from_name: bawolff

subject: [Commons-l] Wikinews (en) and commons (RE: pfctdayelise's post)

body:
>* Continue to develop quality review mechanisms, and highlight
>high-quality work.
>The development of [[Commons:Quality Images]] is a great one I think,
>and I hope mechanisms like this continue to grow. [[Commons:Picture of
>the Year]] is also proving very successful which is fantastic.
>One area we are possibly lacking in is in pushing our high quality
>stuff back out to wikis. It is easy to miss this small %age which is
>our best of the best. We can promote this stuff by perhaps organising
>more translations, organising a weekly/monthly newsletter out to wikis
>that lists these images and suggests possible uses, ...? how else?

you are aware that some projects (french wikipedia to name one) use
The commons featured pictures as their featured pictures. Maybe you
should try to encourage more to.

>* Reach out to local Wikimedia wikis and actively promote "Commons
>only" upload policies.
>Switching to Commons only has massive benefits for both the local wiki
>(hugely reduced maintenance burden) and us (new contributions). But we
>all know now that preparation is required to make the transition a
>success. WE need language-speaking active admins; THEY need to promote
>Commons policy beforehand and attempt to educate their users as much
>as possible before the switch.
>I suggest we create a guide [[Commons:Turning off local uploads]] (or
>choose another name) to smooth the path for wikis who want to go down
>this road. We can offer tips from the ES.wp and PT.wp cases (is there
>another?? I have a feeling there was but I can't remember it, maybe
>SV.wb?).
>Maybe one of the steps will be a small group (even one?) of volunteers
>from the local wiki making contact with a small group of volunteers
>from Commons, and both groups committing to work together to move to
>Commons only uploads (community approval pending, of course). For
>example the Commons person can look for existing language speakers and
>encourage them to become admins or translate, and identify key pages
>for translating.
>I suggest we also start finding out more about the new-wiki creation
>process, and get involved with groups there, to encourage groups to
>consider starting their wiki with "Commons only" uploads from the very
>start.
>Also, it should be a much easier task to convert non-Wikipedia
>projects, where there is already a large number of that language
>admins. For example: EN, DE, ES, FR, NL?, PL. Wikinews, Wiktionary,
>Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikiversity. Some thirty-odd
>projects there that we already have the capacity to deal with, were
>they to turn off local uploads.

[note the following starts at the beginning of wikinews history. some
of it does not represent current opinions]
This is the main reason I'm writing. The English Wikinews (IMHO) is
drifting in the opposite direction of those goals. I don't know how
many people remember this, but originally, we were started with local
uploads turned off.  General opinion was fairly strong for commons at
the start (I believe, I'm getting this from archived pages so i might
misinterpret). On the original proposal page, Angela said, "I strongly
suggest that image uploads are turned off on the Wikinews site to
encourage use of the Commons, which is an excellent place for the
resources that Wikinews will use."
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikinews&oldid=482574#Image_uploads
However We did turn on image uploads for fair use and some restricted
images eventually. (Which is a good thing IMO for fair use and the
likes, as long as we keep away from free stuff (which we didn't))
Everything is happy, but then some images at commons start to go
missing or be substantially edited. Wikinews is not like other
wikimedia projects in we like to make our content and lock it away. No
one cares about what happened two years ago, so the article should
stay fixed. so when Images start to go away it annoyed people.
Anyways, some people got mad at Commons (
http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews_talk:Image_use_policy&oldid=260116
) and we started to upload "free" media to wikinews. Eventually people
got really mad up to the point (
http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Bots&oldid=339247 )
where we tried to get a bot to more or less cut commons out of the
loop. Although the vote technically passed (about 5-1), but Eloquence
managed to convince us otherwise so it never happened. Anyways after
that, most images got uploaded to wikinews locally. Slowly opinion of
commons got better.

Today there is not really any active anti-commons feelings. Mostly
because commons has became a lot nicer. (pfctdayelise especially
helped get commons in people's good books again imho). People no
longer delete stuff whilly nilly, and if they do, they can always
undelete. However there's still not a great deal of pro-commons
feelings. When I first came to wikinews, the general opinion was, "if
its free, you better be sure to upload to commons". Now a days its,
"if you want to you can, but don't go out of your way".

I should probably start uploading our free images to commons (Most of
them are well categorized and sourced), but its not exactly at the top
of my priority list (My current priority is to bug the crap out of
people who didn't source their (locally uploaded) images)

Also it currently doesn't help that we don't have a commons ticker on
wikinews. It was disabled because the page got  too long, and updates
kept failing, which is my fault because i didn't archive it enough,
mostly because I didn't get through it all.  However it was still very
useful (or even the deleted template [[commons:template:Used On
Wikinews]] would be quite useful in combination of related changes.

Another thing that might be of help, is to have a special upload page
for wikinews. (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/special:upload?uselang=wikinews )
There are some things for wikinews that don't apply elsewhere, and
it'd be good to have a custom page.

>* Continue to push local projects to adopt CommonsTickers.
>Related to several points above. Vital tool for inter-project harmony!
...sure (:

>* Introduce user recognition system.
>We are all volunteers, but there's no reason we can't develop an award
system that aims to recognise the time-intensive effort and/or
outstandingly high-quality contributions that longterm users have
made. The benefits of such a system are two-fold: they give the
contributors in question tangible, public and formal recognition of
their efforts, which thanks and encourages them; and it offers
concrete examples to other users of what kind of conduct is
appreciated and needed.
I have started writing about this on my user page, but I have some
more ideas in my head, that I hope the community will welcome when I
finally write them down. :)

Maybe take some inspiration from
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Contributing_Reporter_Awards

Here are some things that I hope Commons can achieve over the next 3-5 years.

* Some degree of press recognition and fame :)

Help if google images saw you. I see more images that are local
uploads to wikinews come on Google images then stuff from commons.

--bawolff


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] "About Wikipedia" in navigation sidebar

body:
On 2/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, there is the "more and more crap" problem ... what would people
> suggest removing, if anything?
>
> (There is a plan somewhere on the Village Pump to reorganise the
> sidebar completely.)

Well here's my 2 cents:

Main page: scrap it, it's redundant. That's what clicking on the ball does.
Community portal: Worst name ever
Featured content: Keep, but possibly rename
Current events: Weird, never even noticed this before. Do people
actually click it?
Recent changes: Scrap it. Good for tiny wikis. Useless at WP. Move to
toolbox if it must be kept.
About Wikipedia: Good addition.
Contact us: Keep
Make a donation: Keep
Help: Something tells me people look for help in the top right hand
corner. But keep.

In the toolbox:
What links here: Keep, very useful
Related changes: Somewhat useful
Upload file: Scrap it. Nuke from space. Haven't we been saying this for years?
Special pages: Keep, very useful (but consider renaming)
Printable version: Keep, but perhaps this would work better as a tab
(like discussion, edit this page etc - it's a different view of the
same page, right?)
Permanent link: Yeah, I guess. Never used it. But for a newbie...

Steve


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] A "Wikipedia-Free Zone"

body:
Comic book artist and web forum owner John Byrne has declared his
forum to be a "Wikipedia-Free Zone" and banned all links to Wikipedia
regardless of content or context:

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16456&PN=1&totP
osts=105

It seems his grievance against Wikipedia is that he was unable to
bully it into suppressing all mention of controversies and criticisms
of him in his article, and rebuffed his Daniel-Brandt-ish demand that
the John Byrne article be either deleted or permanently locked.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Making a home wiki field in user login

body:
Flo said:
>My additional wish would be a way to contact one time contributers. There
>are several ways to achieve this:
>* Creating a field "home wiki" on the resistration form.
...

How hard could that be? Create a field in the log in page saying ''I
ussually contribute to project x'', preferably this could be done
semi-automatically via referrer headers or wikipedia linking with a
url like http://common.wikimedia.org/wiki/special:userlogin?from=en.wikipedia
. The thing gets automatically filled out, and the user can change it
if he wants. Then when he creates an account, his user page has a
template on it automatically that says, "so and so is usually at foo,
leave a message both here and there". Then if orphanbot [or whatever
you call your bots that send messages] comes a long, sees it, and
leaves a message at both commons and the local wiki.

--bawolff


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Clearing up Wikimedia's media licensing policies

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>2007/2/9, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com>:
>
>
>>On 09/02/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>(I am unsure what that translated to in practice - I'm trying to dig
>>>up the reports, but suspect it was something along the lines of "you
>>>can only sue for the first couple of months of infringing use")
>>>
>>>
>>Aha, found it. Reported in the Times, Dec.02 1996:
>>
>>"The owner of copyright in films who was aware that one of its
>>licensees had plans to broadcast the films outside the area specified
>>in the licence agreement and had subsequently done so, but did not
>>complain or take any other action to stop them, had acquiesced and was
>>therefore not entitled to claim an infringement of copyright."
>>
>>
>I do not have the actual judgement, but it seems to me from this quote that
>the effect of the acquiescence was not equivalent to the material being in
>the public domain. Only the given copyright infringement ceased to be
>enforceable. If someone else took the same films, or even if the licensee
>were to use them in a way covered neither by his original license nor by the
>acquiesced-to announcement, normal copyright protection would again prevail.
>For the OrphanWiki this would mean that if one could make a sufficiently
>strong case that the work's owner had known about te copyright infringement
>for a certain amount of time without trying to take action, it could
>afterward remain on the OrphanWiki, but there is no reason to assume that
>copyright protection would be diminished or removed beyond that.
>
Thanks for the comments.  I couldn't find the case that I was thinking
of involving Scientology.  Since I am proposing that works would remain
in OrphanWiki for at least three years unless a real owner shows up we
would have plenty of time to sort out what to do after that period.

