from_name: Anthere

body:
For the record, I am shocked by your entire email.
Deeply.

ATR wrote:
> The fact of the matter was that Jimbo applied for the MediaWiki
> trademark and then I fixed the application afterwards. The term "MEDIAWIKI"
> is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc..  This was done
> after the foundation was created, not before. This was not hidden from
> anyone
> it is a matter of public record:
>
> http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78507335
>
> http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=6lvb7s.3.1
>
> As you can see from the database TESS record it clearly states that the
> trademark
> was: "FIRST USE: 20030808. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20030809" The
> foundation was incorporated on June 20, 2003, August 8-9, 2003 is subsequent
> to that date. Thus, this is after the Foundation was created, not before. It
> was first
> posted on Wikimedia project web pages and it was proposed to be used in that
> context, no other. The logo was not create before that date, but afterwards.

I never argued that the Foundation never applied to the tm. Nor that it
tried to hide it. I object to your statement that the authors of the
logo (Erik and for a very little part myself) were informed that the
logo would be trademarked by the Foundation. THis is false and you know it.

> How can
> you say you own something when a part of it belongs to someone else?

???
Sorry. Belongs to who ?
If you intend to claim I am not the author of the flower picture because
it belongs to the Foundation, I think you are showing a badly twisted mind.

> Also Brion was aware of the trademark application and knows that the
> trademark has been
> registered by the foundation:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2005-November/004774.html
> |"5) The Foundation may own the trademark on the name MediaWiki, which
> |postdates the creation of the software itself.
> |
> |6) A trademark registration for the mark was filed last year on behalf
> |of the foundation, though it hasn't totally gone through yet. (I'm not
> |the person to ask for details on that.)
> |
> |-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)"
>

The fact that Brion knew and agreed is not the proof all developers knew
and agreed. Are you saying here that Brion is the only author and the
only person whose opinion matters ?

> Brion acknowledges that the foundation was getting a registration for the
> trademark,
> he or other developers never opposed this registration. They probably would
> find it
> very difficult to overturn that registratino now if they tried.

I agree. That's why I say there is a sufficient history.

> There is also a discussion about the creation & licensing of WMF trademarks
> and
> ownership by the foundation. I have not been able to find it, but when I do
> I will post it;
> this was the allusion I made to Jimbo being able to back up the fact that
> the Foundation
> expected people to grant the ownership of any logos to the foundation and
> not release
> them through some other license (why else would you create a logo for a
> brand, it makes
> no sense otherwise?)

I would be intereested to see this email, which of course would have to
have been posted PRIOR to the logo contest.
Afaik, there is no such email.

> The fact of a logo being made up of PD images, does not mean that someone
> can
> cannot recognize that MEDIAWIKI links back to WMF. It is up to the
> foundation to police that. If any people think they own it they can hire
> lawyers and
> bring the appropriate legal action to get the trademark invalided and then
> the foundation
> can either fight that or give it up. That seems really silly to me because
> the foundation is
> not making money out of this, (any suggestion is ridiculous because it is
> released under
> the GPL which allows free copying and alteration).

Wake up Alex !
The fact a software is under gpl does not imply no one will try to make
money on it. The Foundation could do that, just as Red Hat is making
money with Linux. This suggestion is in no way ridiculous.

  This is just there to try
> and prevent
> people from stripping off the information about the contributors to the
> project, there is
> really not much else that the foundation can do because the software is
> released under
> the GPL anyway. It just keeps the WMF flavor of MediaWiki distinct from all
> others.
> Is that really something anyone needs to fight about or that we want to deny
> because
> individuals want everything in the public domain and do not care about the
> moral
> rights of authors, such as the right of attribution (which is still
> rightfully protected by
> most so called "copyleft" licenses because it is not an economic right but a
> right
> normally considered part of the "droit d'auteur" bundle of rights associated
> with
> intellectual work that countries like France and Canada recognize as being
> as important
> or even more important than the economic rights (unfortunately the USA has
> very limited
> moral rights protections for creators).
>
> As far as the ownership of these things are concerned, if you do not have
> the right to release something into the public domain because it does not
> belong
> to you then you cannot later release it into the public domain as an
> afterthought
> and I would suggest that creating a logo that uses the trademarked term
> MediaWiki
> cannot be copyrighted by anyone other than the foundationno matter what the
> other
> people say, even if it is made up of a composite of public domain images
> (which
> do not have the licensing limitations of the GFDL or CC licenses).

This is an absolutely outrageous comment Alex. You are here saying that
because the name Mediawiki was added to the logo after its creation (the
logo was created in summer 2003, for the Wikipedia contest, so
originally, it did not have the Mediawiki word in it), I lost my right
to release an image that *I* authored under the license I wish.

Are you realising what you are saying ?

I do not care the image is "embedded" in the logo, but the image itself
has an independant life and no one has the right to strip me of my
author rights on it. It is shocking to tell me I am not allowed to
choose myself under which licence an image I produced should be released
simply because later it is used in a tm logo.

> The only record of owning the trademark MEDIAWIKI is with the WMF, anyone
> else
> using it is a trademark infringement. Does it matter who owns the copyright
> or even if it is copyrightable because it may just be so generic as not to
> be subject to copyright, i.e. the brackets and the sunflower show no
> inherent creativity as elements, they are just standard symbols.

Excuse me ?

The sunflower is NOT a symbol. It is a photo I took myself in a
perfectly good sunflower field. They were 2 meters high. I had to find a
way to reach the flower. Find a way to take a close up of it even though
I was nearly escalating the plant. Find a way to escape the sun to have
the right light. And it is to be considered generic with no author right ?

What will you say to the thousands of wikipedians who took a picture of
a device, of a monument, or of a painting. That it is just generic and
that they actually do not own any right on it and that it can not be
subject to copyright ?

This
> reminds me of the dispute with that Neo-Nazi group that tried to claim it
> owned copyright in some symbol that was clearly not subject to copyright:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Arrow_Cross but of course the consensus on
> this issue seemed to be that they actually owned the copyright and the
> images were taken off Wikipedia because no one really seemed to want to
> fight these fascists.
>

And you even reach the godwin point.

That will be it for me.

Anthere

> We should be congnizant of the need to only fight  battles that are
> important, not
> every fact dispute that exists because the reality is that there are a lot
> of these
> disputes and the resources to fight them are limited.
>
> There is clearly a policy about Wikimedia logos being an exception to the
> content
> on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing
> "Use by Wikimedia only (the only non-free-licensed exceptions hosted here as
> well are Wikimedia logos and other designs copyrighted by the Wikimedia
> Foundation that are the trademarks, service marks or other design elements
> that identify the sites of the various projects of the Wikimedia
> Foundation)"
>
> If the Foundation board thinks this is incorrect they should have their
> General Counsel
> correct it or put people on Notice that anyone can use these logos for
> anything they want
> because they are on Commons and thus, according to the logic of some
> Wikipedians,
> must be released under the GFDL (even if they were never so released before
> being posted
> on Commons).
>
> Alex T. Roshuk, Attorney
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anthere" <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> To: <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering
>
>
> | ATR wrote:
> | >
> | > |> > I don't think the foundation owns the mediawiki logo. Copyright
> wise
> | > |> > it is in the public domain.
> | > |> Hoi,
> | > |> Given the age of the thing it cannot be PD yet. They are part of a
> | > |> trademark and as such they are owned by the Foundation. They can if
> they
> | > |> so choose license the logos. This is problematic because the rights
> that
> | > |> are usual for other WMF content contrasts with the requirement of
> | > |> maintaining the trademark.
> | > |
> | > |No, the MediaWiki one really is public domain.
> | > |http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:MediaWiki-smaller-logo.png
> | > |
> | > |Whether or not it is also a trademark of the Foundation doesn't affect
> | > |its copyright status.
> | > |
> | > |Angela.
> | >
> | > Someone cannot declare a work PD just by copying it. It seems the
> | > actual logo was created by Eric Moller, and it has always been the
> | > understanding with all logos that they were "works made for hire" for
> | > the foundation. This has been discussed previously and Jimbo can
> | > back this up. Just because someone put a PD tag on the page at
> | > Commons does not invalidate the Foundation's claim to this logo.
> | >
> | > As far as the "trademark" status of the logo, the word MEDIAWIKI is
> | > a registered mark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. I know this because
> | > I am the attorney of record on the USPTO file that granted this mark to
> | > the foundation. Also the actual logo is also a mark of the Wikimedia
> | > Foundation Inc., and is used to identify the MediaWiki software which
> | > is released by the Foundation and is a foundation project.
> | >
> | > Of course all trademarks can also be used based upon principles of
> | > fair use that apply to trademarks in a similiar way as copyrights. The
> | > important issue is that the mark is not used in a way to confuse the
> | > public or dilute the brand which the mark represents as this is the kind
> | > of protection that the law affords mark holders.
> | >
> | > Alex T Roshuk
> | > Attorney at law
> |
> |
> | Can I put my feet in the mud here ?
> |
> | The logo was a creation of Erik. The flower is from me (see here:
> | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tournesol%28L%29.jpg)
> |
> | After the end of the contest, Erik decided to use that logo for
> | mediawiki. At this time, it was not clear at all the logos would be
> | trademarked by the Foundation. The truth is we had no idea at that time
> | how important trademarks would be in the future. Well, the Foundation
> | was created only a couple of months before the international contest for
> | logos. There was no set up board. There were no board decision. There
> | were no resolution. In short, there is absolutely no trackable way to
> | prove there was an understanding the Foundation would own the trademark.
> | This is just bullshit. There was no clear understanding. We were young,
> | we did not know. Period.
> |
> | My memory is also very clear that developers did not want the mediawiki
> | logo and name to be owned by the Foundation. Of course, in real life,
> | anyone can claim to own a trademark on something that nobody else claim.
> | So, the Foundation asked to own the trademark of this, and now does. And
> | with most developers now making a living thanks to the Foundation, I
> | doubt very much any of them would ever make a complain over this. There
> | is now a history.
> |
> | Several months after the logo started being used for mediawiki, Erik
> | asked me if I would put the flower image under public domain. Again, I
> | did not know much about copyright and author rights at that time. At
> | this point, the image was under GFDL, which made no sense for a logo,
> | and no sense for what we wanted it to be used for. It may be that
> | another licence would have been better.
> |
> | The mediawiki software is very arguably a Foundation project as you
> | claim. For a long time, it was not. And the developers did not want it
> | to be. It seems the Foundation just decided at some point that it was.
> | Apparently.
> | The problem I have with this statement, is that I far as I know, I have
> | been on the board of trustees since june 2004, and I have NO memory we
> | ever decided that mediawiki was a wikimedia project. For all I know, it
> | is not. And for now, the Foundation website does not claim it is :
> | http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects.
> |
> | It is definitly a software we are using. Developers are largely
> | improving it for our projects. But others are improving it as well. The
> | main *ownership* of mediawiki is related to the main developers being
> | now paid by the Foundation. It may be a wikimedia project in this that
> | we largely support its development. But it is not officially a wikimedia
> | project. Period.
> |
> | Now, understand it well. I *prefer* that the Foundation owns the logo
> | and name trademarks, because as you say, it means the logo and name can
> | not be misused to confuse public.
> |
> | However, contrariwise to Wikipedia, the mediawiki software is not only
> | used by the Foundation, but by also thousands of projects around the
> | world. The worse thing that could happen is that people deciding to use
> | the mediawiki find themselves obliged to ask permission or even worse to
> | pay the Foundation to use the software, use the name, use the little
> | logo, powered by Mediawiki. If something like this ever occurs in the
> | future, I hope developers will consider changing the name, changing the
> | logo and make it possible for the software to spread freely. This is
> | what is important, and as long as the Foundation respects this spirit,
> | and only defend the logo and name against bad uses, I am fine with the
> | current situation.
> |
> | In the end, I am only pissed of to see claims about what the Foundation
> | owns, said, agreed to, blahblahblah, provided with the stamp "Jimbo can
> | back this up". The Foundation is governed by a board. And as Angela will
> | probably agree to, there are some decisions which were never made by the
> | board. Which makes their validity questionnable.
> |
> | Ant
> |
> | _______________________________________________
> | foundation-l mailing list
> | foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> | http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 11/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> People selling T-shirts with the logo on outside wikimedia and OS
> events?

