body:
On 7/21/06, Eric R. Meyers <ermeyers at adelphia.net> wrote:

> The 5 board members are actually living, breathing and thinking human beings
> with the full mental capacity to be very proactive for "The Right Thing" to
> happen at "The Right Time,"

Do you have any evidence for that claim?

Angela.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Please implement the [[Wikiversity:Main_Page]]


list: wikien-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> First it behooves to demonstrate what's actually wrong with "fancruft"
> before trying to come up with arbitrary limitations intended to reduce it.
>
> For quite a while now I've been using Wikipedia first before IMDB when I
> want to know whether a movie or TV show is worth watching, a synopsis is
> rather important in that regard.

/me stabs Bryan

We're not talking about crufty articles about movie/TV show FOO.
People expect some amount of directly related trivia and even
subtrivia in pop culture subjects, and sometimes find it useful.

We're talking about when someone goes to an academic subject.. like an
article on electron spin, an article on a Nobel prize winner, or an
article on a prestigious university and adds something like  "In
episode 9543 of [[Real ultimate OMG coolness]] the main character, Mr.
Bubbles, mentioned X in passing"... and these inclusions pile up.

Unless you happen to read the entirety of Wikipedia (or at least the
what links here on the movie page) you're not going to see these
things... so I doubt that you're talking about the same thing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Uploading images should be a privilige, not a right

body:
On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> >
> >In any case, I think the worry about copyright is ignoring the real
> >problem:  WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PHOTOGRAPHERS!  Even if we ignore the
> >advantages of being able to work with the creator, when the copyright
> >holder uploads their own content our problems are greatly reduced.
> >
> Here's an evil hack - waive the one-month requirement if we see the
> image has metadata showing camera as the source...

That is an evil hack... mostly because it wouldn't be hard to implement.

> But seriously, I'm not sure we can do much to encourage photography;
> it's like trying to get people to write about the Sphaerosepalaceae
> rather than Friends episodes.

Is it really the same thing?

Writing about Sphaerosepalaceae and Friends episodes both require real
work.. both are creating content.   The imbalance we see is because
more people are interested in Friends.  Photography isn't like
that....  I'd agree it would be the same if I was lamenting the lack
of illustrations on [[Sphaerosepalaceae]] verses [[Friends episode
X]].

I've always regarded our lack of photographers as a product of the
greater startup time consumption (can't really take half a picture),
combined with our culture which isn't that friendly to photographers.


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>
>Writing about Sphaerosepalaceae and Friends episodes both require real
>work.. both are creating content.   The imbalance we see is because
>more people are interested in Friends.  Photography isn't like
>that....  I'd agree it would be the same if I was lamenting the lack
>of illustrations on [[Sphaerosepalaceae]] verses [[Friends episode
>X]].
>
The "more people" imbalance is what I meant. The great majority of
editors work on what interests them personally, rather than taking
guidance from somebody else, and that seems to extend to picture
taking as well. Most of the WP photographers I know of tend to have
an intense interest in one or a few areas, so for instance they'll
upload photos of many kinds of cars, but no photos of the towns
where they're finding the cars.

>
>I've always regarded our lack of photographers as a product of the
>greater startup time consumption (can't really take half a picture),
>combined with our culture which isn't that friendly to photographers.
>
An unfriendly culture? Hadn't noticed that myself. My limiting factor
is that it takes less than a minute to compose and shoot, but several
minutes to crop and fix up, so I have a growing backlog... Another
limiting factor is that taking "encyclopedic" rather than "art" pictures
is a body of technique unto itself; for some things it can take major
commitments of driving and/or walking around to get decent shot.
Perhaps more people can find a free hour between 9 and 10 pm to sort
stubs :-) than the same hour during daylight to take pictures of
downtown buildings.

Stan


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There are two problems with letting just anybody upload images:
> > 1) Copyright law is very complex.  Most people don't understand it.
> > 2) Most people *aren't aware* that they don't understand it.
> >
> Isn't that a problem with letting just anybody add text, too?

It's easier to detect copyvioed text (just google it), and people
protect their images more jealously than they do their text. Also,
editors are much more likely to upload the "canonical' image of their
subject than some "canonical" text about it.

Three reasons why it's a much bigger problem for images.

