policy; but I have to say your
> explanation above wasnt very tactful or conducive to goodwill on my
> part.

Basic problem: Wikipedia has a goal of producing an encylopedia. Not
an encyclopedia limited only to people with Internet access - though
internet access is certainly booming - but an encyclopedia accessible
through other means. The long-term goal of this is, of course, the
mythical Printed Version - it's still in the air as to whether this
will ever be successful, but we do try and keep it in mind.

But there's other options. In Germany, for example, there was a very
successful DVD distribution of the German-language wikipedia; it was
reformatted, put on DVD, and sold for  ten euros(?). A large swathe of
this went back to the Foundation, a small quantity went to production
costs, and the residue went to the company that produced and
distributed them. Given the remarkable sales, I assume they made a
profit - asking on wikipedia-l would probably get some nice German to
explain this in better detail.

This was very popular, and no doubt a good thing for the project - but
it was a commercial venture, and had it contained non-commercial
material it wouldn't have been able to go ahead, because the company
was distributing it at more than cost. Any form of large-scale
distribution is likely to fall afoul of non-commercial clauses, at
some point, or at least to clash with them to such an extent that it
becomes impractical to do the distribution at anything but a loss.

Picking a random role, we'd love to provide, oh, a ten-dollar
encyclopedia to Indian schools. But if the choice is providing a
fifteen-dollar one with someone making a profit, or not being able to
afford to provide a ten-dollar one at cost, then fifteen starts to
sound pretty good.

Yes, this can be avoided by cleaning out with-permission and
limited-use images, but this itself provides another burden - the
labour to filter images. If we only accept images which are known to
be redistributable, then this presages that problem. We already do
this with text, and the reason for the strong wording is because we
recently tightened the standards on images.

(Personally, I feel we are more insistent on only-free-images than we
absolutely need to be, but...)

I hope that explains matters.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] yet another image lost for posterity

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=SablePlante.JPG

yet another image deleted
*without any personal warning to the uploader
*even though it was uploaded before the tags ever existed...

I find that pityful. Really pityful. Really really pityful.

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: yet another image lost for posterity

references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org> <dmf5at$1e5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280701m66ac19abt4b4c63ef8e9936be@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmf6nm$79u$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280735q22e20bd1vfd4acd96bfa7066@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmfh0f$eho$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 11/28/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Given that images used on used pages are unlikely to end up in a DVD or
> a book, I seriously doubt who would suffer copyright infringement
> attacks for images hosted on community pages.
>
> It strikes me as odd, that we authorize fair use on encyclopedic content
> (which is likely to be reused and to irritate copyright holders), while
> forbidding it on personal pages (where it is unlikely to be much troubles).
>
> Overall, our license issues strike me as being more confusing and messy
> every day that goes by.

It strikes me that you don't really know what fair use is. It might
aid you if you read our page on the fair use policy at [[WP:FU]]
first, because you seem confused on a few legal points which are not
terribly difficult but most people haven't been exposed to them.

The reason people have been cracking down on fair use tagging is
because if something is tagged as such but is not actually "fair use",
then it is a copyright violation and puts us in a legally bad
position. People have been generously mopping up some of the simple
cases (i.e. where images are claimed as "fair use" but are not used in
an encyclopedia article) with the sole intention of helping Wikipedia
keep a "clean" legal status. The goal is to avoid getting sued and
having Wikipedia donations spent on lawyers rather than new servers.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but I'm having a hard time
understanding why you absolutely needed to have an image whose
copyright was owned by someone else and not released freely kept on
the Wikipedia servers even though it wasn't being used.

FF


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP compilation

body:
The Roadsend compiler (a non-Free commercial product) appears to be a
PHP-in-Scheme implementation that then uses the Bigloo Scheme compiler
to generate binary executables. Its authors' benchmarks appear to show a
10% to 150% improvement compared to standard PHP bytecode execution.

Since I'm just about to set to work on a largish Scheme-driven project,
and once wrote a (horrible) compiler using Lisp as a target language
some time ago, I find this quite interesting. This kind of improvement
in PHP execution performance across the Wikipedia cluster, if available
using Free software, would be rather useful.

Does anyone know of any free-as-in-freedom work on anything similar?

I wonder if this would make an interesting MSc project for someone?

-- Neil


subject: [WikiEN-l] fonts for foreign language wikibooks

body:
I unfortunately don't have IE in front of me or I would tell you
specifically how to get around it, but you might hunt around to change
your default "Text Encoding". You should be able to specify somewhere
that the page is in a "non-standard" character set, which should
magically fix the problem. By default, pages are rendered as "Western"
-- you probably want to change this to "Central European".

FF

On 11/26/05, L S Lesser <lsl45x at netzero.com> wrote:
> I have installed Latin-2 encoding, Arial Unicode MS, and Aruniupd.exe, and yet I cannot read many of the Croatian, Slovenian, Slovak, and Romanian characters on the wiki pages describing their languages and grammars.  [?, ?, ?, etc.].  I run Windows ME and Internet Explorer 5.5.  I'd greatly appreciate some advice.  Thanks.
>
> Larry
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=SablePlante.JPG
> yet another image deleted
> *without any personal warning to the uploader
> *even though it was uploaded before the tags ever existed...
>
> I find that pityful. Really pityful. Really really pityful.

Well, it was orphaned, and you did tag it as a fair use image.

Policy is that:

"Unused copyrighted images. Copyrighted images uploaded without permission of
the copyright holder, or under a license which does not permit commercial use,
which are not used in any article, and which has been tagged with a template
which places them in Category:Orphaned fairuse images for more than seven days
(so-called "orphaned fair use images")."

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
WIN ONE OF THREE YAHOO! VESPAS - Enter now! - http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/features/competitions/vespa.html


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL compatibility of image licenses

body:
Nyenyec N wrote:
> What is the definitive source to read about which image licenses are
> compatible with the GFDL?
>
> Or perhaps a GFDL text with non-GFDL images added doesn't count as
> derivative work?

There is a slightly related discussion on meta,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Do_fair_use_images_violate_the_GFDL%3F Do
fair use images violate the GFDL?

In it Jimbo seems to argue that the addition of fair use images does not
mean that the images become GFDL, but rather that the usage of the
specific images in such a way become compliant with the GFDL.  At least
that is my reading of the comments.  The position I base that upon is
his argument:

"The experts I have consulted on this (including Richard Stallman and
Larry Lessig) find no merit in this argument. Remember that the GNU FDL
works inside the framework of copyright law. The GNU FDL is a way for
authors to conditionally give up some of the rights they have under
copyright. It is not a claim to be able to impose additional
restrictions above and beyond what copyright grants. Since fair use is
legitimate in copyrighted works, an author may use fair use. But this
doesn't preclude that author from releasing the work under the GNU FDL,
because the GNU FDL does not pretend to impose ad"

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.8/184 - Release Date: 27/11/05


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: yet another image lost for
	posterity

references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org> <dmf5at$1e5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280701m66ac19abt4b4c63ef8e9936be@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmf6nm$79u$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280735q22e20bd1vfd4acd96bfa7066@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmfh0f$eho$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<98dd099a0511281145w7ca9346cp1ebcd176125d5823@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/28/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> The reason people have been cracking down on fair use tagging is
> because if something is tagged as such but is not actually "fair use",
> then it is a copyright violation and puts us in a legally bad
> position. People have been generously mopping up some of the simple
> cases (i.e. where images are claimed as "fair use" but are not used in
> an encyclopedia article) with the sole intention of helping Wikipedia
> keep a "clean" legal status. The goal is to avoid getting sued and
> having Wikipedia donations spent on lawyers rather than new servers.
>
C'mon now, many ISPs will give notice before taking down an *alleged*
copyright infringement, even in the face of a DMCA takedown notice.
To take down something which the uploader explicitly claims to not be
a copyright infringement without even requesting clarification goes
beyond just avoiding getting sued.

For legal issues, that should be sufficient.  Wait until actual
knowledge of infringement, or until a takedown notice is issued.  Then
it's up to the uploader whether or not she wants to indemnify
Wikimedia using the DMCA put-back procedure.

Of course, that only resolves the legal issues.  For images in the
encyclopedia itself, they should be free.  If the uploader wishes to
indemnify all third-party users though, I guess that'd be acceptable
for images in the encyclopedia itself :).

> I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but I'm having a hard time
> understanding why you absolutely needed to have an image whose
> copyright was owned by someone else and not released freely kept on
> the Wikipedia servers even though it wasn't being used.
>
> FF

I can see your point there, but I believe the main issue was the lack
of notification, not the fact that the image was ultimately removed.

Anthony


from_name: stevertigo

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee elections,
	2005 - still no information!

body:
--- Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:

> [[m:Voting is evil]]

Only to the aristocratic minded.