I would in fact be delighted if the owner showed up.  In reality
anything included in the project would be there because we don't expect
anybody to show up.  The legal rights may belong to one or more people
who haven't got a clue that they have them.

Such a project may tread on legally uncertain ground.  Strict criteria
would be needed for determining what would be included.  Most important
wuld be the research that the proposer(s) has made to track down the
rights owner.  This metadata would also be a part of the wiki so that
anyone can help with the research.  That way the research becomes part
of the record, even if we decide that the material itself does not meet
our standards for inclusion.  This could be useful for those operating a
different and unrelated project to ours who want to make a decision
about the risk of including the material on their own site.

If the OrphanWiki site becomes popular enough the site could become a
standard place to stop in attempts to track down rights owners.  Perhaps
too we could get it to the point that iincluding material or metadata in
OrphanWiki would defeat any claim that the owner didn't know about the
rights.

The mission of making materials free is bigger than just repeating
material that we know to be free.  We want free outputs.  The freeness
of inputs or intermediate processes is far less important.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> How does the Community define a "quality admin"?

Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article
space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed
anyone off. Ever.

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-02-10

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r19856).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

   1 previously passing test(s) now FAILING! :(
      * <references> after <gallery> (bug 6164)  [Introduced between 09-Feb-2007 08:15:26, 1.10alpha (r19840) and 10-Feb-2007 08:15:30, 1.10alpha (r19856)]

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 492 of 511 tests (96.28%)... 19 tests failed!


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, in your last point you're wrong. I'm one of those "paper admins"
> that you seem to hate so much.
>

How does the whitelist work?

> As far as "hitting users who stay just below the level of blocking with
> 1 second blocks", it sounds to me like "gaming the system".

I would regard it as protecting the system from itself. Legal fictions
have a long and sometime honorable history.

> What is your *real* objection to this suggestion, Geni? You seem to
> simultaneously complaining about any added work, and bashing good faith
> suggestions for improving the situation.
>
> -Rich

Good faith does not mean correct. My experience is that most people
most of the time act in good faith. Left to themselves humans tend to
do so. No I am not claiming the idea was made in anything other than
good faith. It could be argued that the first sentence of that
paragraph assumed bad faith but perhaps it is better read as a request
for clarification.

But I do claim it was flawed. Lets look at the benefits yes? Maybe 10
active admins. Maybe.

Downsides:

100 admins who don't really know policy. Sure we have a load that
applies to at the moment but at least in their case we know they once
did.

100 admins I can't trust (that is what probation means). Sure there
are a handful I can't trust right now (whoever is behind wikitruth)
but that is a problem I would rather not see grow.

Greater ease for someone with an agenda to get admin powers.
Astroturfers, Scientologists, probably various political agents

Greater ease for trolls perhaps whoever it was who was hitting the
main page a while back.

I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
will be picked up.

The risks outweigh the benefits.

--
geni


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Semi-protection: require edit count?

body:
On 10/02/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Since we now have a field to keep an edit count, it should be
> reasonably easy to say that semi-protection also requires a minimum
> of, say, 20 edits. Still not a protection against gaming, but better
> than no check, I think. Thoughts?

Done, I think - the autoconfirmed group membership can depend on edit
count, too, and semi-protection is just protection of pages against
non-autoconfirmed users.

Rob Church


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 10/02/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
> are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
> of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
> will be picked up.

I must say I hadn't heard of that one. Do you have any pointers to
somewhere I can read up on this?

I still aspire to an English Wikipedia where any editor can become
admin unless unsuitable - rather than the present utterly broken RFA
process. Meh!

- d.


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] Your comments on wikien-l regarding adminship

body:
In message <C1F24F19.16BF%michaeldavid86 at comcast.net>, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86-Wuw85uim5zDR7s880joybQ at public.gmane.org> writes
>on 2/9/07 3:49 PM, Gary Kirk at
>gary.kirk-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org wrote:
>
>> Wikipedia is not a democracy.
>
>What is it then?

It's an encyclopaedia. Everything else is purely coincidental.

--
Arwel Parry


from_name: Gurch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
geni wrote:
> I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
> are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
> of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
> will be picked up.
>

This is indeed true, and no text generation system or bot is necessary.
150 small, useful, constructive edits, done manually, should take about
half an hour, on a slow day.

-Gurch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/10/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/02/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
> > are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
> > of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
> > will be picked up.
>
>
> I must say I hadn't heard of that one. Do you have any pointers to
> somewhere I can read up on this?
>

markov text generator

The tactics tends to be regarded as black hat so a lot of stuff isn't
public and at present direct scraping wikipedia and the like is more
popular

> I still aspire to an English Wikipedia where any editor can become
> admin unless unsuitable - rather than the present utterly broken RFA
> process. Meh!
>

That will first require a more effective way of neutraliseing problem admins.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/10/07, Gurch <matthew.britton at btinternet.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
> > are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
> > of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
> > will be picked up.
> >
>
> This is indeed true, and no text generation system or bot is necessary.
> 150 small, useful, constructive edits, done manually, should take about
> half an hour, on a slow day.
>
> -Gurch
>

You will want to run a lot more than one account though and it adds up.

--
geni


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Since we now have a field to keep an edit count, it should be
reasonably easy to say that semi-protection also requires a minimum
of, say, 20 edits. Still not a protection against gaming, but better
than no check, I think. Thoughts?

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 10/02/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/10/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I still aspire to an English Wikipedia where any editor can become
> > admin unless unsuitable - rather than the present utterly broken RFA
> > process. Meh!

> That will first require a more effective way of neutraliseing problem admins.

Oh, I dunno. (I don't think I'm revealing anything I shouldn't about
AC discussions by saying that) The AC is quite aware of problematic
admin behaviour and, while extending admins a *lot* of trust and
slack, will deadmin people at the end of a case or (if needed) at the
drop of a hat for the good of the project. The AC doesn't scale, but
us old burnouts are telling the n00bs to do a set number of hours a
week on mucking out the arbitration pits AND NO MORE.

- d.


body:
On 10/02/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/10/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> > People who get adminship should display knowledge of the rules. If any
> > newbie got those powers, this would be anarchapedia.

> Many newbie admins readily admit they don't understand policy or how
> to perform most of their duties. They start slowly, and watch other
> admins for guidance. How is this harmful?

I'm a big fan of enculturation for admins - I've seen it turn admins I
was somewhat concerned about into very good admins.

I need to proceduralise getting new admins onto #wikipedia-en-admins.
Get 'em used to sanity-checking and peer review.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/10/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Geni,
>
> You're welcome to your opinions, and I appreciate your more thought-out
> response. However, I do believe that you're missing the largest benefit
> of the proposal: the de-politicizing of RfA. The de-emphasizing of the
> status of being an admin. Perhaps you don't see these a benefits.
>

I see that after the resulting mess people will be more uptight than
ever about who they let get hold of the admin bit.

> It seems to me that one hazard for an admin who if heavily involved is a
> sort of "messiah complex" -- the belief that without them (or in this
> case, others like them) the project will fail.
>

Such admins are normally within a couple of a weeks of burnout.
Generally they drop off before they become a problem.

> As others have pointed out, Wikipedia is built on a premise that open
> editing can produce a quality encyclopedia. This is a premise that many
> (most?) traditional encyclopedia editors can't believe will work,
> because they passionately believe that without people like them, it
> cannot possibly work.

Admins are a pragmatic response to finding that the pure editing
approach doesn't quite work.

Unfortunately we then hit a "if all you have is a hammer everything
looks like a nail problem". It has become to tempting to try and solve
problems by increasing admin powers or throwing admins at the problem.
Often it appears to work but far to often admins are little more than
a sticking plaster.

> So I ask you to think carefully about your own motives and beliefs about
> admins on Wikipedia. No one else knows what those are.

I think admins useful furthering the objective of finish what my
ancestors started and conquering the world in the name of the Crown.
No you don't know my motives are and I don't know yours (I think it is
a fairly safe assumption that you want to improve wikipedia) but that
has little relevance to the truth or otherwise of my arguments

> It's very possible that my proposed experiment has real problems and is
> unworkable. But, may I suggest that you offer alternate suggestions for
> improvements, instead of just criticizing those of others?

I always tended towards Karl Popper's philosophy but no matter. I
think we need to find a better way of dealing with problem admins and
stop trying to use admins as a sticking plaster for problems that are
better dealt with through other means.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Subject: Re: Project as namespace

body:
On 2/9/07, Christof Sperl <christof.sperl at gmail.com> wrote:
> As the old saying goes, "never touch a running system" :D

A bit off topic, but...
There must be a contrary saying somewhere. My day job currently
involves undoing the progressive harm caused by generations of
programmers refusing to touch a running system, instead preferring to
add layer upon layer of workaround. If only they'd had the guts to
actually rewrite the system each time rather than ph33ring it, we
would have ended up with one single program of 200 lines of code,
rather than 5 programs in 5 different languages each of 200 lines of
code.