Go for it.

> Someone useing it as the symbol for their softwear?

As long as they don't call it MediaWiki ...
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
Imagine a person makes a photo of a sunflower field. There are several
sunflowers, some green stuff, light, insects... I am sure you would
agree it is a "copyrigtable" picture. There is a creative work here.

Then, imagine you put this image under GFDL.
As such, any derivative of the image ... must say under GFDL.

Now, imagine a new person comes and decide to pick up an element in the
image. Make a crop of a flower. Then remove all the background. Enhance
a bit the color. Smooth the borders. Add a pinch of light here. Darken a
bit there. There is a creative work here. And it is a derivative.

Should not it stay under GFDL ?

I'd say yes.

At best, you may consider it a sort of something under fair use.

But to claim it is not copyrightable is, at best, shocking.

Ant

ATR wrote:
> After thinking about it and reading the comments of
> the two individuals (who just happen both to be WMF
> board members) whose alleged PD content makes
> up the logo and reconsidering what I posted before
> I have several comments/clarifications:
>
> First, if something is so generic that it has no real content,
> i.e. a closeup of a sunflower and a set of brackets, it cannot
> be "released into the public domain" because it is already
> uncopyrightable; IMHO any such "license" is irrelevant as a
> matter of law. How is anyone going to know if one photo of a
> sunflower close up is the same as another? Can someone
> copyright a set of brackets? I don't think so, that seems silly
> to me, there is no real creativity there. Not everthing we do
> is protected by copyright law, so you cannot PD something
> that can't be PD, or if you want to suggest that it is PD
> that does not mean that trademark law cannot superseded
> by copyright law and people can use it in violation of trademark
> law just because someone said, "hey I released this into the
> public domain because I was just a volunteer for the
> organization that is now using it."
>
> Putting together those two elements creates a logo, and
> a logo is covered by statutory & common trademark law.
> The basis principle of trademark law is that the trademark
> belongs to whomever uses it, here it has been in use by the
> Wikimedia Foundation, it was created on its servers and it
> belongs to it, anyone, even board members of the WMF
> cannot suggest that it belongs to them or can be transfered to
> some kind of "public ownership" because they are not
> using it "in commerce" and never did. Correct me if I am
> wrong.  Otherwise it is Wikimedia Foundation that "owns"
> the logo, and all the underlying intellectual property rights
> to said logo, whatever such rights may be notwithstanding
> whatever anyone says or whatever they might have did,
> i..e., declaring such logo as being "public domain."
>
> Creating a logo for "public domain use" is an absurdity,
> it is like mixing apples with oranges.There is no such thing as
> releasing a logo into the public domain, once logos fall into
> disuse they are no longer logos, just graphics; as Eric
> points out people can certainly create graphics that use
> parts of other graphics that are generic, that happens all
> the time and does not depend on the "public domain" just
> as no one "owns" words, no one owns basic symbols or
> reproductions of images that are so generic that no one
> can really tell who made those images. However if someone
> creates a "logo" that causes confusion with another logo,
> especially one that is protected by statutory trademark law
> the question is, does the owner care if the mark is diluted by
> such wrongful infringement? If the owner does nothing and/or
> its board members condone such action eventually that
> trademark will be worthless, but I would like to point out
> that board members owe a fiduciary duty to the organization(s)
> on which they sit.
>
> I would like to note that I am discussing this issue publicly as
> volunteer not in any "official" or "unofficial" capacity. I am
> not disclosing anything here that is not a matter of public record.
>
>  Alex T Roshuk
> Attorney at law
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org>
> To: "ATR" <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
> <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 3:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering
>
>
> | The MW logo is PD content and Anthere and I explicitly designated it
> | as such. I'm not even going to get into any discussion about whether
> | we could retroactively "un-PD" it, as I find such attempts to put
> | content that has been explicitly released to the public under a
> | proprietary license unethical.
> |
> | Is it valuable for the MW logo to be copyrighted by the WMF? Maybe it
> | is, maybe it isn't. I'm skeptical. I've seen dozens of wikis which
> | have "remixed" the MW logo to make their own (put something else
> | between the double square brackets etc.). I think that's pretty cool
> | and has not created any confusion as far as I know, since MediaWiki is
> | primarily a product rather than a community website of its own.
> |
> | I suggest distinguishing strongly between the brand name MediaWiki and
> | the picture used to represent it. One can be protected while the other
> | is not.
> | --
> | Peace & Love,
> | Erik
> |
> | Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> |
> | DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> | in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> | position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the
	Wikimedia Foundation

body:
Keeping this in mind --

On 15/11/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> We also developed a mission statement from scratch. What's the point?
> Aside from uniting behind a set of key goals, it helps us to decide
> which activities fall within our scope and which ones don't --
> something that is not always easy, given the diversity of our existing
> projects and communities. Should we launch a WikiFoo project, or is
> Foo not part of our mission? Both the vision and mission statement
> will be frequently cited in future discussions of this kind, so they
> are relevant, and not just organizational fluff.

> == Vision Statement ==
>
> '''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
> in the sum of all knowledge.'''
>
> Comment:
>
> One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own
> language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument
> that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by
> teaching another language like English and then giving access to
> learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly
> endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination
> in our vision statement. Rather, I suggested we could add a phrase
> such as "unimpeded by language barriers, socioeconomic status, or
> government censorship". This was seen as too negative. In any case, I
> feel that the simple adjective "freely" may be sufficient in order to
> convey the idea that we seek to make knowledge as widely available as
> possible.

I think some statement of the importance of multilinguality is needed here.

The suggestion that teaching everyone English and offering them
English works is equivalent to offering them works in their own
language is... really appalling. We may as well shut down all the
other languages and just offer Wikibooks "learn English" in x trillion
languages, right? I don't think so...

> == Mission Statement ==
>
> '''The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
> people around the world to collect and develop knowledge under a free
> license, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.'''
>
> '''In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation
> provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework
> for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and
> other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation is committed
> to making and keeping all information from its projects available on
> the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.'''

This just seems like an expanded version of the above. And it doesn't
seem like this:  "A vision statement articulates the future of an
organization. The statement should be a rich, meaningful, detailed
description of what an organization hopes to become."

Wouldn't this be a good time to expand on specific visions for each of
the projects? If not here, then where? Nowhere? Or each community can
come up with its own?