Stevertigo

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


body:
To sum up: I guess we can now delete WP:TINC

Stevertigo

--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> Jimbo recently asked those on the arbitration
> mailing list (current
> and former arbitrators) to give him feedback
> regarding the listed
> candidates. This was done. If someone wants to be
> considered they
> should probably list themselves and also contact an
> arbitrator and
> ask that their availability be forwarded to the
> list.
>
> Jimbo will probably appoint a list which will have
> to be confirmed by
> the community, probably with a vote of more than 50%
> approval for
> each candidate.
>
> Fred

__________________________________
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/


body:
On 11/28/05, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/28/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Other than the need for a friendly developer is there a reason why we
> > could not in theory ignore jimbo and elect arbcom whatever?
>
> The ArbCom's power comes entirely from the willingness of the admins
> and the community in general to implement the decisions it comes up
> with.  If we're willing to forgo the use of the formal voting
> software, there's nothing stopping the community from running its own
> ArbCom election.
>
> --
> [[User:Carnildo]]

Umm, the ArbCom's power comes from Jimbo as President of the Wikimedia
Foundation.  The "community" can run its own election if it wants, but
Jimbo and the board choose how to spend the funds of the foundation
and how to administer the property of the foundation (such as the
servers).


body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I ask the question, because many pictures of many editors are taken
> during wikimeetups. If the pictures are labelled with a non-restricted
> use, that should mean that anyone can use a picture of the face of a
> wikipedian to do anything that he would like to. If the pictures are
> labelled with a restricted use and used only in non-article space, do
> they qualify as "speedy deletion" as my pictures did ?

I don't think so. While personally I'd prefer all images to be freely licensed,
I don't think it matters that much if photos of Wikipedians and other images in
User space are non-free. After all, they're not part of the encyclopedia, and
the goal is to build a free encyclopedia -- the freedom of user pages is
largely irrelevant.

Such images would, at least to my mind, be distinct from images that appear to
be intended for the main encyclopedia, yet are not used and are unfree -- like
the one you mentioned earlier.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Model Search 2005 - Find the next catwalk superstars - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hot/model-search/


from_name: Delirium

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 11/28/05, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 11/28/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Other than the need for a friendly developer is there a reason why we
>>>could not in theory ignore jimbo and elect arbcom whatever?
>>>
>>>
>>The ArbCom's power comes entirely from the willingness of the admins
>>and the community in general to implement the decisions it comes up
>>with.  If we're willing to forgo the use of the formal voting
>>software, there's nothing stopping the community from running its own
>>ArbCom election.
>>
>>--
>>[[User:Carnildo]]
>>
>>
>
>Umm, the ArbCom's power comes from Jimbo as President of the Wikimedia
>Foundation.  The "community" can run its own election if it wants, but
>Jimbo and the board choose how to spend the funds of the foundation
>and how to administer the property of the foundation (such as the
>servers).
>
>
Only in a legalistic sense.  The Wikimedia Foundation's server ownership
would be completely useless without a community willing to volunteer to
write an encyclopedia that can be hosted on them.

-Mark


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] moderation of mark williamson

body:
Hi,

I usually don't read the postings of Mark Williamson (only the answers
to his) but now I accidentally saw that he has forwarded the private
email of another wikipedian to the list. Add to this the frequent
flame-wars and attacks on people... Watching the list degrade into
endless fights about absurd language proposals, in my opinion it's
enough. I switched his account to moderated now.

greetings,
elian


body:
Anthere wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=SablePlante.JPG
>
>
> yet another image deleted
> *without any personal warning to the uploader
> *even though it was uploaded before the tags ever existed...
>
> I find that pityful. Really pityful. Really really pityful.
>
>
> Ant

I would like a clarification, because I must have missed some step possibly.

I thought fair use images were still authorized on the english
wikipedia. Is that still the case or not ?

Ant


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] "What redirects here" list on Edit page

body:
[Moving responses to what seems to be a new thread - though it may
just be a new subject line, GMail's broken at telling the difference.]

On 27/11/05, Jamie Bliss <astronouth7303 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does that line provide the inexperianced/ignorant user with any
> information of value? (ignorant == "unaware of how MW works in this regard")
>
> A casual reader will not care if they are redirected between pages. An
> inexperianced editor _may_ wonder why they link to [[Foo]] and end up at
> [[Bar]]; some help entries can help on this if they don't already exist.

Actually, I would disagree with this rather strongly - a casual reader
(or newbie editor, which we encourage to be the same thing) will
generally be *very* surprised if they end up at a different page from
the one they expected, precisely because they *don't* know what a
redirect is. They may well not care that they're redirected between
pages, but if they're not told that that's the case, *they will be
confused*.

The chances of them finding a help page explaining this also seem
rather slim - what would they search for? "Help:Pages which aren't
called what you expect"?

> IMHO, the information is rarely of value. Situations in which it is
> almost always involves editing and maintenance. I consider it unlikely
> of an anonymous and/or inexperianced editor wondering about this. (The
> true test is the various support channels.)

Well, you've hit the nail on the head there - the reason I am so
confident in how new users will react is that I've seen their
questions on the en.Wikipedia Help desk, things like "Whenever I try
and look at page X, I end up at page Y instead! What am I doing
wrong!?"

Indeed, this suggests that even our current label isn't doing its job
well enough; for one thing - IMHO - Monobook makes it far too small
and faint, as though we're ashamed of it and want to hide it among the
"mechanics" of the UI.

On 26/11/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> I'm not convinced that you need to know which one you actually came
> through, especially if you have a list of all of them.

Well, I think it's important firstly to let users know that they
*have* been redirected. Otherwise the wiki appears to be doing "magic"
with links and page names, rather than being really straight-forward
and easy to understand (even a piped link has the exact name of the
target page written into it).

And secondly, the combination of piped links and redirects may mean
you don't know *exactly* what page you *should* have ended up at, and
it might not jump out of the list at you. So on a page with lots of
redirects, you'd have to:
1) go "back" a page and find the link you clicked, hovering over it to
discover the actual target in the tooltip
2) go "forward" (or click it again)
3) click "what links here" (or "edit this page", though I don't see
why it would belong there) and possibly an extra button to get the
"what redirects here" display
4) find the link back to the title discovered at step 1 to get at the
redirect to edit/view comments in history/etc...

Or, of course, you could manually create a "redirect=no" URL after
step 1, but that's hardly a user friendly interface. Maybe I'm making
a meal of this, but it seems to me that's not all that unlikely a
situation.

> If you follow a link in an article and are redirected to a place you
> didn't expect to be redirected to, then looking at a list of "articles
> that redirect here" is doubly useful because you can fix other
> inappropriate redirects as well, not just the one you stumbled upon.

This is a good argument for power users, who understand how redirects
work, and may even spot a redirect without any "redirected from"
message - though I think even I would be slightly confused if the
redirect was instant and invisible. But I'm not sure these are the
only users who benefit from the current message, as explained above.

The whatlinkshere page could do with some improvement, though, and
perhaps being able to separate the redirects from the "normal" links
would be a useful feature to add to it.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Support freedum of infromashuon

body:
(Appears that I mispelled "informashion" in the
subject.)

Well, you correctly mention China and its quite proper
to focus a great deal of energy on their restrictions
on information and communication. (Do they block
Wikipedia because of communication or information
reasons?). In that regard, the esteemed founder took a
wisely netural and non-provocative course. In a
country where there is no established freedom of
speech, it may not be polite to assume that arguements
based on local free speech concepts are valid over
there. The UK however has a substantial
English-speaking population, and likewise a tradition
of emulating and deferring to American concepts of
personal liberty etc. The current case is of course an
important and interesting anomaly, and its a good
thing to see that Wikipedias users have used WP:ITN to
properly feature an important story that American
media has left alone, and which UK media lack the
liberty to properly investigate.

Certainly I think the issue is best targeted to
Wikisource, and I listed a request at Talk:Main Page
to put the banner up. Im not being a hard on about it
- I think its appropriate that it generate discussion,
and it may be that as far as Public domain documents
go, the Al Jazeera bombing memo might just be the most
interesting source document in the world right now.
IAC it would be nice to define where the community
line ends, between what Jimbo may mutter in the field,
and what people actually think.

Stevertigo
 Voting is only evil if its rigged

--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/28/05, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > Since Wikipedia is supposed to be, like, into this
> > 'freedom of information thing,' (and stuff) and,
> like,
> > that includes our friends even in the UK, who
> arent
> > used to like, living under freedom (and stuff)...
> >
> > I thought it might not be out of our mandate to
> put
> > this little image (
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Illpublish.png
> ) on
> > the front page. Maybe even at Wikisource! (Im sure
> > somebody here is an admin there. Ive only got my
> meta
> > priveleges left now - snif!). The image is a
> little
> > white box that says "Ill publish the Al Jazeera
> memo."
> > It may or may not be linked to the Blairwatch.org
> > site.
> >
> > Anyway, though it might, like, be cheezy to stand
> up
> > for freedom of information (and stuff) though.
> Plus,
> > that might violate Wikisource's NOR policy.
> >
> > Stevertigo
> >  Confused: Is it still called 'Valspeak'
> >  when a guy uses it?
>
>
> The front page of wikipedia should not be used for
> campianing whatever
> the cause. We don't have a big notice on the front
> page when china
> banned as I fail to see a reason to put up a notice
> now.
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Deletion of Wikibooks content by Jimbo

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>?  Political agenda?  Do you mean my insistence that a book advocating
>white power is not appropriate for any Wikimedia project is a political
>agenda?  If it is, I plead guilty.  NPOV is non-negotiable.
>
>
This is a red herring, and I think you know better than to think anyone
is seriously arguing that.  Nobody is arguing compromising NPOV---the
issue is over *what* subject matter is appropriate, not whether it will
be treated in a neutral manner, which of course it will be.  It appears
to be your position that only "serious" subject matter is acceptable for
Wikibooks, an opinion not shared by everyone.

