subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 08:17:25 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >You're slipping into something resembling Copyright Paranoia For Convenience.
>
> Convenience?  In what way is it convenient to me to have a days-long
> argument over the removal of cruft from a crufty article?  Frankly I
> don't give a flying fuck about the content, but I *do* care if we
> violate copyright.  Silly of me, I know - and evil, apparently, in
> that I'm just trying to wreck Wikipedia.  I thought I was doing the
> right thing removing content with ambiguous at best copyright status,
> perhaps I will know better last time.

Noone thinks you're evil or trying to wreck Wikipedia.

But "removing content with ambiguous at best copyright status" is
generally copyright paranoia.

We all make mistakes.

And sometime's we're right but the community consensus is in a
strongly different direction. Discretion can be the better part of
valor in those instances.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Light entertainment

body:
On 4/2/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> To quote Charlie Brown, "AUGH!" I feel for you. "I see no need for the
> tools." is one of the worst reasons ever for voting.

Don't the closing crats have the same discretion on the weight they
give votes that admins closing AFDs do? The crats could change RFA a
little by disregarding multiple "no need for tools" "oppose per user",
WP:IDONTLIKEHIM etc. I even saw one RFA where one voter justified his
oppose and the following 8 voters dittoed him.


list: commons-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Commons-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Cool tool that lets you check for
	copyright renewals on books

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com>
Date: 02-Apr-2007 20:40
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool tool that lets you check for copyright
renewals on books
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

This is a new, neat tool that helps you find whether certain US
published books are out of copyright even if they are published after
1923. As most copyright savvy people know, there was a period of time
after that in which copyrights had to be officially renewed to stay
valid, meaning that a lot of works published after that time are
officially in the public domain in the United States. But these are
hard to find, since renewal notices are hard to peruse and in many
cases not machine-searchable at all.

But no longer! Stanford has created a Copyright Renewal Database,
making it quite easy to check if any book published first in the U.S.
between 1923 and 1963 are in the public domain. It could potentially
clear up copyright ambiguities for certain things taken from these
works.

http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/

FF

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Seraphim Blade

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>It would be common sense to adopt this position. I support it. Why
should be deny >users the right to add what they know? Published or
not?

Go look at your Armenia-Azerbaijan arbitration case for your answer.
(Or for that matter, most arbitration cases.) All those editors, every
one of them, are -adding what they know-. And I guarantee you, they
KNOW it, you could never convince one of them that everything they're
writing is not 100% true and factual. That's why we should stick to
what we can verify, not what we know.

Seraphimblade


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] how organizations work

body:
On 03/04/07, Ben Yates <bluephonic at gmail.com> wrote:

> I ran across an thread at metafilter about organizational dynamics --
> I thought it would make interesting reading for anyone involved with
> wikipedia.  The thread's linked article is called the "tyranny of
> structurelessness" but there are a lot of different opinions in the
> discussion.
> http://www.metafilter.com/59938/The-Tyranny-of-Structurelessness

I post this one to wikien-l roughly annually, but keep losing the
link. Needs filing away on the wiki somewhere.

- d.


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] how organizations work


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVG Mime Detection Errors

body:
I recall a month or so back that when I first reported the problem with
SVVG files being detected as "text/rtf" and other errors
a fix was posted somewhere in the trunk for MediaWiki 1.9.3.   Can
someone point me to the link to the fix?   The "file -bi" command
also has inaccurate return values detecting SVG images, so there is
still not a correct fix.  I have noted that SVG images appear
to render propperly now provided they are detected correctly.

Please advise,

Jeff


from_name: Doc glasgow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Some of them are starting to get the message

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>> In today's /Real Life Adventures/, the little girl says "Dad says men
>> are smarter than women. Is that true?"
>>
>> Her mom replies, "Listen, Honey.  Dad is the human Wikipedia.  He has
>> all the answers, but most of them are wrong."
>
> I'm not sure about "most", but it's a good sentiment.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
 And like Wikipedia he has a bias towards porn actresses, and the image of a
penis pops up frequently at random times and places.

--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Some-of-them-are-starting-to-get-the-message-tf3512923.html#a9821552
Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Sam Blacketer wrote:
> I am not a copyright lawyer (thanks be to God after reading this thread)
> but it is quite clear that this list is a violation of copyright. The decision
> to put cars in various sections of the 'Cool Wall' is a creative process.
> Copying the results of this creative process in its entirety is therefore
> a violation of copyright. The copyright rests in the compiling of a list
> by arbitrary criteria; compiling a list by objective criteria would not be
> copyright.

I'm going to split the difference and say that it's not clear either way.

If the list had appeared and we copied it down exactly, letter for
letter, that would be clear to me. (Actually, come to think of it, it
wouldn't be completely clear, as I gather the list (rather than the wall
itself) would be at best a small part of the show, so it could well come
under fair use. But let that pass.)

Otherwise, it's less obvious. What songs are used in a show is a
creative choice. Who's *in* a show is a creative choice. Who does what
is a creative choice. We copy all of those things down in our articles,
at least in the same sense we copy down what's apparently on the Cool
Wall. But I don't think any of those are copyright violations because we
are not copying the exact form.

Not that I couldn't be surprised on this; the boundaries of copyright
law are still surprising to me after years of casual study. But I'm
pretty sure it's not clearly a violation.

William


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/3/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com wrote:
> > On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:21:12 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> > > <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > > >In this case, the criterion for list membership is "has been on the
> Top
> > > >Gear Cool Wall". This is no more a matter of subjective
> interpretation
> > > >than coming up with a cast list for an ongoing TV show.
> > >
> > > That is defensible in the case of an individual car, yes.  Like saying
> > > it was No. 1 in the charts.  But, as with the charts, including the
> > > entire list violates copyright.
> >
> >Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't
> there.
>
> I am not a copyright lawyer (thanks be to God after reading this thread)
> but it is quite clear that this list is a violation of copyright. The
> decision
> to put cars in various sections of the 'Cool Wall' is a creative process.
> Copying the results of this creative process in its entirety is therefore
> a violation of copyright. The copyright rests in the compiling of a list
> by arbitrary criteria; compiling a list by objective criteria would not be
> copyright.

Claiming that it is clear does not make it so. In fact, it is clear that
this is not a violation of copyright.

The Stanford guide to Copyright and fair use is clear:
>
>
> http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-a.html#1
>
> "the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the
> author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to
> existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality,
> ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without
> copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.
>
> Finally, to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of
> at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no
> hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough. As one
> example, a work must be more creative than a telephone book's white
> pages, which involve a straightforward alphabetical listing of
> telephone numbers rather than a creative selection of listings."
>
> What we have here is a creative selection of listings.

Which has been compiled by Wikipedians, not by the show.


from_name: John Lee

body:
On 4/3/07, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Guy Chapman aka JzG
>
> > Look up a fact?  No problem.  Join the dots from a series of facts you
> > looked up?  Original research, in my book.
>
> I was recently working on an article (not in Wikipedia) on the phrase
> "Slippery slope," which these days usually means "a course leading
> inexorably to disaster." I wanted to support a statement that although there
> _are_ old uses of the phrase in its modern meaning, it became much more
> popular starting around 1980.
>
> My public library (and _many_ others) provide online access to a
> searchable full page-image database of complete back issues of the New York
> Times. In a few minutes, I was able to compile this:
>
> Hits on exact phrase "slippery slope", all article types, ProQuest
> Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) (a database available
> to patrons of many public libraries)
>
> 1857-99: 5 (average about 1 per decade)
> 1900-49: 41 (average 8.2 per decade)
> 1950-59: 11
> 1960-69: 23
> 1970-79: 36
> 1980-89: 144
> 1990-99: 402
>
> Well, can I use this in an article? Under Wikipedia's present rules, I
> don't think so.
>
> And yet.
>
> It is certainly original research. But it's verifiable, sensu Wikipedia,
> in that it the database is very widely available so it's easy to confirm my
> results. In fact it's easier than verifying an obscure print publication
> with no online copy. And, in this particular case, my assemblage of facts is
> intellectually honest: it is reasonable to want to know the history of the
> phrase's use, and this is a reasonable way to find out. This is not a
> selective assembly of facts made for the purpose of suggesting a biassed
> conclusion.
>
> And I was _not_ able to find a published source that said in so many words
> that the phrase bloomed in popularity around 1980.
>
> Granted this _is_ original research, what exactly is the harm in it?
>
> Other than its being the first step on a slippery slope, of course.

It strikes me that you could say, for example, "The usage of the phrase in
the NYT during the 1980s was triple that of the 1970s" (obviously phrased
better). As long as you don't point to a particular conclusion, leaving the
reader to decide how to interpret this primary source, it seems to be
acceptable (IMO). It certainly dovetails with NPOV's principle of show,
don't tell. :-p

Johnleemk


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] A successful request not yet fulfilled

body:
Hello,

> On 4/2/07, *Birgitte SB* wrote:
>
>     Due to past conversations I have had with people
>     involved with incubator, I read the comment about
>     "merging processes" differently than you did.  Perhaps
>     I am mistaken, and that is not what was meant in this
>     case.
>
>     However there are people who have been clear with me
>     that they think  [[:oldwikisource:]] should be
>     completely merged into [[:incubator:]] in the long
>     term.

This clearly shows the misunderstanding of what Wikisource is and what
[[:oldwikisource:]] is meant for.

