body:
Erik Moeller wrote in part:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Erik Moeller wrote in part:

>>>Replacing all redirects to FOO with redirects to BAR is a job for a
>>>machine. Replacing all links to FOO with links to BAR is a job for a
>>>human, because you don't know in which verbal context these links appear.

>>I don't understand this comment.
>>Can you give an example (possibly hypothetical) of a situation
>>where you can contrast the effects of the different designs?

>OK, let's say you have [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]], and for each of
>these characters you have a redirect on their page (e.g. [[John Galt]]) to
>the [[Characters ..]] page, so that they can be linked to.

>Now let's say we move [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]] to [[Characters of
>Atlas Shrugged]]. Whoops, now we have lots of double redirects for each of
>the individual characters, and need to change the redirs. But this can be
>done using a single DB query:
>UPDATE cur SET cur_text="#REDIRECT [[Characters of Atlas Shrugged]]" where
>cur_text="#REDIRECT [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]".

>On the other hand, let's say you have
>[[Don Conway]]
>[[Eddie Willers]]
>[[Ellis Wyatt]]
>[[Hank Rearden]]
>...
>as individual articles, which all point to [[Atlas Shrugged]]. Turns out
>that Ayn Rand actually called her book "Worship Me" and "Atlas Shrugged"
>was just the working title. So we now need to fix all those links, but
>because of the different context they can appear in, this may not be
>possible with a DB query.

Ah, so it'll be a lot easier to make a small change using your system
that to make a big change using Oliver's system.  No surprise there!

OTOH, let's suppose that we have individual articles on each character
in addition to an article [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]
that (I guess) summarises information on the characters.
Then we decide to move that to [[Characters of Atlas Shrugged]].
In that case, all of the links to [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]
can be left just as they are -- even easier to fix than with your system!
(Another possibility under Oliver's system, of course,
is that there's no [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]] at all,
but comparing *that* would be quite unfair to you!)

Alternatively, let's suppose that you have [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]
but discover that the title is really "Worship Me" and not "Atlas Shrugged".
Then you'll have to change not *only* the links in that article --
that's just the tip of the iceberg -- but *every* reference to the title.
If the individual character articles are reasonably long
(where I agree with those that think 1KB is sufficient reason),
then this will be about the same (large) amount of work
under your system as under Oliver's system.
OTOH, if the individual character articles are rather short --
well, in that case I agree with you already, keep them together.

(Of course, it's unfair of me to say "Oliver's system",
since he doesn't contend that fictional characters
must *always* have individual articles, however short.
Unfortunately, nobody is advocating that position,
so there's no one else to name such a system after!)

>In general, having lots of small articles requires us to have lots of real
>links (not just redirects) to tie them together, which may need to be
>updated at some point. And this can get very messy. There's other stuff,
>like the redundant intro texts which may need to be changed etc.

In general, about the same amount of text appears under either system --a
assuming that the articles to break off aren't very short --
so about the same amount of work will be need either way.

I do agree now that you have another argument
that very short articles shouldn't be separated
when they can reasonably be combined into one longer article.
I've always agreed with you about that.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that
conversion from Oliver's system to your also creates double redirects.
This shouldn't affect ultimate policy decisions,
but anybody undergoing such a conversion should remember that.
(I fixed these for the case of [[Dennis the Menace]].)

>And how we look reflects
>on what we are (yeah, very deep, I know). If we consider every Gnipper
>relevant enough to get his own article, that says something about our
>standards of significance, too.

Yes, it does, and we've already decided our standards of significance:
Gnipper *is* significant enough.  Thus we have an article on him.
To be sure, we have no article *exclusively* on him,
but that's not at all because we believe him to be insignificant.
Rather, it's because all of the material that we have on him
fits quite well inside [[Gnasher and Gnipper]],
which is where [[Gnipper]] (an article that still exists!) redirects.

>Whether an article can theoretically grow is a somewhat counter-intuitive
>way to *determine* significance, even for a non-dynamic encyclopedia. My
>policy suggestion could also be phrased as "Insigificant subjects should
>not have their own articles but instead be merged into longer ones", but
>that's more vague and can perhaps be perceived as condescending ("Gnipper
>is no unsigificant! He's the best dog EVER!").

So is your proposed policy about potential length or significance?
You phrase it in terms of potential length normally,
while you phrase it in terms of significance here,
yet you seem to agree that the former doesn't measure the latter well.

I agree with you that significance is a vauge criterion.
Luckily, Wikipedia is not paper, so we don't have to judge that.
(We do have to judge *verifiability*, of course --
insignificant topics have been removed on that ground.)
We shouldn't have any policy regarding significance,
although individual contributors may well wish to
budget their time and choose their priorities on such grounds.

OTOH, length (but not necessarily *potential* length)
goes directly to the problem with redirects that you mentioned above.
It also goes to the other points that you made in your main post
(<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-May/010396.html>),
which I still agree with when applied to articles the size of [[Gnipper]].

-- Toby

PS: Do you have any objection to [[en:Sarah Marple-Cantrell]],
    the example that got Oliver started on all this?
    I'm trying to see if you two (and I) disagree about any specific case,
    or if you only disagree about the various hypothetical cases
    that have been brought up.


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Limits to the non-paperiness of Wikipedia?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>
>
>For my favorite example Gnipper, on the other hand, it seems unlikely that
>we really want the kind of information that *could* blow this article up
>to massive proportions, since most of it would probably come from Internet
>fandom and as such have the stigma of low verifiability. So the article
>about Gnipper could still "conceivably" get very long, but in my opinion
>not "realistically". This is an important distinction.
>
We can test the thousand-person rule on this - if there are
thousands of fan pages, then at least there is the phenomenon
of the thousands of pages to talk about, and one could summarize
that.  "Gnipper" by itself garners 579 Google hits (with Wikipedia
entry as #1, hmm), but most are non-comic-strip; "gnipper gnasher"
only turns up relevant hints, but there are just 34.  Given a
likely ratio of readers to web posters, there are probably a few
thousand people who care about Gnipper, and so it squeaks by. But
I tried "gnorah" and there were exactly two refs not in Wikipedia,
and so I would say the mere mention of Gnorah in Wikipedia makes
it the most comprehensive encyclopedia in the world (at least on
the subject of Gnasher and Gnipper :-) ), and there's no good
reason for a Gnorah article.

Stan


list: wikien-l

from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] naming convention for birds

body:
I think the rule of capitalising things for scientific purposes would work well.

Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> Where was the discussion for the naming convention for animals. A new
> user is reverting the Canada goose, and I really don't want to get
> into that whole fight again.
>
> Danny

It was never resolved.
According to the The Globe and Mail Style Book: "The generic English
names of animals and plants, and common adjectives attached to them, are
lower-case". Certainly the provisions of a Canadian style book should
apply to a Canadian species.

Also the Style Manual for Biological Journals as "Prepared by the
Committee on Form and Style of the Conference of Biological Editors of
the American Institute of Biological Sciences" states at page 68,
"Generic names used as vernacular names are neither italicized nor
capitalized"

In all fairness one on-line site (also Canadian)
http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/biol335/Lecture8-9.html does
note "that the common names of birds are now usually capitalized".
"Usually" is important here; it is not in the form of a rule, but
appears to reflect a custom.

This exception applies only to birds. The material is at best
contradictory

Eclecticology

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from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] FW: Regarding Advertising on Wikipedia

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>No, I think it would be ok to have advertizers sponsor pages. Here is an
>expansion on the idea. The ad is in small text and simply says:this page
>sponsored by [[Toyota]]. with a link to their *wikipedia* article. If one
>doesn't exist, they can write one, but it still must be NPOV. This type of
>low-impact advertizing often has (ironically) the biggest effect because
>people aren't as annoyed. A wikipedian could also sponsor the page with a link
>to their userpage. More than one person or company could sponsor a page. The
>homepage couldn't be sponsored. Each sponsor request would be screened to
>prevent linking [[Toyota|Toyota, the beat car company in the world]]. I would
>cost, say, $1 for 100 impressions, to encourage low-budget advertizers
>and users to sponsor things. I don't think this would lower our academic
>credibility at all.

You know, I wouldn't mind such an advertising system.
But I'd still oppose instituting one.

The reason is that I don't trust such things not to expand,
especially when we'd get paid for expansion directly in cash.
For Americans, I can think of no better warning than
the growth of advertising of public radio and television.
What used to be "The following program is sponsored
in part by General Motors, this station, and viewers like you."
has become professionally produced 15-second spots
with full colour and moving pictures.
Still *less* advertising that on commercial TV,
but otherwise not *different*.

-- Toby


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:

> >It's harder to remove material from a printed edition of Wikipedia.
> >This means any printed version must cut away a degree of the
content.

> A printed edition (or even a CD edition) has been frequently
> mentioned on people's wish lists.  Until people realistically start
> talking about how to fund such an undertaking, I have a hard time
> considering the idea as anything more than a pipe-dream.

But the idea of a freely distributable and modifiable encyclopedia is
surely not a pipe-dream. With a hodge-podge of fair-use,
exclusively-licenced-to-Wikipedia, only-for-nonommercial-use and
only-for-educational-use materials, each with slightly different
interpretatins in different countries, that idea is dead.