Seems like MediaWiki software development would be worth mentioning as
well, considering how important it is to the projects...

Also seems to be some mention of project communities vitally missing
here. "People around the world" are not collecting and developing
knowledge in isolation. They are, first, getting welcomed by other
users (ok, or maybe bots :)). They are getting guidance, help and
warnings from more experienced users. They are being invited to help
out with collaborative projects, and being invited to edit in a
consensus-driven way. They are evaluating the quality of material
collectively. They are running for positions of various power and
status, and they are voting on such candidates. Perhaps all this is
implied in the use of the word "wiki"... or perhaps not.

Anyway my main complaint is that I don't see how either of these
statements would prevent "wikistalk" being successfully proposed, or
how they explain why video game guides are inappropriate for
Wikibooks. Or why people shouldn't upload ten photos of their friends
and dog at Commons. Or why they shouldn't write about their school
teacher.
Needs some adjective somewhere like EDUCATIONAL.


body:
oop, I meant to sign that.

--Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

On 17/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Keeping this in mind --


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-11-17

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

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Passed 449 of 469 tests (95.74%)... FAILED!


body:
ATR wrote:
> After thinking about it and reading the comments of
> the two individuals (who just happen both to be WMF
> board members) whose alleged PD content makes
> up the logo and reconsidering what I posted before
> I have several comments/clarifications:
>
> First, if something is so generic that it has no real content,
> i.e. a closeup of a sunflower and a set of brackets, it cannot
> be "released into the public domain" because it is already
> uncopyrightable; IMHO any such "license" is irrelevant as a
> matter of law. How is anyone going to know if one photo of a
> sunflower close up is the same as another? Can someone
> copyright a set of brackets? I don't think so, that seems silly
> to me, there is no real creativity there.

Explain that to any logo creator. He will be happy to learn that his job
encompass no creativity.
Sorry, but no. Making a logo is creation.
Try to ask a robot to make you the logo which exactly fits with your
company and its spirit, I guess you will not get something very valuable.

  Not everthing we do
> is protected by copyright law, so you cannot PD something
> that can't be PD, or if you want to suggest that it is PD
> that does not mean that trademark law cannot superseded
> by copyright law and people can use it in violation of trademark
> law just because someone said, "hey I released this into the
> public domain because I was just a volunteer for the
> organization that is now using it."
>
> Putting together those two elements creates a logo, and
> a logo is covered by statutory & common trademark law.
> The basis principle of trademark law is that the trademark
> belongs to whomever uses it, here it has been in use by the
> Wikimedia Foundation, it was created on its servers and it
> belongs to it, anyone, even board members of the WMF
> cannot suggest that it belongs to them or can be transfered to
> some kind of "public ownership" because they are not
> using it "in commerce" and never did.

Excuse me here, but are you saying that every little bit an editor adds
to wikipedia, just because it was created on WMF servers, belongs to WMF ?

  Correct me if I am
> wrong.  Otherwise it is Wikimedia Foundation that "owns"
> the logo, and all the underlying intellectual property rights
> to said logo, whatever such rights may be notwithstanding
> whatever anyone says or whatever they might have did,
> i..e., declaring such logo as being "public domain."
>
> Creating a logo for "public domain use" is an absurdity,
> it is like mixing apples with oranges.There is no such thing as
> releasing a logo into the public domain, once logos fall into
> disuse they are no longer logos, just graphics; as Eric
> points out people can certainly create graphics that use
> parts of other graphics that are generic, that happens all
> the time and does not depend on the "public domain" just
> as no one "owns" words, no one owns basic symbols or
> reproductions of images that are so generic that no one
> can really tell who made those images. However if someone
> creates a "logo" that causes confusion with another logo,
> especially one that is protected by statutory trademark law
> the question is, does the owner care if the mark is diluted by
> such wrongful infringement? If the owner does nothing and/or
> its board members condone such action eventually that
> trademark will be worthless, but I would like to point out
> that board members owe a fiduciary duty to the organization(s)
> on which they sit.

Yes. And afaik, board members also are supposed to have a say in the
trademark strategy followed by the organisation on which they sit.

>
> I would like to note that I am discussing this issue publicly as
> volunteer not in any "official" or "unofficial" capacity. I am
> not disclosing anything here that is not a matter of public record.

I'll stop that troll here.

But it was interesting and help me to open my eyes.

Anthere

>  Alex T Roshuk
> Attorney at law
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org>
> To: "ATR" <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
> <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 3:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering
>
>
> | The MW logo is PD content and Anthere and I explicitly designated it
> | as such. I'm not even going to get into any discussion about whether
> | we could retroactively "un-PD" it, as I find such attempts to put
> | content that has been explicitly released to the public under a
> | proprietary license unethical.
> |
> | Is it valuable for the MW logo to be copyrighted by the WMF? Maybe it
> | is, maybe it isn't. I'm skeptical. I've seen dozens of wikis which
> | have "remixed" the MW logo to make their own (put something else
> | between the double square brackets etc.). I think that's pretty cool
> | and has not created any confusion as far as I know, since MediaWiki is
> | primarily a product rather than a community website of its own.
> |
> | I suggest distinguishing strongly between the brand name MediaWiki and
> | the picture used to represent it. One can be protected while the other
> | is not.
> | --
> | Peace & Love,
> | Erik
> |
> | Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> |
> | DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> | in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> | position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the
	Wikimedia Foundatio

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> On 17/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>>Wouldn't this be a good time to expand on specific visions for each of
>>>the projects? If not here, then where? Nowhere? Or each community can
>>>come up with its own?
>>
>>Yes. Please develop charters for each project.
>>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Charte_Wikiquote_FR
>
>
> OK. I wasn't aware of this, but I think it's a great idea.
>
> By 'project' do we mean Wikiquote (all languages) or French Wikiquote, though?

Wikiquote.

>>>Seems like MediaWiki software development would be worth mentioning as
>>>well, considering how important it is to the projects...
>>
>>I am not convinced it should, given that MediaWiki developers wish to
>>maintain a certain independance (whether they succeed doing that is
>>another issue).
>
>
> Hm... well I guess that is up to the dev's to some extent... but given
> that they develop MediaWiki specifically in directions that serve
> direct uses to Wikimedia projects...and that they are some of WMF's
> paid employees...would it not make sense as a statement of support, if
> not control?
>
>
>>>Anyway my main complaint is that I don't see how either of these
>>>statements would prevent "wikistalk" being successfully proposed, or
>>>how they explain why video game guides are inappropriate for
>>>Wikibooks. Or why people shouldn't upload ten photos of their friends
>>>and dog at Commons. Or why they shouldn't write about their school
>>>teacher.
>>>Needs some adjective somewhere like EDUCATIONAL.
>>
>>Ah...
>>Look Brianna. In french, there is a saying "you can not have the butter
>>and the money from the butter at the same time".
>>Editors are telling us all the time that the editorial policy should be
>>developped by community, NOT by the Foundation.
>>If in its statement, which is recorded in its *bylaws* the Foundation
>>somehow clarifies video games guides are not appropriate (I am forcing
>>the point here on purpose), then, the Foundation is setting up the
>>editorial policy.
>
>
> OK...but there is a long precedent of the Foundation (well, actually:
> Jimbo) setting editorial policy. Jimbo's opinion is frequently cited
> in all manner of discussions and it was his direct intervention in
> Wikibooks that WAS the whole videogame guides thing.

Nod. But Jimbo is the foundator and the leader. So that's not the same :-)

>>I do not think it should be this way. The way you ask is
>>The Foundation decides to create a project and the project should follow
>>these exact rules.
>>
>>Versus
>>The community decides to create a project with this goal, and the
>>Foundation likes the idea and decides to support it (or decide not to).
>
>
> So...one of these statements should be about what the Foundation is or
> is not willing to support, right?
>
> I am trying to tie these statements to Erik's statement that these are
> the things that would be cited in deciding if a new project should be
> supported or not.
> I think it would be not hard to get enough people to support a "Games
> guide wiki".  What, in these statements, explains why the WMF would
> not support it?
>
> What, in these statements, explains why the WMF would not support
> Wikistalk? ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lookup_directory_wiki )
>
> What, in these statements, explains why WMF would not support
> Wikihowto, Wikipeople/Wikimorial , Wikiviews (opinions/reviews)? Is it
> *only* the lack of community support, or is there something I don't
> see in these statements?

Good point.
Actually, in the bylaws, there is mention of the projects themselves,
after the mission statement. Maybe that text should be reworked actually.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws_update

>>My suggestion (and this was a collective desire of board retreat
>>participants) is that each project develop a very detailed charter. That
>>this charter be adopted by all languages of this project. That new
>>language starting should adopt this charter. And the Foundation agrees
>>to support this project, with this charter.
>
>
> Are the existing projects exempt from this? I think that's a great
> idea (although I can see it being very difficult for Wikipedia). Are
> there guidelines for what a charter should cover?

No guidelines. Actually, it is right now just an idea. The idea was to
make it clearer what the goal of a project was. For example, just
yesterday, some people questionned the role of wikicommons. Wikibooks is
frequently in conflict over this. Some wikinews attempted to add pov
editorials. Wikiversity is still in progress. Etc... Wikipedia may well
be the best defined project.