Although some Wikipedias will remain small for a long time because of
lack of contributors, some Wikisources will never get more than a few
dozen or hundreds of pages, simply because the original content in that
language doesn't exist. Another example is Sanskrit (a bit more than
1700 pages) which could qualify to have its own subdomain because of the
amount of content, but does not because of lack of contributors.
Although we could dream to have the whole of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo
translated in Sanskrit, the quantity of existing Sanskrit texts will
never be more than a few thousand pages. For some other languages, it
will ever be much less, so creating and *maintaining* a wiki for only a
few pages is quite a waste of work and time. That's why
[[:oldwikisource:]] exists and will continue to do so. In that sense,
this interwiki name is also badly chosen.

Regards,

Yann


body:
I can see where you're coming from. Though I imagine that generally,
truly uncontroversial information just goes right through without
causing, well, any controversy. The minute someone says "Who says it's
so?" the information has just become controversial, and "I do" doesn't
seem like a tremendously good answer at that point. And for most
genuinely uncontroversial/common-knowledge information, finding a
source is trivial, and will take 2 minutes, while arguing over it
takes as long as people want to argue. If people want confirmation
that the sun is hot, or that the chemical formula for water is H2O, or
that all atoms contain protons and electrons, it's not worth the time
to argue-I'll go find 5 reliable sources in that many minutes, and
that's that.

Seraphimblade

On 4/3/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Seraphim Blade [mailto:seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com]
> >Sent: Tuesday, April 3, 2007 11:33 AM
> >To: 'English Wikipedia'
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?
> >
> >Fred Bauder wrote:
> >
> >>It would be common sense to adopt this position. I support it. Why
> >should be deny users the right to add what they know? Published or
> >not?
> >
> >Go look at your Armenia-Azerbaijan arbitration case for your answer.
> >(Or for that matter, most arbitration cases.) All those editors, every
> >one of them, are -adding what they know-. And I guarantee you, they
> >KNOW it, you could never convince one of them that everything they're
> >writing is not 100% true and factual. That's why we should stick to
> >what we can verify, not what we know.
> >
> >Seraphimblade
>
> You're comparing apples and oranges. If I say that Saguache Creek is a tributary of San Luis Creek in the Closed Basin of the San Luis Valley, that is one thing, saying that the Azerbaijanis desecrated an ancient Armenian graveyard, is quite another. One is a mere fact, the other is a contested matter.
>
> I guess I should say: It would be common sense to adopt this position. I support it. Why
> should we deny users the right to add uncontroversial facts that they know? Published or not?
>
> Fred
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

body:
On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why don't we lock new article creation in the main namespace entirely
> for three months? Or six months? Demand that people fix existing
> articles.

Any proposal based on an assumption like "people spend X hours a week
working on Wikipedia, and if only we could stop them wasting those X
hours working on something silly" is flawed. If you stopped me
creating new articles, I'd probably just get pissed off and leave.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question ("compilation copyright")

body:
On 4/2/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Seth Finkelstein wrote:
> >       Under US law, the keywords you would want to understand
> > are called "compilation copyright".
> >
> > http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html
> >
> > "A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling
> > of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or
> > arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes
> > an original work of authorship."
>
> But if this list was compiled by Wikipedia editors (as JzG claimed when
> arguing that it's OR) then the _editors_ own the compilation copyright
> and are perfectly within their rights to release it under the GFDL.
>
> >       And actually, "facts about the show" CAN be owned!
> >
> > http://www.rcfp.org/news/1998/0824i.html
> >
> > "SECOND CIRCUIT--A trivia quiz book testing readers' knowledge and
> > recollection of lines from the 'Seinfeld' television show does not
> > qualify as a "fair use" and as such constitutes copyright infringement
> ..."
> >
> >       In general, you really, really, don't want to try to get
> > useful answers to questions of copyright law by throwing them out
> > to a mailing list and debating them from intuition.
>
> But we the editors have to make these sorts of decisions dozens or
> hundreds of times per day. We _have_ to try to figure out what copyright
> law means, we can't go running to a professional lawyer with every
> question. And personally, I believe that any law that is so byzantine
> and obscure that a layperson it applies to cannot figure out what's
> legal most of the time is a really bad law. If copyright law was like
> that we might as well just give up because if someone wants to sue
> there's really nothing at all we could do to avoid it.

Exactly the point of avoiding copyright paranoia.


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] What can be done to let users fix it themselves?

body:
After a post here mentioned it, I went to WP:COI and WP:AUTO.

These two articles seem to promote the view that you're not supposed to edit
an article about yourself.

However, WP:BLP seems to suggest that you can to remove libel or unsourced
material, and it's a common refrain to complaints about Wikipedia, "why didn't
you just fix the article yourself?"

It just isn't consistent to both expect people to fix the article about
themselves, and expect them not to, at the same time.  It's true, of course,
that neither WP:AUTO nor WP:COI are absolute prohibitions, but they discourage
it in *such* strong terms that anyone who comes to Wikipedia with a complaint
about an article about themselves and stumbles across either guideline,
will think that fixing the article isn't allowed.  The subtlety that
"strongly discouraged" doesn't mean "prohibited", or that even a new user
is permitted to violate a guideline, is something they'll completely miss.

How can this be fixed?  I complained on the COI talk page and nobody seems
to care.  And I suspect just editing the guidelines myself would be reverted
within the hour.


body:
I think the bigger problem there is "Did you look yourself first?"
Usually, I've found when I'm unsure about something, a quick run
through Google or Proquest is all it takes. In more than one instance
though, that actually has revealed that what was there is wrong, or
misleading, or incomplete. I don't think it's necessarily stupid to
challenge something, even by a person who may not know much on it.
After all, presumably, the -article- is written for those who may not
know much on the subject. (If someone already knows the subject inside
and out, what do they need our article for anyway?) In that case, it
certainly never hurts to list sources, not only for validation, but
also because they tend to go into much greater depth.

On 4/3/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Apr 3, 2007, at 3:01 PM, Seraphim Blade wrote:
>
> > I can see where you're coming from. Though I imagine that generally,
> > truly uncontroversial information just goes right through without
> > causing, well, any controversy. The minute someone says "Who says it's
> > so?" the information has just become controversial, and "I do" doesn't
> > seem like a tremendously good answer at that point.
>
> The problem is that people are saying "who says it's so" for reasons
> that are, to be blunt, kinda stupid. People need to stop challenging
> information on subjects they're ignorant about or that they don't
> sincerely doubt the validity of. Absent that safety we have to be
> ready to say "Oh for God's sake, just stop worrying about it."
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: phoebe ayers

body:
On 4/2/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
>
> On 02/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > Trivia: My mum went to [[Godolphin and Latymer School]].
>
> Small world. I went to Latymer, which is why I keep an eye on this
> article.
>
> > >"No approval was obtained from the [[College of Arms]] for this new
> > >shield, and it is, therefore, unauthorised by the [[Law of Arms]]."
> >
> > And?  It's a logo.  Why would it need to be?
>
> Well, I raised that on the talk page, and Chelseaboy (he of the
> heraldic interests) commented "It is obvious from looking at the
> shield (which is illustrated in the box at the top of the article)
> that it is a shield [...] newly formed shields of arms (this is a
> shield bearing a chevron and a cross, which are heraldic elements)
> used in England require authorisation from the College of Arms before
> display".

In general, I find it problematic when someone  states that something is
"obvious" in as obscure and complicated a field as heraldry. Obvious to you,
perhaps. Not at all obvious to me. Thus, a source would be nice, for those
of us who aren't heraldic experts and would like to find out more about this
interesting fact beyond the 1 or 2 sentences in a Wikipedia article. I'm
sure Chelseaboy knows what he's talking about; that's missing the point,
though.

-- phoebe


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposed overhaul of Meta

body:
On 4/3/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Wiki folk,
> 5) I've heard about discussion of this, but I think the translation
> functions of Meta should be moved to their own wiki. It would operate a lot
> more efficiently (more main page space could be dedicated to translation),
> and through special features made for translation wikis, it would be much
> more convenient as well. A translation community, so-to-speak, could
> establish a presence on such a wiki.

There was a similar proposal on translators-l just before a month but
the existing translator community was against the idea to set up a new
wiki. The general direcition, such as merger of the comcom wiki to the
internal, suggests the opposite trend, I suppose.

Since I have no strong preference on this issue personally, I would
like to keep my neutrality on this issue unless the translator
community is moving on.

Besides that, I think it would be a good idea to have a new namespace
for translation work, since some of page names are shared on the wmf
wiki and meta, we find sometimes name collision on importing item from
wmf to meta (cf. [[Board of Trustees]]). Does anyone find demerit to
create a new namespace "Translation" to those two wiki?