Axel

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blanket reverts

body:
LittleDan wrote (about Jimmy's comment on Michael):

>well that doesn't prohibit unrevereting of his good edits, does it?

It doesn't prohibit your checking all of the facts in his edits
and placing back what is correct under your own name,
that is taking responsibility for the facts yourself.
But if you do this, then I strongly suggest that you
*not* simply revert to a previous version with rollback,
or else nobody will know that you're taking responsibility.
Instead, write a summary along the lines of "I stand behind these facts.",
so that we know that you're not simply undoing a deletion.

IOW, there's good evidence that Michael can't be trusted,
so other editors will trust you only if you make it clear
that you're not just writing something because you trust Michael!

For added safety, never edit a previous version that Michael wrote,
but instead make all of the changes in the reversion by hand.
This will remind you if you ever write down a fact that you haven't checked.
(But now I'm getting into advice on the details of your editing process,
so you could probably ignore this paragraph.)

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] blanket reverts

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Kingturtle wrote:

>>>pages that are blanked for reasons regarding banned users should be
>>>marked as such. please make it very clear to the other users why
>>>you are doing it.

>>This is a quite reasonable request, but the technical system
>>that we have to make reversion easy -- the rollback feature --
>>doesn't have a space for comments.  And ideas for aiding that?

>Hmm... that would defeat the purpose of it being a one-click mass
>timesaver. If you need to add comments, probably best to follow the
>usual procedure via page history.

So do you think that reverting Michael's edits require comments?
If so, then it'll be a lot slower for Zoe et al to do so.
Or, do you think that Kingturtle (and newer users)
don't need to be reminded in every reversion about Michael?
If so, then there'll continue to be mistaken re-reversions.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] 3 new InterWiki prefixes

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>And what if two different languages translate these the same way?
>>OK, that's not very likely with such long terms as these examples,
>>but I could imagine that "BackLinks" is the same in [[hr:]] and [[bs:]].
>>Generally speaking, I don't think that such differences should be assumed.

>They shouldn't. The proper way is to fix the Special namespace. This was
>just a quick hack.

Very well.

If it *is* possible to do with namespaces instead of interwiki links --
and just as easily for purposes of a quick hack --
then I'd suggest doing it with namespaces in the future,
just in case one of these tricks ends up not being temporary.
(Sometimes these things drag on, you know ... ^_^.)
But you're the one that knows if it's just as easy,
so I will accept whatever you do!

(I'm not asking that you undo what you've done already!)

-- Toby


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Static html (on topic!)

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

Finally got a chance to look at Alfio's script, here's some
non-copyright commentary. :)

Je ?a?do 29 Majo 2003 02:15, Alfio Puglisi skribis:
> http://www.arcetri.astro.it/~puglisi/wiki/dump/ma/main_page.html

Looks nice! Cleaner interface than we have, too. ;)

> - filenames should be OK for most filesystems not "8.3" limited
>   (max 63 chars, only a-z, 0-9 and underscore)
>
> - despite the two-letter subdirectories, some of them have over 4,000
> files in them!

Letters aren't distributed evenly, alas... If you want to even that out,
consider using a binary hash as the basis of the divisions. (We use the
first one and two hex digits of the md5hash of the title/filename for
the uploads and the rendered page cache, for instance.) They're not
pretty, though.

> - Time: the script takes more than 2 hours on my 1.3 Ghz Athlon...

Whee... I'm gonna have to get a faster cpu...

> - Size: this dump is about 800MB. (tar.gz is just 110MB). I think
> that I can bring it down to 600-650MB with a bit of trimming and
> eliminating unnecessary redirects.  BUT, without some form of
> compression, the English wikipedia will soon overflow a single CD.
> Maybe we should target DVDs? :-)

Single CD would be preferable, of course, though a static HTML dump can
target mirror sites which don't have that limitation as well.

Possibilities:
* Nearly all (all?) browsers these days can read files sent in gzip
encoding. But can we do this on the filesystem reliably, where we have
no opportunity to send an encoding header? Browsers seem to treat
.html.gz files as application/gzip and send them to an external app,
and don't internally recognize a gzipped file if just named as .html

* Self-extracting JavaScript. :) I'm sure someone, somewhere has done
this; if not it's worth it for the evil factor: rewrite gunzip in
JavaScript, and have the content of the HTML files be a <script> tag
with a big string and a call to the gunzip() function pulled in from a
common .js file. Downsides are likely crappy performance and an
inability to function in non-JavaScript browsers.

* Use transparent filesystem compression on the CD. I think only Linux
supports this, and only if certain options are enabled in the kernel
configuration; not portable, but might be nice for personal use.

* Ship a server. Java applet or light executable for many platforms
which serves out the pages with appropriate encoding header. Downsides:
hard to make portable, can't just browse the filesystem.

* Offline reader program with its own storage and display methods.
Again, hard to make portable, can't just browse the filesystem. (cf
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WINOR )

> - Search: I tried a javascript search that worked well for small
> sized databases: it's basically a big array of strings (article
> titles and filenames) with some lines code that do a regexp match
> against them. For full-sized databases like this one, the search page
> becomes an 8 megabytes monster that takes forever to process (IE
> grabs 100 MB of memory and stops there, Opera is even worse). I'll
> see if I can find a different solution.

Here are some thoughts, and since I'm not going to have time to
implement this myself for a while take it or leave it as you like:

It may be better to go with something similar to MySQL's fulltext search
index: break the titles into words, and associate words with lists of
pages that contain them rather than full titles with their page names.
Instead of regexping a hundred thousand strings, you'd only need to
break the query into words, fetch the lists of pages for _just those
words_, and intersect or union the results as desired.

Space/memory could probably be saved using prefix codes of some sort...

Also, you could break up the index into several smaller files so not all
strings need to be loaded into memory. I don't recall JavaScript having
an include() command, but in the worst case you could pull some kind of
<frameset> or <iframe> thing and bring up the necessary sub-scripts in
another frame.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] An Excellent Short Article was Limits to the non-paperiness of Wikipedia?

body:
Fred-
> But does information about a person who was important in the history of the
> production of artificial diamonds belong in an article on gas absorption
> refrigerators?

Well, since he left the project before it succeeded, it is arguable
whether it belongs there at all; but if it is to be included, it could as
well briefly be mentioned in an article about diamond synthesis. However,
if his contributions are significant, then it is realistically possible to
write a lot more about them, so having a short article as a placeholder
for a longer one is OK.

Simply put: If the person is relatively unimportant in the great scheme of
things, it would not be surprising to see in a traditional encyclopedia

        See: ''refrigerator'', ''diamond synthesis''

In Wikipedia, the analogy would be a redirect to the page if it is a
single one. But if the person turns up in too many different contexts for
that to be workable, it is of course OK to have an article about them,
even if it doesn't grow into a lengthy essay. I believe these cases to be
relatively rare exceptions compared to the hundreds of always-will-be stub
articles that are created every month.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
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Je Diman?o 01 Junio 2003 12:24, The Cunctator skribis:
> I have trouble understanding why this discussion is on Wikitech.

I foolishly made a comment on why an images tarball is not yet available
for converters to play with. From now on I'm keeping my mouth shut
unless I have legal representation present... :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] blanket reverts

body:
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Je Diman?o 01 Junio 2003 12:31, Toby Bartels skribis:
> >>This is a quite reasonable request, but the technical system
> >>that we have to make reversion easy -- the rollback feature --
> >>doesn't have a space for comments.  And ideas for aiding that?
> >
> >Hmm... that would defeat the purpose of it being a one-click mass
> >timesaver. If you need to add comments, probably best to follow the
> >usual procedure via page history.
>
> So do you think that reverting Michael's edits require comments?

I have no opinion on that.

But if people *want* to put comments on "rollback" reversions, it needs
to be very streamlined. Perhaps some kind of JavaScript could be rigged
up to have a comment field directly on the contribs page and modify the
links to include it... or some kind of form/button thing... ugh.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>Even so, caution is warranted, because re-users might not be in the
>same position vis a vis fair use as we are.  And we should be
>sensitive to that.

In particular, we shouldn't rely on our non-profit, educational status.
If that's necessary to render our work "fair use",
then we're definitely not free by GNU standards.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] blanket reverts

body:
Brion Vibber wrote in large part:

>But if people *want* to put comments on "rollback" reversions, it needs
>to be very streamlined. Perhaps some kind of JavaScript could be rigged
>up to have a comment field directly on the contribs page and modify the
>links to include it... or some kind of form/button thing... ugh.

Yeah, that's about what I could think of.
That's why I asked if anybody had any ideas.
^_^

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blanket reverts

body:
I wrote in part:

>LittleDan wrote (about Jimmy's comment on Michael):

>>well that doesn't prohibit unrevereting of his good edits, does it?

>It doesn't prohibit your checking all of the facts in his edits
>and placing back what is correct under your own name,
>that is taking responsibility for the facts yourself.