Thanks for your feedback Brianna

Anthere

> cheers,
> Brianna


list: wikien-l

from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Fair use" images of living people

references:
<98dd099a0611151216n11602f22paeff1d73b1f91c72@mail.gmail.com>
	<e692861c0611151256h55f2b5cer5932ff9f6f89c19@mail.gmail.com>
	<98dd099a0611161116x6d89bb1cw9637d2cc077a8f3@mail.gmail.com>
	<2504.63.151.8.141.1163706349.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<9cppl2df2at3g7q386iortgepocug69fmb@4ax.com>
	<455CE767.4000503@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<8bspl2l3vf5s37l7kumhse3612aomspbra@4ax.com>
	<f80608430611161523l29b60433ife5c7cbddada974c@mail.gmail.com>
	<38a7bf7c0611161541r4a7cc02aye8f9a18604b9217f@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/16/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rancom vaguely related topic question - What is the right thing to do about
> some obvious copyvios which I haven't figured out where the copying was from
> yet?  [[Ship construction]] has a bunch of images which claim to have been
> done as original Autocad work for Wikipedia, and yet are clearly scans out
> of ship design textbooks, some of which I recognize, but I haven't figured
> out which books yet.  The same person contributed them all, and some other
> suspicious stuff.
>
> Thanks.
>

list them along with your reasons at [[Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images]]

--
geni


body:
geni wrote:
>>I do not care the image is "embedded" in the logo, but the image itself
>>has an independant life and no one has the right to strip me of my
>>author rights on it.
>
>
> You did that when you released it into the public domain. You have no
> control over derivatives. In this case the derivative is also in the
> public domain copyright wise.

I understand that.
If I remember well, I never put the original image on wiki. So, by
default, it is under traditional cp.

There are also two derivative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tournesol%28L%29.jpg is under GFDL.
Made on a rainy day.

And this one is a collaborative creation of antfish.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bouquet_fleurs.png
It is under a dual license, gfdl and a cc.

Finally, the cropped image is PD.
May it have a long and fruitful life embedded in the mediawiki logo
(unless it is replaced one day)

And as a wikithank across all of our projects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tournesol.png (for wikithanks on
enwiki). Gfdl

Eh, last derivative, 6th of nov 2006:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Greetings_Barnstar.png
Gfdl

Licensing mess...


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy draft: Wikimedia projects are not the
	place for national constitution

body:
Thursday, November 16, 2006, 1:27:12 PM, Gerard wrote:

> Please refrain from misrepresenting what I said. The notion of what is a
> language has been often defined as "a dialect with a navy/army". Another
> nice saying "To the victor all the spoils". I have already mentioned
> that Cyrillic Moldovan /is /and /will /be continued to be supported as
> being distinct from standard Romanian in future standards.

BTW, can anyone at least do a gramatically correct translation of the
interface? Almost every string is wrong.

The first version of the interface was made by Mark and it was totally
out-of-whack: obscure words used in the wrong context, making them sound
silly.

User:Epure, who apparently is a Russian native speaker, but speaks
better the language than Mark, did some corrections, but now the main
problem is the bad grammar. :-)


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Bug 7944] rendering vs. firefox

body:
Please respond to bug issues on the bug tracker. We have a bug tracker
for a reason.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
> == Vision Statement ==
>
> '''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
> in the sum of all knowledge.'''
>
> Comment:
>
> One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own
> language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument
> that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by
> teaching another language like English and then giving access to
> learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly
> endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination
> in our vision statement.

The more I ponder this statement the more I dislike it. Forget
dissemination -- what about knowledge collection? As if knowledge only
exists in English, or major European languages. The "language barrier"
goes both ways. To access some of the world's oldest and most classic
texts, we should also advocate teaching everyone classical Chinese.
How likely is that? The gift of accessing information in your native
language should not be underestimated by those who are lucky enough to
take it for granted.

The principle of multilinguality is what really gives Wikimedia
*global* participation and therefore WMF a global voice and global
influence. That is something amazing that I am not really aware of
anyone else... anywhere... doing on the same scale. It deserves proper
recognition -- I think the "in their own language" should be
re-appended.

regards,
Brianna


body:
On 17/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Wouldn't this be a good time to expand on specific visions for each of
> > the projects? If not here, then where? Nowhere? Or each community can
> > come up with its own?
>
> Yes. Please develop charters for each project.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Charte_Wikiquote_FR

OK. I wasn't aware of this, but I think it's a great idea.

By 'project' do we mean Wikiquote (all languages) or French Wikiquote, though?

> > Seems like MediaWiki software development would be worth mentioning as
> > well, considering how important it is to the projects...
>
> I am not convinced it should, given that MediaWiki developers wish to
> maintain a certain independance (whether they succeed doing that is
> another issue).

Hm... well I guess that is up to the dev's to some extent... but given
that they develop MediaWiki specifically in directions that serve
direct uses to Wikimedia projects...and that they are some of WMF's
paid employees...would it not make sense as a statement of support, if
not control?

> > Anyway my main complaint is that I don't see how either of these
> > statements would prevent "wikistalk" being successfully proposed, or
> > how they explain why video game guides are inappropriate for
> > Wikibooks. Or why people shouldn't upload ten photos of their friends
> > and dog at Commons. Or why they shouldn't write about their school
> > teacher.
> > Needs some adjective somewhere like EDUCATIONAL.
>
> Ah...
> Look Brianna. In french, there is a saying "you can not have the butter
> and the money from the butter at the same time".
> Editors are telling us all the time that the editorial policy should be
> developped by community, NOT by the Foundation.
> If in its statement, which is recorded in its *bylaws* the Foundation
> somehow clarifies video games guides are not appropriate (I am forcing
> the point here on purpose), then, the Foundation is setting up the
> editorial policy.

OK...but there is a long precedent of the Foundation (well, actually:
Jimbo) setting editorial policy. Jimbo's opinion is frequently cited
in all manner of discussions and it was his direct intervention in
Wikibooks that WAS the whole videogame guides thing.

> I do not think it should be this way. The way you ask is
> The Foundation decides to create a project and the project should follow
> these exact rules.
>
> Versus
> The community decides to create a project with this goal, and the
> Foundation likes the idea and decides to support it (or decide not to).

So...one of these statements should be about what the Foundation is or
is not willing to support, right?

I am trying to tie these statements to Erik's statement that these are
the things that would be cited in deciding if a new project should be
supported or not.
I think it would be not hard to get enough people to support a "Games
guide wiki".  What, in these statements, explains why the WMF would
not support it?

What, in these statements, explains why the WMF would not support
Wikistalk? ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lookup_directory_wiki )

What, in these statements, explains why WMF would not support
Wikihowto, Wikipeople/Wikimorial , Wikiviews (opinions/reviews)? Is it
*only* the lack of community support, or is there something I don't
see in these statements?

> My suggestion (and this was a collective desire of board retreat
> participants) is that each project develop a very detailed charter. That
> this charter be adopted by all languages of this project. That new
> language starting should adopt this charter. And the Foundation agrees
> to support this project, with this charter.

Are the existing projects exempt from this? I think that's a great
idea (although I can see it being very difficult for Wikipedia). Are
there guidelines for what a charter should cover?

cheers,
Brianna


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on scanned copy?

body:
I have an actual situation as follows.  Someone
has taken an old map (long out of copyright),
scanned it onto their computer, and now claims
to hold copyright on the scan.

It seems to me this is a bluff.  A computer scan
should not be any different from a photocopy.
There is no artistic input to the result, and in this
case the scanner even advertises that the computer
file is a precise reproduction of the original.

Am I wrong?

Thanks, Zero.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Sponsored Link

$420k for $1,399/mo.
Think You Pay Too Much For Your Mortgage?
Find Out! www.LowerMyBills.com/lre


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Bug 7901] bugzilla should warn not to reply to
	its email

body:
b> ------- Additional Comments From robchur at gmail.com  2006-11-13 07:58 UTC -------
b> We *want* users to be able to discuss bugs in length (when there are larger
b> implications or the implementation needs discussing) on wikitech-l.

This is good news for me, who cannot hang around on costly connections
leisurely entering bugs. For my weekly connection to the Internet, I
will submit new bugs with my Perl LWP script, and comment on existing
bugs by hitting "r" to the email bugzilla sends me, and changing the
To: created to wikitech-l instead of the useless
bugzilla-daemon at mail.wikimedia.org.

As to others who can add comments properly to bugs whilst I must use
the above method, chalk that up to bugzilla's expectation that every
one has permanent Internet connections. Compare the Debian Bug Tracker
System, where one is still allowed -- preferred -- to use email.

Indeed I did try to write an LWP script for process_bug.cgi but one
must connect first lest "mid-air collisions".

Wait, here's something I was going to send before being told that it
was OK to reply via wikitech-l:

Totally unfair. Bugzilla emails comments to the user, but the user
cannot email back.

Indeed, apparently nobody ever hit the R key to one of its messages in
their mailer to see what would happen (Bug #7901). (We end up sending
mail to Bugzilla, as that is what is in the From line, that bounces.)
Anyway, even if there was a non-bouncing Reply-to, it wouldn't append
anything to the main bug I'm sure. As far as sending to Wikitech-l,
I'm sure that isn't as good as appending a comment to the main bug.

Bugzilla assumes everybody just hangs around online with their 1st
rate Internet connections. Compare the Debian Bug Tracker System,
where one need not have satellite connections from their mountaintop,
and can still use email.