Steve


from_name: Luna

references:
<bd4c411e0702090937y3482dadcm2a9d0f99b70eefd3@mail.gmail.com>
	<eqiicb$7rs$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<a4359dff0702091319s5494dd52yebf530b1ce2fc9c3@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 2/9/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> The system we use for editing pages (the one you think should be
> extended to admin powers) results in an enormous amount of vandalism,
> which takes a lot of effort to clean up.
>

Exactly. It's bad enough when vandals make giant penises float over the main
page. I'd rather not have random vandals blocking /16s, unprotecting [[Main
Page]] (or even deleting it), and creating other public relations nightmares
-- just imagine the media field day. Wikipedia is already an amazingly open
site, in just about every sense -- some people already say we're *too* open,
and while I don't think I'd go that far, I'm not eager to give too many
people access to tools which have the capacity to do a great deal of harm,
when used inappropriately.

When I consider adminship, I don't think of it as a big deal. It's a useful
tool. Admins aren't the heart and soul of the wiki, by any means -- we are
involved in its upkeep, yes, but I know every minute of vandal patrolling I
do would be flat-out *useless* if not for the countless hours spent by our
fantastic writers.

I think I just need evidence that somebody:
(a) is reasonably aware of policy and practice,
(b) is reasonably dedicated to the well-being and ideals of the project, and
(c) is reasonable, period.

How we determine those three points, I figure is up to some interpretation.

Just my take on it,
-Luna


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/10/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Geni,
>
> What do you see as the current issues in dealing with problem admins? Is
> it that it's necessary to go through a lengthy ArbCom process? Do you
> have any thoughts on how to improve?
>
> -Rich
>

The problem is who do admins answer to on a day to day basis? And I
mean de facto because de jure tends not to be very relevant in day to
day matters.

Now editors answer to each other and admins. Do something silly and
people will let you know.

Admins who do admins answer to. It is a long time since admins in any
meaningful sense answered to the community in any meaningful sense and
since any formal mechanism for doing so has serious bugs (think RFA on
steroids) at this present time that appears broken beyond repair. What
about other admins then? Problem is that going up against a fellow
admin is risky it gets political fast and people cease to be
objective. Nether the less I think if there is hope of making admins
more accountable it is to find a way to make them answer to their
fellow admins.
--
geni


subject:
[WikiEN-l] expunging copyright violations (Was: Re: Admin
	burnout)

body:
John Vandenberg wrote:
> On 2/10/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> I expect that this would require an "Request for Expunction" process,
> which amounts to more bureaucracy, but if its creation allows for more
> admins, the net effect is fewer backlogs.
>
> Is something like this possible with the current MediaWiki and dump
> creation software?
>
> --
> John

This is pretty much just
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight, is it not?

-Gurch


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] expunging copyright violations (Was: Re:
	Adminburnout)

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Gurch [mailto:matthew.britton at btinternet.com]
>Sent: Friday, February 9, 2007 07:47 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] expunging copyright violations (Was: Re: Admin	burnout)
>
>John Vandenberg wrote:
>> On 2/10/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> I expect that this would require an "Request for Expunction" process,
>> which amounts to more bureaucracy, but if its creation allows for more
>> admins, the net effect is fewer backlogs.
>>
>> Is something like this possible with the current MediaWiki and dump
>> creation software?
>>
>> --
>> John
>
>This is pretty much just
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight, is it not?
>
>-Gurch

The mission of Oversight would need to be expanded to deal with copyright violations. Right now it covers only posting of sensitive personal information. Currently copyright violations are simply replaced, usually not even deleted. Oversight hides even from administrators. Would that be necessary or appropriate?

Fred


body:
On 2/10/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> The cynical side of my says that is more to do with people wanting job
> security. Mind you I have the same view about much of copyright law.

Eh, no. If you want job security you redesign everything you can get
your paws on, so you're the only one who understands how everything
works. Leaving things alone makes you replaceable.

Steve


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 2/9/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> A friend of mine recently redesigned a well-known website and got rid of
> the textual home page link. In the user testing here in the San
> Francisco area, it worked fine. When the site launched, it was their
> number one usability problem, because many people don't know that a site
> logo is a magic home link.

Same thing happened on Flickr's redesign; they ended up putting a
'Home' link back in their top-bar, even though the logo worked to get
back to the site's top page.

Seasoned web users know this convention; newbies don't.

-Matt


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] Fwd: Share-Alike with images

body:
On 2/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm... I wouldn't consider some writing illustrated with an image of
> mine to be a deriviative work of my image. I agree with Rob who said
> "The combination is collective/aggregate, not derivative." That would
> mean some articles on Wikipedia are CC-BY-SA as well as GFDL, and no
> one's ever suggested that...
> If CC's "SA" were to acquire this meaning, we'd have to disallow it
> for all Wikimedia projects that are GFDL, wouldn't we?

Then why would you use a copyleft license at all for a completed image?

It is important that copyleft licenses are sufficiently strong.
A weak copyleft license may not due the world much good: We accept the
slight extra burden of copyleft because it expands the pool of Free
Content by requiring an equitable trade when someone creates a new and
enhanced work using a copylefted work.   A copyleft that allows you to
enhance a proprietary work with a free once doesn't achieve that goal:
It is probably not a good bargain.

Even if we ignore the (lacking) wisdom of creating 'weak' copyleft
licenses it still would require a fairly new and styled interpretation
of copyleft to say that the combination of an image and an associated
text into a semantically coherent whole is not a derivative. Copyleft
licenses are not sometimes called 'viral' completely without cause
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft#Is_copyleft_.22viral.22.3F  ,
although viral is something of a mischaracterization: Copyleft only
infects the willing).

That the Creative Commons would allow the CC-By-SA to become a weak
copyleft indeed (through later versions or just their interpretations
of the text) will be a total shock to some,  and a complete non-shock
to others.

> Rob also said "People just don't expect to see their BY-SA photographs
> "linked" to proprietary articles..." well I would be happy to! I guess
> "proprietary" works are not exactly equivalent to "commercial" works,
> but they are pretty close. I always push this point to other users,
> that using CC-BY-SA means accepting your work might turn up in
> commercial works...if you accept that, it's not a big shock to get to
> proprietary works.

Egads!

A proprietary work is an entirely separate beast than a commercial work.

With a proprietary work, the distributor denies you and everyone else
substantial and important freedoms with how you use the work.

With a commercial work, the distributor only gives the work to people
whom compensate him for his labors.

These concepts are completely orthogonal.

> I think of derivative works of images as crops
> image adjustments such as colour balance
> montages
> conversions to other formats (eg SVG)
> ... that's about it.

Save the last, these are all trivial modifications which could easily
be performed again against the original free work. They would most
likely not pass the threshold of creativity required to earn their own
copyright in any case.   The value of making sure these derivatives
are as free as the original is of very limited value to the overall
pool of free works

(Although .. a montage is a derivative, but an article written around
an illustration would not be?  This seems inconsistent to me).


body:
On 2/10/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
[snip]
> We've always held that GFDL combined with other pictures and media are
> "mere aggregations", so it may be in our interest not to advocate a
> strict interpretation of existing licenses. But it doesn't seem at all
> unreasonable to me to desire stronger copyleft protection for works
> which are, in their nature, unlikely to be significantly modified
> directly.

To be fair, ... we've held that in part because we have depended on
it, and because at one time we didn't understand the importance of
non-textual illustration as we do today... Not necessarily so much
because it made sense or because was good policy.  Certainly there are
cases where it really is mere aggregation, but by no means are all.
In some cases, that the result is a derivative is beneficial under US
law at least.

For a long time, enwiki required that all free images uploaded be at
least dual licensed with the GFDL, but this requirement was
accidentally lost in upload page refactorings more times than I can
count... eventually people gave up because figuring out which images
were and were not submitted with that requirement became impossible
and the lack of a similar requirement on commons made the matter moot.
 Had I known then what I know now, I would have fought for different
requirements.  Live and learn.

There have been plenty of cases where I created images while working
with a Wikipedia article and enhanced the text of a Wikipedia article
around an illustration. The end result being neither the image nor the
article could have existed in its final state without the other. This
would probably meet the most stringent criteria for a derivative which
you could invent. While only minority of our cases are that clear cut,
there are many more which could easily be classified as derivative
under any one of many sensible definitions such as your semantic
relation criteria.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: David Goodman

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair use"
	decision

body:
This discussion has forgotten about one of the traditional media that
work very well with computer based systems: drawing. A public figure
can try to prevent himself from being photographed except under terms
he dictates, but he can not (at least in the US) prevent  an artist
from drawing or painting him based on whatever images are available,
in any way the artist may please, fair or unfair, characteristic or
satyrical, and publishing it as desired--as long as it is not an
actual reproduction of the original.

Similarly for technical subjects. If i should see an object, I can
draw it from memory. If it should be described to me, I can draw it
based on the description. I can't use it to pass off a copy as the
original, but otherwise the image is my own property , and if i should
want to put it into the public domain, the subject or owner has no
recourse. Among the publications making effective use of this
technique is the New Yorker. Many nonfiction books are therefore
illustrated by drawings, and so can parts of WP.