Steve


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On Jul 21, 2006, at 11:08 AM, Timwi wrote:

> Jesse W wrote:
>>
>> You prompted me to do some research - I looked at RC for the last few
>> minutes, in the User_talk namespace, and clicked on various IPs talk
>> pages to see what was on them.  Here are my results:
> [.......]
>> At least to me, "Take a look at the [[Wikipedia:Welcome,
>> newcomers|welcome page]] if you would like to learn more about
>> contributing.", " If the bot reverted a legitimate edit, please accept
>> my humble creator's apologies", and "See the [[Wikipedia:Welcome,
>> newcomers|welcome page]] to learn more.  Thanks." do not seem like
>> assuming that new users are all bent on destroying Wikipedia.
>
> Yep -- well selected. Now let *me* do *my* selections from *your*
> samples (I've replaced boldface with capitals):
Well done!  I agree that the selections you picked are non-welcoming,
and accusational in tone.  Now the question is - if we should do
something else, what should it be, and how should we do it?  It is
simply a fact that we get a large number of "unconstructive edits" -
what should we say to the people who add them?  It is  also a fact that
we get a large number of additions of advertising - what should we say
to the people who add those things?
This started with the claim that no-one was told about our policies
before they were blocked for violating them; I think both of our
selections make it quite  clear that this is not the case.

Thanks for the discussion!

	Jesse Weinstein

The selections:
>> unconstructive edits are considered vandalism, and if you continue in
>> this manner you may be BLOCKED FROM EDITING WITHOUT FURTHER WARNING.
>
>> Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the work of
>> others.
>
>> Your recent edit [...] was reverted by a BOT that attempts to
>> recognize and repair vandalism.
>
>> Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of
>> external links.
>
> Do these sound inviting or welcoming to you? To me, all of those sound
> excessively hostile and suggestive of accusations.
>
>> And as for linking to [[WP:XYZ]] - none of the above messages use any
>> of the WP:WP shortcuts
>
> Take a look at AfD if you're looking for those.
Standard explanation: Lack of time.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Foundation-l] Organization of News Ombudsmen

body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Having read this description of the role, I would say the name
> "Ombudsman" is wildly inaccurate. How about something approximating
> "User Advocate"?

No, it is not a "user advocate" though. It is an independent
investigator (or group of investigators), assigned to check into cases
of reported abuse.  It is my understanding that these reports can come
from anyone, user or not.  And in fact, the ombudsman committee may be
more important to the WMF when the report of abuse _does_ come from
outside the Wikimedia projects. Anthere, is this close?  --LV


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On Jul 21, 2006, at 8:56 AM, Michael Hopcroft wrote:
> As anyone who's been in a college literature course can tell you, there
> are many important things to ask about any work of art that go well
> beyond what happened in it and who was involved in tis creation. "why
> is
> this important?" "why do people talk about it, and what about it do
> they
> discuss?" "what does it mean, both intrinsically and in the context of
> the times and situation in which it was created?" "what reasons do
> those
> who dislike or dismiss it have for doing so, and how valid are those
> reasons today?" "has the way the work has been percieved changed
> signficantly between the time in which it was created and now?" The
> same
> can be said in many respects for the creators of a work; "Why was
> Shakespeare?" and "Why does Shakespeare matter?" are even more vital
> questions for a scholar (and encyclopedia writing is an essentially
> scholarly exercise) as "Who was Shakespeare?"
This is very true and correct, and is exactly the sort of questions we
look for in better Wikipedia articles.

<snip sensible paragraph on pop culture not being different from
Shakespeare in terms of these questions>

> Meanwhile, many wikipedia writers seem to be letting relatively minor
> things occupy more of their attention -- not because those things
> should
> not be included, but because they stop with them and do not go any
> further.
I agree; I can only explain this as finding sources than answer the
questions above are harder than finding sources for the more minor
aspects.  But we certainly should have both.