-Mark


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 11/28/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> We need consensus?  Let's hold a two-week, site-wide vote with
> Concorcet (sp?) voting.  And it's going to be binding.

[[m:Voting is evil]]

Kelly


body:
On 11/28/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >Umm, the ArbCom's power comes from Jimbo as President of the Wikimedia
> >Foundation.  The "community" can run its own election if it wants, but
> >Jimbo and the board choose how to spend the funds of the foundation
> >and how to administer the property of the foundation (such as the
> >servers).
> >
> >
> Only in a legalistic sense.  The Wikimedia Foundation's server ownership
> would be completely useless without a community willing to volunteer to
> write an encyclopedia that can be hosted on them.
>
> -Mark

And the community would be completely useless without the servers.
Somewhere between the two a consensus needs to be reached.  The
community can't overthrow the arb com without the support of the
board, and the board can't institute the arb com without the support
of the community.

Anthony


references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org> <dmf5at$1e5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280701m66ac19abt4b4c63ef8e9936be@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Anthere wrote:
>>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=SablePlante.JPG
>>>
>>>
>>>yet another image deleted
>>>*without any personal warning to the uploader
>>>*even though it was uploaded before the tags ever existed...
>>>
>>>I find that pityful. Really pityful. Really really pityful.
>>>
>>>
>>>Ant
>>
>>I would like a clarification, because I must have missed some step possibly.
>>
>>I thought fair use images were still authorized on the english
>>wikipedia. Is that still the case or not ?
>>
>>Ant
>
>
> Unlicensed media are allowed on the English Wikipedia only when they
> are being used under the fair use doctrine in at least one article.
> There can be no fair use justification for keeping unlicensed media on
> the server which are not actually being used in any article (fair use
> requires that there actually be some use).  We allow a seven day
> window so that someone who uploads unlicensed media with the intent to
> attach them to an appropriate article has some time to actually do so.
>
> This particular image appears to have been unused, and was therefore
> deleted as orphaned unlicensed media.
>
> Kelly

This, I presume, does not apply to all the funny logos derivated from
various copyrighted logos, which are commonly used in most editors
pages, but are not used within main space, such as the mop or counter
vandalism ?

Another question : does that mean that an image previously used in the
main space but removed for whatever reason by anyone, does not qualify
any more to be kept ?

Yet another question : on many user pages, editors upload a personal
shot of their face. Given that GFDL authorize any one to transform their
face in a monster or to use the personal face picture to make an
advertisement for a cream to fight spots or other red blotches, is that
authorized to put a picture of self under another licence than fair use
? In which case, which licenses are authorized ?

I ask the question, because many pictures of many editors are taken
during wikimeetups. If the pictures are labelled with a non-restricted
use, that should mean that anyone can use a picture of the face of a
wikipedian to do anything that he would like to. If the pictures are
labelled with a restricted use and used only in non-article space, do
they qualify as "speedy deletion" as my pictures did ?

I am not sure I am clear here, but depending on the answers, I think I
will delete many of my images on the english wikipedia. Somehow, I do
not think we can forbid editors to delete their images, if the rules
change upon time; Before, fair use images were authorized. If rules
change, I suppose editors can change their license choice to protect
themselves as well ?

Ant


from_name: Mark Wagner

references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<2859ad8d0511280828y3264c1ebp3228850fa314555c@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmfgge$cmr$1@sea.gmane.org> <438B6AC9.7070704@myrealbox.com>
	<dmft4k$rqn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cbffa3750511281349u36ee0cedu7eafcb5adaf93d88@mail.gmail.com>
	<bd4c411e0511281429o65430c02k8b6968b4d45b2bba@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/28/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think what you are arguing is something different to quite a lot of
> > others.  They are saying why the policy was necessary.  Your complaint
> > is actually that you weren't warned.  I don't think anyone would
> > disagree that you should have been notified before the deletions took
> > place.
>
> There were thousands of images (possibly tens of thousands) that
> qualified for speedy deletion under the new policy.  Issuing warnings
> to the uploader of each such image would have interminably delayed the
> cleanup, which was already well-overdue.  Repeated public notices were
> issued; we're sorry you missed them or did not realize they applied to
> you.

The sheer magnitude of the problem is why people aren't being
individually notified.  I've been keeping track of the number of
images involved, and my best estimate of the size of the problem is as
follows:

20 000 images tagged as having no source information
5 000 images tagged as having no copyright information
8 000 images tagged as being "fair use", but unused in any article

Assuming Wikipedia is running along smoothly, an administrator can
delete one image every twenty seconds, if they don't notify the user
first or remove the image from pages where it's used, and if they do
only the quickest check to see if the image is tagged correctly.
Deleting all these images would take 185 man-hours of effort.

If the administrator removes the image from articles where it's used
before deleting it, it takes about 40 seconds to delete an image.
This increases the effort needed to 370 man-hours.

If the administrator places a warning on the uploader's talk page, in
addition to removing the image from articles where it's used, and
waits a week to give the uploader a chance to respond, it takes over
two minutes to delete an image.  This represents the additional time
needed to check for responses on the user's talk page, check for
responses on the talk page of the admin informing the user, and check
for responses on the image description page and image talk page -- and
99% of the time, it's wasted effort, as the uploader has forgotten
about Wikipedia entirely.  Total effort involved in cleaning up the
problem images: 1100 man-hours.

It's not as if efforts to notify people haven't been undertaken.  The
policy change was announced on the WikiEn-L mailing list, on the
administrators' noticeboard, on several Village Pump subpages, in the
Signpost, and for several weeks everyone's watchlist had a note on the
top informing them of the change.  The only thing that hasn't been
done was individual notification on the talk pages of uploaders, and
that's because there are almost 35000 problem images.

--
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
On 26/11/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

> I'm not much wikiolder than you are, but one observation I think I've
> made is a relatively sudden decline in eventualist attitude in 2005.

Now that you mention it, I've certainly noticed this. I just don't
know if I realised it!

(...)

> I've become less active as a Wikipedian and I think it's because I liked
> the eventualist atmosphere more. It gave us more room for mistakes, and
> it allowed us to worry less and be more relaxed. I think eventualists
> tend to assume good faith more, precisely because they are less worried
> and more relaxed. The more someone worries about Wikipedia's quality or
> reputation, the more likely they are to intervene vocally when they
> perceive some change as detrimental, giving a somewhat higher chance of
> generating an unpleasant environment.

This is a very good point. The West-African-Country article naming
dispute recently is a good example - long, acrimonious, pissed off a
good number of people... and all for something that reflected entirely
on the _current state of the article_, and (as someone pointed out, I
think), would have been decided by a single layout editor one morning
when preparing a print version, and with no-one having particular
problems over this fact.

We've stopped putting off a lot of things, but the honest problem is
that there's often no need to fix them now, and we're just annoying
each other trying to. Let "final" users tweak them as they see fit, to
search-and-replace petrol with gasoline, Gdansk with Danzig... or
quietly delete all school articles, or Pokemon articles, or stubs, or
whatever.

The more I think about eventualism the more I like it. We're in this
for the long haul, not to produce an encyclopedia for a 2006 deadline.

Wikipedia can do exceptional things in a short deadline - a favourite
example, not counting the major "current events", is the
fortnight-long crunch to create articles on all 650ish UK
constituencies in time for election night this year. (It worked,
mainly thanks to two or three dedicated users, of whom I was not one).
The missing-articles lists can clear up at a pretty good clip, when
they get attention. But we shouldn't mistake our ability to do this
for the need to do this - we can go slow on a lot of things, take our
time and a bit of care.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


body:
--- Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com>
wrote:

> Best thing is to make it a featured article, it will
> get on the front page fast.

Its been on the front page for two or three days now.

> But I am in the UK so not like used to freedom or
> stuff so
> what do I know.

OK, I wasnt sure. Ive never been there. Ive heard you
guys have lots of Starbucks' popping up though.

> Stevertigo, the UK press normally ignore official
secrets act "gagging".
> There is a public interest defence. Sometimes
someone goes to prison its true.

Thats good to know. I had thought all the brave people
were here in the USA.

--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Erm no we don't. We don't have a history of
deferring to anyone.

OK, fine -- have it your way.

> We don't know that there are other posible reasons
for the offcial secrets act kicking in.

Youre right -- there could be other valid reasons for
suppressing a document which describes a conversation
between public officials about committing terrorism
against private citizens of a friendly state. We
should just defer to the wisdom of the Krown.

> Public domain? I doubt it. Crown copyright perhaps.

Well then she could just send us a takedown notice and
we'll immediately obey, offering to polish the crown
jewels if she likes as a peace offering.

Stevertigo

__________________________________
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/


subject: [WikiEN-l] extremely weak dispute resolution mechanisms

body:
--- Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/28/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> > * it's not a matter of two people "disputing"
> > * it's a matter of one party being "right" and the other party being
> > "wrong"
>
> I disagree.  It's a matter of two people disputing.  One of them may
> be disputing in a manner we approve of and the other disputing in a
> manner we do not.  The purpose of dispute resolution is not to Find
> What Is Right, but rather to enable the disputants to come to an
> agreement without tearing each other's heads off.