Actually, I suppose that somebody could argue
that it does prohibit using Michael's writing directly,
rather than rewriting it all in your own words.
I won't commit to such a claim; it still might be
a good thing to do, however.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Regarding Advertising on Wikipedia

body:
I wrote in small part:

>For Americans, I can think of no better warning than
>the growth of advertising of public radio and television.
            ^^
            on

-- Toby


from_name: root

body:
Sorry about that, my name is Michael Becker, my userid is Mbecker.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Vicki Rosenzweig
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 10.18
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request for admin access -- Mbecker

At 04:01 AM 6/1/03 -0400, Michael Becker wrote:
>I would like to request administrative privileges to the Wikipedia so
>that I can contribute more. I would like to be able to update the Main
>Page sometimes when it needs updating.  I would like to regularly
>update some of the statistics pages which require sql queries.  And, or

>course, I feel that I would be able to better serve the community if my

>account was unrestricted.

I see that the email is coming as from "root". If this is his userid on
Wikipedia, there is possibility for confusion as to the powers of this
account.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
From: Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com>

Why does everyone oppose advertising? If it's descrete enough, it's not
intrusive and doesn't lower our credibility.

I do not oppose advertising on Wikipedia (or on a fork). It is hard to
imagine an article which would not lead gracefully to a short, non-obtrusive
ad at the bottom of a page, if nothing else for a book about the subject of
the article. It is, however, a "slippery slope" and anyone knows that once a
camel gets its nose in the tent the rest of the camel is not far behind.

It is hard to sell advertising in any event. People who do sell advertising
find it very hard indeed if they have only a no-intrusive option to offer.
WalMart is not likely to be happy with anything less than saturation
pop-ups.

Non-profit status and extensive advertising produce an emotional if not a
legal disconnect.

Fred

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from_name: Michael Becker

subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for admin access -- Mbecker


from_name: Marco Krohn

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sunday 01 June 2003 07:02, Erik Moeller wrote:

Erik,

[external linking of "fair use" images]
> Alas, it also has several problems:
>
> - When the website is down, the image is no longer available. Broken links
> often go unnoticed for longer periods of time because we have no way to
> systematically check them.
> - The image is no longer embedded in the proper context. It becomes
> difficult to associate image content with image text.
> - The reader is taken away from the Wikipedia navigational structure to a
> non-HTML image page. This is bad user interface design.
>
> So the win/win/win/win situation becomes a win/win/win/win/lose/lose/lose
> situation, at which point I think it more convenient to refer to it as a
> suboptimal solution.

I am more interested in the consequences of adding "fair use" images to the
articles. As Axel pointed out we will violate the GFDL by embedding "fair
use" images in our articles. This means that we have to change the license
(at least for these articles) or even worse have to rewrite the whole article
because such a license change is unlikely to be compatible with GFDL. Another
thing is that we should remove the "free" from wikipedia.

Erik, I haven't seen a comment from you about this so far, but I would be very
interested how you want to solve these problems.

best regards,
  Marco

--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover


from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blanket reverts

body:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:
> well that doesn't prohibit unrevereting of his good
> edits, does it?
> --LittleDan

Yes, it does.  There is no such thing as a good
Michael edit.  Unless you want to to go the trouble of
verifying that every single thing he wrote was
correct, don't even try to think that there is a good
Michael edit.  And besides, Jimbo has said he is
banned until he sends him an email saying that he
wants to be reinstated.  He is specifically
contraverting Jimbo's stand on the subject until such
a time, and because of that, and because of the
time-consuming problem of verifying each and every
thing he writes, blanket reversion is the only
recourse.

Zoe

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Marco-
> Erik, I haven't seen a comment from you about this so far, but I would be
> very interested how you want to solve these problems.

See my response to Brion:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-May/004200.html

Specifically note that textual quotes are already a form of fair use, and
more closely linked to the actual article text than images. You don't want
to forbid us to quote Martin Luther King, do you?

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>
>You know, I wouldn't mind such an advertising system.
>But I'd still oppose instituting one.
>
>The reason is that I don't trust such things not to expand,
>especially when we'd get paid for expansion directly in cash.
>For Americans, I can think of no better warning than
>the growth of advertising of public radio and television.
>What used to be "The following program is sponsored
>in part by General Motors, this station, and viewers like you."
>has become professionally produced 15-second spots
>with full colour and moving pictures.
>Still *less* advertising that on commercial TV,
>but otherwise not *different*.
>
Sigh!!  Non-profit projects can easily become addicted to advertising.
 The more they receive, the more they feel that they need.  It might
come across that we need one more server, or that we need to pay someone
to admisnister the finances, or whatever ...  If the need for these
goodies becomes strong enough we end up even more at the mercy of
advertisers.

Assuming that the foundation ever does get established, sound financial
management by the entire community will be worth a lot more than
advertising revenue.  If, at that point, the members can't secure an
adequate funding plan without commercialization, then maybe the
commitment isn't there and the project shouldn't exist anymore.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] blanket reverts

body:
--- Oliver Brown <oliver at kingturtle.com> wrote:
> pages that are blanked for reasons regarding banned
> users should be marked
> as such. please make it very clear to the other
> users why you are doing
> it. -kingturtle

If blanked, yes, but we're supposed to be deleting
them, not blanking them.  I do put comments as to why
I'm deleting his entries as I delete them, but I don't
have the capability of doing anything about it when I
do a revert.

Zoe

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sunday 01 June 2003 13:39, Erik Moeller wrote:

> > Erik, I haven't seen a comment from you about this so far, but I would be
> > very interested how you want to solve these problems.
>
> See my response to Brion:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-May/004200.html

thanks, I missed that.

> Specifically note that textual quotes are already a form of fair use, and
> more closely linked to the actual article text than images. You don't want
> to forbid us to quote Martin Luther King, do you?

While I agree that quotes are neccessary I have my doubts if this is compliant
with GFDL. Actually I believe they violate the GFDL and we should think about
this rather sooner than later.

BUT, you cannot argue that because we already have potential unsolved problems
with the GFDL we are free to violate the GFDL more than that.

In my humble opinion we should think about how we can solve the problems we
already have with the quotes and not make our situation worse by allowing
"fair use" images which clearly violate the GFDL.

best regards,
  Marco

--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>Fair use bad for Wikipedia...
>
>I have trouble understanding why this discussion is on Wikitech.
>
Honestly, I hadn't noticed that.
I just hit reply when I want to respond to something, without paying any
attention to which of the mailing lists I'm responding.  I assume that
whoever started the thread had some reason for putting it there. :-)

Ec


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 11:14 AM 6/1/03 -0700, LittleDan wrote:
>Why does everyone oppose advertizing? I it's descrete enough, it's not
>intrusive and doesn't lower our credibility.

Because it is intrusive and it would lower our credibility.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: uwe kils

subject: [WikiEN-l] please appologize from kils

body:
To all who were concerned: Please accept my appologizes, I did not mean
to hurt anybody. It was not meant the way many felt. I lost, nobody
picked up the case. But as a good loser I will keep on cooperating and
endorsing wikipedia (as on the teacher page of our server
ecoscope.com). I do not want the sysop status anymore. Good luck with
your project - Uwe Kils

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body:
There are tons of ads on dictionary.com, but people still use that a
lot.  Some time, we may have to decide between canceling the project,
and inserting ads.  If it comes to that, I don't mind ads, especially if
they are easily disabled through preferences.  If anyone has any moral
objections, please explain them.  While I hate ads as much as the next
guy, they serve a purpose.  If we can design an ad system that is as
unobtrusive as possible, I would say we have done the best we can.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Vicki Rosenzweig
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 2.37
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FW: Regarding Advertising on Wikipedia

At 11:14 AM 6/1/03 -0700, LittleDan wrote:
>Why does everyone oppose advertizing? I it's descrete enough, it's not
>intrusive and doesn't lower our credibility.

Because it is intrusive and it would lower our credibility.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Marco-
> In my humble opinion we should think about how we can solve the problems we
> already have with the quotes and not make our situation worse by allowing
> "fair use" images which clearly violate the GFDL.

Let's be clear on one point: On en:, we are *already* allowing fair use of
images. You would like to see this status *changed*. The legal case for
doing so is no stronger than the case for prohibiting fair use of quotes
or sounds (of which there are plenty). In fact, I will now demonstrate
that it is weaker; that we need to worry more about quotes than about
images.

The FDL was developed primarily for books and other printed works. As
such, it does not contain any reference to "linking" of any kind. The
relevant sections to our discussion are the following:

----------------------------

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this
License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions,
provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections
of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as
Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that
you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.

....

7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and
independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting
from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the
compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the
Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the
other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of
the Document.

----------------------------

What is now, in the context of Wikipedia, the work that is licensed under
the FDL? It is not what the server generates, it is not what the web
browser renders, for neither of these entities have the legal rights to
claim a copyright. It is the document entered by the user in the Wikipedia
article submission form, in its original, "transparent" wikitext source
code form.

This document may contain a line like

        [[Image:Britney_Spears.jpg]]

This line of text is licensed just like all other text in the document. It
is implicitly understood by the user that this line will produce an image
that is rendered in-line, but the copyright status of that image is not
confirmed in the article -- it is confirmed during the upload of the
image. The image data is stored in a separate row in the table, and can be
referenced by *several pages*. The image pages even have their own
history, both for the image and the image description. The Britney image
is, for all intents and purposes, a separate work.