Cheers,

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *


body:
On 4/2/07, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Guy Chapman aka JzG
>
> > Look up a fact?  No problem.  Join the dots from a series of facts you
> > looked up?  Original research, in my book.
>
> I was recently working on an article (not in Wikipedia) on the phrase
> "Slippery slope," which these days usually means "a course leading
> inexorably to disaster." I wanted to support a statement that although there
> _are_ old uses of the phrase in its modern meaning, it became much more
> popular starting around 1980.
>
> My public library (and _many_ others) provide online access to a
> searchable full page-image database of complete back issues of the New York
> Times. In a few minutes, I was able to compile this:
>
> Hits on exact phrase "slippery slope", all article types, ProQuest
> Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) (a database available
> to patrons of many public libraries)
>
> 1857-99: 5 (average about 1 per decade)
> 1900-49: 41 (average 8.2 per decade)
> 1950-59: 11
> 1960-69: 23
> 1970-79: 36
> 1980-89: 144
> 1990-99: 402
>
> Well, can I use this in an article? Under Wikipedia's present rules, I
> don't think so.
>
> And yet.
>
> It is certainly original research. But it's verifiable, sensu Wikipedia,
> in that it the database is very widely available so it's easy to confirm my
> results. In fact it's easier than verifying an obscure print publication
> with no online copy. And, in this particular case, my assemblage of facts is
> intellectually honest: it is reasonable to want to know the history of the
> phrase's use, and this is a reasonable way to find out. This is not a
> selective assembly of facts made for the purpose of suggesting a biassed
> conclusion.
>
> And I was _not_ able to find a published source that said in so many words
> that the phrase bloomed in popularity around 1980.
>
> Granted this _is_ original research, what exactly is the harm in it?
>
> Other than its being the first step on a slippery slope, of course.

A nice example :)

Well, the OED, generally recognized as the gold standard in etymology, lists
the first use of the term in a figurative sense ("leading to disaster")  in
1951: *"1951* J.
FLEMING<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-f.html#j-fleming>
*Man who looked Back* x. 132 You go off down the slippery slope; it'll do
you good." There are two more quotations, one from 1964 and one form 1979.
There are of course earlier uses of the phrase but they are not meant in the
same way. Seems to me that to really make your case based on your original
research in the NYT, you'd need to check every single use of the citation to
make sure they were talking about a slippery slope (figuratively, as in
leading to disaster) and not a slippery slope (literally). Did you do this?
I can't tell from your message here. Furthermore, there are other factors
that could affect usage that have nothing to do with the popularity of the
phrase -- the number of articles in the paper may have increased in the
1980s (and thus the opportunities for using any phrase), stylistic
guidelines for using "slang" phrases may have changed, etc. etc.

I think that's one of the fundamental problems with original research: you
never know how *good* someone's research is. At least when it's printed in
other sources, you have some assurance of outside editorial checking (or can
check on it yourself, because it's published and you can track down a record
of someone's claims). I don't really know how the OED people compile their
quotes, but I trust them to do a good job at it and as professional
etymologists have an understanding of the issues involved that far exceeds
mine, and because it's directly printed in the OED, there's a record that
can be accessed long after we all stop working on Wikipedia.

-- phoebe


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject:
[Commons-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Cool tool that lets you check
	forcopyright renewals on books

body:
On 4/3/07, peter green <plugwash at p10link.net> wrote:
> but how do you know that those books don't contain extracts from other copyright works that *have*
> been renewed?

Books generally state if contents have been published before in other
forms.  Photographs and to a lesser degree illustrations may be
problematic, however; these are normally attributed, but it's
generally quite hard to tell if photographs have been independently
copyrighted, AFAIK.

Some photographs were submitted to the Library of Congress in the US
as part of copyright registration of a photograph collection, but I
suspect this was far from a universal copyright.  Since in pre Berne
Convention US copyright law things were not 'born copyrighted' but had
to be registered and published with a copyright claim, in most cases
there is no independent photograph copyright, however.

-Matt


from_name: AvB

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Just a few observations offered for consideration; probably superfluous for
most editors here but possibly helpful for some:

Form is subject to copyright, ideas or information are not (for the
protection of information itself, look at patents, UK's OSA, etc.)
(See [[WP:Copyright]], [[Copyright]] and [[Idea-expression divide]])

Regarding the copyvio aspect in this discussion:

Copyright is about *form*. When WP contains the same expression of the
same information provided by a copyrighted source, it's a copyvio.
Ultimately this is decided in lawsuits etc. and such precedents provide
useful guidance. But only in the more outlandish cases do we *need* the
such guidance to decide what consitutes a sufficiently different form.
Guy deems this case outlandish enough to ask for a precedent.
If I understand him correctly, his personal opinion is that it's a copyvio
because the form is not sufficiently different.

Regarding the OR aspect:

Original research is about *information*. When WP contains more or
different information than can be found in reliable sources, it's OR.
According to a number of editors, to escape being OR, information
found in reliable primary sources also has to be mentioned in one
or more reliable secondary sources.
Guy seems to be arguing the list may be OR in view of the latter criterion.

AvB


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/3/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/3/07, "The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > What we have here is a creative selection of listings.
> >
> > Which has been compiled by Wikipedians, not by the show.
>
> No, it hasn't. The listing has been compiled by 'Top Gear'. The list
> has been copied down from the screen by a Wikipedian based solely on
> what was on the screen, adding nothing, changing nothing, removing
> nothing, just writing a list of what was on the screen. The creative
> input from the Wikipedian was nil.

Did the complete list ever appear on Top Gear?

Suppose there was a television music show with a sing-along song,
> where the words were displayed on 'idiot boards' for the studio
> audience. A wikipedian watches the show and copies down the lyrics off
> the boards displayed in the studio and clearly visible on the
> television. That would still be an infringement of the copyright of
> the lyricist of the song. This is the same thing, only with a list of
> cars.

And lyrics and names of cars are completely different. If someone took the
last word uttered on each episode of Seinfeld and called the resultant
listing lyrics and composed a song to those lyrics that wouldn't be
copyright infringement either.

Again, you're not a copyright lawyer, so stop making Statements of Fact As
If You Are The Infallible Judge.


subject: [Foundation-l] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (fwd)

body:
The message below is about the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (
http://plato.stanford.edu/), an online freely-available reference work that
is expert-produced. It's supported by an "endowment" which is supported not
only by Stanford and an NEH matching grant but also funds contributed by
academic libraries as "membership dues", basically as a good-faith effort to
keep the project alive. (http://www.solinet.net/survey/sep.htm). It's an
interesting model and not one I've seen before. Their endowment goal is
$4,125,000 to cover their costs "in perpetuity"; I'd be interested to know
how they arrived at this number.

-- phoebe

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 09:37:56 -0500
From: Robert Michaelson <rmichael at NORTHWESTERN.EDU>
To: PAMNET at listserv.nd.edu
Subject: GENERAL: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Please excuse duplicate posting.

The article below, from SPARC enews, reminded me of recent postings about
Wikipedia, some of which questioned the viability of non-profit scholarly
works.
Possibly there are science/engineering librarians who are not aware of the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a free online encyclopedia of the
highest standards (and, by the way, it has useful entries on philosophy and
history of science). The articles are signed, scholarly, and meet high
editorial standards; many of them are by famous scholars.  Instead of a
"subscription model", libraries, institutions, and individuals have been
asked to contribute toward an endowment fund which, it is anticipated, will
keep the Encyclopedia functioning in the future.
I look forward to the completion of SEP (and projected articles such as
"chemistry, philosophy of").

Bob Michaelson
Northwestern University Library
Evanston, Illinois 60208
USA
rmichael at northwestern.edu

> Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
> http://plato.stanford.edu/
>
> The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, with significant help from the
> worldwide library community, is nearing its goal of raising a $4,125,000
> endowment, which would generate enough in appreciation and interest income
> to cover the SEP's expenses in perpetuity. To date, SEP has successfully
> secured $3,120,000 in funding commitments from a combination of sources:
>
> Stanford has nearly reached its goal, raising $1,122,000, with some large
> donations from donors outside academia who have backgrounds in philosophy,
> as well as contributions from many professional philosophers. The
> libraries have also made substantial progress, collectively contributing
> $1,505,455 in pledges. Counting the $500,000 in NEH matching funds, the
> libraries have made commitments totaling $2,005,455.
>
> The SEP still needs $1,000,000 in new commitments from the library
> community to reach its ultimate goal. Of the 120 libraries at institutions
> with Philosophy Ph.D. programs in the U.S. and Canada, 49 have committed
> the full amount requested ($15,000) to support the SEP and 18 have made a
> partial commitment.  SEP is requesting help to preserve open access to a
> resource that is used at universities across the globe hundreds of
> thousands times each week.
>
> SEPIA continues to collect membership dues from other libraries and
> library consortia worldwide. Learn more about SEPIA at
>http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=3563.
> To register your commitment with SOLINET, go to
> http://www.solinet.net/survey/sep.htm.
> For a list of libraries already committed to the project, see
> http://plato.stanford.edu/fundraising/commitments.html.
>


body:
On 4/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is the problem with the "PD" movies you sometimes see circulating
> on the net.. The movie   lost its copyright (through lack of
> registration, lack of renewal, etc) but it contains music,
> photographs, and an underlying story which were all renewed and are
> still enforceable and enforced.

All of which makes them better sources for stills than moving images -
if the copyright in the movie itself is expired, a still from the
movie cannot infringe upon music, is unlikely to infringe upon story,
and can be checked for such copyrightable elements as photographs.

This leads me to another question.  In pre-Berne US copyright law
(1923-1960something), if a photograph has no independent copyright
registration, I believe that its copyright term would be based on the
copyright of the work in which it is published.  If, however, a
photograph without independent registration has been published in two
different books - what happens if one of those books falls out of
copyright through non-renewal, and the other does not?