Hmm. I would see the purpose of dispute resolution as simply to resolve the
dispute; sometimes we do this by helping the disputants come to a civilised
agreement, sometimes we do this by ruling on editors' behaviour and applying
sanctions. The former is preferable, but isn't always possible. For those
cases, we shouldn't be afraid to "Find What Is Right" (with respect to our
policies, that is).

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com


references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<2859ad8d0511280828y3264c1ebp3228850fa314555c@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmfgge$cmr$1@sea.gmane.org> <438B6AC9.7070704@myrealbox.com>
	<dmft4k$rqn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cbffa3750511281349u36ee0cedu7eafcb5adaf93d88@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/28/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think what you are arguing is something different to quite a lot of
> others.  They are saying why the policy was necessary.  Your complaint
> is actually that you weren't warned.  I don't think anyone would
> disagree that you should have been notified before the deletions took
> place.

There were thousands of images (possibly tens of thousands) that
qualified for speedy deletion under the new policy.  Issuing warnings
to the uploader of each such image would have interminably delayed the
cleanup, which was already well-overdue.  Repeated public notices were
issued; we're sorry you missed them or did not realize they applied to
you.

Kelly


from_name: Mike Finucane

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
Thanks Chip;
At last some constructive comments.  I'll bear these in mind.  The
issue for me though isnt really protection of my work,
its about the future of Wikipedia, and what it stands for.  To me its
not about creating freedom for corporations, or making profits by
selling google ads or whatever, and it certainly isnt about producing
some printed encyclopedia.

To me the venture seemed to be about creating a location where private
citizens could create a resource, instead of the commercial model of
exploiting a resource.  Reseeding the forest as it were, in a world
where every word is copyrighted, every click of a mouse (thanks amazon)
has a patent.  Where McDonalds sues Mr MacDonald who runs a fish and
chip van in glasgow, and dares to put his name on the top.

By creating free images, and free text, I saw a way to break the grip
of corporatocracy on the culture of our civilization; where indigenous
knowledge is patented along with the plants they use.

But there seems to be a strong belief among the wikiers that freedom
isnt really freedom unless Bill Gates is allowed to take a cut.

There isnt really any point in me putting up copyright images, unless
they are free for all non-profit uses, "the copyright holder has
granted permission for this image to be used in Wikipedia. This
permission does not extend to third parties."

And as long as corporations like about.com are allowed to continue
making profits, I still see a threat in this to the very idea of
Wikipedia.
I know its all hunky-dory now, with About.com subsidizing Wiki; but not
all sharks will be as friendly.  I see Google, for example, as the
ten-billion dollar Gorilla hiding in the wings.  As a biophysicist,
aware of how things work generally, I have a nasty hunch that this
dream will end up like so many before it.  As long as predators sniff a
free lunch, there's a threat.

I see ways around this; by Wikipediers themselves distributing disks,
or by themselves setting up a foundation to market copies, all profits
going back to Wikipedia.  By installing filters that different users
are allowed to see different versions (commercial users are allowed
only to use a weaker version, where some articles/photos are nc and not
available to them.  This means that Wiki remains the prime source.

But if one day Wikipedia stabilizes into the final form some dream of
(thankfully mythical in my opinion, as knowledge is never static); then
on that day, or as reasonably practical, then someone like Google can
step in, double the content, and create a proprietary front end, or
something else.  The content will remain technically free, but
effectively users will migrate to the new platform, and Wiki will fade
away as just another experiment.

I need a place where I can provide my stuff somewhere where its
available to everyone for free, but commercial companies have to pay to
license its use.  This money could go to support the project, or to
save the rain forest, I dont care.  But it removes the blood from the
water, and sends the sharks elsewhere.

I have seen how copyright law works in the modern world; and it usually
doesnt favor civilization.  Corporations rule the lawmakers.
I hope I'm proved wrong; sincerely.  But my instinct tells me that
where there's a profit motive for corporations, another resource will
end up destroyed.

Where are CU-SeeMe? Netscape? Java? Fetch?


from_name: A A

body:
On 28/11/05, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I usually don't read the postings of Mark Williamson (only the answers
> to his) but now I accidentally saw that he has forwarded the private
> email of another wikipedian to the list. Add to this the frequent
> flame-wars and attacks on people... Watching the list degrade into
> endless fights about absurd language proposals, in my opinion it's
> enough. I switched his account to moderated now.
>
> greetings,
> elian
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
I support  this decision. On  Moldovan Wikipedia
(http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), he was the only person
stubbornly defending the existance itself of this de facto dead
Wikipedia, that - in my opinion - has no other effect than to
denaturate the present day reality about Moldova (as no one writes,
reads or uses Romanian language with Cyrillic alphabet; apart from the
breakaway Transnistria region, where Cyrillic alphabet is imposed to
people and where parents are itting in jails for demanding the usage
of Latin alphabet in schools). And all this although he is not linked
directly what-so-ever nor to Romanians, nor to Moldovans, nor to
Russians, and thus not in knowledge of the cause. The debate on
Moldovan Wikipedia has definitely degraded into an  endless fight,
that  has advanced till the English Wikipedia. As I was informed
recently by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bonaparte, "It seems
that user Node deletes systematic an important part of the text."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language is a good example of
such disputes.
--
Liviu


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By
	Permission Only Images to be

body:
On 28/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> > But there's other options. In Germany, for example, there was a very
> > successful DVD distribution of the German-language wikipedia; it was
> > reformatted, put on DVD, and sold for  ten euros(?). A large swathe of
> > this went back to the Foundation, a small quantity went to production
> > costs, and the residue went to the company that produced and
> > distributed them. Given the remarkable sales, I assume they made a
> > profit - asking on wikipedia-l would probably get some nice German to
> > explain this in better detail.
> >
> If the restriction is that the use be "non-commercial", then it
> doesn't matter whether or not they made a profit anyway.  Selling DVDs
> qualifies as commercial regardless of whether or not you make a
> profit, and under my and probably most interpretations, it qualifies
> as commercial even if done by a non-profit organization.

I wasn't planning to get into that detail, because non-commercial
clauses vary - some allow selling-at-cost, but most don't - but
generally speaking, yeah. Non-commercial and taking money do not go
together comfortably.

> > This was very popular, and no doubt a good thing for the project - but
> > it was a commercial venture, and had it contained non-commercial
> > material it wouldn't have been able to go ahead, because the company
> > was distributing it at more than cost. Any form of large-scale
> > distribution is likely to fall afoul of non-commercial clauses, at
> > some point, or at least to clash with them to such an extent that it
> > becomes impractical to do the distribution at anything but a loss.
>
> I wonder how much of the success of the German DVD compared to the
> lack (AFAIK) of one for the English Wikipedia has to do with the lack
> of fair use images in the German Wikipedia.  I'm sure it's not the
> only problem, the English Wikipedia is a lot larger and wouldn't even
> fit on a DVD without some serious trimming anyway.

en: could probably be reduced to a single DVD without *too* much
trouble - killing the massive VfD logs and so on would be a start - if
you accepted from the start you'd want to prune stuff that wasn't of
much use. It's certainly easier for a smaller project - but de: is
still a pretty damn large project, even if en: is much bigger.

> Personally I think this restriction should be relaxed and the one on
> non-commercial images tightened.  The goal of Wikipedia is to create
> an encyclopedia, not provide images for people to use in commercials
> or other non-encyclopedia productions.

Mmm. This debate will continue, but as I don't contribute useful
images I don't tend to find it worries me much :-)

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
Mike Finucane wrote:

> postscript.  I may contribute some images, I'll have to consider the
> matter more deeply now.  Perhaps some images that no commercial company
> would want to use; or perhaps a resolution unsuited to commercial
> useage.  I'll continue to contribute information; but the idea that
> someday some Mogul might squeeze Wikipedia out of existence, and
> incorporate its assets, just as surely as Netscape was lost to
> AOL-Time-Warner, will probably have an affect on my desire to help
> create something new.  A world asset which was never saleable to the
> highest bidder.

have you considered using the "fairusein" template, where you can place
your images in articles under fair use and don't therefore have to give
up any copyright at all.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.8/184 - Release Date: 27/11/05


subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
--- Mike Finucane <mike_finucane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> My answer is that I do not see how enriching private corporations
> furthers freedom.  My pictures are indeed gratis.
> The only objection I have is to allowing others to make profits from my
> work.  That definition of freedom isnt in my dictionary.
> Ask the Java community how they feel about Gates embracing and
> extending their freedoms.

> When freedom is defined by the ability of corporate persons to enrich
> themselves at the expense of the community

With "copyleft" licenses like the GFDL, you can make a profit from the use of
the work, but you certainly cannot do so at the expense of the community. That
is, you can't restrict how other people use the work, and if you make changes,
you have to publish them under the same license. That is, even the most
cynical, selfish, profiteering use of a copyleft work by some unethical company
cannot take anything away from the community. Moreover, there are plenty of
benevolent cases for commercial reuse: e.g. DVD sales to fund Wikipedia
servers, etc.