OK, I've made a Perl LWP script to submit new wikimedia bugs, and one to
add "+" comments to wikipedia Talk pages. Now I will attempt to make a
script to append comments to a given bug number.

However I see too many scary parameters in the
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/process_bug.cgi form. While all I am
interested in is (id, comment)


body:
b> ------- Additional Comments From brion at pobox.com  2006-11-16 15:52 UTC -------
b> There would not be any right column if there are no style sheets.
b> If there is, maybe it's specific to your custom
b> skin, which you'll have to debug yourself.

Nope, in WWWOFFLE I only allowed
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Editing_configuration/Troubleshooting
the one single page thru, and confirmed with tcpflow that all the
other pages were not allowed to reach firefox, running with caching
disabled.

The last letters of "Editing configuration/Troubleshooting" overwrite
the right column. Even with javascript disabled the overwriting
happens.

Changing the

to just

fixes it.

Not sure who to blame.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Bug 7946] pipe trick [[Project:Xyz|]] vs.
	importTextFile.php

body:
b> ------- Additional Comments From brion at pobox.com  2006-11-16 15:56 UTC -------
b> Do you mean that when you use importTextFile.php to create a page with a given text,
b> and you text is using the pipe trick ([[Project:Xyz|]] etc), that the input is not
b> transformed properly?

Roger.

b> (Should transform to [[Project:Xyz|Xyz]] by running the pre- save
b> transform at import time, presumably.)

That happens only in a browser.

b> If you do mean this, then I'm confused about your comments about action=raw exports;
b> since the transformation is done at save time any pages you've created in the wiki
b> will indeed round-trip properly since they're already transformed.

That transformation happens only in a browser. Not with importTextFile.php.

And let's say you fix importTextFile.php to make the conversion. Now
the file I used with importTextFile.php is slightly different than
what action=raw would show. Sigh.


subject: [Wikitech-l] [Bug 7945] U+200E wrong

body:
Regarding using <U+200E> on Special:Categories,

b> ------- Additional Comments From brion at pobox.com  2006-11-16 15:53 UTC -------
b> That's a bidi override for bidi-safety.

Well it causes an atrocious blip for anybody using less fancy readers
than firefox and IE.

Idea: why not emit it only if the line in question is bidi?

I mean do I put an U+200E at the ends of all the lines I quote in
email, for bidi safety?

How about people who want to batch process output
$ text_browser -dump ...|perl -anlwe ...
OK, "the browser is supposed to deal with it" I'm sure.

Anyway, goofy goofy goofy.


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Geohack

body:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 08:02:03PM +0100, Jens Frank wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 07:34:33PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> > On 11/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > > Jens Frank wrote:
> > > > geohack is not an extension, but a standalone tool.
> > >
> > > Magnus explicitly explained that the standalone tool was his, and that
> > > it was a "temporary workaround" that was introduced because the
> > > extension somehow couldn't be used on the live site. I'm sure Magnus
> > > knows the difference between an extension and a standalone thing.
> > >
> > Egils extension appears to be in SVN "trunk/extensions/gis", if you're curious.
>
> Doh! I even worked on that one myself, a year ago. I'll have a look. I
> think I remember that it was not really production ready, but I don't
> remember why.
>

I had a look at it again. There's some things that need to be done
before getting this into production:

- localization
  Lots of hardcodes, e.g. 'N', 'E', 'W', 'S', 'to', 'type:city', ...

- update to MW1.9alpha.
  gis is an extension for MW1.5, and does not work with MW1.9 any more

- I'd like to have some changes on the syntax of the <geo> tag.
  There were many problems with people cut-and-pasting the geo markup
  template from one article to another, not understanding its syntax.
  Especially the population was often wrong.
  type:city(500000) could become type:city population:500000

- The map page should become a real special page, instead of a
  standalone page.

- I'm not sure how good the search for nearby places will scale. MySQL
  has no proper spatial index. The pseudo-index I added will work for
  smaller sites, but Wikipedia might kill this.

jens


from_name: Simetrical

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [17751]
	trunk/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt

body:
On 11/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> > Log Message: ----------- Right angle bracket never needs to be
> > escaped except "when it appears in the string "]]>" in content, when
> > that string is not marking the end of a CDATA section."  No point in
> > escaping it other times (even when it follows a literal left angle
> > bracket, since that will already be escaped).
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/#syntax
>
> Nick has recommended ensuring stray >s are escaped as a defensive
> measure, making it harder to build a working HTML element if something
> else gets mis-escaped.
>
> I'm not sure how much concrete danger there is, but the idea gives me
> warm fuzzies.

Ah, okay.  I'll roll it back now with a comment in the parser test (if
there wasn't one I missed).


from_name: Ahsan Ursani

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sindhi WikiJunior and Sindhi WikiBooks

body:
I would like tostart two projects of Sindhi WikiJunior and Sindhi WikiBooks.  How to do that?

  Ahsan

---------------------------------
Sponsored Link

   Don't quit your job  - take classes online and earn your degree in 1 year. Start Today


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rethinking Fictional Topics

body:
On Nov 17, 2006, at 7:07 AM, David Gerard wrote:

>
> This trick has been tried before, e.g. trying to get amazingly trivial
> Star Trek cruft moved to Memory Alpha. Pretty much none of the actual
> contributors of such material were happy with the idea and it died.
> Possibly because it was approached through deletion discussions, which
> are a proven way to get people to the discussion already upset ...
>

Memory Alpha is also hard because it's license is incompatible. We
can interlink, but we can't transwiki the same way we can with, say,
Babylon 5 (Where I'm currently moving stuff over, starting with the
easiest for me to rewrite.)

There are a couple of things that will make it easier: Not
transplanting articles without a replacement is one. It looks one way
to dump an entire article over at another wiki and just reduce the
Wikipedia one to a stub. It looks another to replace the Wikipedia
one with something that is clearly recognizable as an article.

The biggest complaint I've gotten in practice (It's still very early
in the experiment) is that The Babylon Project is a basically
inactive wiki with inadequate coverage. Thankfully, that won't be the
case for too long, since other than the featured [[Spoo]], B5
articles on Wikipedia are pretty much all in-universe. So after a few
weeks of moving articles, they'll be at least a good wiki, if still
an inactive one.

-Phil


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on scanned copy?

body:
Zero wrote:
> I have an actual situation as follows.  Someone has taken
> an old map (long out of copyright), scanned it onto their
> computer, and now claims to hold copyright on the scan.

Big media companies do this all the time.  For example, if you go
to a bookstore and buy a recent printing of Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland, I think you'll find that the publisher has claimed
copyright on *their copy* of Tenniel's illustrations and/or
Carroll's text.  (Dover, at least, is a happy exception.)

> There is no artistic input to the result, and in this
> case the scanner even advertises that the computer
> file is a precise reproduction of the original.

There may be no artistic input, but some will claim that they
deserve protection for all the work they did tracking down the
old map and making the scan.  To be lily-white, it can be argued
that you're supposed to track down an original copy of the old
map yourself, and make your own scan.

(On the other hand, if the computer file truly is a precise
reproduction of the original, you can convince yourself that
using it is fine, since the alleged copyright holder can't prove
you're using their scan.)

This situation gets particularly interesting in the case of
famous art.  Most museums disallow cameras; casual visitors
are not allowed to photograph or otherwise make copies of
the artwork within, even though it's long out of copyright.
If you're a publisher and you want to make a copy for an art
book you're printing, you have to pay the museum a -- sometimes
hefty -- licensing fee.  Having paid this fee, you're not going
to let people freeload on you, so you're going to slap your own
copyright on your art book.  And the museum will back you up on
this: they make money on those licensing fees; in fact part of
their licensed-copy agreement is often (I think) a requirement
that the licensed copies disallow reproduction.

The upshot is that if copies are copyrightable, it can be
effectively impossible to obtain your own free copy of a public
domain work, if the original is inaccessible.

I am not a copyright lawyer and I don't know if the practices
I've described are defensible from a copyright law point of view.
(*I'm* certainly not defending them.)  But I get the impression
that they do happen all the time.  In other words, the claim that
someone "deserves protection for all the work they did (or the
fees they paid) tracking down the old map and making the scan"
is apparently accepted in practice.


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject:
[WikiEN-l] (semi-OT) What to do with old but not old enough
	encyclopedias?

body:
On 11/17/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think he just wants them the heck out of his house! He's in
> Melbourne, Australia. Interested parties may drop me a line and I'll
> put you in touch.

I would have them, but I doubt they're much different from my 1970 edition.

Try posting at [[WP:AWNB]].

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
On 11/15/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This has caused me pain and suffering for some time, as some of you
> know, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in public since the
> dawn of logotime: The WMF logo is asymmetric.  most notably the green
> region, but also the blue (varying width, inner and outer rings not
> quite parallel).   As long as the newly revisited commons logo is
> being considered
>
> Can this be fixed?  Should it be?  Does this asymmetry cause just
> enough subliminal disjuncture that it sticks in peoples mind?  ...and
> causes them to do crazy things?  ...and causes them to run out and
> snap free-content photos of celebrities?

I drew an SVG version a while ago which is perfectly symmetrical.