Is it based on the copyright status of the book you copied it from?
Is it based on the copyright status of the first book in which it was
published (IOW, its first copyright registration)?  Is it still
copyrighted if any of the published versions are still in copyright?
(a version I think is least likely)

I've never found anything useful about this situation in copyright guides.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/3/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/3/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/3/07, "The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > What we have here is a creative selection of listings.
> > >
> > > Which has been compiled by Wikipedians, not by the show.
> >
> > No, it hasn't. The listing has been compiled by 'Top Gear'. The list
> > has been copied down from the screen by a Wikipedian based solely on
> > what was on the screen, adding nothing, changing nothing, removing
> > nothing, just writing a list of what was on the screen. The creative
> > input from the Wikipedian was nil.
>
>
> Did the complete list ever appear on Top Gear?
>
>
> Suppose there was a television music show with a sing-along song,
> > where the words were displayed on 'idiot boards' for the studio
> > audience. A wikipedian watches the show and copies down the lyrics off
> > the boards displayed in the studio and clearly visible on the
> > television. That would still be an infringement of the copyright of
> > the lyricist of the song. This is the same thing, only with a list of
> > cars.
>
>
> And lyrics and names of cars are completely different. If someone took the
> last word uttered on each episode of Seinfeld and called the resultant
> listing lyrics and composed a song to those lyrics that wouldn't be
> copyright infringement either.
>
> Again, you're not a copyright lawyer, so stop making Statements of Fact As
> If You Are The Infallible Judge.
>

p.s. Sorry for the tone.  I didn't mean to be so strident.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/3/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> And a trademark.

Possibly a trademark, but not necessarily a trademark INFRINGEMENT,
since trademarks do not protect against all uses of a term.  Use of
any trademark in an encyclopedia context is likely to be OK - except,
possibly, those of other encyclopedias or reference works.

-Matt


from_name: Denny Colt

subject: [WikiEN-l] idea: BLP clean up category

body:
How about something like "Living persons clean-up" or some similar wording,
which can be used with a variant clean-up template on BLP articles. I.e., if
you see one that needs it, but either don't know how, don't have the time
to, or whatever reason, can immediately flag an article as Very High
Priority for clean-up. This wouldn't be for stuff like formatting, grammer,
or the usual stuff--for suspected actual BLP issues.

Good idea?

--
- Denny


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/3/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> Not that I couldn't be surprised on this; the boundaries of copyright
> law are still surprising to me after years of casual study. But I'm
> pretty sure it's not clearly a violation.

Copyright law is exceedingly complex, in fact, and in many edge cases
even a trained and experienced copyright lawyer can only give an
educated guess and an estimate of risk.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Light entertainment

body:
On 3/30/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Earle_Martin_2

To quote Charlie Brown, "AUGH!" I feel for you. "I see no need for the
tools." is one of the worst reasons ever for voting. I keep
considering requesting an admin bit, but I might hit the same hurdle.
I occasionally "need the tools". I occasionally would like to rename a
page in a non-trivial case, or to rename a category. I occasionally
would like to edit a protected page. That's about it. I don't want to
block anyone, or do some of the other things one gets "the tools" for.
But who would support that platform?

Steve


body:
On 4/3/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> IMO it's looking more and more like you just wanted to find excuses to
> back up the removal of some content you didn't like. You may win
> individual battles that way but if you really want to rid Wikipedia as a
> whole of fancruft then I'd suggest debating _fancruft itself_ rather
> than trying to warp other unrelated policies to the task. You'll just
> wind up annoying people and possibly causing unintended side effects.

I suspect Guy knows quite well that project consensus does not back
him as far as he'd like on the 'fancruft' issue.

Unfortunately the end result is that topics disliked by some editors
who think they shouldn't be in an encyclopedia are subjected to
stricter interpretations of Wikipedia policies than those in subject
areas not normally contentious.

-Matt


from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Review Committee

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> This thread has gone on for some time with very little constructive
> suggestions, and lots of accusations flying back and forth.
> I am not certain I understand all the objections.
>
> The requirement that people starting new Wiki's actually BE NATIVE
> SPEAKERS OF THE LANGUAGE AS A
> FIRST OR SECOND LANGUAGE AND ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO SPEAK OR WRITE IT and
> that a MEDIAWIKI
> MESSAGES FILE be created is very reasonable and a great barrier to entry
> to keep out those who are not competent with a
> target language.  It seems those complaining about it the most are folks
> who may not be fluent enough to be able to complete
> a Messages File for MediaWiki.
>
> Just because people have a few college classes in "outer frabanian" or
> some other obscure languages does not warrant the foundation
> going through the expense and time of setting up a wiki for a group of
> folks who A) are not part of the culture the language
> is concerned with B) don't speak it or are immersed in it well enough to
> understand the underlying cultural impacts.
>
> The whole idea is to promote other languages to a target audience of
> speakers, not to create "busy projects" for folks with nothing
> better to do with their time who are marginally interested in a
> particular language.
>
> Jeff
>
I disagree that native speakers of a language are necessarily a
mandatory requirement here, but fluency in the language certainly ought
to be a major component for those expressing a desire to support the
language.  Some languages I would have note with very strong non-native
support would include Latin and Esperanto.  I find the articles in the
Latin Wikipedia (and Wikibooks!) to be facinating and wonderfully
imaginative.  Not just made up stuff, but written with a unique flair
and style that gives a sometimes refreshing take to what I read in
English Wikipedia.  And many of these articles are of an incredibly high
scholarship quality as well.  It takes a particularly skillful vandal to
do vandalism in Latin.

If non-native support is to be given to a particular language, some very
high standards ought to apply that perhaps would have to exceed a
similar effort by native speakers.  I think that is reasonable.  Not to
rehash the issue again, but the Klingon-language Wikipedia did suffer
from a lack of fluent individuals who really understood the language
beyond just a few choice curses and fan-speak at Trek conventions.
Perhaps that language could be revisited again in the future, but the
literacy of individuals speaking this particular language (and other
constructed languages) would have to be noticeably higher.

I would like to see support for those languages that may have a huge
potential for growth in the future, or for which a large number of
native speakers want to get involved with even if they don't necessarily
have technical skills like manipulating a configuration file.  This is
asking quite a bit for people who can't read English (or a major
European language) to even understand what it is they are supposed to do
or where to get that help.

One project I like to pick on quite a bit when new projects are talked
about is the IsiZulu language Wikibooks.  It currently has only one
page, written in English.  IsiZulu Wikipedia has only 190 pages
written.  Yet it is an "official" language of South Africa and
recognized for official proceedings like judicial hearings in some
provinces, and has over 10 million native speakers.  Potentially the
growth of the IsiZulu Wikibooks could be huge even if at the moment it
is a project that needs to be ignored.  In this case, if somebody was
able to actually take a college course or two on the language, it would
be helpful to developing this project even if it were just a raw
academic exercise, as native support at some time in the future could
build upon the efforts of these non-native contributors.

I would have to agree that native speakers ought to be given some
consideration, particularly at the early stages of a project.  And
respect for the culture of those native speakers should also be given a
very high priority.  But as mandatory requirements for creation and
participation I have to respectfully disagree.

-- Robert Horning


subject: [WikiEN-l] idea: BLP clean up category

body:
On 4/3/07, Denny Colt <wikidenny at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How about something like "Living persons clean-up" or some similar
> wording, which can be used with a variant clean-up template on BLP articles.
> I.e., if you see one that needs it, but either don't know how, don't have
> the time to, or whatever reason, can immediately flag an article as Very
> High Priority for clean-up. This wouldn't be for stuff like formatting,
> grammer, or the usual stuff--for suspected actual BLP issues.
>
> Good idea?
>

Well, I was bold and made:

[[Category:BLP Check]] and [[WP:BLPC]].
--
- Denny


from_name: A. Özgür Erdemli

body:
Interesting shift on topic.

Dbl2010

>
> The stewards regard Meta as their playground and don't want outside
> involvement. Even Anthere was pulling the sort of tricks that were
> getting people arbcommed on a better-behaved wiki such as en:wp.
> (Anthere, before you react with incredulity - I pointed these out to
> you at the time.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> In today's /Real Life Adventures/, the little girl says "Dad says men
> are smarter than women. Is that true?"
>
> Her mom replies, "Listen, Honey.  Dad is the human Wikipedia.  He has
> all the answers, but most of them are wrong."

I'm not sure about "most", but it's a good sentiment.


from_name: Mark Clements

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using Special Pages for maintenance scripts

body:
"Andreas R." <newsgroups2005 at geekmail.de> wrote
in message news:loom.20070403T011957-223 at post.gmane.org...
> Robert Leverington <lcarsdata at ...> writes:
> > On 02/04/07, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k at ...> wrote:
> > > Robert Leverington wrote:
> [...]
> > > Won't it time-out if used from the web?
> > >
> > > Have you tried php shell http://mgeisler.net/php-shell/
> > > It time-out too
> >
> > The php timeout can be increased via a built in MediaWiki function.
>
> If it takes longer, even the browser can time out.
> A very simple solution to avoid this would be to just send out e.g. blanks
> continously. This will however produce php warnings about headers already
sent
> (if they are enabled) when trying to send out a wiki page after that.

Well, you could send out a short header text "Working..." and periodically
send another period through.  At the end you add a "Completed" message and
use javascript to redirect (with a NOSCRIPT tag providing a clickable link).
Would that avoid a browser time-out?  Add a shut-down handler to report
"FAILED - Timeout" and you should deal with that issue too (assuming the
shutdown handler gets called in this situation...)