When the server creates the HTML page, it turns the above line into
something like

<img src="http://www.wikipedia.org/upload/2/2e/Britney_Spears.jpg">

The user's web browser then produces the *aggregate work* consisting of
the text and the image by fetching both from the server, from different
locations.

The author did not create a "combined work" by combining the article with
the line [[Image:Britney_Spears.jpg]], any more than he would by combining
the article with the link [[Christina Aguilera]] or
[http://www.britneyspears.com Britney official homepage].

Now what happens if I insert a Fair Use quote?

We do so in the text [[Martin Luther King]] under the heading "Views on
anti-Zionism", for example. This quote is indented and inserted in the
source text. Martin Luther King's estate holds the copyright on all his
works. The resulting article is, for all intents and purposes, a *combined
work*. This means that the work as a whole has to be FDL-licensed -- which
we cannot do because we do not own the King copyrights.

Of course, you might argue that the quote is not copyrightable, but that
is a very difficult stance to take given that even cell phone ringtones
are considered "intellectual property".

Directly included quotes are a much more serious legal issue than client-
side included images. As I previously suggested, that might be addressed
by supporting transclusion of some type, so you could say

        [[>Martin Luther King on Zionism]]

which would automatically fetch the quote from a separate namespace (which
does not have to be specified because transclusion is only possible from
that namespace -- hey, even my hypothetical features have to be user
friendly) and insert it in the proper place. This would put quotes on the
same legal level as image pages (with the distinction that the
transclusion would happen server-side), and allow us to use the same quote
in multiple places comfortably. Editing would get a bit trickier, though.

But in my understanding, it's not image pages that we have to worry about
with regard to the FDL. Of course *we* do have to worry about what fair
use means in each individual instance, but the same applies to text.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On 5/30/03 9:29 PM, "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>>> Great. As an intermediate step, how about we go ahead and add a
>>> license-compatibility field or two to the image table and upload form (and
>>> at some point go looking through old images to mark the ones known to be
>>> PD or GFDL).
>>
>> I'm for it. The resulting form contents should probably be saved in the
>> image description, so they can be edited. I agree with the NOTE: ..., a
>> relevant link to [[fair use]] should probably also be added.
>
> This seems like something that all parties to the "fair use" debate
> can agree -- to have a license-compatibility field or two in the image
> table and upload form, such that we can clearly describe why we think
> we can have such-and-such an image on the website, and giving guidance
> to re-users.

Fair use bad for Wikipedia...

I have trouble understanding why this discussion is on Wikitech.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kils sysop status temporarily revoked

body:
Jimmy-
> Dante Alighieri wrote:
>>>That he may have deleted the Viking experiment without prior discussion, I
>>>can understand. But normally pages should be listed on [[Wikipedia:Votes
>>>for deletion]] first, and in this case, he really just used his sysop
>>>privileges to remove something which, for whatever reason, he did not want
>>>to be publicly visible.

> I should add that I'm not particularly comfortable with the page in
> question, [[fisting]], myself.

Any more or less so than any of the other articles in [[List of sexology
topics]]?

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 11:33:05AM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>>
>>>When whole Wikipedia will be included in Linux distros, distributed on CDs,
>>>and articles from Wikipedia will be used by hundreds of books and magazines
>>>and thousands of web sites, how are you going to do that ?
>>>We'd better play safe here.
>>>
>>How others use the material is their problem, and their risk.  We
>>shouldn't have to baby-sit them.  Whatever license or copyrights are
>>applied to Wikipedia reflects a collective comfort level.  The user is
>>still responsible for his own due-dilligence, no matter how conservative
>>we are on the matter.
>>
>
>They're not "others", lot of "them" are Wikipedians.
>If everyone had to consult a lawyer before distributing free software,
>it wouldn't be half as successful as it is now.
>
Perhaps the others are Wikipedians, but that does not absolve them of a
responsibility of due diligence when they contribute to an outside
project.  If anything, by being aware of the present debate they may
become subject to a higher standard than a non-Wikipedian.  One of the
purposes of fair use and safe harbor provisions is to remove the need to
consult lawyers every time you want to add something of uncertain copyright.

>>>Anything that doesn't allow Debian and other distros distribute Wikipedia
>>>in their main section is not acceptable. (That means DFSG and OSI
>>>compatibility, and "fair use" is clearly incompatible with these rules,
>>>btw. invariant sections/front and back covers etc. of GFDL are also
>>>incompatible with DFSG, negotiations with FSF are in process now to fix
>>>that problem with GFDL, plain GFDL is DFSG-compatible)
>>>
>>At some point along the way I get lost in the subtle distinctions that
>>separate this alphabet soup of licenses.  I'm sure that the average
>>contributor doesn't waste much time on it either.  Similarly, when we
>>install a new piece of software, how many of us really read and
>>understand the legalese bafflegab of licences.  We just click on yes,
>>because if we don't the program won't work.  When we contribute to
>>Wikipedia we agree to the principle that we want our writing to be
>>generally available to the public to use as it sees fit, and that we are
>>sharing it with like-minded individuals.  We don't worry about the
>>contortions of armchair lawyers.
>>
>>The practical principle that it is easier to get forgiveness than to get
>>permission goes a long way as long as it is applied with a level of
>>common sense whereby we restrain ourselves from flagrant abuse.  The
>>rule of law is a good thing, but too much law is simply ignored.
>>
>
>All major open projects are very serious about legal issues, and none
>would accept "just a few lines of code" from dubious source.
>Some are more paranoid (like FSF and Debian), some are less,
>but there is no single project that would accept code or other
>content under "fair use", as that's very likely to cause them,
>their users and their distributors lot of serious legal problems.
>
But this is about content rather than code.  I can easily see where an
inappropriately used section of code could bring a whole project to a
halt if it ever had to be withdrawn because of a copyright violation.
 With content removal of a problem passage would not need to jeopardize
the project to any significant extent.  Published snapshots of the
project can be in fairly short print runs that are consistent with short
term demands for the product.  If a copyright problem arises with some
article it can be deleted in time for the next run.

I'm certainly aware of the ambiguities in the word "free".  They overlap
to a great extent.  That being said, I'm less concerned about the "free
beer" or "free ride" sense.  Freedom of speech, and free access to
information are a lot more interesting than just getting something for
nothing.

Ec


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 03:05:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Let's be clear on one point: On en:, we are *already* allowing fair use of
> images.

No we're not !!!


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:

>Isn't this already too late? You can only dual license copyleft material if all
>copyright holders agree to it. The people who have posted stuff so far on
>Wikipedia have posted it under GFDL exclusively.
>
I'm sure that most of them have never given any serious attention to the
licence details.

>If we want to combine different licenses, we have to track down all
>contributers for each relevant article, and get their permisson. Otherwise,
>we're breaking GFDL.
>
Wouldn't that be just a little unrealistic?  A more common sense
solution would be better.

Ec


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
I've read a lot in this mailing list about Wikipedia eventually
needing to find a source of revenue, but I'm a little hazy on
exactly what the cost of maintaining Wikipedia & the related
sites actually is. Jimbo, can you offer an idea of what this
costs your company? How has this been trending over, say, the last
6 to 12 months? (Is the cost steady growing, growing arthimatically,
staying the same?)

Once we have an idea what the cost of Wikipedia actually is, then
we can start talking intelligently about how to raise the money.
For example, if it costs $500.-- a month to run Wikipedia, & we
have 50 people willing to pay a subscription to keep it afloat,
then the most effective plan would be donations thru Paypal.
If it's, say $2000.-- a month, & we only have 30 people willing
to pay a subscription, then obviously we need to looks for
alternative source of revenue.

Frankly, I don't think advertising would be a cost-effective source
of revenue. Ignore for the moment the general dislike of advertising
by the Wikipedia regulars: to get any sort of steady income from
advertising, we would need to HIRE someone & PAY THEM MONEY to
get advertising. (That is, unless Jimbo has a long line of folks
pounding on his door, wanting to buy ad space on Wikipedia.) And
any decent salesperson will eventually want things like health
insurance, benefits, maybe an expense account to wine & dine potential
advertisers, support staff who will also want stuff . . .

If I have to wonder about Wikipedia staying afloat, I would like
some kind of guesstimate about when Jimbo is going to have to give
up his hobby. Are we talking (1) within a year; (2) sometime
between 2 & 5 years; or (3) someday? An answer from Jimbo about
what Wikipedia is costing him, & whether its bound to get to a point
sometime where he has to stop helping us would then let us know whether
just how serious we have to be when we talk about needing other
sources of revenue.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Mbecker, Cgs, Kosebamse are now sysops  -- OH NO! :)

body:
Alright, I just had my first administrative fright.  I was looking at
the Main Page, and I clicked the "Delete this page" link instead of the
"Discuss this page" link!  Luckily deleting pages has been designed well
so that it can't be done on accident, but is still scared the crap out
of me at first.  Just a thought, any chance we could have administrative
options in their own separated section?  I'm sure I will get used to the
new options eventually, but I just thought it would be nice.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Erik Moeller
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 2.52
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mbecker, Cgs, Kosebamse are now sysops

Since their nominations have been seconded/thirded with no objections, I

have made Michael Becker, Kosebamse and Chris Seaton (Cgs) sysops.

Regards,

Erik
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blanket reverts

body:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:
> well that doesn't prohibit unrevereting of his good edits, does it?