If someone can tell me what they would like me to do in order to
assign the copyrights to the Foundation, then I'll upload it.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on scanned copy?

body:
geni wrote:
> On 11/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> The upshot is that if copies are copyrightable, it can be
>> effectively impossible to obtain your own free copy of a public
>> domain work, if the original is inaccessible.
>
> that would depend on the ethical system you are opperating under.

But of course.  That's why I said "if" and "can be", not "since"
and "is".


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on scanned copy

body:
> From: Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com>
>
> There may be no artistic input, but some will claim that they
> deserve protection for all the work they did tracking down the
> old map and making the scan.  To be lily-white, it can be argued
> that you're supposed to track down an original copy of the old
> map yourself, and make your own scan.

I am not a lawyer.

In "Feist Publication Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. Inc." the
Supreme Court of the United States said:

"the Constitution mandates originality as a prerequisite for
copyright protection..."

"there is nothing remotely creative about arranging names
alphabetically in a white pages directory..."

"The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of
authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,"
and, finally

"Copyright rewards originality, not effort. As this Court noted more
than a century ago, 'great praise may be due to the plaintiffs for
their industry and enterprise in publishing this paper, yet the law
does not contemplate their being rewarded in this way.'"

Did I mention that I am not a lawyer?


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 16/11/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/17/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I think he just wants them the heck out of his house! He's in
> > Melbourne, Australia. Interested parties may drop me a line and I'll
> > put you in touch.
>
> I would have them, but I doubt they're much different from my 1970 edition.

They're the next edition up - the information will be broadly the
same, matters of geography aside, but as of 1974 they went into a new
layout - more volumes, and split into the "overview of everything"
Micropaedia and the "in-depth" Macropaedia.

> Try posting at [[WP:AWNB]].

Excellent suggestion.

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


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia saves the day! Maybe.

body:
Well, what do you know. Bringing the Israeli-Arab real-world issue to
Wikipedia might actually solve everything!!

  http://www.jewcy.com/feature/wiki_wars

Amongst the partisan POV-pushers who either don't understand NPOV or
don't care, we do have a core of sane regulars of either POV who
nevertheless see themselves as being there to write an encyclopedia.
The article might not flow wonderfully or make featured status any
time soon, but it will at least inform with the view from 20,000 feet.

So - how do we encourage such cores of sane regulars in similar
conflicts? What do they need to know to be able to help NPOV and
article quality without turning into an insular group?

- d.


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] wikimedia blocked again in China

body:
On 11/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> shi zhao wrote:
> <snip>
> > "Q: Second question, the Chinese version of Wikipedia, which has been
> > censored since last October, has been unblocked last week. What's your
> > comment?
> >
> > A: I'm not aware of the information on the website you mentioned.
>
> What, they don't know that we exist?

I think he ment "I'm not aware that we unblocked it". That would prove
my theory, that the unblocking was an accident :(.

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz Siedlecki


body:
On 16/11/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/16/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "...regardless of [their] nation, culture or language"?
>
> point of view, religion, sexual orientation, etc etc etc.
>
> I hope that someday the entire world will expect that
> non-discrimination will be the norm and that discrimination will be
> the exception which needs enumeration.

Back when I was working for a student union, there was a Plaque on the
wall of the bar (of all places) detailing all the many and myriad ways
in which the union did not intend to discriminate among people. It was
a very long list.

We occasionally sat there for hours debating a) if the existence of
such a list meant we were allowed to discriminate in any ways not
listed; and b) if there were any possible ways one could discriminate
against somebody which were left...

> Even so, if we're going to make it unreasonably long I can think of
> more important points to make than the fact that we don't intend to
> discriminate.

Fairy nuff. I just feel that if we are going to mention it, it'd be
nice to do it in a way that sounds good...

I actually quite like that [their] can be elided, and it leaves the
nice ambiguity - of course we don't discriminate against people, but
it's nice to state we don't distinguish among *knowledge* ;-)

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


from_name: Tomasz Ganicz

body:
2006/11/17, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com>:
> On 11/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > shi zhao wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > "Q: Second question, the Chinese version of Wikipedia, which has been
> > > censored since last October, has been unblocked last week. What's your
> > > comment?
> > >
> > > A: I'm not aware of the information on the website you mentioned.
> >
> > What, they don't know that we exist?
>
> I think he ment "I'm not aware that we unblocked it". That would prove
> my theory, that the unblocking was an accident :(.
>

It's funny that just two days ago, the largest Polish newspaper
"Gazeta Wyborcza" has announced that Wikipedia is unblocked in China:

http://gospodarka.gazeta.pl/gospodarka/1,33181,3739338.html

and they have written that it is good example that "hard-talks" w
China goverment may give good results....

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.poli.toya.net.pl
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html


from_name: Sydney Poore aka FloNight

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Community sanctions"

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
>
> I've just come across
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Community_sanction
>
> I think this is a pretty awful idea.  This is an extrapolation of the
> concept of a community ban that has no basis in logic.  The concept
> behind a "community ban" is not "rough consensus", as shown by an 80%
> vote or whatever exists nowadays, but unanimity among admins -- not
> one admin out of >1000 being prepared to unblock you.  People seem to
> have got hold of the idea that a "rough consensus" is good enough
> here.  It isn't.  An ArbCom case is needed when there isn't unanimity
> among the community.
>
> So much for consensus leading to "community bans".  This is made ten
> times worse, however, with the introduction of "community sanctions"
> as part of official policy.  This kind of thing may happen -- an admin
> might say to a user "keep away from Scientology articles, or I'll take
> you to ArbCom", and this (especially with the problem user's assent)
> would have the same effect.  However, as a formalised process it is
> awful.  It lends itself to people behaving without sufficient
> oversight or rigidity of purpose and it will be abused and open our
> dispute resolution process to even more criticism (some of which
> really is deserved).
>
> This is not to say that the concept is totally flawed -- I have
> outlined above how the same effects can be had on a less formal level
> without this policy, declared as such without sufficient reasoning or
> indeed any justification from a public discussion (correct me if I'm
> wrong...).
>
> Sam
>

Sam,

I have no problem with changing the tag and discussing if their are
concerns.

Previously, it has been discussed on both AN/I and AN and other places. And
more importantly they were being done and logged at the community probation
page. I waited until we had 3 done before I changed the name as suggested
and began moving it toward policy. If you think it needs more discussion,
fine, but can we do it on the talk page of the policy as well as here. Many
editors and admins do not follow this discussion list.

Several important points. These are intended to be temporary not permanent
sanctions. They can be appealed to other Admin, Arbitration Committee and
Jimbo. And since Administrators are not cops that are required to enforce
sanctions, these sanctions can be ignored by admins if they are not working
or making the situation worse. If there is disagreement in the community
before or after the sanction is given then they will be appealed to ArbCom.
Does this deal with your concerns about the community handling the matter
instead of ArbCom?

I think that the Arbitration Committee should handle situations that the
community can not deal with on their own. So far that has been the opinion
of most active admins and experienced editor. I think that the practice
should be written down so that admins know to log the sanctions and can
benefit from the prior experience of admins that have done them. This is a
wiki so of course changes in wording to better reflect community consensus
are expected.

Sydney Poore aka FloNight aka Poore5

--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/%22Community-sanctions%22-tf2654892.html#a7409719
Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Arbcom-l] "Community sanctions"

body:
On Nov 17, 2006, at 9:58 AM, Sam Korn wrote:

> I've just come across
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Community_sanction
>
> I think this is a pretty awful idea.  This is an extrapolation of the
> concept of a community ban that has no basis in logic.  The concept
> behind a "community ban" is not "rough consensus", as shown by an 80%
> vote or whatever exists nowadays, but unanimity among admins -- not
> one admin out of >1000 being prepared to unblock you.  People seem to
> have got hold of the idea that a "rough consensus" is good enough
> here.  It isn't.  An ArbCom case is needed when there isn't unanimity
> among the community.
>
> So much for consensus leading to "community bans".  This is made ten
> times worse, however, with the introduction of "community sanctions"
> as part of official policy.  This kind of thing may happen -- an admin
> might say to a user "keep away from Scientology articles, or I'll take
> you to ArbCom", and this (especially with the problem user's assent)
> would have the same effect.  However, as a formalised process it is
> awful.  It lends itself to people behaving without sufficient
> oversight or rigidity of purpose and it will be abused and open our
> dispute resolution process to even more criticism (some of which
> really is deserved).
>
> This is not to say that the concept is totally flawed -- I have
> outlined above how the same effects can be had on a less formal level
> without this policy, declared as such without sufficient reasoning or
> indeed any justification from a public discussion (correct me if I'm
> wrong...).
>
> --
> Sam
>

My initial reaction is positive.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rethinking Fictional Topics

body:
On 16/11/06, Phil Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think this misunderstands the nature of the dispute. It is not, I
> think, people who want to contribute in-universe stuff and people who
> don't. It's a dispute between people who think that in-universe stuff
> is important to have and people who don't. I suspect that if we give a
> clear indication of where in-universe material should go, people who
> are knowledgeable about fictional universes will start to offer their
> in-universe material to fan-run projects, and their out-of-universe
> material to Wikipedia.

This trick has been tried before, e.g. trying to get amazingly trivial
Star Trek cruft moved to Memory Alpha. Pretty much none of the actual
contributors of such material were happy with the idea and it died.
Possibly because it was approached through deletion discussions, which
are a proven way to get people to the discussion already upset ...