It can be a case of definitions, but in my view, freedom is the ability to act
without restriction, and therefore prohibiting people from reusing images in a
commercial context is taking away from their freedom.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
On 28/11/05, Mike Finucane <mike_finucane at yahoo.com> wrote:

> (6) "And our commercial mirrors bring in new business, make donations
> and have helped pay wages for Wikipedia employees."
> "put on DVD, and sold for  ten euros(?). A large swathe of this went
> back to the Foundation"
>
> I have no objection to any use of the images, for non-profit use.  That
> is, if Wikipedia makes money from selling disks to people, I'm fine by
> that, provided that the money is used to fund wikipedia.

CC-by-nc-2.5 contains this, which I believe is the core of nc:

"You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3
above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward
commercial advantage or private monetary compensation."

This is... wow. Vague, to say the best. It's very unclear what this
means in terms of distribution. I can make a very good case that the
Wikimedia Foundation distributing ten-dollar DVDs as a fundraiser is
doing it "directed toward commercial advantage". Used by a non-profit
organisation, certainly, but commercial activity does not only mean
things where someone makes a profit. There's even situations where
giving it away gratis would count as intended for commercial advantage
- "free copies" in a newspaper promotion, say.

>  I *do* have a
> problem if someone -say a newspaper - lifts one of my images from
> Wikipedia, and uses it instead of paying for their own photography, and
> makes a profit therefrom.  Now I'm not the legal expert here that most
> are, and I suppose "non-profit" use may not cover the generation of
> money by non-profit organizations.

Bingo.

> In which case, I dare say, the same people could find a way to write
> this and include it in the Wiki License.

Mmmuh. What if a local chapter of the Foundation is, for local legal
reasons, constituted as a for-profit corporation and not a charity?
They may wish to do exactly the same as Wikimedia Germany did - make
money by selling copies, plough it back in - but because of legal
hairsplitting over "nonprofit" wouldn't be able to. (I mean, do any of
us have any idea what Ugandan charity law might be? Is there even
Ugandan charity law?)

> I would encourage people to consider other possibilities, other than
> engaging in or with the for-profiteers.  One suggestion would be to
> sell and widely distribute DVDs, by some of the wikipedia wage-earners,
> all profits going back to pay for the system.  Make it $20 for all I
> care.  I dont even mind policies whereby other non-profits can use the
> free material.

Sure. But to make profits to plough back in, we have to... make
profits. Okay, suppose you write a release such that Wikimedia gets
the right to do this.

Then Wikimedia collapses in a flaming internal dispute next month -
it's not impossible, and it's a problem which is actively forseen at
the moment. The project is basically, as I understand it, trying to
futureproof against this...

What would happen under the current situation is that there would be a
hiatus, and the project would restart once hosting was found, under a
new name, and another non-profit would spring up... but one which is
legally nothing to do with the previous one, just using the same
content. How do all our license waivers, or used-on-X-with-permission
images, help then?

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
On 11/28/05, Mike Finucane <mike_finucane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> postscript.  I may contribute some images, I'll have to consider the
> matter more deeply now.  Perhaps some images that no commercial company
> would want to use; or perhaps a resolution unsuited to commercial
> useage.

Heh just upload them unser the GFDL. Certian issues with the lisence
means that images released under it are pretty much useless for
conventional comercial use

>I'll continue to contribute information; but the idea that
> someday some Mogul might squeeze Wikipedia out of existence, and
> incorporate its assets, just as surely as Netscape was lost to
> AOL-Time-Warner, will probably have an affect on my desire to help
> create something new.  A world asset which was never saleable to the
> highest bidder.
>

GFDL makes sure it can be sold to the highest bidder because there is
nothing to stop someone copying what the highest bidder has just
bought. I recall that necscape was originaly a comercial company. It's
code was released and I belive was the basis on which the monzilla and
firefox browsers were built.

--
geni


from_name: Martina Greiner

subject: [Wikitech-l] importDump.php runs and runs and does not do anythin

body:
I am trying to upload the english Wikipedia xml dump from 20051105 xml. I have
Mysql 5, Wikimedia 1.6 phase 3, and a mac with osx 10.3.

I started the loading process six days ago using importDump.php and the process
list shows me that php, bz, and mysql are still working. However, when I go into
Mysql the row counts of the tables do not go up. For example, the user table has
one row, and the text table has approx. 3500 rows. If I call show processes in
Mysql, then I can see that queries are running (admin tells me that approx 200
queries/second are executed) but they seem not to be executed.

My questions: is it normal to take six days to upload the Wikipedia dump? is it
normal that the row count does not go up?

If not, I would highly appreciated any help. Unfortunately I cannot use
mwdumper, because OSX 10.3 only allows java 1.4 and with java 1.4 I get
exception errors.

Thank you!


body:
On 11/28/05, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hmm. I would see the purpose of dispute resolution as simply to resolve the
> dispute; sometimes we do this by helping the disputants come to a civilised
> agreement, sometimes we do this by ruling on editors' behaviour and applying
> sanctions. The former is preferable, but isn't always possible. For those
> cases, we shouldn't be afraid to "Find What Is Right" (with respect to our
> policies, that is).
>
> -- Matt

I've always taken the view that if a disspute is being carried out
within the rules of wikipedia it is extreamly difficult for it not to
be settled (even if in one case it resulted in a sentance by sentance
debate).

--
geni


body:
Matt R wrote:
> --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>I ask the question, because many pictures of many editors are taken
>>during wikimeetups. If the pictures are labelled with a non-restricted
>>use, that should mean that anyone can use a picture of the face of a
>>wikipedian to do anything that he would like to. If the pictures are
>>labelled with a restricted use and used only in non-article space, do
>>they qualify as "speedy deletion" as my pictures did ?
>
>
> I don't think so. While personally I'd prefer all images to be freely licensed,
> I don't think it matters that much if photos of Wikipedians and other images in
> User space are non-free. After all, they're not part of the encyclopedia, and
> the goal is to build a free encyclopedia -- the freedom of user pages is
> largely irrelevant.
>
> Such images would, at least to my mind, be distinct from images that appear to
> be intended for the main encyclopedia, yet are not used and are unfree -- like
> the one you mentioned earlier.
>
> -- Matt

Well, the image was used... here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere/Contribs

it was only an orphan on the article page, as it was obviously delinked,
but it was still in two of my user pages.

It was the little touch of light that accompanied the page where I
listed my initial contributions. If you care looking, you will see that
most of my contributions were in the field of agriculture, with a main
focus on biodiversity and ecology (articles which I very largely
authored) and a secondary focus on african biodiversity.
So, having a little picture featuring a lonely plant courageouly trying
to grow in an algerian sand dune, was originately definitly intended to
be in the encyclopedia, as well as part of the images kinda defining my
activity on wikipedia.

So, no, the image deleted, as well as those listed here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere/PictAlgerie were pretty much
meant to accompany my user page.

Now, I do not have time to write articles, but I still take some
pictures; I upload them on commons (for example, here :
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere/Alg?rie_2004), where no
one delete them for the reason they are orphans. But when I uploaded
that collection, commons did not existed unfortunately.

I have been now on wikipedia for nearly 4 years. Not so many people have
been here so long and some will agree that we tend to accumulate little
things... because they are part of our history on wikipedia. When I
uploaded these images, they were welcome. Without tags, because we had
no tags then. Later, images with no tags were deleted. Today, fair use
images are still welcome, on the condition they are used in the *right*
place. Tomorrow perhaps, they will be deleted. Perhaps in a year, will
we also delete all free images which are orphans. Maybe in two years, we
will change licence, and then delete all GFDL images because they will
be said unsuitable. That sound incredible to you ? Well, for me,
deletion of images which were welcome 3 years ago sounds incredible.

Maybe I just feel old :-)

Ant


body:
On 11/28/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> The more I think about eventualism the more I like it. We're in this
> for the long haul, not to produce an encyclopedia for a 2006 deadline.
>

On the other hand eventualism resulted in the current mess we have
with image lisences.

--
geni


from_name: SPUI

body:
geni wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 11/28/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Sadly, though, in some instances, i.e. for illustrating articles
>>>regarding comics, you will never get a free-licensed image.
>>
>>True.  Although a position one could describe as 'extreme eventualism'
>>would state that the comics will eventually fall into the public
>>domain and then be usable ...
>
> The other posibilty is that the companies publishing comics will
> decide that it is in there interest to release some publicity material
> under the GFDL. This might speed up if people stoped useing fair use.

Given the nature of derivative works, that is very doubtful.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
--- Chip Berlet <c.berlet at publiceye.org> wrote:

> Hey Mike Finucane,
>
> I agree with you, but there is a way on the English-language Wiki to
> accomplish most of what you are trying to do. The two templates together of
> "Fair Use" and "Permission Granted" offer a more limited usage.

Whatever happened to the assertion that used to be on the upload form that
user's contributing their own images were automatically releasing them under
GFDL (in the same way we do when editing text)?

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
WIN ONE OF THREE YAHOO! VESPAS - Enter now! - http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/features/competitions/vespa.html


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
On 11/28/05, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Whatever happened to the assertion that used to be on the upload form that
> user's contributing their own images were automatically releasing them under
> GFDL (in the same way we do when editing text)?