The owner of the site has declared that Michael is not allowed to make
edits on Wikipedia, good or bad. Lacking the technical means to enforce
this ban, we have decided to try a soft ban. It would be nice if you
didn't subvert those efforts.

A little analogy: suppose you had a child who keeps screaming for
sweets. You have three options: 1) always give in 2) sometimes give in
3) never give in. Option 2 is by far the worst.

Axel

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Tomasz-
> On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 03:05:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
>> Let's be clear on one point: On en:, we are *already* allowing fair use of
>> images.

> No we're not !!!

Can you say denial?

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AImage_use_policy

---
Image description page

....

 Copyright status

    * public domain: copyright expired
    * placed in public domain by photographer
    * released under the GFDL
    * released under the GFDL - in response to the boilerplate request for
      permission, Fred Jones said "That'd be fine"
    * copyrighted image - the author has given Wikipedia permission to use
      this image, but third parties may not use it without permission
    * copyrighted image - may only be used under "fair use" rules

Images in these last two categories cannot be distributed under the GFDL
license and as such their inclusion in Wikipedia is extremely dubious. It
is recommended that you instead link to a page with the image hosted on
another server if you cannot obtain explicit permission to redistribute it
a GFDL-compatible license. If you do upload "fair use" images here, keep
in mind that they may all be removed at some point if the project gets a
clear legal opinion on the matter.
---

Regards,

Erik


body:
--- Michael Becker <wikipedia at jumpingjackweb.com> wrote:
> Some time, we may have to decide between canceling the project,
> and inserting ads.

I don't think so. When the Spaniards decided to fork, they found a
university hosting them for free in no time. Wikipedia itself has a
standing offer to be hosted for free by ibiblio. Lots of institutions
like to through money at projects like ours.

Axel

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] A new article... perhaps a bad idea...

body:
--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
wrote:
> Well, I just created a new article titled
> [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia and
> Religion]]. Let's hope it doesn't prove to be a Bad
> Thing...
>
> Please check it out...
>
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AWikipedia_and_Religion

That reminded me of a couple of things I would like
for Wikipedia4, such as

* possibility to see recent changes of several wikis
at the same time (hence for en:wikipedians to see the
religion article updated even when it will be moved on
meta)
* possibility to make some internal/external links
between wikipedias (for I think conceptually wrong to
add a link to an international wikipedia as a purely
external one)
* possibility to see deleted pages
* possibility for a community to upgrade its own sysops....

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


body:
--- Tony Wilson <list at redhill.net.au> wrote:
> LittleDan wrote:
> >Why does everyone oppose advertizing? I it's descrete enough, it's
> >not intrusive and doesn't lower our credibility.
>
> I'll give you 10 reasons.

Nice! Maybe you should add them to [[m:Advertising on Wikipedia]].

> 4: Because users have to pay per MB bandwidth charges to look at ads
> they don't want to see.

This seems to me the most concise one: ads on the site mean that the
site would not be "free" anymore. People would have to pay indirectly
both with dollars and with annoyance/distraction.

Axel

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


body:
Once again, I must assert, I am not looking to debate weather or not
advertising (i.e. consumerism) is something the wikipedia wants to be
associated with (or it's users).  I was just suggesting ways of
implementing advertising if need be.  There is no need to argue about
weather or not we should have advertisements, b/c when it comes down to
it, it really isn't our decision.  However, I think we can help control
the way such advertising is implemented, by coming up with the best
solution for the wikipedia.  This too is in the end out of our control,
but I still think it is worth while to talk about.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Toby Bartels
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 4.06
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Regarding Advertising on Wikipedia

I wrote in small part:

>For Americans, I can think of no better warning than
>the growth of advertising of public radio and television.
            ^^
            on

-- Toby
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Oliver Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] blanket reverts

body:
pages that are blanked for reasons regarding banned users should be marked
as such. please make it very clear to the other users why you are doing
it. -kingturtle


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 04:00:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Tomasz-
> > On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 03:05:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
> >> Let's be clear on one point: On en:, we are *already* allowing fair use of
> >> images.
>
> > No we're not !!!
>
> Can you say denial?
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AImage_use_policy
>
> ---
> Image description page
>
> ....
>
>  Copyright status
>
>     * public domain: copyright expired
>     * placed in public domain by photographer
>     * released under the GFDL
>     * released under the GFDL - in response to the boilerplate request for
>       permission, Fred Jones said "That'd be fine"
>     * copyrighted image - the author has given Wikipedia permission to use
>       this image, but third parties may not use it without permission
>     * copyrighted image - may only be used under "fair use" rules
>
> Images in these last two categories cannot be distributed under the GFDL
> license and as such their inclusion in Wikipedia is extremely dubious. It
> is recommended that you instead link to a page with the image hosted on
> another server if you cannot obtain explicit permission to redistribute it
> a GFDL-compatible license. If you do upload "fair use" images here, keep
> in mind that they may all be removed at some point if the project gets a
> clear legal opinion on the matter.

I don't know who put the last 2 categories there, but it has been obviously
done without general consensus and IT BREAKS THE F***ING LAW -
if you're putting such image on GFDL-ed article you're breaking copyright
of authors of the article - they didn't give you permisions to distribute
non-GFDL derivates of their work.

So even when it's legally ok to use such image (usually it's not), it's
not ok to put it to GFDL article.

We also have to make it legal to distribute Wikipedia in Europe, which have
different copyright laws, especially when it comes to what in USA is
called "fair use", and what is usually described explicitely by copyright laws.

In Poland public speeches and short quotes are not subject to copyright laws,
but photos are, and you have to pay the author for using them.


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fair use (Was: Static html)

body:
There's been a discussion for the past couple of days on <wikitech-l>
about copyright policy on Wikipedia (all languages,
but mostly focussing on [[en:]], [[de:]], and [[pl:]] for examples).
This grew out of a real technical question
(?Why doesn't the download tarball include images??),
but it quickly turned into a policy discussion.

Thus, I'll be placing my replies to this thread here shortly,
and I encourage anybody interested in this to look at <wikitech-l>:
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-May/thread.html#4163>
and <http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-June/thread.html>,
or look for the Subject: lines appearing in this post.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Beating a dead horse

body:
I deleted [[Conflict (band)]] because it was created
by Micheal.  Admittedly, it had a lot of
Quercusrober's additions, but it was a Michael
creation.  GrahamN put it on [[Votes for undeletion]],
and Camembert undeleted it.  I have redeleted it and
put the information back in my name that Quercusrobur
added.

Will people PLEASE quit recreating Michael entries?
And I don't appreciate being character assassinated by
people like GrahamN.

Zoe

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Michael and ways to deal with him

body:
--- Jimmy O'Regan <jimregan at o2.ie> wrote:
> Should there not be a boilerplate text which can be
> used in these
> events? Something to the effect of:
> ==Page out of service==
>
> This page is under a
> [[meta:Wikipedia:Raincloud|Raincloud]] - it was
> written by a [[meta:bans|banned user]]. If you wish
> to check the facts
> of previous versions of this page, you may do so by
> selecting "Page
> History" at the top of this page. If you wish to
> write a new version of
> this article, you may do so by selecting "Edit this
> page" from the top
> of this page.

And who will go around cleaning those up?  Besides, it
leaves Michael's name in the history even though he is
banned.

Zoe

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fair use

body:
[Note: This is posted to both <wikitech-l> and <wikipedia-l>
to preserve continuity; replies should go to <wikipedia-l>.]

Eclecticology wrote in part:

>I don't see where we have had problems
>with the copyright holders themselves.  It would be easy to agree to
>remove this material if the request came from the copyright holder
>himself.  The pressure so far seems to be coming from people who imagine
>that something is copyright.

>My inclination would be to use borderline material, with an appropriate
>warning that we will happily remove on request from a properly
>identified owner.

This is a big difference between images and text.
Our text is not only distributed -- it's modified in many ways.
A copyright problem there can infect many articles later on.
With images, we don't have nearly this sort of practical problem.

But we still need to clearly separate out the non-free images
to aid later distributors, try not to rely on them for content,
and replace them with free images when possible.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sunday 01 June 2003 14:44, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
> > "Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
> > work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
> > be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."
>
> This is not valid reasoning.  If accurate, then we can't even quote
> from copyrighted sources, not even one sentence of quotation, because
> all such use is done under a "fair use" doctrine.

Sorry, but what has the reasoning to do with the consequences? Only because
the results are bad for us does not mean that the reasoning is not valid.
(Apologizes if I misunderstood you, but I don't see an argument for your
statement that "this is not valid reasoning", please note that I am
non-native speaker).

> Suppose we have an article about a book by Noam Chomsky.  We wish to
> explain the thesis of the book, and toward that end, we quote a
> relevant sentence from the book.  This is perfectly valid, and it is
> fair use.

Please, nobody doubts that this is "fair use". But others and I doubt that the
result is compatible with the GFDL, in fact it is my opinion that the result
violates the GFDL because we start mixing GFDL content with "fair use"
content, and the latter has a lot more restrictions than GFDL.

> What is the situation in German law?