This does not hold for every possible circumstance--there remains a
right of private figures  to privacy. In Europe, there are I believe
some further restrictions. Governments can seek to prohibit verbal or
visual descriptions of whatever they may choose. There is obscenity in
drawing as well as in photographs--as cartoons make obvious.

But there is a very wide range here, at WP so far makes use of very
little of it.-DGG

On 2/9/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/02/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Brad Patrick wrote:
> > > Be creative.  Celebrities are people too, and they love Wikipedia.  Have you
> > > tried asking them for a free image?
> > >
> >
> > Right. It's very possible that, with the continuing growth of Wikipedia,
> >   any up-and-coming celebrity would be eager to have a free image shown.
> >
> > Maybe we should start using some sort of place-holder image for living
> > people without free images. It could show a typical generic shadow bust,
> > with "No free image available" written in bold letters.
>
> That's a fantastic idea that I can't believe we haven't done already.
> Hopefully it might also reduce the dodgy copyrighted images that get
> uploaded for image-free biographies, too.
>
> Go forth!
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:No_free_image_man_%28en%29.svg
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:No_free_image_woman_%28en%29.svg
>
> cheers,
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


from_name: Rich Holton

body:
Luna wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> The system we use for editing pages (the one you think should be
>> extended to admin powers) results in an enormous amount of vandalism,
>> which takes a lot of effort to clean up.
>>
>
> Exactly. It's bad enough when vandals make giant penises float over the main
> page. I'd rather not have random vandals blocking /16s, unprotecting [[Main
> Page]] (or even deleting it), and creating other public relations nightmares
> -- just imagine the media field day. Wikipedia is already an amazingly open
> site, in just about every sense -- some people already say we're *too* open,
> and while I don't think I'd go that far, I'm not eager to give too many
> people access to tools which have the capacity to do a great deal of harm,
> when used inappropriately.
>
> When I consider adminship, I don't think of it as a big deal. It's a useful
> tool. Admins aren't the heart and soul of the wiki, by any means -- we are
> involved in its upkeep, yes, but I know every minute of vandal patrolling I
> do would be flat-out *useless* if not for the countless hours spent by our
> fantastic writers.
>
> I think I just need evidence that somebody:
> (a) is reasonably aware of policy and practice,
> (b) is reasonably dedicated to the well-being and ideals of the project, and
> (c) is reasonable, period.
>
> How we determine those three points, I figure is up to some interpretation.
>
> Just my take on it,
> -Luna

How is (a) related to your concerns about "random vandalism"?

-Rich


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] In hospital

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

Ryan Wetherell stated for the record:
> With all due respect, how is this relevant to any Wikimedia project,
> much less the English Wikipedia?
>
> --Ryan
>
> P.S. I notice we don't have a [[C. Bean Transport]] article yet.

It is relevant to his hope that a tale of misfortune and injustice will
cause us to be overcome with pity and forget what a liar he is.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Back off, man, I'm a scientist.
 sean at epoptic.com | --Dr. Peter Venkman
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body:
On 2/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> *in interpreting country-specific "public domain" laws, Commons has on
> occasion chosen to interpret the laws in a more restrictive way than
> local projects. In such cases, the local project sometimes chooses to
> keep their less restrictive interpretation and transfer the images
> from Commons to that project. (Specific example: IT.wp and
> {{PD-Italy}})
> * German logos - DE.wp regards the threshold of originality for
> copyright to apply as much higher than Commons and EN.wp in general,
> meaning that many logos Commons deletes as "copyrighted", DE.wp keeps
> as "PD-ineligible, although trademarked"

In my opinion, those media should be deleted OR migrated to an
exemption doctrine (fair use or similar), and would have to be, under
the draft resolution as it is currently worded.

> Also, the wording in Kat's statement implies that "Foundation policy"
> can be equated
> with "licenses allowed on Wikimedia Commons".

The current draft resolution makes reference to the "Definition of
Free Cultural Works" for the purpose of identifying free licenses:
http://freedomdefined.org/Definition

This would help to separate the process from any specific Wikimedia project.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [WikiEN-l] A "Wikipedia-Free Zone"

body:
On 2/10/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> Comic book artist and web forum owner John Byrne has declared his
> forum to be a "Wikipedia-Free Zone" and banned all links to Wikipedia
> regardless of content or context:

That kind of thing is bound to happen from time to time whenever a
publication writes a biography that is not a hagiography. I'm more
concerned about the negative reputation Wikipedia has in general,
which is definitely something we must improve upon.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
On 2/9/07, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Users start out as being viewed with caution and
> suspicion, and must "earn" their admin "privileges" by fulfilling some
> ridiculous set of criteria.

I agree that the current process is broken; the criteria are
increasingly unreasonable. One way to address this would be to
whitelist the list of valid criteria, rather than allowing every user
to come up with their own.

Another approach would be an Admin Appointment Board that would
complement the existing process, but follow a more liberal philosophy
and find consensus more quickly simply by being smaller.

I don't like your specific proposal much because I think the constant
re-appointed would be process overkill, as would be the restriction on
objections. Wikis don't scale that well to accommodate processes above
a certain complexity.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
This is a discussion from cc-licenses, the Creative Commons mailing
list, that might be of interest to some. See the thread here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2007-February/004960.html

I've also asked Larry Lessig for his thoughts on the matter. I think
that if we cannot achieve this with CC-BY-SA, it may be necessary to
create a stronger copyleft license that does. But the answer isn't
clear yet, and it might be helpful if some Wikimedians weigh in on the
discussion.

Mailing list subscription info:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>
Date: Feb 9, 2007 4:44 AM
Subject: Fwd: Share-Alike with images
To: lessig at pobox.com

Hello Larry,

I have received no clear response to this on the cc-licenses mailing
list. It would be helpful to discuss this a bit. If CC doesn't want to
explicitly make copyleft apply to, e.g., the combination of an article
and an image, it might be useful to create a separate, stronger
copyleft license for this purpose.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>
Date: Feb 5, 2007 3:01 AM
Subject: Share-Alike with images
To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
<cc-licenses at lists.ibiblio.org>

The Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license currently states:

"For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical composition
or sound recording, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation
with a moving image ('synching') will be considered a Derivative Work
for the purpose of this License."

This is cool and helps to clarify copyleft in the context of music.
What about the case where a photo is used in a newspaper or
encyclopedia article? Like a musical piece in a movie, there is a
clear semantic relationship between the two; one is directly enriched
in its meaning by the other.

I think the license is currently ambiguous about such uses. However, I
think it would be clearly in line with the copyleft philosophy to
demand free licensing of the combined whole in such a case (not in the
case of mere aggregation within e.g. a collection of photos where
there's no semantic relationship between them). In my discussions with
photographers, I've found that many use NC licenses because they worry
about commercial exploitation of their works. If we could clarify
copyleft in the context of images, many of these fears could be
alleviated.

The simple fact is that a photo by itself is not likely to be modified
much, especially if it's of very high quality to begin with. That's
why I think it's important that we establish a clear and unambiguous
reciprocity when images are used in larger works. Perhaps the
movie-specific phrase in the current SA license text could be
generalized:

"For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is semantically combined
with another (a film with time-synchronized music, an article with
pictures, and so on), the combined Work will be considered a
Derivative Work for the purpose of this license."

I don't think the "Collective Work" portion would need to be modified,
as it already speaks of "separate and independent" works, which would
be clarified by a phrase like the above.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Share-Alike with images


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
William Vogeler wrote:
> As a new user at Wikipedia, I created a journal for Amateur Astronomy at Academic Publishing Wiki. I was encouraged by the project because it is a forum for original research in a Wiki environment.
>
> I then linked from Wikipedia articles to Academic Publishing Wiki and the journal I created there, but I was reprimanded by Wiki editors who said that I had violated policies against promoting websites and spamming.

In the page you link to, you say " I have had some trouble trying to
promote Academic Publishing Wiki
<http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page> and a new journal I created
there called Amateur Astronomy
<http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Amateur_Astronomy>".

Have you had a chance to look at this guideline?

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

It opens with this paragraph:

    A Wikipedia *conflict of interest
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest>* is an
    incompatibility between the purpose of Wikipedia, to produce a
    neutral
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view>
    encyclopedia, and the aims of individual editors. These include
    editing for the sake of promoting oneself, other individuals,
    causes, organizations, companies, or products, as well as
    suppressing negative information, and criticizing competitors.

So you can see how your behavior is out of bounds.

The way I think of it, we're all hopelessly biased toward our own
products; if not, we wouldn't do them. So instead of using Wikipedia for
self-promotion, you're better off devoting your energies to improving
your journal. Eventually somebody will say, "Hey, why isn't that great
journal referenced in Wikipedia?" and fix the problem for you.

Good luck,

William


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Free online maths books

body:
On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> These look pretty good. I seem to recall a repository of links to free
> stuff to use for Wikipedia articles?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_resources
(and related pages linked from the sidebar there including GFDL
resources, maps, etc).

Angela


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Help with Admin Burnout

body:
To any & all,

I am doing some thinking about how the WP Community could help Admins who
are struggling with the work. My goal is to come up with a formal mechanism
that these Admins can turn to for help and support before they choose to
simply give up and leave the Community. It could serve as a form of
intervention before a burnout occurs.

What I am in need of right now are examples of persons who have experienced
such problems within WP so I can understand what occurred, and get a feel
for the extent of the problem.