<snip sad, but common, example>

> To partly answer that question: Burr matters because he was one of the
> first true "TV stars", because he had a knack for combining gravity
> with
> subtle humor which brought to vivid life one of the seminal characters
> of the medium of television, and his charisma enabled him to trancend
> the mold of the "leading man" stereotype of the era -- helping prove in
> the process that the new and not-well-respected medium WAS worthy of
> the
> attentions of a serious actor. In short, if you want to understand the
> way mass media developed in the United States, Raymond Burr is VERY
> important. Yet only his sexuality was considered important by whoever
> did his wikipedia article (unless it has been edited further since I I
> read it).
That's a *great* explanation!  Please don't give up on Wikipedia - if
you can do such writing, and are willing, we are delighted to have you
- don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

> When writing a pop-culture article, even a stub I wish would be
> completed by others, I have made a practice of showing, as best I
> could,
> exactly what about my topic is significant. Because anyone who
> approaches editing cultural Wikipedia with any degree of serious should
> realize that they ARE scholars -- even if they're scholars of the
> Collected works of CLAMP rather than The Collected Works of George
> Orwell.
And we greatly thank you for doing that.  Please keep up the good work.

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: geni

body:
On 7/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Suggestion: Make the default level of privilege "you can upload into
> the waiting bin". Then privileged users can retrieve from the waiting
> bin and make them publicly accessible, or delete them, at their
> discretion. Periodically purge files that have been sitting there more
> than a month or two.
>
> The privilege to make files publicly accessible should be granted
> liberally, but revoked when needed, perhaps on a "3 strikes" basis.
>
> Steve

One heck of a workload there. Probably a better option would be just
as new users can't move pages they should not  be able to upload
images. Once they have stuck around a bit it is probably worth
educating them about our image copyright rules.

--
geni


from_name: Anthere

body:
Sydney aka FloNight wrote:
> The name ombudsmen is used in the news industy. There is an organization of News Ombudsmen.
>
> Link below gives a complete description from the organizations web site.
> http://www.newsombudsmen.org/what.htm
>
> This is the short version.
>
> *What is a news ombudsman?
>
> A news ombudsman receives and investigates complaints from newspaper readers or listeners
or viewers of radio and television stations about accuracy, fairness,
balance and good taste
in news coverage. He or she recommends appropriate remedies or responses
to correct or clarify
news reports.*
>
> I see a Foundation appointed person doing something similar.
Looking at individual serious problems that exist because of fixable
flaws in the system.
This should keep these same type of problems from reoccuring.
>
> Regards,
> Sydney

Uh ?

Wait a moment. The description you give above is the description of ...
all Wikipedia editors ! We collectively receive the complains and
investigates the complaints of reader, for accuracy, fairness, balance,
good taste etc... We receive them in articles themselves, in talk page,
on mailing lists, on irc, on otrs queue, and as far as I am concerned,
even by phone. We all do this, so we all are ombuds-wo-man in that sense.

There is no way the Foundation will go into that. This is NOT the
Foundation business Sydney.

Let me paste here the description I wrote in the resolution. You will
immediately understand (hopefully :-().

--------

Whereas the board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation regularly receives
some complaints related to abuse of its privacy policy, associated to
checkuser activity or not.

It is hereby resolved that:

The board creates an "ombudsman commission".

The ombudsman commission will offer a sympathetic ear to those reporting
an abuse of the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy on any of Wikimedia
project.

The ombudsman will take charge of investigating cases of privacy policy
breach or checkuser abuse for the board in an official manner. He will
mediate between the complainant and the respondant (checkuser, arbcom
member, bureaucrat or sysop). When legally necessary, the ombudsman will
assist the legal commmittee or the legal officer or the executive
director to handle the case.

When the case is litigious, the ombudsman will be in charge to educate
checkusers or others about the Foundation privacy policy.
When the privacy policy has been breached, the commission should report
to the Executive Director and recommand a course of action (such as
removal of checkuser status).

Additionnaly, the commission might have a sort of "overview" over the
way the checkuser system works and should offer suggestions of suitable
modifications of policies or recommandations of software changes.
An Ombudsman's Investigation shall be conducted in a manner determined
by the Ombudsman and which will be fair and impartial .


body:
On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Mark Wagner wrote:
>
> >By making image uploading a privilege to be earned rather than a right
> >conferred by registering an account, we can relax the policy and deal
> >with uploaders individually, rather than automated notification of
> >problems and nearly-automated deletion of problematic images.
> >
> Amen. It seems like it would be easy to only grant uploading privs
> to accounts active for, say, a month, and with at least 100 edits.