I think we shouldn't discuss what the situation is in other countries. IMHO
this is irrelevant. The only question it comes down to is:

Is adding "fair use" content to the GFDL Wikipedia compatible with GFDL or
not.

It is my understanding that GFDL is not compatible with "fair use". I'll write
an email to the gnu organization now and ask for help with interpretation.

best regards,
  Marco

--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover


body:
--- Michael Becker <wikipedia at jumpingjackweb.com>
wrote:
> Correct me if I am wrong Zoe, but aren't you a
> little too personally
> involved with the vandal formerly know as Michael?
> If so, maybe you
> should leave the deleting and reverting to others,
> b/c to me, who wasn't
> around when he made his attacks on you, it seems to
> me as a conflict of
> interests.

You're absolutely right.  Maybe when he says he wants
to rape and kill me, I shouldn't take it so
personally.  How would it make you feel?

Having said that, I came back to the mailing list just
now to announce that I have resolved as of this minute
to no longer have any dealings with reverting or
resolving the Michael issue.  What's the point?  First
Camembert reverts [[Conflict (band)]], leaving the
Michael information there, then when I re-delete and
remove Michael's name, MyRedDice, who's never met a
vandal he didn't like, comes along and restores the
entire history so that Michael's name is still there.
There's no point in anyone doing anything to stop
vandals anywhere, is there, since everyone seems to
want to let them have their way with Wikipedia?  Well,
okay, you people who don't care if there is false
information and abuse on Wikipeda (see [[User
talk:GrahamN]] (well, the history, anyway, since
Graham has been cowardly enough to delete his nasty
comments to me).  I'm through with trying to fix it.
You're on your own.

Zoe

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fair use

body:
[Note: This is posted to both <wikitech-l> and <wikipedia-l>
to preserve continuity; replies should go to <wikipedia-l>.]

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>Eclecticology wrote:

>>How others use the material is their problem, and their risk.  We
>>shouldn't have to baby-sit them.  Whatever license or copyrights are
>>applied to Wikipedia reflects a collective comfort level.  The user is
>>still responsible for his own due-dilligence, no matter how conservative
>>we are on the matter.

>They're not "others", lot of "them" are Wikipedians.
>If everyone had to consult a lawyer before distributing free software,
>it wouldn't be half as successful as it is now.

This isn't entirely true; the more paranoid must still check the less paranoid.
But Wikipedia needs to make it easy by separating out the "fair use" pics
and not claiming any longer that they are being distributed under the GFDL.

As for brief quotations, well, I knew that the GNU licences
would come back to bite us someday, but I expected 50 years from now
(hopefully *after* current copyright law became impossible to maintain).
I never thought they would prove to be inadequate so soon!
Surely RMS thought of brief quotations, one hopes?

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 05:44:47AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
> > "Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
> > work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
> > be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."
>
> This is not valid reasoning.  If accurate, then we can't even quote
> from copyrighted sources, not even one sentence of quotation, because
> all such use is done under a "fair use" doctrine.
>
> Suppose we have an article about a book by Noam Chomsky.  We wish to
> explain the thesis of the book, and toward that end, we quote a
> relevant sentence from the book.  This is perfectly valid, and it is
> fair use.
>
> What is the situation in German law?  You seem to be arguing that
> there is no such thing as fair use in German law, but that strikes me
> as virtually impossible.  Can you give the details?
>
> By the way, I agree with those who say that (a) strictly speaking,
> German law is not of primary interest to us, but also with those who
> say that (b) if we can make sure that the encyclopedia is
> redistributable in Germany, too, that's a good thing, if it doesn't
> cost much in terms of content.

At least in Polish law, such quotation wouldn't be subject of copyright
law at all. On the other hand, using somebody else's ilustrations without
authorization is plain illegal (there is some procedure that allows you
to use them and send them some standard fee whether they like it or not,
but it doesn't apply in all cases). There are some (mostly explicitely listed,
plus some general principles about others) cases where you
can simply take somebody else's photos (or other stuff) and use them,
but I don't think they're going to be compatible between coutries.
Most of them are about non-commercial usage, so they don't apply to Wikipedia
anyway.


body:
I'm not trying to be mean here, but has anyone ever considered that
Michael may have a mental disease?  He doesn't seem to get the point, no
matter how many times people tell him what he needs to do, or no matter
how many times his contributions are reverted.  I've been a contributor
for almost a year now, and he has continued to try and contribute the
entire time.  Another possibility is that he does not have a mental
disease, but he is continuing to make these contributions under his
Michael account, to try and throw dirt in our face, so we won't notice
changes he makes under other alias'.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Jimmy O'Regan
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 5.27
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Michael and ways to deal with him

This page is under a [[meta:Wikipedia:Raincloud|Raincloud]] - it was
written by a [[meta:bans|banned user]]. If you wish to check the facts
of previous versions of this page, you may do so by selecting "Page
History" at the top of this page. If you wish to write a new version of
this article, you may do so by selecting "Edit this page" from the top
of this page.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
--- Michael Becker <wikipedia at jumpingjackweb.com>
wrote:
> Zoe, I never said what you were doing was wrong, but
> your not helping
> your position with you attitude.  I understand that
> he made personal
> attacks on you, but I think you need to try and at
> least act like you
> have a NPOV towards the whole thing, b/c you make it
> look like you are
> picking on people.  I realize this isn't the case,
> but you don't present
> it this way.  I will support you all the way, I was
> just making a
> friendly suggestion.

As I said, I've washed my hands of the whole
situation.  I'm always the one who comes across as the
bad guy when the vandals get to have their way.

Zoe

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
This response is transferred from Wikitech where DM's posting appeared.

Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:

>On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>>Isn't this already too late? You can only dual license copyleft material if all
>>>copyright holders agree to it. The people who have posted stuff so far on
>>>Wikipedia have posted it under GFDL exclusively.
>>>
>>I'm sure that most of them have never given any serious attention to the
>>licence details.
>>
>
>I can't believe I'm hearing this. I don't know what to say.
>
>I remember reading about how we're going to one day plug all history back into
>all articles, from the earlier software phases, because if we didn't we would
>be violating the license terms set by our contributers (GFDL).
>
>And now we're just going to brush it all aside? I'm outraged.
>
My statement was a simple statement of fact, not a brushing aside.
 People just don't have the time or the expertise to wade through
endless texts of legalese.  They just say yes, and hope for the best.
 Under our law a contract by a child is not enforceable unless it's for
necessities, so if a child agrees to a software license as a matter of
contract it's unenforceable anyway.  Provisions in a license to transfer
jurisdiction to a United States court are of dubious validity, and may
be contrary to a person's constitutional rights in his own country.  If
the opportunity comes up that requires transferring software to a Cuban,
I will gladly ignore United States law because whatever transactions I
may have with a Cuban is absolutely no business of the United States.
 Can you honestly say that you have read and fully understood all of
these licences?  If yes, I'd love to be in a position to have you write
an exam on them.

>>>If we want to combine different licenses, we have to track down all
>>>contributers for each relevant article, and get their permisson. Otherwise,
>>>we're breaking GFDL.
>>>
>>Wouldn't that be just a little unrealistic?  A more common sense
>>solution would be better.
>>
>
>Yes, this is unrealistic. This is why I said that it is probably too late to
>begin dual licensing Wikipedia content (except in the case of new articles).
>
>The more common sense solution (in that it is a realistic endeavour) is of
>course to remove all quotes. Frankly, there aren't that many there to begin
>with.
>
Removing all quotes is just as silly as seeking for everyone to provide
positive written consent.  Negative consent might be easier.  In other
words, you eMail all users at their last known address to outline the
proposed changes that will go into effect in (say) six months.  You
invite them to respond within that time; failure to respond will imply
consent.  In any consent system we still aren't saying what we will do
with the work of those who say no.  How can we remove their
contributions without harming the contributions of others who have been
involved in the same article.

Not all quotes are a subject of fair use.  Some really are in the public
domain, because they are that old.  Who is going to take the time to
identify all the quotes for removal?

Ec


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blanket reverts

body:
"Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
wrote in message news:20030531230332.77432.qmail at web41809.mail.yahoo.com...
> I don't think the blanket reverting efforts directed
> at Michael are good. I went through the contrabutions
> of 24.130.213.24x (those of you reverting know who I'm
> talking about) and many, if not most, of his edits
> were useful and even factual. I will be un-reverting
> all of his useful edits, but only after fact checking.
> --LittleDan

Do not un-revert. Jimmy Wales made it quite clear what he expects us to do
about Michael, in a message to this list only yesterday (in my time zone).
Here's what he said:

"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> wrote in
message news:20030530183331.C27690 at joey.bomis.com...
> Dante Alighieri wrote:
> > This is an open request, but it is specifically aimed at Jimbo. Can we
have
> > a clear and definitive answer on Michael and his pseudonyms and
his/their
> > ban status?
>
> Michael and all his derivatives are banned from Wikipedia.  Sysops and
> developers can take whatever steps are necessary to make this
> technologically effective.
>
> > Also, can this be posted on the Wikipedia so that it can be
> > easily linked to?
>
> I assume this email message, via the archvies, will be sufficient.
>
> > The current situation requires that we direct people to
> > Michael's ban talk page and that they then link to the No-Fx page and
the
> > Weezer pages. I am, as are others, spending too much time defending our
> > actions when we delete Michael's garbage. Thanks.
>
> He's banned, and if he wants to be unbanned, he can email me for a
> friendly chat, or join the mailing list to state his case.
>
> --Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sunday 01 June 2003 14:51, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Marco Krohn wrote:
> > I am more interested in the consequences of adding "fair use" images to
> > the articles. As Axel pointed out we will violate the GFDL by embedding
> > "fair use" images in our articles.
>
> I don't think it is at all obvious that adding "fair use" content to
> an article makes it incompatible with the GFDL.