If you know of any such person (including yourself) please post that
information here, or, if you prefer, send me a private email to
michaeldavid86 at comcast.net

I would also appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you might have along
these lines.

Hope you can help,

Marc Riddell


body:
On 2/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> which was basically written by you... so this becomes 'ask Erik's
> interpretation' :)

The main text was co-authored by Benjamin Mako Hill. You have no idea
how many emails and conversations with Richard Stallman and Lawrence
Lessig were required to get to the point where we are now. The
definition was also reviewed and improved with the feedback of the
moderator team, which includes Angela Beesley, Mia Garlick from
Creative Commons, and Elizabeth Stark from freeculture.org.

> This line:
> No other restrictions or limitations: The work itself must not be
> covered by legal restrictions (patents, contracts, etc.) or
> limitations (such as privacy rights) which would impede the freedoms
> enumerated above.

Note that this is the section referring to free _works_. The draft
resolution makes reference only to the section about free _licenses_,
and makes no comment about free works.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
David Strauss wrote:

>There's a big difference between the en-wp rationale for fair use and
>the policy for whether an image can be used on Wikipedia under fair use.
>
>The fair-use *rationale* has a goal of emphasizing Wikipedia's
>characteristics to strengthen its legal claim to fair use. This is
>Wikipedia claiming maximal rights.
>
>The fair-use *policy* has a goal of restricting fair use to a safe
>subset of what Wikipedia may legally use. This is Wikipedia exercising
>minimal rights.
>
There will always be a flexiblew grey area between these two views.  We
need to allow for unforseen circumstances that may be unique to one
subject area, but the person wanting to expand free use beyond the
minimal position needs to make a convincing argument.

>>And what about ND images? If there is an image that is fair use on a page,
>>and the rationale is strong enough to allow me to use it, then surely I
>>would be allowed to use an ND image at the same place.
>>
>>
>Yes, because fair use is tangential to licensing. If you have a good
>fair-use rationale for an image, then you may use it under fair use.
>Having the additional option of a no-derivatives license does not
>infringe on that right.
>
Yes, and this is why it's so important to resist the temptation to
muddle the two together.

Ec


body:
On 2/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm... I wouldn't consider some writing illustrated with an image of
> mine to be a deriviative work of my image.

Would you consider a film with a music composition a derivative of the
music? CC-BY-SA does. I'm not sure I would get hung up on the exact
meanings of "derivative work"; I think it makes more sense to
emphasize the _semantic relationship_ between two combined works.

> If CC's "SA" were to acquire this meaning, we'd have to disallow it
> for all Wikimedia projects that are GFDL, wouldn't we?

Not necessarily. CC-BY-SA 3.0 will include a compatibility clause:
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7234

If this will include the GFDL, a strong copyleft CC-BY-SA would allow
a third party to either comply, or migrate to a compatible license.

We've always held that GFDL combined with other pictures and media are
"mere aggregations", so it may be in our interest not to advocate a
strict interpretation of existing licenses. But it doesn't seem at all
unreasonable to me to desire stronger copyleft protection for works
which are, in their nature, unlikely to be significantly modified
directly.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: luke brandt

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 2/10/07, Brianna Laugher wrote:
>> On 10/02/07, Erik Moeller wrote:
>>> The current draft resolution makes reference to the "Definition of
>>> Free Cultural Works" for the purpose of identifying free licenses:
>>> http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
>>>
>>> This would help to separate the process from any specific Wikimedia
>>> project.
>>
>> which was basically written by you... so this becomes 'ask Erik's
>> interpretation' :)
>
> The main text was co-authored by Benjamin Mako Hill. You have no idea
> how many emails and conversations with Richard Stallman and Lawrence
> Lessig were required to get to the point where we are now. The
> definition was also reviewed and improved with the feedback of the
> moderator team, which includes Angela Beesley, Mia Garlick from
> Creative Commons, and Elizabeth Stark from freeculture.org.
>

Hey guys,

There's been a lot of info to digest over the past couple of days, but
one thing I've always wondered about is the definition of 'freedom'
being used by Erik and others. I just looked at Benjamin's blog entry here:-

http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/ip/20070104-00

and noted these words: "... A free culture is not a culture without
property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture
without property, or in which creators can't get paid is anarchy, not
freedom. ..." quoted seemingly with approval, which strike me as
displaying an attitude of which the Adam Smith Institute -
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/ - would heartily approve. Not that
there's anything necessarily right or wrong with that, or Lawrence
Lessig's characterization of 'anarchy'... it's just that we need to look
very carefully at the assumptions being made in the terminology
employed, so we know where the conclusions come from. just my 2 cents.
Take care - luke


from_name: Liang Chen

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Why in some case the "/" in article title fail to
	work?

body:
Thanks

On 2/9/07, Boris Eetgerink <boriseetgerink at planet.nl> wrote:
> Liang Chen wrote:
> > HI,
> >    I tried to add an article behind another article following by a
> > "/", like "Abacus/TOEFL", and "User:BiGreat/Gaokao2".
> >
> >    However, in the second page "User:BiGreat/Gaokao2", there will be a
> > "< User:BiGreat" below the title, but in the first page
> > "Abacus/TOEFL", there isn't a "< Abacus".
> >
> >    I don't know why. Could somebody help me?
> > The two page at:
> > http://kaoshi.wobuxihuan.org/Abacus/TOEFL
> > http://kaoshi.wobuxihuan.org/User:BiGreat/Gaokao2
>
> That is because some namespaces allow subpages, others don't. Check
> includes/DefaultSettings.php on line 1398, you'll see that by default
> Talk and User pages (among others) allow subpages, but NS_MAIN doesn't.
>
> Just add NS_MAIN => true to the array in LocalSettings.php, or better,
> put this in LocalSettings.php:
>
>      array_push($wgNamespacesWithSubpages, array(NS_MAIN => true));
> (Might not correct code, I haven't tested it)
>
> The array in DefaultSettings.php:
> $wgNamespacesWithSubpages = array(
>         NS_TALK           => true,
>         NS_USER           => true,
>         NS_USER_TALK      => true,
>         NS_PROJECT_TALK   => true,
>         NS_IMAGE_TALK     => true,
>         NS_MEDIAWIKI_TALK => true,
>         NS_TEMPLATE_TALK  => true,
>         NS_HELP_TALK      => true,
>         NS_CATEGORY_TALK  => true
> );
>
> Boris
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
                     ---BiGreat---
               www.Liang-Chen.com


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Taco Deposit <tacodeposit at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > > How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
> >
> > Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article
> > space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed
> > anyone off. Ever.
> >
>
> And you can't have made the 3000 edits over too long or too short a period
> of time.

Because Heaven knows we wouldn't want people who had been hanging around the
project for a long time to be admins.

KP's point, below, about only people who have lots and lots of time to edit
becoming admins is a good one -- it means, for the most part, that people
with very busy outside lives will never get the chance. We're losing a whole
swath of potential admins this way.

The thing about adminship (to sort of address Marc's questions) is we don't
really have any other "official" way to recognize editors. Sure, there are
barnstars and the like; but these are pretty meaningless outside of a narrow
context. There are cabals, but since TINC, well, you're out of luck :) Being
able to say "I'm an administrator on the English Wikipedia!" is a kind of
code for "I've devoted a lot of time to the project, and people recognize
and value my contributions -- I'm an important person!"

It doesn't really matter what the actual work is. The current administrators
on this list are talking about the pain and suffering of having to use the
mop & bucket (which is, as far as I can tell, entirely true) but ignoring
the fact that by having the sysop bit they have recognition within the
project that it's not possible to get in any other way. There's no "trusted
editor bit" that can be set. There's no "you've been editing for three
years, now you're level x". You can make a tremendous number of valuable
edits on the projects (or perhaps a smaller number of really good edits over
a long time), but there's no way to up your privileges or even recognize you
officially without making you an admin. And what if I want that recognition,
but don't really have any interest in deleting speedys or mucking through
endless policy? Perhaps then you get trouble, or at least an inefficient
system where people play to "admin criteria" rather than "let's make this a
good encyclopedia criteria".

I give a lot of talks on wikipedia to the outside world, and I get asked all
the time if I'm an admin -- not because the people asking really have any
conception of what that means, but because they assume that if I know a lot
about the site I must be in the "in crowd" and the only thing they know
about on Wikipedia that constitutes an "in-crowd" is adminship. We must
change this, and find some other recognition mechanism for devoted,
conscientious and level-headed editors that does not depend on their
knowledge of what the heck "A7" means or whether they've made x number of
edits to the wikipedia namespace.

-- phoebe (brassratgirl)


from_name: Filip Maljkovic

subject: [Wikitech-l] Report

body:
dungodung at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi!
> Here is the report.
>
Of course, I didn't send this. Someone has a lot of free time on his hands.

Filip


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
By the looks of it, your journal isn't yet established enough to
warrant a link from Wikipedia. Try adding the links back when your
journal is bigger, more informative and more reliable.


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 2/10/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> People who get adminship should display knowledge of the rules. If any
> newbie got those powers, this would be anarchapedia.

Many newbie admins readily admit they don't understand policy or how
to perform most of their duties. They start slowly, and watch other
admins for guidance. How is this harmful?