That assertion currently still stands.  The suggestion is to change it
for userpage images only.

--
Sam


body:
On 11/28/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think what you are arguing is something different to quite a lot of
> > others.  They are saying why the policy was necessary.  Your complaint
> > is actually that you weren't warned.  I don't think anyone would
> > disagree that you should have been notified before the deletions took
> > place.
>
> There were thousands of images (possibly tens of thousands) that
> qualified for speedy deletion under the new policy.  Issuing warnings
> to the uploader of each such image would have interminably delayed the
> cleanup, which was already well-overdue.  Repeated public notices were
> issued; we're sorry you missed them or did not realize they applied to
> you.
>
> Kelly

I fail to see the need to rush in this instance, though.  I think a
better policy would have been to remove the images from the articles
first, then contact the uploaders, and then delete the images in round
two.  At the most that would take twice as long, which wouldn't be so
bad, and more likely it would take less time than that.

But again, I don't see the rush to *delete* the images.  It's not like
they posed a legitimate legal threat.  Their threat was more to the
project, to the encyclopedia, and removing them from the articles (and
hey, if you really want, from the other pages too), removes that
threat.

In any case, the two images I had deleted without being warned were
tagged.  One was tagged as GFDL, the other was tagged as public domain
as I got it from the VOANews website.  I actually don't have any idea
why the second was removed.  The reason given for deletion pointed to
a diff that didn't actually exist.

In case anyone cares, the latter image was [[Image:Tv MarkFelt 1jun05
150.jpg]].  It was displayed on
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-06-01-voa30.cfm and the actual
image is at http://www.voanews.com/english/images/tv_MarkFelt_1jun05_150.jpg.
 Ironically, it has actually been replaced by [[Image:W Mark Felt
screenshot.jpg]], which is clearly *not* a public domain or free image
at all.

Anthony


body:
On 11/28/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's not eventualism that caused people to, for a very long time,
> utterly ignore the warning on the image upload page stating quite
> clearly that uploading meant placing under the GFDL and not to upload
> material you didn't have the rights to.  For a very long time, the
> image upload page implicitly disallowed fair use images, yet people
> chose to ignore that.
>
> -Matt

Becuase eventaulism ment that we didn't have to fix the problem of
people uploading such images right now. So the problem was allowed to
build up.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
That's quite fine.

But it doesn't seem right, seeing as you don't often read my e-mails.
If you did, perhaps it would make sense, but seeing as you don't, I
think such a decision should come from somebody who reads all of my
messages.

Mark

On 28/11/05, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I usually don't read the postings of Mark Williamson (only the answers
> to his) but now I accidentally saw that he has forwarded the private
> email of another wikipedian to the list. Add to this the frequent
> flame-wars and attacks on people... Watching the list degrade into
> endless fights about absurd language proposals, in my opinion it's
> enough. I switched his account to moderated now.
>
> greetings,
> elian
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
On 11/28/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Given that images used on used pages are unlikely to end up in a DVD or
> a book, I seriously doubt who would suffer copyright infringement
> attacks for images hosted on community pages.
>

However the material on userpages does get reused. Why do you think
people have the big this is a wikipedia userpage tag on thier user
pages

> It strikes me as odd, that we authorize fair use on encyclopedic content
> (which is likely to be reused and to irritate copyright holders), while
> forbidding it on personal pages (where it is unlikely to be much troubles).
>

It's to do with wether the fair use claim is legit or not. It is
harder to establish a fair use claim for images on userpages

> Overall, our license issues strike me as being more confusing and messy
> every day that goes by.
>
> /me perplex
>

Simplified version

GFDL= fine
Some versionsof CC=fine
PD=fine
Fair use= maybe fine may not be. What you are seeing is only stage 2
of sorting out the situation
Wih permission (wikipedia only)=not allowed
noncomercial lisences.=Not allowed
Copyrighted no fair use= not allowed

There are some other odds and ends but the above covers the vast
majority of cases.

--
geni


body:
Landroni, you're really mischaracterising this situation.

First of all, there are quite a few other users who support the
existance of that Wikipedia, most nostably Gabix, Russ, Vertaler,
Ronline, and I believe Iulian U.

> of Latin alphabet in schools). And all this although he is not linked
> directly what-so-ever nor to Romanians, nor to Moldovans, nor to
> Russians, and thus not in knowledge of the cause. The debate on

Despite the fact that until recently, 99% of the articles on that
Wikipedia were entirely due to my effort? (more recently, other users,
especially Russ, have stepped up the effort).

> Moldovan Wikipedia has definitely degraded into an  endless fight,
> that  has advanced till the English Wikipedia. As I was informed

No, not really. Perhaps you perceived it that way -- yes, for a while,
there were arguments going on. But they were isolated points in the
history of mo.wiki -- for the last couple of months, there hasn't been
any real argument, and it's just been slow growth.

> recently by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bonaparte, "It seems
> that user Node deletes systematic an important part of the text."

Please see the block log history of Bonaparte, and his contributions.
He is relatively new to Wikipedia and already he has caused quite a
bit of upset.

Ahh, and it's not possible for me to delete any text on that article
-- it's been locked for a few weeks now.

Mark

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: RC patrol for ~50 smallest wikipedias

body:
How would it be a big help?

Mark

On 28/11/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > I'm not sure it's nessecary. As both Angela and I have already noted
> > in this thread, there is already a group dedicated to monitoring small
> > Wikis for spam and vandalism.
>
> "Not necessary" is not a reason to not do it. It is a help. And
> personally, I think this would be a *big* help.
>
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
On 11/28/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/28/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Becuase eventaulism ment that we didn't have to fix the problem of
> > people uploading such images right now. So the problem was allowed to
> > build up.
>
> I'm not sure that's eventualism, though - it's 'laziness' as in having
> too much else to do to get round to everything.

Eventualism allows you to deal with the problem latter.

>and a lack of
> appreciation as to the scale of the problem.

I knew I assume others did

> And a process for dealing
> with them having not been established.
>

In theory WP:CP would have been the process early on. As the sitution
grew special measures became required.

> All of this was, in retrospect, a mistake.  But I'm not sure it can be
> chalked up to 'eventualism', rather than other causes.
>
> -Matt

By the same token imitatism can't be shown to have any downsides
either. The problem with eventualism is that in most cases I can show
it supports both sides of the debate.

--
geni


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
Hi all,

It's been one month since Jimbo Wales edited the Arbitration Committee
elections page for this December (now just a few days away) to change
the procedure, adding some brainstormed thoughts. Those thoughts are
still all the information we have on the procedure, and we're almost in
December.

A number of potential candidates have said they don't wish to put their
name forwards if they don't know the election procedure, yet recently a
member of the current Arbitration Committee said that all Wikipedians
wishing to become arbitrators should put their name forwards immediately.

This is really a terrible state of affairs for a number of reasons:

Firstly, we have no idea how the new Arbitration Committee is going to
become the new Arbitration Committee at all. Not even the current
arbitrators say they know how it's going to be done.

Secondly, it has been almost a year since the last elections, and there
has been plenty of community discussion about what was good and bad
about the procedure, and action has been taken on this by the community
(for example, the deletion of the endorsements/disendorsements page).

Thirdly, Jimbo has been deathly quiet. These are probably the most
important positions in the Wikipedia community and the process deserves
to be discussed openly. Yet all we've seen are some brief thoughts from
Jimbo. He hasn't responded to other suggestions or to criticism of his
thinking.

Come on Jimbo, sort it out! It's been almost a year since the last
elections, there has been plenty of discussion from the community
(including the current arbitrators) on reform of the system, but all
we've heard from you is a "current line of thinking". Yes, we know you
have other things to do, such as the incredibly important role of
getting funding. However, the encyclopaedia project relies on its
community to exist and we have to get this right. Please join in the
discussion and make your thoughts clear.

Chris


from_name: Anthere

body:
Norvy wrote:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=SablePlante.JPG
>>
>>
>>yet another image deleted
>>*without any personal warning to the uploader
>>*even though it was uploaded before the tags ever existed...
>>
>>I find that pityful. Really pityful. Really really pityful.
>
>
>
>
> To be fair, you were asked to tag them on December 16th, 2004.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere/box#Image_tagging
> Seems like plenty of warning to me.
> --
> Norvy

Yes, I taggued them all. And for these ones specifically, I chose fair
use for personal reasons. Fair use was allowed at that time. So, I
received plenty of warning and I complied and taggued them. The problem
is the policy has changed since then... and fair use is no more
acceptable. So ?

So, yes, it bugs me that for the second time, my images are deleted. The
first time, some were deleted for not having tags, which was acceptable
when I uploaded them (there were no tags then).
So, I taggued them, according to what was possible when I was asked to
tag them. They complied with the rules... and later, they do not comply
anymore, so are deleted.

So, yes, admittedly, that is bothering me a bit :-)

ant


from_name: Matt R

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
--- Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/28/05, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > Whatever happened to the assertion that used to be on the upload form that
> > users contributing their own images were automatically releasing them
> under
> > GFDL (in the same way we do when editing text)?
>
> That assertion currently still stands.  The suggestion is to change it
> for userpage images only.