_I_ think this is obvious (and please believe me that I am very happy with
being wrong ;-)

"fair use" does not allow modifications.
GFDL allows that.

adding "fair use" content to "fair use" content does not neccessarily result
in "fair use" content.
GFDL has no such limitations.

> If so, then we have a  major problem with respect to even quoting
> copyrighted books.

We will see what FSF answers to that. I have sent an email to the GNU
organization and asked them for help on this. As soon as I have their reply
I'll post it here.

best regards,
  Marco

--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> At least in Polish law, such quotation wouldn't be subject of copyright
> law at all. On the other hand, using somebody else's ilustrations without
> authorization is plain illegal (there is some procedure that allows you
> to use them and send them some standard fee whether they like it or not,
> but it doesn't apply in all cases).

This is also the case in Norway.

-- Daniel


from_name: Giskart

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Want to advertise on Wikipedia? Here is out rate card

body:
"Tony Wilson" <list at redhill.net.au> wrote in
news:200306010956.h519um129174 at pliny.wikipedia.org:

> For the convenience of our clients, we provide two different ways to
> advertise on Wikipedia. Feel free to choose whichever way best suits
> you and your business.
>
> 1: THE HIGH VISIBILITY PACKAGE
[cut]

(*)  Offer only valid for the English Edition


from_name: Oliver Pereira

body:
On 31 May 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Well, at this point I can't really read minds yet, so I don't know if
> the people who supported having short articles would or would not want
> articles about fictional characters. But I'm happy to know that you
> don't like the little bastard either.

Okay. I'm sorry for dismissing your examples about fictional characters so
rudely. To be honest, this was a bit hypocritical of me. I am, after all,
responsible for [[Tails]]. I will sort that out, though, one way or the
other. Eventually. Honest...

But then again, I see from the edit history of [[Knuckles the Echidna]]
that you have visited that page a few times, and haven't merged that into
[[Sonic the Hedgehog]], so maybe you're more lenient on Sonic the Hedgehog
characters... ;)

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
OK, as to that point. I do admit to fear. However, for whatever reason
Tannin, 172, have more or less creased the behavior I complained of. I doubt
they are "cured", but I think enough attention has been directed to the
matter.

Fred

> From: "james duffy" <jtdirl at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 23:22:13 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fred's supposed nasty comment from JTDirl
>
>
>
>
>
>>  Take a look at the nasty
>> comment on my talk page:
>>
>> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fred_Bauder especially on the last
>> line:
>>
>> "lol Fear?IREANN"
>>
>
> For the record:
>
> 1. I left no nasty comment on Fred's page. When checking out how wiki list
> references show up on google, I came upon on rather nasty link that exists
> regarded Fred Bauder. I left a message on his page telling him of the link
> because I thought as a colleague that he should know it existed. I told him
> that though we had disagreements I thought that particular link was wrong
> and unfair to him. I suggested that if we blocked list pages from google
> searches, that link might disappear. It was something that I had written on
> the list about, and I thought then and believe now that that unfair link to
> Fred's name highlighted the dangers of direct links to the list. I made
> other suggestions as to how we could avoid anyone else being wronged in the
> way Fred was being in that google search. Finally I suggested that, in case
> a new link connected to that message from me on his wiki page and so gave
> another source to the reference to 'Fred Bauder and academic dishonesty', he
> should feel free to delete my message. How is that nasty?
>
> 2. My name is Fear?ireann, which meaning in gaelic ''Man of Ireland'', the
> gaelic version of my previous english language usernic, ?IREman. I thought
> it fitting to use my national language in my usernic.
>
> 3. Lol was intended to mean, as it does and is used by many wiki users,
> 'Lots of love', ie, an expression of goodwill.
>
> I fail to see where Fred's paranoia about my message came from. All I did
> was tell a colleague that I had come across an unfair google link to them
> and made it clear just how unfair I thought it was, as well as making a
> suggestion about how that link could be broken. I cannot understand how an
> act of professional courtesy and concern for the reputation of a colleague
> could be seen as a 'nasty comment'.
>
> JT
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
> http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia is forgetting my e-mail address

body:
For the second time I got an error message
"Sie m?ssen angemeldet sein und eine g?ltige E-Mail-Addresse haben, um
anderen Benutzern E-Mail zu schicken."
when I tried to send someone a mail. It seems Wikipedia is forgetting my
address. When I re-enter it in the preferences it works.

Has anybody else experienced this?

(I'm using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; de-AT; rv:1.3)
Gecko/20030312)

There is also a known bug that I can't see my e-mail address in the
preferences, although it has been entered. But I guess this isn't related.

Kurt


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> My inclination would be to use borderline material, with an appropriate
> warning that we will happily remove on request from a properly
> identified owner.

It's harder to remove material from a printed edition of Wikipedia. This means
any printed version must cut away a degree of the content.

This makes the problem with a compromise clearer: If we flag all "fair use"
images and accept them, they will discourage the hunt for non-copyrighted
similar material - the article already has a picture. (IMO, of course.)

-- Daniel


from_name: Zeno Gantner

body:
I have experienced this some months ago.
I re-entered my address, and then it worked again.

Sorry that I did not answer, I was quite busy the
last weeks...

best regards,
   Zeno

Am Son, 2003-06-01 um 19.24 schrieb Kurt Jansson:
> For the second time I got an error message
> "Sie m?ssen angemeldet sein und eine g?ltige E-Mail-Addresse haben, um
> anderen Benutzern E-Mail zu schicken."
> when I tried to send someone a mail. It seems Wikipedia is forgetting my
> address. When I re-enter it in the preferences it works.
>
> Has anybody else experienced this?
>
> (I'm using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; de-AT; rv:1.3)
> Gecko/20030312)
>
> There is also a known bug that I can't see my e-mail address in the
> preferences, although it has been entered. But I guess this isn't related.
>
> Kurt
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Marco Krohn

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sunday 01 June 2003 18:13, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> >What I do suggest is that we use common sense to determine the few cases
> >where we think fair use law is applicable, instead of simply ignoring
> >these few loopholes in the current restrictive copyright code. I would
> >think that someone opposed to intellectual property would embrace the idea
> >that we should defend and make use of our rights, instead of bowing to the
> >pressure from copyright holders.
>
> I agree with this approach, but I don't see where we have had problems
> with the copyright holders themselves.  It would be easy to agree to
> remove this material if the request came from the copyright holder
> himself.  The pressure so=far seems to be coming from people who imagine
> that something is copyright.

IMHO the problem is different: the question is _not_ whether we are allowed to
use content under "fair use" right, but if it allowed to use this material
under the license we are using (GFDL). This is an important difference.

You allowed to use "fair use" content in general (I think nobody doubts that),
but some of us think that it is not legal combining these images / quotes /
whatever with GFDL content because it violates the GFDL.

best regards,
  Marco Krohn

--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>OTOH, let's suppose that we have individual articles on each character
>>in addition to an article [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]
>>that (I guess) summarises information on the characters.

>I don't want that.

Yeah, I know that you don't want that.
Check my previous post again; this was the version under "Oliver's system"
of an attempt to make a comparison in your previous post fair.

>>In general, about the same amount of text appears under either system

>Nope, you need redundant intros with separate articles. For one paragraph
>articles, this is substantial (about 20%). In addition, in my system, the
>text is on one page, making it easy to do search/replace operations.

As I said (but you snipped), it's about the same amount of text
*except* for "very short" (that is, one-paragraph) articles.
Our disagreement is about articles with 3 to 10 paragraphs.
You're right about search/replace, however.

>>Yes, it does, and we've already decided our standards of significance:
>>Gnipper *is* significant enough.  Thus we have an article on him.

>This is not the only question where significance matters. In my view, if a
>subject is relatively insignificant, it is more proper to discuss it in
>context.

Since we ultimately agree about where [[en:Gnipper]] should go,
can you give me a concrete example for this?
Is [[en:Sarah Marple-Cantrell]] (discussed below) an example?

>>So is your proposed policy about potential length or significance?

>Both. Mostly it is about avoiding eternal stubs that are likely to be
>neglected (I'm surprised that I think of this argument only now, it is a
>very important one: very short articles on insignificant subjects are more
>likely to be neglected, because fewer people will follow all the links
>from an obscure page, and with more and more articles, the random page
>likelihood per article decreases.), and because of all the other
>disadvantages of short articles I have mentioned.

Well, again, I agree with you about very short articles.
Maybe we disagree about what "very short" means, however;
I don't think that [[en:Sarah Marple-Cantrell]] is very short --
even though it doesn't come close to your 20KB minimum.

>>Do you have any objection to [[en:Sarah Marple-Cantrell]],
>>the example that got Oliver started on all this?