Steve


from_name: John Vandenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] expunging copyright violations (Was: Re: Admin burnout)

body:
On 2/10/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are a lot of reasons not to give people admin powers after just 50
> edits.  I'm guessing that one of them is copyright.  Right now there are a
> lot of deleted copyvios.  If anyone who registers (just about) has access to
> those copyvios, then aren't we back to publishing the copyvios?  It would
> also create a lot more need for oversight - we'd be opening up a huge amount
> of personal information to the public.
>
> ...
> While we probably need lots more admins, we don't need automatic admins.

Agreed, automatic admins, or granting it people with fewer than 1000s
of productive edits isn't the solution.

However, the issue of access to copyvios increases with the number of
admins.  In my opinion this isnt solved with less admins, but by
expunging copyvios completely or further restricting access to them.
In this, I am more thinking about copies of articles from other
encyclopedias, as opposed to the snippets taken from a website.  These
copyvios are of limited usefulness to admins after a few days and
should be inaccessible, both in the article history and the deletion
log; instead a boilerplate page should alert the reader that the
version they have requested is a copyvio and provide the details, such
as source, contributors name, etc.  All access to these copyright
violations after it has been removed should be restricted to case by
case needs.

I expect that this would require an "Request for Expunction" process,
which amounts to more bureaucracy, but if its creation allows for more
admins, the net effect is fewer backlogs.

Is something like this possible with the current MediaWiki and dump
creation software?

--
John


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout (deputy admins)

body:
Having read with great interest much of the discussion, I'd like to
offer another proposal for reforming the way we get admins. This isn't
really something I'm championing; I'm just throwing it out in hopes of
advancing the discussion. Many of the elements are borrowed, and if this
goes anywhere, I'll gladly go back and cite them.

The spirit of this is that there is a lot of relatively uncontroversial
admin work that needs to be done, so that we should let a wider set
responsible people do some of the basic mop-and-bucket stuff. For
controversial stuff, that would effectively stay in the hands of current
admins. It's more "I guess it's my turn to clean the bathroom" than "I
run this place."

The basics:

    * We introduce the status of "deputy admin" (other possible names:
      provisional, temporary, transient, acting, probationary).
    * Deputies have all the powers of a regular admin.
    * If stepping into something controversial or difficult, they are
      expected to get help from a permanent admin.
    * The term is limited to, say, 3 months.
    * Application is similar, but the bar is lower:
          o they should have a modest history as a useful contributor;
          o they should have demonstrated reasonable knowledge of how
            Wikipedia works;
          o they shouldn't be obviously dangerous;
          o no serious objections means they pass.
    * They can be more easily be de-admined. Possible mechanisms:
          o their request stays open, and a serious objection means they
            lose the bit;
          o any N (1? 2? 3?) admins can agree to de-admin them with
            cause; or
          o any serious, validated complaint of admin power abuse ends
            their term.
    * After their term is up, there is a mandatory break of say, 6
      weeks, during which they are just another editor.
    * After the break, they can:
          o carry on editing, without prejudice or pressure,
          o apply for another term as a deputy, or
          o apply for administrator-for-life status through the RfA process.

So that's the basic notion. Like a lot of what goes on here, I think
there will be a lot of useful social convention that grows up around the
core mechanism.

Why do it? Here's my thinking:

Pros:

    * Many hands make light work.
    * Experienced admins can focus on the hard stuff.
    * Gives deputies a track record for future full RfA.
    * Helps de-emphasizes adminship as status item.
    * Limited scope and term will make it less appealing to those
      seeking admin-hood for the power.
    * Helps identify responsible people.
    * Wider distribution of power means less us-vs-them divide.
    * Requires no code changes.

Cons:

    * More admins to keep track of.
    * The process of deciding who gets in and who doesn't is more work,
      and possibly more drama than the current setup.
    * More work blessing and de-blessing deputy admins.

Naturally, I don't think this would solve all of the problems that have
come up, but do folks think it would be a step forward?

Thanks,

William


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Error

body:
On 2/10/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> I have begun an essay at [[Wikipedia:Error]] to consider how the knowledge learned from analysis and prevention of aviation and medical errors might be applied to Wikipedia.
>
> Fred

Interesting.  The environments are different enough that the lessons
do not directly apply, but the analysis techniques and a lot of the
component types of failures noted are going to be common.

I am somewhat familiar with the aviation side of the error and failure analysis.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: David Monniaux

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair
	use"	decision

body:
Brianna Laugher a ?crit :
> That's a fantastic idea that I can't believe we haven't done already.
> Hopefully it might also reduce the dodgy copyrighted images that get
> uploaded for image-free biographies, too.
This had been discussed on the Wikipedia in French, about for instance
building and works of art with no free photographs (I was the one
proposing it, if I remember correctly). I had been told that this was a
bit "aggressive". Maybe the times are a-changing?


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 2/10/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2007/2/10, geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>
> > Then CC-BY-SA is going to produce some truly moronic results under UK law.
> >
> > Copyright on sound recordings in the UK lasts 50 years. So I take a 51
> > year old bit of music and use it as a backing for a film. Then I try
> > to release it under CC-By-SA
> >
> > It is now a derative of that bit of music but copyright on films lasts
> > rather longer than 50 years in the uk so the copyright situation that
> > results is rather odd.
>
>
> I don't see what's odd about that. It's a work, copyrighted by you, under
> CC-BY-SA, and based on a public domain work. It's no different than the same
> situation would have been if the music had been not 51 but 300 years old.
> And little different than the same situation where you had not put it under
> CC-BY-SA.

Agreed, and not weird at all when you consider all the movies that
lapsed due to lack of re-registration... yet which can not be treated
as free works because of the copyrighted music and dialog they
contain.


body:
Andrew Gray a ?crit :
> Bear in mind that copyright is not related to your right not to have
> your image used in a defamatory or misleading manner - whatever rights
> the law gives you in this regard you retain whether you hold the
> copyright or not.
Actually, it is.

Proof: the Wikimedia Foundation *copyrights* its logos under *unfree
licenses* exactly for that reason: for being able to control their use
more effectively than through trademark law solely.

Some European government agencies do the same: they copyright their
photos and make them available under "unfree" licenses because they fear
that free licenses may hinder their ability to prevent people from using
them in inappropriate ways (read here: advertisements that appear to
make them endorse stuff).

*** Before dismissing these fears as unfounded, please note that the
Wikimedia Foundation does exactly that. ***

The US government enacted legislation that expressly punishes using
government symbols without proper organization; but this legislation
happens to be outside copyright law. Apparently, some European agencies
don't enjoy that kind of protection, thus their attachment to copyright.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: William Vogeler [mailto:wvogeler at cox.net]
>Sent: Friday, February 9, 2007 08:04 PM
>To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l]  Original research
>
>Hi Jimmy:
>
>As a new user at Wikipedia, I created a journal for Amateur Astronomy at Academic Publishing Wiki. I was encouraged by the project because it is a forum for original research in a Wiki environment.
>
>I then linked from Wikipedia articles to Academic Publishing Wiki and the journal I created there, but I was reprimanded by Wiki editors who said that I had violated policies against promoting websites and spamming. I tried to reason with the editors about it, but they unanimously concluded that it is against Wikipedia policy to allow links to Academic Publishing Wiki.
>
>I invite you to review the debate at my discussion page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wvogeler. If you feel so inclined, I would appreciate your thoughts on the subject. Thank you.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>WVogeler

For some reason the link to his user talk page doesn't work. But there is such a user. He carried on an extensive dialog with user Vsmith. Follow the link back and try user contributions and you can access his talk page. The site he speaks of is on Wikia at

http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Amateur_Astronomy

and is a part of

http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

These sites are transparently dedicated to original research.

You can contact Jimmy at jwales at wikia.com

This debate is not new and it is well settled that original research cannot be published on Wikipedia, or even considered a reliable source if it is not published in a peer reviewed source.

Please see Wikipedia:No original research

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Free online maths books

body:
These look pretty good. I seem to recall a repository of links to free
stuff to use for Wikipedia articles?

http://pspxworld.com/repo/content/33.php

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Free online maths books

body:
Sorry, got the link slightly wrong:
http://pspxworld.com/book/mathematics/

On 2/10/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> These look pretty good. I seem to recall a repository of links to free
> stuff to use for Wikipedia articles?
>
> http://pspxworld.com/repo/content/33.php
>
> Steve
>


from_name: geni

body:
On 2/10/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 2/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hmm... I wouldn't consider some writing illustrated with an image of
> > mine to be a deriviative work of my image.
>
> Would you consider a film with a music composition a derivative of the
> music? CC-BY-SA does.

Then CC-BY-SA is going to produce some truly moronic results under UK law.

Copyright on sound recordings in the UK lasts 50 years. So I take a 51
year old bit of music and use it as a backing for a film. Then I try
to release it under CC-By-SA

It is now a derative of that bit of music but copyright on films lasts
rather longer than 50 years in the uk so the copyright situation that
results is rather odd.

> I'm not sure I would get hung up on the exact
> meanings of "derivative work"; I think it makes more sense to
> emphasize the _semantic relationship_ between two combined works.
>

I think wikipedia relies to a very great degree on this not being the
case. Still you are free to list every "free art" image for deletion.