- d.


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l]
	Labeled	SectionTransclusion	(need	feedbackoncurrentstatus!)

body:
> Oh, I guess \Q doesn't work with variables like in perl; good to know.
> When I changed that to preg_quote(), those errors when away, so now it
> works with a section called "/".
>
> Thanks again
>   -Steve

Thank you!

Checked into SVN in r17736. Only tiny changes made were to add the '$wgParserTestFiles[] = ' line (which invokes the LST tests
whenever parserTests is run and the extension is enabled), and update the format of the header line in the "Transcluded section
headings create edit link to template" test to match the header format used in SVN head (which differs slightly from that used in
1.8 and earlier).

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Community sanctions"

body:
Hi Sydney.

Let me summarise my objection to this: codification.  It is absolutely
acceptable that the "community" should be able to impose specific
measures.  However, I find it absolutely unnecessary that this should
be written down as explicit policy.  It can be done by saying "I have
this hold over you: I won't take it further if you desist in your
behaviour".  That is all that needs to be said here, and it doesn't
need to be written down in an explicit policy.

On 11/17/06, Sydney Poore aka FloNight <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
> Previously, it has been discussed on both AN/I and AN and other places.
> And
> more importantly they were being done and logged at the community
> probation
> page. I waited until we had 3 done before I changed the name as suggested
> and began moving it toward policy. If you think it needs more discussion,
> fine, but can we do it on the talk page of the policy as well as here.
> Many
> editors and admins do not follow this discussion list.

I prefer to start debates here, so it's possible to get an
over-arching opinion, rather than a closely defined one that is always
the result of talking on a talk page.  Most of the editors whose
opinions I think are most valuable contribute to this list regularly;
this is not to put down those who don't contribute to the list, merely
to say that, generally and by no means exclusively, the best editors
do use this list.

> Several important points. These are intended to be temporary not permanent
> sanctions. They can be appealed to other Admin, Arbitration Committee and
> Jimbo. And since Administrators are not cops that are required to enforce
> sanctions, these sanctions can be ignored by admins if they are not
> working
> or making the situation worse. If there is disagreement in the community
> before or after the sanction is given then they will be appealed to
> ArbCom.
> Does this deal with your concerns about the community handling the matter
> instead of ArbCom?

My concern is not with "the community" dealing with a problem.  Of
course, the idea of "the community" dealing with anything is extremely
remote.  Far more likely is a few editors making a decision.  I think
it is extremely unprofitable for such an ill-defined entity to impose
very rigid and structured prohibitions.  They can be agreed with a
user with one admin making suggestions.  A ban is a nice, clean
remedy.  More complicated sanctions are not going to work when imposed
by "the community".

> I think that the Arbitration Committee should handle situations that the
> community can not deal with on their own.

I absolutely agree.

I think that the practice
> should be written down so that admins know to log the sanctions and can
> benefit from the prior experience of admins that have done them.

These kinds of things should not be done by inexperienced admins who
do not have the "instincts" to manage the situation.  They should only
be done by admins who really know the ropes and have proven judgement.
 They should not need these instructions to help them.

/quote>

Agree with your concerns about inexperienced admins. The point of this
policy is to make sure that more experienced admins get involved by
requiring discussion on AN or AN/I. Some ideas for community sanctions have
been dismissed when presented. Currently blocks and user talk page
protection are used with little oversight by more experienced admins to try
and deal with problems. I see this as the community having another less
rigid and brutal tool than exhaust the patience bans, cool off blocks, talk
page protection.

Also enforcement of the sanctions that are done by more admins sends a
stronger message to the user and will help them modify their editing sooner.
Currently many editors feel that one admin is picking on them. Once it is
discussed on AN/I and more admins and experienced editors weigh in that
opinion often changes and users are more open to change.

Sydney

--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/%22Community-sanctions%22-tf2654892.html#a7410757
Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

body:
On 17/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

 What decides whether or not we
> have Wikistalk as a project may be as simple as the common sense
> judgement of the people who decide.  If any project proposal is really
> new, how can there possibly be a pre-existing policy about it?

OK... except that Erik specifically stated that these mission and
vision statements would be the things cited in explaining why WMF
would or would not support WikiFoo.

> >Are the existing projects exempt from this? I think that's a great
> >idea (although I can see it being very difficult for Wikipedia). Are
> >there guidelines for what a charter should cover?
> >
> You make it look like you are looking for answers from everyone else but
> yourself.  If such a charter is a good idea, then maybe the niext step
> could be to develop what it should contain.

Well, if you don't ask, you never know. And I hate reinventing the wheel.
But it seems it's not the most relevant thing right now.

regards,
Brianna


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:15:21 -0500, Simetrical wrote:

> On 11/16/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>> Marco Schuster wrote:
>> > David Gerard schrieb:
>> >
>> >>What's the reason for not everyone having rollback? What would happen
>> >>if everyone who'd had an account for a few days could use it?
>> >
>> > because vandals will register with a "normal" nick, wait the few days
>> > and then they can easily do revert wars, mass vandalizing (afaik the
>> > rollback doesnt have a captcha so you could easily use a bot), etc, etc.
>>
>> Firstly: they can only revert-war or mass-vandalise until they're
>> blocked. So make sure you block them quickly enough ;-)
>>
>> Secondly: You've already mentioned Captcha. Why is it not an option to
>> implement a Captcha for every rollback that is requested less than (say)
>> a minute after the previous rollback?
>
> . . . for non-admins, anyway?

A minute seems a bit long; Normal vandal fighting with JS tools is faster
than that.  Maybe it would be more useful to limit the scope (i.e. no bot
flag) than to throttle them, since it's already possible to roll back
fairly quickly with JS tools or bots, but with a bit more strain on the
servers.


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Community sanctions"

body:
On 11/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:58:30 +0000, "Sam Korn" <smoddy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I think this is a pretty awful idea.  This is an extrapolation of the
> >concept of a community ban that has no basis in logic.  The concept
> >behind a "community ban" is not "rough consensus", as shown by an 80%
> >vote or whatever exists nowadays, but unanimity among admins -- not
> >one admin out of >1000 being prepared to unblock you.  People seem to
> >have got hold of the idea that a "rough consensus" is good enough
> >here.  It isn't.  An ArbCom case is needed when there isn't unanimity
> >among the community.
>
> The problem is that ArbCom cases go on for months, during which the
> disruption continues.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

There exists the "urgent motions" section of Arbcom proceedings, which
almost never seems to get used.

I have seen Arb case parties community blocked during the case, though they
often are then unblocked to allow them to participate in the ArbCom case
proceedings.

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


list: commons-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/17/06, Cool Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm... I am actually shocked. I was expecting the  contrary since there are
> more Americans (Mexicans and USians) than Spanish....

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin

I'll be doing an updated data collection run soon.

In any case, it would appear that the distribution is not entirely
controlled by the number of speakers, or even the number of speakers
with computer access.... but by more complex factors.

How does *your* edit count on the Turkish Wikipedia compare to your
edit count on Enwiki?


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:  [17741] trunk/phase3

body:
simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> -			$newminor . $sk->revComment( $this->mNewRev ) . "
" .
> +			$newminor . $sk->revComment( $this->mNewRev, true ) . "
" .

Boolean parameters like this are a pain for code readability and
maintainability; when you come back at the code later you won't remember
what the heck "true" or "false" *means*.

Consider using a class constant with a descriptive name; maybe something
like Linker::COMMENT_LOCAL_ANCHORS (or pick a better name ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on scanned copy?

body:
On 17/11/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have an actual situation as follows.  Someone
> has taken an old map (long out of copyright),
> scanned it onto their computer, and now claims
> to hold copyright on the scan.
>
> It seems to me this is a bluff.  A computer scan
> should not be any different from a photocopy.
> There is no artistic input to the result, and in this
> case the scanner even advertises that the computer
> file is a precise reproduction of the original.
>
> Am I wrong?
>
> Thanks, Zero.

As long as this someone hasn't manipulated the scanned copy of the
map, you are right.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
	[17751]	trunk/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt

body:
simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> Log Message: ----------- Right angle bracket never needs to be
> escaped except "when it appears in the string "]]>" in content, when
> that string is not marking the end of a CDATA section."  No point in
> escaping it other times (even when it follows a literal left angle
> bracket, since that will already be escaped).
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/#syntax

Nick has recommended ensuring stray >s are escaped as a defensive
measure, making it harder to build a working HTML element if something
else gets mis-escaped.

I'm not sure how much concrete danger there is, but the idea gives me
warm fuzzies.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on scanned copy?

body:
On 11/17/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have an actual situation as follows.  Someone
> has taken an old map (long out of copyright),
> scanned it onto their computer, and now claims
> to hold copyright on the scan.
>
> It seems to me this is a bluff.  A computer scan
> should not be any different from a photocopy.
> There is no artistic input to the result, and in this
> case the scanner even advertises that the computer
> file is a precise reproduction of the original.
>
> Am I wrong?
>
> Thanks, Zero.
>
>

It depends what country you are in and what country they are in.
Unless you are in the US or Switzerland the answer is that while it
probably is bluff it could be an expensive one to call. If they are
not in those two counties they are not refuring to you.