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 4/3/07, peter green <plugwash at p10link.net> wrote:
> but how do you know that those books don't contain extracts from other copyright works that *have* been renewed?

This is the problem with the "PD" movies you sometimes see circulating
on the net.. The movie   lost its copyright (through lack of
registration, lack of renewal, etc) but it contains music,
photographs, and an underlying story which were all renewed and are
still enforceable and enforced.


body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, Oldak Quill wrote:
> If you propose an exemption where the policies conflict, I'm sure most
> would support you.

So a newcomer sees 20 paragraphs about how you're not supposed to edit your
own article, and then a sentence saying otherwise.

I don't think that'll work unless you make the exemption prominent enough that
it doesn't seem like an afterthought to anyone reading the page.  And that I
don't think is possible.  Ideally, we should soften the language that
implies a near-absolute prohibition, but nobody will stand for that.


from_name: Sam Blacketer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com wrote:
> On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:21:12 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> > <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > >In this case, the criterion for list membership is "has been on the Top
> > >Gear Cool Wall". This is no more a matter of subjective interpretation
> > >than coming up with a cast list for an ongoing TV show.
> >
> > That is defensible in the case of an individual car, yes.  Like saying
> > it was No. 1 in the charts.  But, as with the charts, including the
> > entire list violates copyright.
>
>Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't there.

I am not a copyright lawyer (thanks be to God after reading this thread)
but it is quite clear that this list is a violation of copyright. The decision
to put cars in various sections of the 'Cool Wall' is a creative process.
Copying the results of this creative process in its entirety is therefore
a violation of copyright. The copyright rests in the compiling of a list
by arbitrary criteria; compiling a list by objective criteria would not be
copyright.

The Stanford guide to Copyright and fair use is clear:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-a.html#1

"the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the
author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to
existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality,
ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without
copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.

Finally, to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of
at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no
hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough. As one
example, a work must be more creative than a telephone book's white
pages, which involve a straightforward alphabetical listing of
telephone numbers rather than a creative selection of listings."

What we have here is a creative selection of listings.

--
Sam Blacketer
London E15


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: improving quality on enwiki

body:
On 3/31/07, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> * All articles must be categorized.  A bot can be used to generate
> lists of uncategorized articles, and the articles found in this way

To be precise, all articles must be categorised within the main
hierarchy of categories.

> * A mapping of categories onto Subject Working Groups needs to be
> established.  Each Subject Working Group is responsible for the
> maintenance of all articles which are categorized within categories

Yes.

> assigned to that SWG.  (If an article is within the scope of multiple
> SWGs, an arbitration process, with both automated and deliberative
> components, will determine which SWG will be primarily responsible for
> it.)

No. It's not important who is "primarily responsible" for it.

> * Editors, most of whose edits are made to articles categorized within
> a specific SWG, will be identified and asked to form a SWG (or
> formalize an existing informal one).

Yes. This already kind of happens with WikiProjects. It's sort of
flattering to be asked to join a WikiProject. :)

> * SWGs will have the responsibility to ensure that all articles within
> their ambit are properly sourced, cleaned up, etc.

Yes. We should not be scared of using the word "responsibility".
Obviously we don't punish people if they fail. But we define the group
who is ultimately responsible.

> * Any article which remains unsourced for one month will be deleted.
> A bot will detect unsourced articles and notify the responsible SWG of
> the article and the need to source it.

Oh, this is interesting. Implicit in this is that the SWG can decide
whether they want the article or not.

> This is all entirely orthogonal to vandalism management.

Is it? I hoped one advantage would be fewer dusty, never visited
corners of Wikipedia. With the supervised category approach, we could
guarantee to patrol every page.

> Please feel free to refine this idea or just tell me it's a load of hooey.

I really, really like this idea. It's the next logical step forward.
Implementation details please.

Steve


body:
I just made that new thing for BLP checks at [[WP:BLPC]]. Maybe a formal
exception so they can add that to the talk page or the article to get
immediate attention if its actually a BLP matter?

--
- Denny


body:
On 3/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 31/03/07, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Essentially, what you're describing isn't Wikipedia as it works but a
> different project starting from the same database.

What? No. We currently categorise most articles and many fall under
wikiprojects. Kelly proposes categorising *all*, placing them *all*
under wikiprojects, and expanding the role of wikiprojects to
encompass governance and maintenance.

If we have slumped into a "anything that we don't do already is not in
the spirit of Wikipedia", then we're already dead. And the terrorists
have already won.

Steve


body:
On 4/2/07, Seth Finkelstein <sethf at sethf.com> wrote:
> "A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling
> of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or
> arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes
> an original work of authorship."

The particular question was quite interesting from this point of view:
1) TV show randomly presents a different fact each episode
2) TV show never explicitly publishes the list of facts.
3) A third party collects them (mechanically) and publishes it.

Who owns copyright over that list? Is the list "objective", because it
was created by slavishly watching the episodes and simply noting the
random fact each time, or is it "subjective" because the items in it
were creatively invented by the show's producers?

It must depend on what "preexisting materials" means. I can't see that
the list would satisfy the rest of that definition of selection,
coordination etc.

Steve


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 03/04/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:

> The Stanford guide to Copyright and fair use is clear:
> http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-a.html#1
> "the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the
> author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to
> existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality,
> ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without
> copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.

So ... book chapter titles? Episode titles? A list of serial titles?
No-one seriously argued these be scoured from Wikipedia as imminent
dangers.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Saving pages from WP with stylesheet

body:
On 4/3/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> Has anyone ever gone through the Browser Archive and pulled screenshots?

I got no joy out of the early Mosaics, sadly. Wikipedia just showed
the "we're experiencing technical difficulties" page, every other page
I tried failed for one reason or another, mostly asking me to
configure a "viewer" to handle the esoteric content type "text/html".

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Light entertainment

body:
On 4/3/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would. It's the basis upon which I was given the bit (a few years back).
>
> I haven't looked into your history, so I can't guarantee I'd vote for
> you (there has to be some level of discernment). But assuming you're not
> an obvious troublemaker, let me know when you run on such a platform,
> and I'll show up and vote for you.

Oh, cool. Well, I'll get back to you.

Steve


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Apr 3, 2007, at 3:01 PM, Seraphim Blade wrote:

> I can see where you're coming from. Though I imagine that generally,
> truly uncontroversial information just goes right through without
> causing, well, any controversy. The minute someone says "Who says it's
> so?" the information has just become controversial, and "I do" doesn't
> seem like a tremendously good answer at that point.

The problem is that people are saying "who says it's so" for reasons
that are, to be blunt, kinda stupid. People need to stop challenging
information on subjects they're ignorant about or that they don't
sincerely doubt the validity of. Absent that safety we have to be
ready to say "Oh for God's sake, just stop worrying about it."

-Phil


from_name: William Pietri

body:
Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, Oldak Quill wrote:
>
>> If you propose an exemption where the policies conflict, I'm sure most
>> would support you.
>>
>
> So a newcomer sees 20 paragraphs about how you're not supposed to edit your
> own article, and then a sentence saying otherwise.
>
> I don't think that'll work unless you make the exemption prominent enough that
> it doesn't seem like an afterthought to anyone reading the page.  And that I
> don't think is possible.  Ideally, we should soften the language that
> implies a near-absolute prohibition, but nobody will stand for that.
>

The balancing concern is the eleven zillion people who believe they have
a divine right to control anything said about them and theirs, and far
more time and energy to devote to a single article than we do.

Our policies unfortunately serve a dual role: they are guidance for
those who want it, and a stick for those who refuse the guidance. It
seems like the two needs are in conflict here.

William


from_name: Peter

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Feature request: Random article in specified
	category

body:
there's already an extension (developped by rob I think) which does this
it's called AdvancedRandom

On 3/22/07, demute <mannet at kth.se> wrote:
>
>
> It would be really nice if wikipedias Special:random-function could take
> arguments, making it possible to get a random article from user-specified
> categories.
> A suggestion to do this is as follows. When a user click on the "random
> article" link the random article is loaded with a comment on the top of
> the
> page saying something like "you requested a random article. click here to
> view options" and so the the user can mark which categories the article
> should come from. The settings can either be stored in a cookie or they
> can
> be sent in the URI.
> Everyone would love this feature!
>
> regards,
> Manne Tallmarken
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://www.nabble.com/Feature-request%3A-Random-article-in-specified-category-tf3444195.html#a9604657
> Sent from the Wikipedia Developers mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Robert Horning wrote:

>I would have to agree that native speakers ought to be given some
>consideration, particularly at the early stages of a project.  And
>respect for the culture of those native speakers should also be given a
>very high priority.  But as mandatory requirements for creation and
>participation I have to respectfully disagree.
>
>-- Robert Horning
>
>
>
I think the issue is related to being fluent enough in the language to
complete
the messages file. Cultural issues are also very important.

Jeff


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 03/04/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> *Very* nice strawman, there, Rob.

I was going for the snide anti-Microsoftism. That's how people get
respect in the FOSS community these days, isn't it?

Rob Church


from_name: Nyenyec N

subject: [Foundation-l] EDP: US servers loophole?

body:
Hi,

We started discussing on creating our EDP in HuWiki based on
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

I'd like to request some clarification on the text.