Can't be done. Mediawiki doesn't keep track of edit counts.

--
geni


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
/me stabs <INSERT USER HERE>

Just so you know, /me is a IRC command, and saying you're "stabbing" someone
on IRC is a total joke, used a lot.  Not a personal attack =D

On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >> First it behooves to demonstrate what's actually wrong with "fancruft"
> >> before trying to come up with arbitrary limitations intended to reduce
> it.
> >>
> >> For quite a while now I've been using Wikipedia first before IMDB when
> I
> >> want to know whether a movie or TV show is worth watching, a synopsis
> is
> >> rather important in that regard.
> >
> > /me stabs Bryan
>
> Would stabbing count as a "personal attack?" At least it's not a legal
> threat... :)
>
> > Unless you happen to read the entirety of Wikipedia (or at least the
> > what links here on the movie page) you're not going to see these
> > things... so I doubt that you're talking about the same thing.
>
> I do believe we're talking at cross-purposes, yes. My main argument in
> this thread is against the IMO very strange notion that one cannot use a
> work of fiction as a source when writing an article about it. Anthony's
> most recent response also implied that he considered a simple plot
> synopsis to be "fancruft", which was what the post you're responding to
> was in disagreement with.
>
> I wasn't talking about what you're talking about in this response at
> all. I think we'd likely even agree about it. Fortunately I'm about to
> leave on a week-long vacation in a few hours, so the thread can continue
> without the risk of finding consensus in that area. :)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Help requested on Commons copyright woes

body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:

>On Thu, July 20, 2006 13:00, Brianna Laugher wrote:
>
>
>>Here are some recent issues that I would like resolved:
>>* To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we
>>bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers).
>>
>>
>Something that was in The Register yesterday
>(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/19/youtube_copyright/) includes
>
>"That protection [the DCMA] is irrelevant in the UK, says another
>intellectual property expert. Kim Walker is a partner who specialises in
>media law at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.
>...
>Because this is intellectual property, the law that applies is that of the
>place the alleged infringement took place," said Walker. "That applies
>even if the servers are in Madras or the Channel Islands."
>
I suspect that this case will be fact driven, notably over who really
owns the copyright and exactly what material is copyright.

The idea of "where the infringement takes place" is not viewed in the
same way in the UK and other countries as it is in the US.  The UK views
infringement as happening where the material is used or viewed.  By this
doctrine the viewing of a protected site by a UK resident is sufficient
to give the UK jurisdiction over the site.

It would appear though that an ISP would still need to be notified that
there is an infringement before it has to take it down.

Ec


body:
On 7/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > One heck of a workload there. Probably a better option would be just
> > as new users can't move pages they should not  be able to upload
> > images. Once they have stuck around a bit it is probably worth
> > educating them about our image copyright rules.
>
> There's no inherent workload in telling people to dump their rubbish
> across the road rather than in your living room. If we have to
> retrieve good uploads from the same user more than once or twice, we
> should give them image rights.
>
> It also would give us the opportunity to assess whether people are
> uploading anything useful before giving them those rights. A useful
> rule of thumb might be "three good uploads and you get image rights,
> three bad ones and you lose them".
>
> Steve

The problem is that process would be harder to semi automate than the
current one.
--
geni


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] References for the technically challenged

body:
Hi,

considering the ongoing discussion about references in articles, I
thought it might help if people less familiar with <ref> tags and our
template system would have an easy way to generate the necessary wiki
code for references.

So, I wrote a tool:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/makeref.php

It offers a list of reference type choices (currently only two) and a
standard form to fill in values for that type. Clicking a button will
then generate the necessary wiki source, ready to paste into the article.

The Really Cool Thing (tm) is that the reference types and their values
(and if they're mandatory or not) can be configured by editing a page on
meta (link is on the tool page). The syntax should be self-explanatory ;-)

It can support other languages by adding "&language=XX" to the URL;
however, there are no meta pages for other languages yet.

If you like it, maybe we could link the tool from the edit page?