> Not necessarily. CC-BY-SA 3.0 will include a compatibility clause:
> http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7234
>
> If this will include the GFDL, a strong copyleft CC-BY-SA would allow
> a third party to either comply, or migrate to a compatible license.
>

Or if it does not include that we end up with an even more complex
situation with regard to lisences than we already are.

> We've always held that GFDL combined with other pictures and media are
> "mere aggregations", so it may be in our interest not to advocate a
> strict interpretation of existing licenses. But it doesn't seem at all
> unreasonable to me to desire stronger copyleft protection for works
> which are, in their nature, unlikely to be significantly modified
> directly.

We modify photos all the time.

--
geni


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] Dual-Licensing Commons

body:
On 10/02/07, nilfanion wiki <nilfanion at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I had a random thought today and think it is worth a cursory consideration.
> Would it be (1) desirable, (2) technically feasible and (3) legal to
> relicense Commons under a dual GFDL / Creative Commons license as opposed to
> the current GFDL state?

I agree it would be painful to pursue this. (ie painful enough not to bother)

> An image is uploaded to Commons as CC-by-sa-2.5. A third party then makes
> use of the image, under the terms of the CC license. In addition to the
> image, they copy the description on the Image: page to use as their caption.
> As the text of the page is licensed under the GFDL, would this downstream
> user have violated the GFDL?

Hmmm I never considered Image: pages like that. I hope it is not true.
As far as I'm concerned, Image: pages are just like meta-data and
shouldn't contain any text that is too copyrightable. (Do we care
about our Template:Information or license templates? I doubt it.) So
what's left - the uploader's description, in some cases that's
nothing, in a few cases it might be a thoughtful paragraph.
The edit box says 'you agree to submit this text under the GFDL' but
Special:Upload doesn't.

OK let's see... if you did copy the caption and didn't credit it as
GFDL, who would be able to claim their copyright was violated? That
would be anyone who edited the image page, in most cases only the
uploader (I doubt the re-user would copy the categories, so
maintenance work probably wouldn't matter anyway). [Note: not
Wikimedia Commons, or WMF.] Now they (uploaders) are submitting their
work under a free license. They write a description not as a creative
effort but as a basic descriptive effort that accompanies the media.
Are they really like to consider their rights violated and WANT to
prosecute anything? It seems extremely unlikely to me.

So I think
1) it won't ever be a real issue, and
2) It would be good if we could change the GFDL to only apply to
non-Image: pages, and make all Image: contents PD as Greg mentions.
Definitely too difficult to do retroactively, but might be possible
from a certain date in the future, if we thought it was worth
pursuing.

Anyway interesting question, these are always worth pursuing.

cheers
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] Cherokee Language Classes Offered to Support
	Cherokee Wikipedia

body:
I am setting up an on-line Cherokee Language class that describes the
structure, syntax, and methods for converting English articles into the
Cherokee Language to open up the Cherokee Wikipedia to more interested
editors.  I have received numerous requests from other Wikipedia editors
and admins on creating such a  class.  Since the rules of Wikipedia
prohibit using the Wiki's themselves for such content, I will host the
classes, tests, and instruction lessons on wikigadugi.org.

I am faced with two possible paths to make the Cherokee Wikipedia
successful.   Be a big fish in a small pond, or try to make the pond
bigger by raising all ships at the same time.  I am choosing the later
approach and will try to instill competence in the language with
interested editors.   There are a lot of Cherokee people who have
varying degrees of competence in the language, and the solution is to
instill greater awareness in the language and teach and transfer the
knowledge to others.

The basic tools for machine assisted translation are also completed.  We
now have a version of squid that translates all browsed web content into
the Cherokee Language.  I will be enabling this translating proxy at
wikigadugi to allow editors to assist in translating content for the
Cherokee Wikipedia.  I will have materials completed and online sometime
in March, and will begin the classes.  To sign up for classes, create an
account on the Cherokee Wikipedia and I will post a page there for class
signup for those interested in learning to speak and write in Cherokee.

Wado

donada gohvi.

Jeff


subject: [Commons-l] One new and one old tool

body:
On 10/02/07, Florian Straub <flominator at gmx.net> wrote:
> Seems I had a little double output there ....
>
> I fixed it and added a small bonus to it, see for yourself :)

OK, looks better.
I am surprised you can't get the Flickr user's name. Are you using the
Flickr API? I think it should be possible. Since both the licenses we
use are "BY" (attribution) I think getting the username is a good
idea.
Also, in the permission field I would either put 'see below', or put
'licensed under the Creative Commons [Attribution|Attribution
ShareAlike] license, version 2.0".

Also, in the case of trying to get the info for a non-free license, it
should probably refuse to produce any output, instead of 'NO FREE
LICENSE - DON'T UPLOAD TO COMMONS' (which is nice, but I hardly expect
people to read and follow such instructions :))

cheers,
Brianna


from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Unsourced album cover (was: Admin burnout)

body:
  Guy,

Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>:

> OK.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:0008811297923.jpg
>
> An album cover, with a fair use rationale, used in the right place,
> but tagged for speedy as "no source" - do I delete it or not?

  If you're interested in what, in theory, should happen when one is cleaning
out image CSDs, take a look at it now -- I edited the page to identify the
copyright holder (we need to do this), added our standard fair use rationale
for an album cover.  I then orphaned the image, because it wasn't being used in
the way the rationale specifies -- it was decorating a discography listing on
the artists' page, not being used in an article about the album.

                 Jkelly


body:
On 10/02/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad Patrick wrote:
> > Be creative.  Celebrities are people too, and they love Wikipedia.  Have you
> > tried asking them for a free image?
> >
>
> Right. It's very possible that, with the continuing growth of Wikipedia,
>   any up-and-coming celebrity would be eager to have a free image shown.
>
> Maybe we should start using some sort of place-holder image for living
> people without free images. It could show a typical generic shadow bust,
> with "No free image available" written in bold letters.

That's a fantastic idea that I can't believe we haven't done already.
Hopefully it might also reduce the dodgy copyrighted images that get
uploaded for image-free biographies, too.

Go forth!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:No_free_image_man_%28en%29.svg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:No_free_image_woman_%28en%29.svg

cheers,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


references:
<bd4c411e0702090937y3482dadcm2a9d0f99b70eefd3@mail.gmail.com>
	<eqiicb$7rs$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<a4359dff0702091319s5494dd52yebf530b1ce2fc9c3@mail.gmail.com>
	<1adf38660702100123y48bd1cebye4be9f023d24fc59@mail.gmail.com>
	<45CDC4CE.9050603@gmail.com>

body:
> How is (a) related to your concerns about "random vandalism"?

It's important to know what is and isn't vandalism if you're going to
not vandalise.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Deleting orphaned unfree images (was: Unsourced album
	cover)

body:
  Thomas,

Quoting Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:

> Shouldn't the image be deleted if it's orphaned? A fair use rationale
> is only for a particular use, as this image isn't being used, the
> rationale is nonsense.

  I agree with this, of course.  But en: treats unfree content as deserving of
many of the same protections from deletion as free content, and deleting a
"fair use" image that we're not actually using will provoke people into
accusations of ignoring process, abuse of admin tools, and may even wind up at
Deletion Review.

                                  Jkelly


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Rich Holton wrote:
>
> I propose an experiment:
>
> Select at random 100 editors who meet some minimal criteria* and make
> them admins. Make it clear to them that they may turn down adminship
> without prejudice.
>
> Then, we watch these 100 "probationary" admins for 3 months. If they
> abuse their admin powers in that time, their admin status is removed.

Within no time, you'll have people impose ridiculous criteria on what a
probationary admin needs to do in order to "pass the test". Before you
know it, people will be demoted simply for being on holiday and not
showing up in a month.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
geni wrote:
>
> I have better things to do with my time than babysit admins. So do most people.

Then leave it to those who don't. There will be enough. Especially if
you let more people be admins.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Clearing up Wikimedia's media licensing policies

body:
Jon Harald S?by wrote:

>On 2/8/07, Gunnar Ren? ?ie <gunnarre at nvg.ntnu.no> wrote:
>
>
>> Because if the fair use claim is valid and strong enough, then
>>
>>commercial re-users can use those fair-use images. Non-commercial and
>>"Wikipedia only"? Not so.
>>
>>
>Wrong. If the fair use claim is valid and strong enough, then
>commercial re-users can use those fair-use images IN THE USA. Please
>note that 30-33% - or some 111 million people* - of all first-language
>users live outside the US, and thus cannot legally freely reuse this
>content. If you count second-language speakers as well, this number
>rises to 1.5 BILLION PEOPLE who cannot freely reuse Wikipedia
>content.* Is that within our scope? I don't think so.
>
I don't see the issue in simple terms of how many people can use the
fair use material.  Still having that many people arguing for fair use
can present quite a strong voice.  I would argue that a person living in
a country that does not grant an individual copyrights greater than what
that individual receives in his own country could claim fair use for
works by a US producer.  Denying fair use for US sourced material would
be giving that person greater rights than what he receives in his own
country.

When considering transitivity of fair use only one of the four factors
gives us any trouble.  The nature of the work used does not change, it
is impossible for the re-user to use any more than the already
insubstantial portion that we use, and if our use does not affect the
market for the right's owner goods it is impossible to see where the
market effect will change.  If the re-user combines our fair uses with
the fair use from an other site to create a composite, or even manages
to tap enough of several fair uses to effectively re constitute the
entire original work he is an abuser as well as a re-user.  That kind of
behaviour is completely out of our control.