It's just I can't see it on:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload

And I'm pretty sure it used to be there.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
WIN ONE OF THREE YAHOO! VESPAS - Enter now! - http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/features/competitions/vespa.html


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
Mike Finucane wrote:

> Thanks Chip;
> At last some constructive comments.  I'll bear these in mind.  The
> issue for me though isnt really protection of my work,
> its about the future of Wikipedia, and what it stands for.  To me its
> not about creating freedom for corporations, or making profits by
> selling google ads or whatever, and it certainly isnt about producing
> some printed encyclopedia.

The beauty of the GNU licenses is that they make it impossible for
corporations to exploit the material. For instance, if some company
tries to sell a book of GNU-licensed text and photos for $50,
anybody can photocopy the entire thing and sell it for $15, or give
copies away on street corners, and the company can't do a thing about
it; any attempt will invalidate their license. That's why Microsoft
treats Linux like a terrible disease, Stallman and Moglen designed
an armorclad license and even Microsoft's army of lawyers haven't
found any loopholes to exploit. Linux has been going strong as free
software for fifteen years, and GNU tools even longer, so I'd say
it's good evidence that the license prevents corporate exploitation.

Also, by saying "non-commercial only", you're excluding many
worthwhile activities, for instance a 1-person print shop that's
taken a job producing brochures for a women's shelter. Even though
the shelter might be non-profit, if the print shop is a normal company,
your non-commercial restriction prevents the shop from using your
pictures in the brochure they produce.

Stan


body:
Norvy wrote:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=SablePlante.JPG
>>
>>
>>yet another image deleted
>>*without any personal warning to the uploader
>>*even though it was uploaded before the tags ever existed...
>>
>>I find that pityful. Really pityful. Really really pityful.
>
>
>
>
> To be fair, you were asked to tag them on December 16th, 2004.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere/box#Image_tagging
> Seems like plenty of warning to me.
> --
> Norvy

see for example

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere/box#Unverified_images

it says

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:
	? 	Image:DjeDje.jpg
	? 	Image:Dune.JPG
I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add
one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you
release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you
claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let
me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for
you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]]
04:02, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)
P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks
again.

Which perfectly made it possible to claim fair use at that time.
I put a few under fair use, at that time, which was clearly allowed.
And a year later, they are speedy deleted, without warning, for lack of
compliance.
I had no reason to guess this change of policy, that makes fair use on
user page now forbidden.

Sorry, is that FAIR ?

I do not think so.
I think what would be fair is that when *policy changes*, uploaders are
individually told so.

Ant


body:
--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I do not understand well how you make the difference between
> "unlicensed" and "licensed".
> Afaik, fair use is licensed. No tag is unlicensed. No ?

"Licensed" means the copyright holder has granted permission for the image to
be used in some way. We give an argument for "fair use" when we have a
compelling need to use an image which is not licensed freely. Strictly
speaking, the {{fairuse}} tag doesn't indicate any information about the
license at all, but it strongly implies that it is non-free, otherwise we'd
have marked it as being under a free license instead.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Model Search 2005 - Find the next catwalk superstars - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hot/model-search/


references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmf5at$1e5$1@sea.gmane.org>	<bd4c411e0511280701m66ac19abt4b4c63ef8e9936be@mail.gmail.com>	<dmf6nm$79u$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280735q22e20bd1vfd4acd96bfa7066@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>This, I presume, does not apply to all the funny logos derivated from
>>various copyrighted logos, which are commonly used in most editors
>>pages, but are not used within main space, such as the mop or counter
>>vandalism ?
>
>
> We are deleting these when we find them.  The CVU logo, which you
> mention, and which uses a Wikimedia logo, was authorized by Angela on
> behalf of the Board for use on Wikipedia and is therefore not
> unlicensed.

I do not understand well how you make the difference between
"unlicensed" and "licensed".
Afaik, fair use is licensed. No tag is unlicensed. No ?

>>Another question : does that mean that an image previously used in the
>>main space but removed for whatever reason by anyone, does not qualify
>>any more to be kept ?
>
>
> We delete orphaned unlicensed images.  Orphaned freely licensed images
> are not deleted as a matter of course, although they may be deleted if
> the community elects to do so.  Another option is to move them to
> Commons.

I have the feeling that in one year or so, freely licensed orphan images
will indeed be deleted on the english wikipedia. That would be well
within what I currently observe.
I do not think people will bother moving them to commons, it is too
heavy to do. And I can perceive as well, uploaders will not be warned of
the deletion either.
So, that could means, any unwanted freely offered image will end up
being deleted. I find this pretty unfortunate.

>>Yet another question : on many user pages, editors upload a personal
>>shot of their face. Given that GFDL authorize any one to transform their
>>face in a monster or to use the personal face picture to make an
>>advertisement for a cream to fight spots or other red blotches, is that
>>authorized to put a picture of self under another licence than fair use
>>? In which case, which licenses are authorized ?
>
>
> A community discussion is underway to establish a "community use only"
> licensing class for such images.  I support the availability of such
> licensing options for media not intended for use in articles, but
> there does not seem to be consensus on this point yet.  The image on
> my personal user page is currently licensed under such a license, and
> nobody has deleted it yet.

It would be a good idea.

>>I ask the question, because many pictures of many editors are taken
>>during wikimeetups. If the pictures are labelled with a non-restricted
>>use, that should mean that anyone can use a picture of the face of a
>>wikipedian to do anything that he would like to. If the pictures are
>>labelled with a restricted use and used only in non-article space, do
>>they qualify as "speedy deletion" as my pictures did ?
>
>
> Note that I said "unlicensed media".  Media uploaded under a
> "community use license" would not be unlicensed and therefore not
> subject to deletion under our orphaning policy.  However, we have not
> yet approved the use of a "community use license".

I however worry that if each project starts having its own licence, for
contain and for community, it will soon be a real mess...

>>I am not sure I am clear here, but depending on the answers, I think I
>>will delete many of my images on the english wikipedia. Somehow, I do
>>not think we can forbid editors to delete their images, if the rules
>>change upon time; Before, fair use images were authorized. If rules
>>change, I suppose editors can change their license choice to protect
>>themselves as well ?
>
>
> Please note that our change in policy about fair use images has been
> heavily motivated by this odd fellow known as Jimmy Wales.  Jimbo's
> been pushing us for months to cut back on copyright infringement and
> unnecessarily reliance on fair use.  You may wish to discuss this
> issue with him.
>
> Kelly

Given that images used on used pages are unlikely to end up in a DVD or
a book, I seriously doubt who would suffer copyright infringement
attacks for images hosted on community pages.

It strikes me as odd, that we authorize fair use on encyclopedic content
(which is likely to be reused and to irritate copyright holders), while
forbidding it on personal pages (where it is unlikely to be much troubles).

Overall, our license issues strike me as being more confusing and messy
every day that goes by.

/me perplex


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
Mike Finucane wrote:
> I thought Wikipedia stood for this; apparently I was wrong, as also
> evidenced by reason (2):
>
> (2) "On the other hand, have you considered getting rich off ours?...
> I hear that running Google ads on well-formatted copies of Wikipedia
> can be quite lucrative." and "commercial re-use of Wikipedia isn't
> limited to certain people, you can take part too."
>
> My purchase price, I'm afraid, is a little higher than that.

Oh dear. I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't trying to buy you --
indeed, I'm not sure I'd have a use for you, and you'd take up space
around the house, and need feeding, and so forth -- but rather to point
out that if you have an issue with other people making money off
Wikipedia, you also have the same opportunity. It's a symmetrical, even,
fair deal. One you are Free to take up, or not. Nobody's forcing you.
Other people's gain is not your loss, when you are playing a
non-zero-sum game.

An encyclopedia which cannot be used commercially is necessarily a
limited encyclopedia that limits other people's Freedom; if you want to
release your content under one CC-license, and another under another,
and yet another contributor wants to release theirs under another
license of their own devising, and so on, we end up with an encyclopedia
which has to be unpicked by machine filtration driven by legal, rather
than encyclopedic, principles before it can be re-used. In any case, it
will end up being full of holes once filtration has been performed to
remove the incompatible material.

The same Freedom which allows one person to make money from GFDL content
allows me to give it away for nothing; indeed, I've spent many thousands
of hours writing for Wikipedia, and not asked for a penny for it,
because I genuinely believe in a Free encyclopedia, for everyone.

Regarding the rest of your E-mail:

* try actually reading the GFDL, which is the linchpin of the entire project
* particularly the bits about transparent copies and derivative works

then keep on re-reading and re-reading it until the penny drops.

It's quite a lengthy document, and I think you'll find that Richard
Stallman (no capitalist tycoon he, and a great friend of freedom with a
capital F) has been quite thorough in anticipating the possible nasty
things that people might try to do, by carefully only allowing them to
do things with GFDL content which do not limit the Freedom of others.