>Yes. I would prefer this case to be discussed in the context of teenage
>suicides, with a redirect to that discussion on her name.

So do you think that all of the info in that article
should go in an article such as [[Teenage suicide]]?
Or would you prefer that this information be deleted --
and if so, why shouldn't Wikipedia contain that information?
(I will agree that Marple-Cantrell's case might well be discussed
on [[Teenage suicide]], with a link to the article on just her.)

-- Toby

PS: Is there any sense in which we're discussing Wikipedia-wide policy
    and not just the standards for the English Wikipedia?
    Should this discussion be moved to <wikiEN-l>?


body:
I wrote in part:

>Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

>>We already have that problem right now: Go
>>and try to enter "palestine" in the wikipedia search: There are more than 500
>>matches. The one article named "Palestine" is more or less a link list. What
>>tells me that? I don't get the information out of Wikipedia, I'll get it out
>>of Britannica. (Check out this link and you'll understand the difference:
>>http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=115036)

>Typing "palestine" in the search is silly; go to [[Palestine]] instead.
>None of the articles named [[Palestine]] on any of the language wikis
>(when linked to from [[en:Palestine]]) is "more or less a link list".
>One could argue about whether they're better or worse than EB's,
>but your charge is unsupportable.

Interestingly, the EB page that Ulrich links to above
*is* more or less a link list -- unlike our articles!

-- Toby


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Tomasz-
> if you're putting such image on GFDL-ed article you're breaking copyright
> of authors of the article - they didn't give you permisions to distribute
> non-GFDL derivates of their work.

See my response to Marco.

> We also have to make it legal to distribute Wikipedia in Europe, which have
> different copyright laws, especially when it comes to what in USA is
> called "fair use", and what is usually described explicitely by copyright
> laws.

We should make reasonable efforts to do so, but fortunately, most
countries have fair use equivalents. For example, in Germany the use of an
image is called a "Gro?zitat", and currently allowed in scientific works
(including popular scientific ones).

Our primary concern, however, especially regarding the English Wikipedia,
is for US law.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 09:13:08AM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> >What I do suggest is that we use common sense to determine the few cases
> >where we think fair use law is applicable, instead of simply ignoring
> >these few loopholes in the current restrictive copyright code. I would
> >think that someone opposed to intellectual property would embrace the idea
> >that we should defend and make use of our rights, instead of bowing to the
> >pressure from copyright holders.
> >
> I agree with this approach, but I don't see where we have had problems
> with the copyright holders themselves.  It would be easy to agree to
> remove this material if the request came from the copyright holder
> himself.  The pressure so=far seems to be coming from people who imagine
> that something is copyright.
>
> To me, an important question is, "Can a copyright exist without a
> copyright holder?"  In a simple case suppose that the apparent copyright
> holder died intestate last year, with no apparent heir, and not enough
> in personal assets to warrant probate.  Who now owns the copyright?
>
> My inclination would be to use borderline material, with an appropriate
> warning that we will happily remove on request from a properly
> identified owner.

When whole Wikipedia will be included in Linux distros, distributed on CDs,
and articles from Wikipedia will be used by hundreds of books and magazines
and thousands of web sites, how are you going to do that ?
We'd better play safe here.

Anything that doesn't allow Debian and other distros distribute Wikipedia
in their main section is not acceptable. (That means DFSG and OSI
compatibility, and "fair use" is clearly incompatible with these rules,
btw. invariant sections/front and back covers etc. of GFDL are also
incompatible with DFSG, negotiations with FSF are in process now to fix
that problem with GFDL, plain GFDL is DFSG-compatible)


from_name: Tony Wilson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Want to advertise on Wikipedia? Here is out rate card

body:
For the convenience of our clients, we provide two different ways to
advertise on Wikipedia. Feel free to choose whichever way best suits
you and your business.

1: THE HIGH VISIBILITY PACKAGE

With our award-winning Wikipedia High Visibility Advertising Package,
you get nothing but the best: we give you 100% full control over no
less than 100% of the available screen space in as many Wikipedia
articles as you wish to place your advertising in. That's a fantastic
offer that no other on-line encyclopedia can match.

But that's not all! We also give YOU the choice of article, and there
is NO EXTRA CHARGE for high-traffic pages.

Want to replace the entire content of SEX with your company logo? No
problem.

Want to redirect the MAIN PAGE to your on-line shopping portal? Go
right ahead.

It's all part of the famous Wikipedia High Visibility Premium
Advertising Package.

This is our premium package and naturally it's a little more expensive
than inferior packages from our competitors, but we are sure that you
will agree it's worth it. Because Wikipedia is an equal opportunity
media outlet and does not discriminate against any social group, we
adjust our rates to suit your capacity to pay. For the High Visibility
Premium Package, we charge just 110% of however much you have.

Do you only have $10? That's fine, our price to you is $11.

What if you seach a litle harder and find that you can pay the $11
after all? Well, then you have a greater capacity to pay than we
thought, and your price is now $12.10.

Or maybe you have 10 billion dollars. That's fine too: your special low
price for you is 11 billion.

2: THE BUDGET PACKAGE

We know that our High Visibility Package is not for everyone. Some
people just don't have 10% more money than they have. In fact,
calculated on a world-wide basis, the number of people who can afford
our High Visibility Premium Package is ... er ... zero. No matter:
that's why we also offer a Budget Package that absolutely everybody can
afford.

For just $1, you can advertise on any Wikipedia page you chose. That's
right, any page at all.

Want to advertise on two pages? Just send $2.

Or send $5 and advertise on any five pages, and we will give you a
sixth page ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

Don't have dollars in your part of the world? No wories - as part of
the fuss-free Wikipedia Budget Package service, we accept any currency.
You can send US dollars, euros, pffenings, yen, cowrie shells, monopoly
money, or even hand-draw your own banknotes!!! (OK, we admit that we
don't take New Zealand dollars but, after all, we have to draw the line
somewhere.)

Naturally, the Wikipedia Budget Package doesn't give you quite as much
for your money as our High Visibility Premium Package, but you can
still place any content you desire on each and every one of the pages
you have bought sponsorship rights to (up to a limit of  0.0% of the
available space). Yes, that's right, a full ZERO percent!

When you think of advertising, think of Wikipedia.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 07:18:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
> > We also have to make it legal to distribute Wikipedia in Europe, which have
> > different copyright laws, especially when it comes to what in USA is
> > called "fair use", and what is usually described explicitely by copyright
> > laws.
>
> We should make reasonable efforts to do so, but fortunately, most
> countries have fair use equivalents. For example, in Germany the use of an
> image is called a "Gro?zitat", and currently allowed in scientific works
> (including popular scientific ones).
>
> Our primary concern, however, especially regarding the English Wikipedia,
> is for US law.

In Poland such exceptions apply only to research and, to lesser extend,
to education. Wikipedia is neither one or another.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On 1 Jun 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Our primary concern, however, especially regarding the English Wikipedia,
> is for US law.

Is this policy? I think it's a problematic policy. I've heared Jimbo extol
visions about having Wikipedia printed and sent out to the poor and the
wretched, once we have enough articles and enough funding.

In the US, people can generally buy themselves their own encyclopedias. :)

-- Daniel


from_name: Lee Pilich

body:
At 14:51 01/06/2003 -0400, Michael Becker wrote:
>There are tons of ads on dictionary.com, but people still use that a
>lot.  Some time, we may have to decide between canceling the project,
>and inserting ads.  If it comes to that, I don't mind ads, especially if
>they are easily disabled through preferences.  If anyone has any moral
>objections, please explain them.

It's not a moral objection, but I don't think our credibility would be
helped by having an advert for, say, the new Blur album flashing away on
[[Britpop]]. Imagine an ad for the new season at La Scala mid-way through
Britannica's article on opera. Aside from the fact that adverts are bloody
annoying, we're meant to be neutral, you know.

Anyway, this isn't really an issue for us mortals, but for Jimbo (who,
after all, is the guy who pays for all this), and if I remember correctly
he's said he has no intentions to add advertising at this stage. Hopefully,
when the non-profit is set up we'll all be able to make donations to keep
the Wikipedia running in a way that will make adverts unnecessary.

LP (camembert)
WikiKarma: [[Barnett Newman]]


from_name: Michael Becker

body:
Correct me if I am wrong Zoe, but aren't you a little too personally
involved with the vandal formerly know as Michael?  If so, maybe you
should leave the deleting and reverting to others, b/c to me, who wasn't
around when he made his attacks on you, it seems to me as a conflict of
interests.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Zoe
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 8.08
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Michael and ways to deal with him

--- Jimmy O'Regan <jimregan at o2.ie> wrote:
> Should there not be a boilerplate text which can be
> used in these
> events? Something to the effect of:
> ==Page out of service==
>
> This page is under a
> [[meta:Wikipedia:Raincloud|Raincloud]] - it was
> written by a [[meta:bans|banned user]]. If you wish
> to check the facts
> of previous versions of this page, you may do so by
> selecting "Page
> History" at the top of this page. If you wish to
> write a new version of
> this article, you may do so by selecting "Edit this
> page" from the top
> of this page.

And who will go around cleaning those up?  Besides, it
leaves Michael's name in the history even though he is
banned.

Zoe

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