EDP: a project-specific policy, in accordance with United States law
and the law of countries where the project content is predominantly
accessed (if any), that recognizes the limitations of copyright law
(including case law) as applicable to the project, and permits the
upload of copyrighted materials that can be legally used in the
context of the project, regardless of their licensing status.

----
In the case of HuWiki the country is Hungary, so accordingly, the
policy must be in accordance with US and Hungarian law.

My question is: does this mean that the project should not permit the
use of content that according to Hungarian copyright law cannot be
legally distributed without the copyright holder's permission?

Let's take album covers as an example. Hungary, just like Germany
doesn't have a broad equivalent of "fair use". According to Hungarian
law, album covers cannot be distributed without permission.

But one could say, that Hungarian copyright law doesn't make it
illegal to upload these images to servers located in the United
States. By doing so you're not breaking any laws.

On the other hand you'll break Hungarian copyright law, when you
create a DVD containing all the "fair use" images that are in HuWiki
right now and start distributing it in Hungary (even for free).

So which interpretation is correct? Can and should HuWiki's EDP allow
"fair use" images that can only be used without permission in the US,
but not in Hungary?

Thanks,
nyenyec


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20954]
	branches/instantcommons/includes/Image.php

body:
On 03/04/07, suuch at svn.wikimedia.org <suuch at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 20954
> Author:   suuch
> Date:     2007-04-02 21:02:29 -0700 (Mon, 02 Apr 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
>
>
> Modified Paths:

Even when just updating a couple of comments, please provide a log
message, otherwise the Subversion log becomes useless.

Rob Church


subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/3/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> A good  method, but... How would we now when it came from the site
> users? It's almost impossible.

Not at all impossible, it would just take a little work.  We setup a
landing page they they direct their upload to commons link to, ... it
sets a cookie indicating the site they came from (either one landing
page per site, or grab the referrer. Make upload grab the cookie and
stuff it in the database someplace..

I think that this would be very useful data even among our own
projects. SUL will reduce the need for it internally, but it would
still be useful with instantcommons.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
	[20954]branches/instantcommons/includes/Image.php

body:
"Rob Church" <robchur at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:e92136380704030834s4704ad24t3819105128020120 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 03/04/07, suuch at svn.wikimedia.org
<suuch at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Revision: 20954
> > Author:   suuch
> > Date:     2007-04-02 21:02:29 -0700 (Mon, 02 Apr 2007)
> >
> > Log Message:
> > -----------
> >
> >
> > Modified Paths:
>
> Even when just updating a couple of comments, please provide a log
> message, otherwise the Subversion log becomes useless.
>
>

I'm surprised blank messages aren't being blocked by a pre-commit hook...!

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


body:
On 4/3/07, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Let's take album covers as an example. Hungary, just like Germany
> doesn't have a broad equivalent of "fair use". According to Hungarian
> law, album covers cannot be distributed without permission.

I think we need a FAQ point that says:

Q: "But my country doesn't have anything like fair use / fair dealing"
A: "You're probably incorrect."

See the current Hungarian copyright act, (Act LXXVI of 1999, I have no
clue how to cite Hungarian law).

I'm fairly confidence that you have some degree of fair use, ...
although it may not be as permissive as US law, the Wikimedia policy
is focused on the part of fair use which should be most widely
available (the part required to prevent copyright from being used to
effectively stop free speech).

As several of our Wikipedias have shown, it's possible to have a very
good large Wikipedia without any EDP images at all. I see the huwiki
only has around 50K articles
(http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speci%C3%A1lis:Statistics?uselang=en)
... I think it would be reasonable to ask your community if the lack
of ability to use non-free images will harm your project at this
stage.  I don't think there are any clear answers, it's just something
interesting to consider.

[snip]
> But one could say, that Hungarian copyright law doesn't make it
> illegal to upload these images to servers located in the United
> States. By doing so you're not breaking any laws.

I'm reasonably confident that you will not find a single jurisdiction
with effective copyright law where the act of uploading to someone
elses website isn't considered a reserved right under copyright law
(in most places it will likely be consider just another form of
copying, although some laws may special case it in order to have extra
harshness for infringements created online).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/3/07, "The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What we have here is a creative selection of listings.
>
> Which has been compiled by Wikipedians, not by the show.

No, it hasn't. The listing has been compiled by 'Top Gear'. The list
has been copied down from the screen by a Wikipedian based solely on
what was on the screen, adding nothing, changing nothing, removing
nothing, just writing a list of what was on the screen. The creative
input from the Wikipedian was nil.

Suppose there was a television music show with a sing-along song,
where the words were displayed on 'idiot boards' for the studio
audience. A wikipedian watches the show and copies down the lyrics off
the boards displayed in the studio and clearly visible on the
television. That would still be an infringement of the copyright of
the lyricist of the song. This is the same thing, only with a list of
cars.

--
Sam Blacketer
London E15


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Dmcdevit

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed

body:
Muke Tever wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:20:29 -0600, Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Oldak Quill wrote:
>>
>>> I, for one, object to the closure of projects based on elitist
>>> concerns as to the origin of the language. What matters is the place
>>> of the language in the world now. This language is, crucially,
>>> recognised as a language by the International Standardisation
>>> Organisation
>>>
>> There is no sense of "recognition" in the ISO code designations. As they
>> say for the 693-3 codes, "it is a goal for this part of ISO 639 to
>> provide an identifier for every distinct human language that has been
>> documented, whether living, extinct, or constructed, and whether its
>> modality is spoken, written or signed." There are 7,589 currently.
>>
>
> tlh is also in ISO 639-2 as well, whose scope is more limited, codes being
> added to it "when it becomes apparent that a significant body of literature
> in a particular language exists."
>
> The full criteria are here:
> http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/criteria2.html
> (in brief, "that there is a significant body of literature in the language
> or describing the language".)
>
>
>> So I repeat, your choices are either to have a dictionary define wordsusing words it does not define (Klingon words) or to define words (Klingonwords) that cannot be attested according to normal dictionary standards.
>>
>
> First off, what kind of attestation are you seeking here?  There are published
> reference books on the language and several translations into Klingon have been made:
> Gilgamesh and a couple of Shakespeare plays are in print; online of course there's
> more, such as extensive selections from the Bible (linguist Nick Nicholas has
> the full text of the book of Mark on his website, among other things)...  This is
> as much as if not more than many minority natural languages have.
>
*All* natural languages have a right to be included when they meet the
requirements for starting a new language project, which is part of
Wikimedia's mission to provide the sum of all human knowledge *to every
single person*. That is a false comparison.

So, you have no original literature whatsoever, and a hodgepodge of fan
translations of famous works into this fictional alien language, and
that ought to constitute enough use? Why is it that no one seems able to
tell me how many fluent speakers there are? At least other languages
have educational uses, including cross-lingual communication, ease of
use or learning, simplification of existing languages, etc.
> I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language".
>
I apologize if my concern that the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable
organization we  volunteer for, be used for significant, educational
purposes, as it is intended, appears elitist. That does not fit my
definition of elitism, however, and bandying about the term is just an
ad hominem distraction. This is the most important point. There is a
reason that the MuppetWiki (a fine project, expanding rapidly) belongs
on a non-WMF site like Wikia.
> If Klingon (or any other language) is to be rejected it should be on at least
> moderately objective criteria, which would pertain to the language's present,
> not its origin--the bar can be higher for a constructed language, but it should
> at least be presented an opportunity to rise above its birth.
>
Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its
present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally
nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in.
> It seems [from what I can tell now] that the Klingon Wikipedia was closed down not
> because of any demerit in the language itself, but chiefly because it was not being
> used (having 60 articles at time of closing).  tlh.wiktionary, it seems, has at
> least two currently-active users (its admins) and 2,311 content pages.
That is not at all my understanding of how the Klingon Wikipedia closed.
There was widespread community opposition. All wikis start small. Worse,
I will note again that this wiki was an accidental creation without the
Board's approval, and they have already voted to close the Klingon
Wikipedia.

Dominic


from_name: Muke Tever

body:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:20:29 -0600, Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
> Oldak Quill wrote:
>> I, for one, object to the closure of projects based on elitist
>> concerns as to the origin of the language. What matters is the place
>> of the language in the world now. This language is, crucially,
>> recognised as a language by the International Standardisation
>> Organisation
>
> There is no sense of "recognition" in the ISO code designations. As they
> say for the 693-3 codes, "it is a goal for this part of ISO 639 to
> provide an identifier for every distinct human language that has been
> documented, whether living, extinct, or constructed, and whether its
> modality is spoken, written or signed." There are 7,589 currently.

tlh is also in ISO 639-2 as well, whose scope is more limited, codes being
added to it "when it becomes apparent that a significant body of literature
in a particular language exists."

The full criteria are here:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/criteria2.html
(in brief, "that there is a significant body of literature in the language
or describing the language".)

> So I repeat, your choices are either to have a dictionary define wordsusing words it does not define (Klingon words) or to define words (Klingonwords) that cannot be attested according to normal dictionary standards.

First off, what kind of attestation are you seeking here?  There are published
reference books on the language and several translations into Klingon have been made:
Gilgamesh and a couple of Shakespeare plays are in print; online of course there's
more, such as extensive selections from the Bible (linguist Nick Nicholas has
the full text of the book of Mark on his website, among other things)...  This is
as much as if not more than many minority natural languages have.

I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language".
If Klingon (or any other language) is to be rejected it should be on at least
moderately objective criteria, which would pertain to the language's present,
not its origin--the bar can be higher for a constructed language, but it should
at least be presented an opportunity to rise above its birth.