--
geni


from_name: cohesion

subject: [Foundation-l] Rules committee

body:
On 11/16/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16/11/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > > I would llike to propose a Rules Committee on the following bases.
>
> > I have to disagree with the initial openness. We have too many process
> > wonks who would jump at the chance, and we'll end up only being allowed
> > to edit every second thursday when it's a prime number of days from the
> > vernal equinox of Triton...
>
>
> Proposal: a Rules Elimination Committee. They can only remove rules,
> not put through new ones.

I don't know if this was a joke, but I actually like the idea. We seem
more than capable of creating new rules all the time (ahem [[Wikipedia
talk:Community sanction]]). Creating rules is chaotic now, but is that
a bad thing? I like process efficiency, but an efficient rules
creation system seems a little dangerous.


subject: [Foundation-l] Rules committee


subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on scanned copy?

body:
On 11/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Big media companies do this all the time.  For example, if you go
> to a bookstore and buy a recent printing of Alice's Adventures in
> Wonderland, I think you'll find that the publisher has claimed
> copyright on *their copy* of Tenniel's illustrations and/or
> Carroll's text.  (Dover, at least, is a happy exception.)
>

Under UK law they could claim copyright on the typesetting for 20
years. I don't know what the law in the US is about this though.

> (On the other hand, if the computer file truly is a precise
> reproduction of the original, you can convince yourself that
> using it is fine, since the alleged copyright holder can't prove
> you're using their scan.)
>
> This situation gets particularly interesting in the case of
> famous art.  Most museums disallow cameras; casual visitors
> are not allowed to photograph or otherwise make copies of
> the artwork within, even though it's long out of copyright.
> If you're a publisher and you want to make a copy for an art
> book you're printing, you have to pay the museum a -- sometimes
> hefty -- licensing fee.  Having paid this fee, you're not going
> to let people freeload on you, so you're going to slap your own
> copyright on your art book.  And the museum will back you up on
> this: they make money on those licensing fees; in fact part of
> their licensed-copy agreement is often (I think) a requirement
> that the licensed copies disallow reproduction.

In the museums will not back you up if you take it to court. The last
thing they want is a Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp type case
taken taken to a higher level which would remove any remaining grey
area.

>
> The upshot is that if copies are copyrightable, it can be
> effectively impossible to obtain your own free copy of a public
> domain work, if the original is inaccessible.
>

that would depend on the ethical system you are opperating under.

> I am not a copyright lawyer and I don't know if the practices
> I've described are defensible from a copyright law point of view.
> (*I'm* certainly not defending them.)  But I get the impression
> that they do happen all the time.  In other words, the claim that
> someone "deserves protection for all the work they did (or the
> fees they paid) tracking down the old map and making the scan"
> is apparently accepted in practice.
>

Not really. What is accepted is that you are free to try and claim
copyright on PD material.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Community sanctions"

body:
On Nov 17, 2006, at 2:43 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:58:30 +0000, "Sam Korn" <smoddy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I think this is a pretty awful idea.  This is an extrapolation of the
>> concept of a community ban that has no basis in logic.  The concept
>> behind a "community ban" is not "rough consensus", as shown by an 80%
>> vote or whatever exists nowadays, but unanimity among admins -- not
>> one admin out of >1000 being prepared to unblock you.  People seem to
>> have got hold of the idea that a "rough consensus" is good enough
>> here.  It isn't.  An ArbCom case is needed when there isn't unanimity
>> among the community.
>
> The problem is that ArbCom cases go on for months, during which the
> disruption continues.
>
> Guy (JzG)

That's because we are closely examining the evidence. That takes
time. I have no objection to a rough remedy pending an appeal to us.

Fred


from_name: Christopher Thieme

subject: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA MEETUP NYC: 9 December 2006

body:
Just wanted to invite everyone to the wikipedia meetup in new york city
which is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. to whenever, Saturday, December 9th, 2006
at Cucina Vivolo at 222 East 58th Street (Between 2nd and 3rd Avenue), NYC.

for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC

Hope to see you there...that means you too, JimboWales!

Regards,
Christopher D. Thieme
User:ExplorerCDT


from_name: James Hare

body:
I know I'm going!

On 11/17/06, Christopher Thieme <cdthieme at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just wanted to invite everyone to the wikipedia meetup in new york city
> which is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. to whenever, Saturday, December 9th, 2006
> at Cucina Vivolo at 222 East 58th Street (Between 2nd and 3rd Avenue),
> NYC.
>
> for more information:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC
>
> Hope to see you there...that means you too, JimboWales!
>
> Regards,
> Christopher D. Thieme
> User:ExplorerCDT
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for limited review of

body:
On 11/9/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> I think I was in error. This is a spill over from legal conventions
> that is probably inappropriate on Wikipedia
>
> Fred

The evidence Fred ruled inadmissable

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others&diff=29022871&oldid=28873757

i.e. a Summary of Dispute (and other evidence)

is now Official Wikipedia Policy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS#History

"Historical research involves the collection of original or "primary"
documents (the job of libraries and archives), the close reading of
the documents, and their interpretation in terms of larger historical
issues. To be verifiable, research must be based on the primary
documents. "

The ommitted evidence reads in part,

"There have been no sources or citations offered for altering the
langauge and integrity of primary source documents, properly
referenced, by adding "alleged to's", "claims of", and "supposedly's".
Likewise there is no sourcing for efforts to edit existing text from
properly sourced secondary materials, with much the same language and
reasoning.

"It is no less than invalid research methods, attempting to impeach
primary sources with unqualified secondary sources, or secondary
sources with unqualified secondary sources, or both with original
research to push POV. The distinct lack of, or absence, of sourcing
for "sceptics", has lead to cries for "balance" and "NPOV". So
numerous attempts have been made to invent "sources" out of thin air
to achieve "NPOV". These unreferenced "sceptics" are usually refered
to as "others", "sceptics" or "scholars", yet no one has brought
forward another qualified source beyond the above mentioned four.

"None of the changes in text [plaintiff] questions can be properly
referenced to these, or any other secondary source.

"Invalid research methods do not constitute NPOV."

http://www.godseye.com/stat/en/r/e/q/Wikipedia~Requests_for_mediation_Cberlet_and_Nobs01_Workshop_5bdb.html#Summary_by_Nobs01
Thank you.

I hereby appeal for a limited rexamination of the case to modify
existing remedies.

Nobs01


from_name: Cool Cat

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
Hmm... I am actually shocked. I was expecting the  contrary since there are
more Americans (Mexicans and USians) than Spanish....

On 11/13/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/13/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ;) And some mexican  editors are commons admins but not es admins ;)
>
> No shock: a real minority of es edits are made from .mx.
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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subject: [Commons-l] Getting rid of "best before"

body:
I believe that is not happening due to technical limitations. Currently we
just subst: current day/month/year. I would like that though.

It takes longer than 7 days because there are WAY too many of them to delete
and unlinking them is sometimes a serious pain (pd-soviet images are
particularly cluttering the backlog)

PS (unrelated): Magnus your tool has issues with .gif images I believe. I do
not know if you fixed this recently.
PS (unrelated): If your tool would detect "http" (possible source) and
treated such images differently it would be of great help since sometimes
people forget to remove the no source template. (sometimes it is a hunt to
find a url in a block of text on the tool)

On 11/15/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> When I just read about admins getting scolded for deleting an image
> that was long past its "due date", I thought about the nature of the
> templates and the message they convey.
>
> Currently, they say something like "this image needs more source info"
> etc., and give the date the template was added. If nothing changes,
> the image *may* be deleted after, what, a month? This would be the
> equivalent of "best before" - in reality, it might last a lot longer
> than that.
>
> What if the attitude of the templates were changed? "This image lacks
> this and that. It will be deleted on XXXX-YY-ZZ unless this
> information is provided." My tool [2] can be used to find images that
> have reached their final use-by date, and could be deleted with good
> reason.
>
> Theoretically, one could write a bot which could do the deletions, so
> no admins get scolded. The idea of a deletion-bot with admin rights (a
> virtual equivalent of [2];-) might sound scary, but setting it for "no
> edits for a month since addition of the template", combined with the
> image resurrection capability, should calm this.
>
> Magnus
>
>
> [1] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/bad_old_ones.php
> [2]
> http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/samsung_develops_machine_gun_sentry_robot_costs_200k.php
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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subject: [Commons-l] Fwd: Commons needs patrollers and future admins

body:
Key problem is the existing backlog piling up. if we could just clear
backlog once and maintain it, it would be much much more workable.
   - Cool Cat

On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I just sent this to wikien-l asking for helpers. Presumably there are
> tags, etc. for non-admin patrollers to tag suspect images. Something
> like this posted to other language Wikipedias would be a good idea, I
> suspect.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
> Date: 14-Nov-2006 20:12
> Subject: Commons needs patrollers and future admins
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>
>
> Commons is currently suffering a problem of a metric shitload of
> rubbish and copyvios, and not enough admins to do the cleanup work.
> Can anyone here help?
>
> Patrollers who speak multiple languages are particularly valuable in
> this regard, but I expect anyone good would be reasonably welcome once
> they can show a reasonable amount of work on Commons itself. Spanish
> and Portuguese speakers are particularly encouraged at present,
> because es: and pt: only allow image uploads directly to Commons.
>
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators#Suggestions_for_administrators
>
> (I whined enough about it on commons-l myself that I'll be diving into
> shitwork on Commons soon as well ...)
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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