-- Neil


body:
On 11/28/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It's been one month since Jimbo Wales edited the Arbitration Committee
> elections page for this December (now just a few days away) to change
> the procedure, adding some brainstormed thoughts. Those thoughts are
> still all the information we have on the procedure, and we're almost in
> December.
>
> A number of potential candidates have said they don't wish to put their
> name forwards if they don't know the election procedure, yet recently a
> member of the current Arbitration Committee said that all Wikipedians
> wishing to become arbitrators should put their name forwards immediately.
>
> This is really a terrible state of affairs for a number of reasons:
>
> Firstly, we have no idea how the new Arbitration Committee is going to
> become the new Arbitration Committee at all. Not even the current
> arbitrators say they know how it's going to be done.
>
> Secondly, it has been almost a year since the last elections, and there
> has been plenty of community discussion about what was good and bad
> about the procedure, and action has been taken on this by the community
> (for example, the deletion of the endorsements/disendorsements page).
>
> Thirdly, Jimbo has been deathly quiet. These are probably the most
> important positions in the Wikipedia community and the process deserves
> to be discussed openly. Yet all we've seen are some brief thoughts from
> Jimbo. He hasn't responded to other suggestions or to criticism of his
> thinking.
>
> Come on Jimbo, sort it out! It's been almost a year since the last
> elections, there has been plenty of discussion from the community
> (including the current arbitrators) on reform of the system, but all
> we've heard from you is a "current line of thinking". Yes, we know you
> have other things to do, such as the incredibly important role of
> getting funding. However, the encyclopaedia project relies on its
> community to exist and we have to get this right. Please join in the
> discussion and make your thoughts clear.
>
> Chris

Hmm technicaly the above could be summerised as "Jimbo Wales is
dissrupting the opertation of wikipedia".

Other than the need for a friendly developer is there a reason why we
could not in theory ignore jimbo and elect arbcom whatever?

--
geni


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 11/28/05, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 20 000 images tagged as having no source information
> 5 000 images tagged as having no copyright information
> 8 000 images tagged as being "fair use", but unused in any article
>
And how many were by unique individuals?  It's not like someone can't
be notified about more than one image at the same time.

> If the administrator places a warning on the uploader's talk page, in
> addition to removing the image from articles where it's used, and
> waits a week to give the uploader a chance to respond, it takes over
> two minutes to delete an image.  This represents the additional time
> needed to check for responses on the user's talk page, check for
> responses on the talk page of the admin informing the user, and check
> for responses on the image description page and image talk page -- and
> 99% of the time, it's wasted effort, as the uploader has forgotten
> about Wikipedia entirely.  Total effort involved in cleaning up the
> problem images: 1100 man-hours.
>
So if 25 people spend 1 hour a week it'll take...less than a year.
The problem with this would be?

Even if it's wasted effort 99% of the time (and I think this is a
gross exaggeration), what about at least notifying users who *are*
active, like, say, someone who currently serves on the board of the
foundation?

> It's not as if efforts to notify people haven't been undertaken.  The
> policy change was announced on the WikiEn-L mailing list, on the
> administrators' noticeboard, on several Village Pump subpages, in the
> Signpost, and for several weeks everyone's watchlist had a note on the
> top informing them of the change.  The only thing that hasn't been
> done was individual notification on the talk pages of uploaders, and
> that's because there are almost 35000 problem images.
>
> --
> [[User:Carnildo]]

It's a big problem.  I don't see that as an excuse to not do things right.

Anthony


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
On 11/28/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> en: could probably be reduced to a single DVD without *too* much
> trouble

Not unless you remove almost all the images and compress the text. If
the article text is compressed, some small fraction of the images
(also reducing their size) can be included.

Alfio


from_name: Andrew Gray

references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org> <dmf5at$1e5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280701m66ac19abt4b4c63ef8e9936be@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmf6nm$79u$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511280735q22e20bd1vfd4acd96bfa7066@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmfh0f$eho$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<bd4c411e0511281107k1b91fb0s4bf4392c05192070@mail.gmail.com>
	<dmfm9v$1e9$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 28/11/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>I have the feeling that in one year or so, freely licensed orphan images
> >>will indeed be deleted on the english wikipedia. That would be well
> >>within what I currently observe.
> >
> > I see no reason to share your pessimism.
>
> it is a deal :-)
> I keep this in memory to see what the future will offer us :-)

If single-login-across-projects is working by then, I strongly suspect
we *will* see deletion of orphaned free images on en.wikipedia -
because they'll be being shifted over to Commons...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
On 11/28/05, Mike Finucane <mike_finucane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thanks Chip;
> At last some constructive comments.  I'll bear these in mind.  The
> issue for me though isnt really protection of my work,
> its about the future of Wikipedia, and what it stands for.  To me its
> not about creating freedom for corporations, or making profits by
> selling google ads or whatever, and it certainly isnt about producing
> some printed encyclopedia.
>
You should probably reconsider after realizing that Wikipedia was
created by a corporation, I believe one which made most of its money
off ads, in fact.

> To me the venture seemed to be about creating a location where private
> citizens could create a resource, instead of the commercial model of
> exploiting a resource.  Reseeding the forest as it were, in a world
> where every word is copyrighted, every click of a mouse (thanks amazon)
> has a patent.  Where McDonalds sues Mr MacDonald who runs a fish and
> chip van in glasgow, and dares to put his name on the top.
>
> By creating free images, and free text, I saw a way to break the grip
> of corporatocracy on the culture of our civilization; where indigenous
> knowledge is patented along with the plants they use.
>
Again, considering that the originator of Wikipedia *was* and *is* a
for-profit corporation, that clearly wasn't the purpose for which
Wikipedia was created.  Wikipedia was created to be a free
encyclopedia.  Period.  It wasn't created to tear down corporatocracy
or anything like that.

> But there seems to be a strong belief among the wikiers that freedom
> isnt really freedom unless Bill Gates is allowed to take a cut.
>
Well, yeah.  Besides Bill Gates not being a corporation (let's pretend
you said Microsoft), this is pretty much the definition of freedom on
which Wikipedia was based.  I mean, the FSF created the GFDL which is
what the encyclopedia is released under, and if you read the documents
of the FSF it'll be clear that a work with license restrictions which
only allow non-commercial use is not a free work, it is a semi-free
work.

> There isnt really any point in me putting up copyright images, unless
> they are free for all non-profit uses, "the copyright holder has
> granted permission for this image to be used in Wikipedia. This
> permission does not extend to third parties."
>
> And as long as corporations like about.com are allowed to continue
> making profits, I still see a threat in this to the very idea of
> Wikipedia.
> I know its all hunky-dory now, with About.com subsidizing Wiki; but not
> all sharks will be as friendly.  I see Google, for example, as the
> ten-billion dollar Gorilla hiding in the wings.  As a biophysicist,
> aware of how things work generally, I have a nasty hunch that this
> dream will end up like so many before it.  As long as predators sniff a
> free lunch, there's a threat.
>
> I see ways around this; by Wikipediers themselves distributing disks,
> or by themselves setting up a foundation to market copies, all profits
> going back to Wikipedia.  By installing filters that different users
> are allowed to see different versions (commercial users are allowed
> only to use a weaker version, where some articles/photos are nc and not
> available to them.  This means that Wiki remains the prime source.
>
> But if one day Wikipedia stabilizes into the final form some dream of
> (thankfully mythical in my opinion, as knowledge is never static); then
> on that day, or as reasonably practical, then someone like Google can
> step in, double the content, and create a proprietary front end, or
> something else.  The content will remain technically free, but
> effectively users will migrate to the new platform, and Wiki will fade
> away as just another experiment.
>
> I need a place where I can provide my stuff somewhere where its
> available to everyone for free, but commercial companies have to pay to
> license its use.  This money could go to support the project, or to
> save the rain forest, I dont care.  But it removes the blood from the
> water, and sends the sharks elsewhere.
>
> I have seen how copyright law works in the modern world; and it usually
> doesnt favor civilization.  Corporations rule the lawmakers.
> I hope I'm proved wrong; sincerely.  But my instinct tells me that
> where there's a profit motive for corporations, another resource will
> end up destroyed.
>
> Where are CU-SeeMe? Netscape? Java? Fetch?

What is your point about CU-SeeMe, Netscape, Java, and Fetch?  One is
a language, the other three are proprietary products that have always
been proprietary (I think, CU-SeeMe might actually be free).  Maybe
that's your point though.  I can't figure out what it is.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

body:
On 11/28/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> You should probably reconsider after realizing that Wikipedia was
> created by a corporation, I believe one which made most of its money
> off ads, in fact.
>
"Bomis is a dot-com company founded in 1996. Its primary businesses
are the sale of advertising on the Bomis.com search portal, and the
sale of erotic images over the Internet (see also Internet
pornography)."

Yep, ads and porn are why Wikipedia exists today.  Throws a wrench in
that whole "corporations can do nothing but evil" theory.


from_name: Gerrit Holl

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:
> Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
> >I usually don't read the postings of Mark Williamson (only the answers
> >to his) but now I accidentally saw that he has forwarded the private
> >email of another wikipedian to the list. Add to this the frequent
> >flame-wars and attacks on people... Watching the list degrade into
> >endless fights about absurd language proposals, in my opinion it's
> >enough. I switched his account to moderated now.
>
> Dances :) and cheers .......

I think this is not a very constructive reaction either.

regards,
Gerrit, who disagrees with the moderation decision.

--
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--
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