It seems [from what I can tell now] that the Klingon Wikipedia was closed down not
because of any demerit in the language itself, but chiefly because it was not being
used (having 60 articles at time of closing).  tlh.wiktionary, it seems, has at
least two currently-active users (its admins) and 2,311 content pages.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/


from_name: James Farrar

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 03/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:29:50 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> >No, we're not reproducing the contents of Top Gear in its entirety. Not
> >even remotely close.
>
> We are, however, listing the cool wall in its entirety.  If we list
> the Top Ten singles chart in its entirety, we violate copyright.  If
> we list all the number one hits, it has also been stated we violate
> that copyright.

That's interesting.

So it *is* OK to have a thousand and something articles that all state
"this song was number one in the UK from (x) to (y)", but it *is not*
OK to have a single article listing them all in chronological order?

And if that is the case, how does the succession box fit in?


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] [Meta] Wikimedia site feedback/main

body:
Hello there,
While it is noticed the page is concerning on the Foundation wiki,
some people submit inquiries about other wikis (supposedly most of
them may refer to English Wikipedia, but I am not sure).

I ask every meta regular editor to give a look to the page
periodically, and if you find inquiries which should be related to
your home wiki, bring it to the more appropriate places, like your VP,
Help desk etc, specially if you think simple rollbacks as unfriendly.

The feedback page is at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_site_feedback/main

Cheers,
--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Seraphim Blade [mailto:seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, April 3, 2007 11:33 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?
>
>Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>It would be common sense to adopt this position. I support it. Why
>should be deny users the right to add what they know? Published or
>not?
>
>Go look at your Armenia-Azerbaijan arbitration case for your answer.
>(Or for that matter, most arbitration cases.) All those editors, every
>one of them, are -adding what they know-. And I guarantee you, they
>KNOW it, you could never convince one of them that everything they're
>writing is not 100% true and factual. That's why we should stick to
>what we can verify, not what we know.
>
>Seraphimblade

You're comparing apples and oranges. If I say that Saguache Creek is a tributary of San Luis Creek in the Closed Basin of the San Luis Valley, that is one thing, saying that the Azerbaijanis desecrated an ancient Armenian graveyard, is quite another. One is a mere fact, the other is a contested matter.

I guess I should say: It would be common sense to adopt this position. I support it. Why
should we deny users the right to add uncontroversial facts that they know? Published or not?

Fred


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?

body:
> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 13:09:50 -0700
> From: "phoebe ayers" <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com>
>
> A nice example :)
>
> Well, the OED, generally recognized as the gold standard in
> etymology, lists
> the first use of the term in a figurative sense ("leading to
> disaster")  in
> 1951: *"1951* J.
> FLEMING<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-f.html#j-fleming>
> *Man who looked Back* x. 132 You go off down the slippery slope;
> it'll do
> you good." There are two more quotations, one from 1964 and one
> form 1979.
> There are of course earlier uses of the phrase but they are not
> meant in the
> same way. Seems to me that to really make your case based on your
> original
> research in the NYT, you'd need to check every single use of the
> citation to
> make sure they were talking about a slippery slope (figuratively,
> as in
> leading to disaster) and not a slippery slope (literally). Did you
> do this?

I made a sort of loosy-goosy due-diligence effort.

There were really two questions here. One was: what are some example
of early uses in its present sense. That's sort of a separate topic.
The second is: despite the fact that there _are_ early uses in its
present sense, its use exploded circa 1980 or so. Based on casual
sampling, virtually all uses after 1980 are in the present figurative
sense. (Before that, quite a lot of them are not).

If I search _only_ for articles in which the phrase "slippery slope"
appears _in the title_, the very first such reference is in 1943, and
is to a literal use: "Dauntless Is the Skier Seeking Snow; The
Uncertainties of Travel Fail to Halt His Quest for Slippery Slopes as
Shown by a Railroad Trip to Snow Valley Above Manchester, Vt." The
next nine span 1963 to 1988, and all are, I claim, I judge, I opine,
the modern use. "Russia and China Edge Down a Slippery Slope;" "The
Nation; U.S. and Cambodia: Down the 'Slippery Slope' Again?;" "On the
Slippery Slope To Another Vietnam," etc.

So, again, what would you do here? State the common-sense inference
("the very first such reference is in 1943, and is to a literal use;
the next nine span 1963 to 1988 and are all the modern use," and give
title, date, and page of all ten in a footnote? Surely not: put
title, date, page of all ten in the article itself?

With regard to the OED and first use in its present sense, why yes, I
know better than that edition of the OED. First of all, William
Safire gives a 1909 example in a 2002 column:

"The key task of the phrasedick is to find earliest uses of
["slippery slope"] in its present sense of "a course that leads
inexorably to disaster." The OED tracks it to a 1951 novel, but new
retrieval technology lets us do better than that.... We have this
1857 use from Chambers' Journal: "When the educated person of the
middle class is reduced to pennilessness... what but this gives him
the desire to struggle again up the slippery slope of fortune?"
In both of these citations, the meaning is closer to "the greasy
pole...." The current sense... probably surfaced in the early 20th
century, possibly in an article by a writer in a 1909 Quarterly
Review, published in London: "the first step down that slippery slope
at the bottom of which lies a parliamentary government."

But new retrieval technology, namely Google Books, lets me do better
than Safire.

I found an 1878 reference by one Bernard O'Reilly: "It is not with
them we are concerned: they will not be taught or reformed; so, they
will go down the steep and slippery slope on which the heartless
move, to perdition!"

I think that's unquestionably an example of usage to mean "a course
that leads inexorably to disaster." (Of course, I'd never draw such
an inference; I'd just quote it and let the reader decide. The
reference is: The Mirror of True Womanhood, A Book of Instruction for
Women in the World, 2nd Edition, Dublin, M. H. Gill and Son,
"Reprinted from the Thirteenth American Edition." p. 136." Actually
the question of the year is complicated because the Google Books
image is from an 1883 edition, but the 1883 edition says it's from
the Thirteenth American Edition, which was published in 1878. Whether
it was in earlier editions I don't know. But it's older than 1951 and
by golly it's older than 1909.

And I found an 1837 reference that does not actually use the phrase
"slippery slope," but does say: "There are points where the Christian
must always stand on guard. His danger is seldom found in gross
offenses... but in small indulgences, and weak compliances, where
conscience rather doubts, than condemns. These gradually draw him
nearer and nearer to the world, till the line of separation is lost.
Many a Christian has glided down this slope to perdition." Osler,
Edward (1837), Church and King," Smith, Elder and Co., London, p. 13


from_name: peter green

body:
>
> But no longer! Stanford has created a Copyright Renewal Database,
> making it quite easy to check if any book published first in the U.S.
> between 1923 and 1963 are in the public domain. It could potentially
> clear up copyright ambiguities for certain things taken from these
> works.
but how do you know that those books don't contain extracts from other copyright works that *have* been renewed?
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.24/742 - Release Date: 01/04/2007 20:49


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
on 4/3/07 6:27 PM, Daniel P. B. Smith at wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com wrote:
>
> I made a sort of loosy-goosy due-diligence effort.
>
> There were really two questions here. One was: what are some example
> of early uses in its present sense. That's sort of a separate topic.
> The second is: despite the fact that there _are_ early uses in its
> present sense, its use exploded circa 1980 or so. Based on casual
> sampling, virtually all uses after 1980 are in the present figurative
> sense. (Before that, quite a lot of them are not).
>
> If I search _only_ for articles in which the phrase "slippery slope"
> appears _in the title_, the very first such reference is in 1943, and
> is to a literal use: "Dauntless Is the Skier Seeking Snow; The
> Uncertainties of Travel Fail to Halt His Quest for Slippery Slopes as
> Shown by a Railroad Trip to Snow Valley Above Manchester, Vt." The
> next nine span 1963 to 1988, and all are, I claim, I judge, I opine,
> the modern use. "Russia and China Edge Down a Slippery Slope;" "The
> Nation; U.S. and Cambodia: Down the 'Slippery Slope' Again?;" "On the
> Slippery Slope To Another Vietnam," etc.
>
> So, again, what would you do here? State the common-sense inference
> ("the very first such reference is in 1943, and is to a literal use;
> the next nine span 1963 to 1988 and are all the modern use," and give
> title, date, and page of all ten in a footnote? Surely not: put
> title, date, page of all ten in the article itself?
>
> With regard to the OED and first use in its present sense, why yes, I
> know better than that edition of the OED. First of all, William
> Safire gives a 1909 example in a 2002 column:
>
> "The key task of the phrasedick is to find earliest uses of
> ["slippery slope"] in its present sense of "a course that leads
> inexorably to disaster." The OED tracks it to a 1951 novel, but new
> retrieval technology lets us do better than that.... We have this
> 1857 use from Chambers' Journal: "When the educated person of the
> middle class is reduced to pennilessness... what but this gives him
> the desire to struggle again up the slippery slope of fortune?"
> In both of these citations, the meaning is closer to "the greasy
> pole...." The current sense... probably surfaced in the early 20th
> century, possibly in an article by a writer in a 1909 Quarterly
> Review, published in London: "the first step down that slippery slope
> at the bottom of which lies a parliamentary government."
>
> But new retrieval technology, namely Google Books, lets me do better
> than Safire.
>
> I found an 1878 reference by one Bernard O'Reilly: "It is not with
> them we are concerned: they will not be taught or reformed; so, they
> will go down the steep and slippery slope on which the heartless
> move, to perdition!"
>
> I think that's unquestionably an example of usage to mean "a course
> that leads inexorably to disaster." (Of course, I'd never draw such
> an inference; I'd just quote it and let the reader decide. The
> reference is: The Mirror of True Womanhood, A Book of Instruction for
> Women in the World, 2nd Edition, Dublin, M. H. Gill and Son,
> "Reprinted from the Thirteenth American Edition." p. 136." Actually
> the question of the year is complicated because the Google Books
> image is from an 1883 edition, but the 1883 edition says it's from
> the Thirteenth American Edition, which was published in 1878. Whether
> it was in earlier editions I don't know. But it's older than 1951 and
> by golly it's older than 1909.
>
> And I found an 1837 reference that does not actually use the phrase
> "slippery slope," but does say: "There are points where the Christian
> must always stand on guard. His danger is seldom found in gross
> offenses... but in small indulgences, and weak compliances, where
> conscience rather doubts, than condemns. These gradually draw him
> nearer and nearer to the world, till the line of separation is lost.
> Many a Christian has glided down this slope to perdition." Osler,
> Edward (1837), Church and King," Smith, Elder and Co., London, p. 13
>
Daniel,

Great job of research. Thanks for this.