Magnus

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subject: [Foundation-l] Update on ombudsman issue

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Oldak Quill wrote:
>
>
>>>PS : is it a good idea to have a user named ombudsman ?
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I don't think the name "User:Ombudsman" instantly strikes someone as
>>an official position. In Britain, the position "Ombudsman" tends to be
>>reserved as a governmental complaints mechanism and watchdog on
>>trading standards and banking.
>>
>>
>>
>
> An alternative usage for this term that I've seen is for somebody who
> offers legal advise, often free or pro-bono, to members of a community
> or organization.  Usually this is something that is often
> topic-specific, for example this use here:
>
> http://www.ombudsman.ed.gov/
>
> where the U.S. Dept. of Education has a legal team to help cut through
> the red tape on student loan and aid programs for U.S. citizens.

Nod. And my question to Andrew (who implied an ombudsman would be a good
thing for the Foundation) still is "what would be the role of that
ombudsman".

> I think something like this would be useful to help cut through the red
> tape of copyright and trademark issues that keep coming up for Wikimedia
> projects.  The problem here would be who would be willing to serve in
> this capacity.  And this is also something that simply should not be
> elected, as you would have specific legal qualification that would be
> necessary to do something like this effectively.
>
> This, I admit, is also a completely different kind of a position than
> the one originally suggested by Angela and worthy of a seperate thread,
> having nothing to do with the checkuser issue.

Anthere. Not Angela.
We are two different people. If you come to Wikimania (I hope you do),
you'll see we are two different bodies, with different opinions and
different focus. After two years, I am still not used to see my job
being gathered under "what Jimbo is doing" or under "Angela has
said/Angela has done/Angela has suggested". I know it is not meant to
belittle me, but still, I would prefer that you give to Cesar, Cesar's
pants and to Cleopatre, Cleopatre's dress.

I have had the checkuser status since its beginning. I received several
complaints for abuse (generally not justified). I studied these
complaints, as confronted to the Foundation privacy policy. I am today
trying to delegate this to others (thus proposing the creation of an
ombudsman commission).

The benefits would be
1) complaints explored by neutral people (rather than a party)
2) complaints hopefully handled in a more timely fashion
3) more free time for me :-)

Angela has never been involved in checkuser issues.

I really think we need this to be "independant" party.

Some might argue that a party can not be fully independant if appointed
by the board, which is kinda correct. But I believe the people chosen
for now are rather uncontroversial people. IF this resolution ever pass
and IF the community has a complain with the people chosen, I'll be fine
with you guys voting/nominating new names. I mostly want for now the
concept to be validated by the board and the thing to get running.

ant


body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>>So, you wouldn't allow photos of buildings where a company's logo was
>>on their building?
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:NYC_Top_of_the_Rock_Pano.jpg
>>is a featured image on commons and has logos, even if they are a bit
>>blurry. A clearer example is
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Melb_cbd.jpg
>>
>>
>If we can be sure that we aren't breaking the law, then I'd be very
>happy for Commons to house such images. I really can't say whether
>we're breaking the law to copyleft an image with a copyrighted logo in
>it, I certainly hope law isn't that restrictive.
>
You can NEVER be sure that you aren't breaking the law.  Please stop
expecting miracles.

Whether something like this is copyrightable depends on the law of the
country where the object is located.  The notion that a picture of a
building with a company logo on it might be a breach of copyright is
preposterous.  Has there ever been a single case in any country that
supports this notion?

Ec


body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:

>On 21/07/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>So, you wouldn't allow photos of buildings where a company's logo was
>>>on their building?
>>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:NYC_Top_of_the_Rock_Pano.jpg
>>>is a featured image on commons and has logos, even if they are a bit
>>>blurry. A clearer example is
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Melb_cbd.jpg
>>>
>>>
>>If we can be sure that we aren't breaking the law, then I'd be very
>>happy for Commons to house such images. I really can't say whether
>>we're breaking the law to copyleft an image with a copyrighted logo in
>>it, I certainly hope law isn't that restrictive.
>>
>>
>The feeling at the moment tends to be: it's *in context* so it's OK.
>We have quite a few images that have a mishmash of logos. But if you
>crop any of those photos to just show one logo only, then that crop
>would not be free.
>
"May" not be free, not "would" not be free.  There is no basis for such
certainty.

In any event, why would anyone want to use a low resolution crop, when
better pictures of the logo are probably more easily found?