The first factor is the problem: "the purpose and character of the use,
including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes". We can control the purpose and character of our
own use, but not that of the re-users.  Our use is clearly not of a
commercial nature, but we allow our re-users to act commercially.  The
use of the word "including" in that clause suggests that that provision
is not used alone, and need not be the sole determining factor.  It does
cannot be interpreted to automatically exclude all commercial use and
include all nonprofit educational uses.  Judicial analyses of this
factor tend to focus on the transformative nature of the use.  Is the
user changing the use into something other than that applied by the
rights owner?  We could ask ourselves, "If circumstances differed only
in that we were a commercial operation instead of a non-profit one would
our own identical use still be fair use?"  If yes, would it not also be
so for our re-users?  If our own use is transformative, an identical
re-use is also likely to be transformative, notably in mirror sites.
Further transformations by re-users into new uses should also be
acceptable.  The only thing left then is those commercial sites who
manage to transform fair use back into an infringement.  This, like so
many other abuses, is well beyond our control.  Is is a "_significant_
legal restriction" in the sense intended by Kat's analysis.

Much of my comments above depends on US law.  Other countries will be
more restrictive, and that will certainly influence our decisions.
Perhaps a policy that derives from the Berne Convention concept of "fair
practice" might be more useful than a country by country analysis.

Ec


subject: [Commons-l] Sound files

body:
  Gerard,

Quoting Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:

> software we can record vast amounts of pronunciations, it is a waste to
> destroy something that can have an incredible value because of an
> insistence on .ogg files.
>
> I would urge us to allow for the recording in .wav files in order to
> ensure that this data keeps its relevance for scientific usage.

  Can you clarify why .wav format is more scientific that .ogg format?

                     Jkelly


from_name: David Strauss

subject:
[Foundation-l] Cherokee Language Classes Offered to
 Support	Cherokee Wikipedia

body:
You're correct that such materials would not belong on Wikipedia, but
I'm sure Wikibooks would love an introduction to Cherokee.

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> I am setting up an on-line Cherokee Language class that describes the
> structure, syntax, and methods for converting English articles into the
> Cherokee Language to open up the Cherokee Wikipedia to more interested
> editors.  I have received numerous requests from other Wikipedia editors
> and admins on creating such a  class.  Since the rules of Wikipedia
> prohibit using the Wiki's themselves for such content, I will host the
> classes, tests, and instruction lessons on wikigadugi.org.
>
> I am faced with two possible paths to make the Cherokee Wikipedia
> successful.   Be a big fish in a small pond, or try to make the pond
> bigger by raising all ships at the same time.  I am choosing the later
> approach and will try to instill competence in the language with
> interested editors.   There are a lot of Cherokee people who have
> varying degrees of competence in the language, and the solution is to
> instill greater awareness in the language and teach and transfer the
> knowledge to others.
>
> The basic tools for machine assisted translation are also completed.  We
> now have a version of squid that translates all browsed web content into
> the Cherokee Language.  I will be enabling this translating proxy at
> wikigadugi to allow editors to assist in translating content for the
> Cherokee Wikipedia.  I will have materials completed and online sometime
> in March, and will begin the classes.  To sign up for classes, create an
> account on the Cherokee Wikipedia and I will post a page there for class
> signup for those interested in learning to speak and write in Cherokee.
>
> Wado
>
> donada gohvi.
>
> Jeff
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> Remember that under my suggestion, we're talking a total of 6 months
>> that a sleeper vandal would have to "sleep" before they entered the
>> ranks of "normal" admins (3 months of keeping your nose clean, followed
>> by three months of continued good behavior as an admin). And remember,
>> someone setting out as a sleeper vandal would not be guaranteed of
>> becoming an admin after three months, it's still up to the random
>> selection. Is it impossible for someone to game this process? Sure. Is
>> it likely? Hardly.
>>
>
> The flaw in that logic is in thinking that there is anything different
> between a "normal admin" and a "provisional admin" besides the name.
> There isn't. Adminship is a bit in a database, either you have that
> bit and are able to do enormous damage to Wikipedia, or you don't.
> There is no need to sleep for 6 months when you can do the damage
> immediately. It would take a few minutes at the very best to desysop a
> provisional admin that started vandalising - how much damage do you
> think an AdminVandalBot could do in that time? I imagine it would be
> hours normal-admin time to cleanup.
>

Couldn't that logic be applied almost equally to allowing everybody to edit?

Curiously,

William


subject: [Commons-l] Vision for Commons, 2007

body:
On 10/02/07, Florian Straub <flominator at gmx.net> wrote:
> "Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote on Thursday, February
> 08, 2007 2:38 PM:
>
> > * Reach out to local Wikimedia wikis and actively promote "Commons
> > only" upload policies.
> > Switching to Commons only has massive benefits for both the local wiki
> > (hugely reduced maintenance burden) and us (new contributions).
>
> A lot of people on de.wp are against Commons because of logos and old
> pictures without authors. Since we want to keep them, I don't see a way to
> achieve keeping them and having Commons only.

We being who, want to keep them being what, exactly?

Keep in mind Kat Walsh's recent announcement: "No project may have
content policies less restricive [...] than [...] Wikimedia Commons".

I raised the question as to whether this implies a change of the
current treatment of logos on Commons/DE.wp in this mail:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027549.html

however it was soon overshadowed by a bunch of arguing about fair use. :)

> My additional wish would be a way to contact one time contributers. There
> are several ways to achieve this:

I tend to think it is too much effort for too little return, and even
if we force the uploaders to be contactable, there is no guarantee
they will reply when we write to them! I don't feel deleting "fly-by"
contributor's work is a big problem. The return uploaders are our main
"customers" and contributors and we should concentrate our efforts on
them.

cheers
Brianna


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting orphaned unfree images

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>   I agree with this, of course.  But en: treats unfree content as deserving of
>> many of the same protections from deletion as free content, and deleting a
>> "fair use" image that we're not actually using will provoke people into
>> accusations of ignoring process, abuse of admin tools, and may even wind up at
>> Deletion Review.
>>
>
> It it process. It's CSD I5. You tag it, wait 7 days, and then delete
> it. Not a very speedy form of speedy deletion, but it's on the list.
>
> I'm not sure why we give people so long - they can upload the image
> again if they find a use for it. I would suggest reducing it to 24
> hours (enough to account for images being removed from articles
> without consensus, any longer is unnecessary), but I'm not really
> involved in the image side of things, so I'll leave it to someone
> else.
>

Should we really expect everybody to check on everything they care about
every 24 hours?

The 7 days here or 5 for proposed article deletion seems like a
reasonable balance between friendliness and tidiness, but I'd be a
little frustrated to find that something I was working on was gone
because I'd taken the weekend off.

William


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/10/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Then leave it to those who don't. There will be enough. Especially if
> you let more people be admins.

We have spare admin resources? We have backog of over 1000 images
needing deletion (see [[CAT:CSD]]) could you ask these people to help
doing something about it?

--
geni


subject: [Commons-l] Sound files

body:
On 2/10/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> A lot of wiktionarians are involved in recording pronunciations at the
> moment. At issue is that pronunciations that are recorded for scientific
> purposes are universally saved as wav files. Given that with the shtooka
> software we can record vast amounts of pronunciations, it is a waste to
> destroy something that can have an incredible value because of an
> insistence on .ogg files.
>
> I would urge us to allow for the recording in .wav files in order to
> ensure that this data keeps its relevance for scientific usage.

Our software will gladly allow you to upload Ogg/FLAC files (a
lossless format). If we should advise the is an open question, but you
are not prohibited from uploading lossless files if there is a real
need.


subject: [Commons-l] Sound files

body:
On 2/10/07, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>   Gerard,
>   Can you clarify why .wav format is more scientific that .ogg format?

I'd assume that his concern is due to Vorbis being lossy.

Considering that for a very very long time, the gold standard for much
speech related research has been 8 or 16khz ulaw compressed audio, I
seriously doubt Vorbis is going to impeded much research.. but, I
certainly do see why we wouldn't want to just throw information away.

Oh.. *sigh* I wish we had a better way of having linked 'source' and
'distribution' forms in commons.   For 99.999% of our applications,
the lossily compressed file is really what we want to distribute.


body:
jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
>    William,
>
> Quoting William Pietri <william at scissor.com>:
>
>
>> The 7 days here or 5 for proposed article deletion seems like a
>> reasonable balance between friendliness and tidiness, but I'd be a
>> little frustrated to find that something I was working on was gone
>> because I'd taken the weekend off.
>>
>
>   You're clear that we're discussing uploads of unusable unfreely licensed media
> here, right?  Nobody's suggesting that the free content work of Wikipedia
> contributors be deleted more quickly.
>

Yep. I'm imagining a case where I put in a fair-use image. Somebody
happens to delete that reference, making the image an orphan. 24 hours
later, it's gone. I come back in a couple of days and I'm sad that I
have to re-upload or talk somebody into undeleting it.

I know for serious contributors, 24 hours seems like a long time, but
when I get busy in real life, I feel like coming back every few days to
run through my watchlist is a fair effort. I'm imagining others feel the
same. Perhaps I'm wrong.

William