Marc Riddell


body:
Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
>> First off, what kind of attestation are you seeking here?  There are published
>> reference books on the language and several translations into Klingon have been made:
>> Gilgamesh and a couple of Shakespeare plays are in print; online of course there's
>> more, such as extensive selections from the Bible (linguist Nick Nicholas has
>> the full text of the book of Mark on his website, among other things)...  This is
>> as much as if not more than many minority natural languages have.
>>
> *All* natural languages have a right to be included when they meet the
> requirements for starting a new language project, which is part of
> Wikimedia's mission to provide the sum of all human knowledge *to every
> single person*. That is a false comparison.

Ok, so you're drawing a distinction between natural languages and artificial
languages.  That's perfectly fine; I'd support a difference in the rules on
that ground myself.  But my response was not to that concern.

> So, you have no original literature whatsoever, and a hodgepodge of fan
> translations of famous works into this fictional alien language, and
> that ought to constitute enough use?

I don't have anything; it's not my language.  I responded to your statement
that the words "cannot be attested," with attestation; the concept of 'enough
use' had not yet entered, and if you expect it to be met, you'll have to phrase
it more quantitatively.

> Why is it that no one seems able to tell me how many fluent speakers there are?

"Counting second language speakers is extremely difficult and approximate at best
and would run into the additional problem of deciding how well a person is supposed
to speak the language in order to be counted."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_speaker_data

> At least other languages have educational uses, including cross-lingualcommunication, ease of use or learning, simplification of existing languages, etc.

All right, now you are proposing criteria for acceptable constructed language wikis.
That's fine too, though they are not the currently accepted criteria.

>> I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language".
>
> I apologize if my concern that the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable
> organization we  volunteer for, be used for significant, educational
> purposes, as it is intended, appears elitist.

I wasn't speaking about the Wikimedia Foundation; I'm speaking of your opinion
of the language which seems largely to be based on its origin as the language
of a fictional alien race on a popular American television show, as if this were
somehow a less serious language origin than, say, having been cobbled together in the
altogether serious belief that it would bring about world peace, like several of the
more acceptable alternatives.

> That does not fit my definition of elitism, however, and bandying about the termis just an ad hominem distraction.

The point is to indicate your own argument seems to be rather _ad linguam_ (if I
may so mangle the phrase) -- it seems to be against Klingon because it is Klingon,
not because it meets any objective standard.

>> If Klingon (or any other language) is to be rejected it should be on at least
>> moderately objective criteria, which would pertain to the language's present,
>> not its origin--the bar can be higher for a constructed language, but it should
>> at least be presented an opportunity to rise above its birth.
>
> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
> from its origins is absurd.

I hope I didn't indicate I held such a notion.  I intended to say its origins are
irrelevant to its status as a language, or ought to be.

> It only needs to be rejected for its present: which is as a linguistically
> unimportant, functionally nonexistent, and educationally useless language towrite a dictionary in.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy
indicates that the only additional criterion for a fictional language wiki as opposed
to a natural language one is "a reasonable degree of recognition", not linguistic
importance, functional existence, or educational usefulness.  (It also links to
the discussion saying tlh.wikipedia was closed due to inactivity; if there is a more
correct discussion, it may be helpful to update the link appropriately.)

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/


body:
GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> When having only 60 articles is a criterion for deletion of a Wikipedia
> project, there are many more projects in the danger zone. 50 of the current
> 250 Wikipedias do not have this number of articles. This is as far as I am
> concerned no valid reason.

Of course, if it's a natural language.  But in a constructed language I can
see justifying a minimum amount of activity.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Thoughts from yesterday for today

body:
Folks,

It seemed like a slow evening on the List so I wanted to share this with you
- as relevant today as when it was first written:

?These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his
country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the
triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness
only that gives everything its value? ."

                                                    Thomas Paine

VERY sincerely,

Marc Riddell


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
On 03/04/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> After a post here mentioned it, I went to WP:COI and WP:AUTO.
>
> These two articles seem to promote the view that you're not supposed to edit
> an article about yourself.
>
> However, WP:BLP seems to suggest that you can to remove libel or unsourced
> material, and it's a common refrain to complaints about Wikipedia, "why didn't
> you just fix the article yourself?"
>
> It just isn't consistent to both expect people to fix the article about
> themselves, and expect them not to, at the same time.  It's true, of course,
> that neither WP:AUTO nor WP:COI are absolute prohibitions, but they discourage
> it in *such* strong terms that anyone who comes to Wikipedia with a complaint
> about an article about themselves and stumbles across either guideline,
> will think that fixing the article isn't allowed.  The subtlety that
> "strongly discouraged" doesn't mean "prohibited", or that even a new user
> is permitted to violate a guideline, is something they'll completely miss.
>
> How can this be fixed?  I complained on the COI talk page and nobody seems
> to care.  And I suspect just editing the guidelines myself would be reverted
> within the hour.

If you propose an exemption where the policies conflict, I'm sure most
would support you.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 03/04/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't really know how the OED people compile their
> quotes, but I trust them to do a good job at it and as professional
> etymologists have an understanding of the issues involved that far exceeds
> mine, and because it's directly printed in the OED, there's a record that
> can be accessed long after we all stop working on Wikipedia.

The OED is surprisingly modern in the way it compiles its quotes -
most are sent in by volunteers, and have been since day one. They
submit the citation and context; editors do through the submissions,
decide if it's an interesting use or from an interesting date, and
check them against (where possible) an available copy of the same text
- if appropriate, any earlier editions than the one cited, as well.

So contributed by the masses and curated by the experts. It's worked well.

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


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, Oldak Quill wrote:
> Most rules have exemptions. If that takes anyone off guard by our
> rules having exemptions, I'd be surprised. Just make it clear by
> placing it near the top or giving it a section header.

If I was a newcomer and I stumbled on the guideline, and I did notice the
exception, my reaction would be "oh, I guess if you're very experienced at
this stuff and you know exactly when to use it, you might get away with
making an exception".  I certainly wouldn't conclude that an exception could
be properly used by a new user, at least unless it said something like "even
non-experienced users may remove unsourced material...."


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 4/2/07, Platonides <Platonides en gmail.com> wrote:
>> Plus, the message wording must clearly state that it *Was* pulled from
>> commons, better with some legal wording as "we're not responsible about
>> it" and preferably, with a link to the user which uploaded it (similar
>> to what was done on en: stating what there are archived versions).
>
> Yes, we have some good users who can craft a lovely clear message when
> the time comes.
>
>> Another problem i see is a vandal uploads 'goatse' to commons marked as
>> GFDL, and immediatly inserts it on one hundred MediaWiki installs. We
>> will delete it almost immediatly but he now has it on a lot of mirrors.
>> Requiring the file to be at least X minutes old would benefit this, but
>> makes InstantCommons useless for those who want their users to upload at
>>   Commons (which may or may not be a good idea).
>
> Another reason why autodeletion and deletion cause codes are
> important...
Just point that my original idea wasn't to add them ''on deletion'' but
as a db field filled by the page templates, though being able to change
the code at deletion seems a good ide.

> The delay makes sense.. Based on our deletion rates a ~10day delay
> would be best..
>
> Perhaps the way to deal with that is to include an over-ride on the
> receiving site and figure a way to auto-fire it for content submitted
> by the sites users?

A good  method, but... How would we now when it came from the site
users? It's almost impossible.


body:
On 03/04/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, Oldak Quill wrote:
> > If you propose an exemption where the policies conflict, I'm sure most
> > would support you.
>
> So a newcomer sees 20 paragraphs about how you're not supposed to edit your
> own article, and then a sentence saying otherwise.
>
> I don't think that'll work unless you make the exemption prominent enough that
> it doesn't seem like an afterthought to anyone reading the page.  And that I
> don't think is possible.  Ideally, we should soften the language that
> implies a near-absolute prohibition, but nobody will stand for that.

Most rules have exemptions. If that takes anyone off guard by our
rules having exemptions, I'd be surprised. Just make it clear by
placing it near the top or giving it a section header.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)