Ec


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories for deletion/discussion issues

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:44:02 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited-access_highway .
>
> So why not turn the redirect into limited access highways and leave
> limited access roads as they are?

"Limited access highway" means the same thing as "limited access road" -
in other words nowhere near the standards of a freeway in general.


body:
On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In any case, I think the worry about copyright is ignoring the real
> > problem:  WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PHOTOGRAPHERS!  Even if we ignore the
> > advantages of being able to work with the creator, when the copyright
> > holder uploads their own content our problems are greatly reduced.
>
> At the same time, we have no incentive to increase the number of
> photographers.  When you can just grab a picture off the web and stick
> it in an article, there's no incentive to get out there and start
> taking pictures.  It's not like digital cameras are hard to come by --
> every other cell phone has one, and cheap dedicated cameras can be had
> for $50-$75.

And anyone notice Fir2000, one of our best photographers (brilliant in
my opinion), has mentioned he's thinking about hanging it up?  Think
we don't have enough photographers NOW?  :-(  --LV


body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>Photographs of copyrighted statues and of objects featuring
>copyrighted logos and images (Simpson's dolls) should be taken down
>immediately. I think photos of 2D  and 3D PD art rarely can have
>claims of copyright, but I'm not a lawyer.
>
>
If you're not a lawyer why are you pushing these legal interpretations?

How are you distinguishing between copyrighted and non-copyrighted statues?

Even for the other photos of copyrighted objects depend on how they are
used for determination of breach of copyright.

Ec


from_name: Nathan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tech help: Video format conversion

body:
WinAVI will convert to AVI (just about any codec of AVI -
Xvid/DivX/etcetc)

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Cormac Lawler wrote:

> On 7/21/06, Nathan <lists at home.nathanr.com> wrote:
> > Oh. Well crap, what you require is some editing tools to edit stuff out
> > before conversion.
> >
> > I can't do that :\
> >
> > - Nathan
> >
>
>
> Can Sean (or someone) not edit the raw file in Flash, and then convert
> to AVI using WinAVI (will this convert to Theora?). I know I used a
> flash animation in a video I made last year (using Adobe Premiere,
> which I sadly no longer have access to), so I presume there must be
> some way of saving this eventually as a Theora or something similar,
> bypassing Gregory's proposed solution (?)
>
> Anyway, thanks for keeping this on list!
>
> Cormac
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Ok, give me the list again please.
What codec of AVI do you need it converted to?

- Nathan

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 7/21/06, Nathan <lists at home.nathanr.com> wrote:
> > WinAVI will do what he needs it to do (converts SWF to AVI). I've tested
> > it with a few videos from Youtube (that are *.flv, it works with *.flv as
> > well).
> >
> > Again, I offered to do it for him, so I don't see what all the fuss is
> > about.
>
> Fuss? Huh.
>
>
> If you want to send me the .avi I can edit out whatever needs to be
> edited out, and covert to Theora.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> For quite a while now I've been using Wikipedia first before IMDB when I
>> want to know whether a movie or TV show is worth watching, a synopsis is
>> rather important in that regard.
>
> No one, but no one, is claiming that synopsises of TV shows are
> fancruft.

Anthony apparently does. Here's what he wrote in the email this was a
response to:

> I think summarizing something directly (e.g. using a Friends episode
> as a source for facts about itself) is, by its very definition,
> original research.  The Friends episode isn't even a primary source in
> this case - the Friends episode is the subject, and the summary would
> be the primary source.
>
> There are a number of reasons to do this.  One is that it helps lessen
> the amount of "fancruft".

I was mainly disagreeing with the notion that the episode itself isn't
an acceptable source for a description of the episode, but this other
notion about the summary being fancruft seems implied as well.

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body:
On 7/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> One heck of a workload there. Probably a better option would be just
> as new users can't move pages they should not  be able to upload
> images. Once they have stuck around a bit it is probably worth
> educating them about our image copyright rules.

There's no inherent workload in telling people to dump their rubbish
across the road rather than in your living room. If we have to
retrieve good uploads from the same user more than once or twice, we
should give them image rights.

It also would give us the opportunity to assess whether people are
uploading anything useful before giving them those rights. A useful
rule of thumb might be "three good uploads and you get image rights,
three bad ones and you lose them".

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> First it behooves to demonstrate what's actually wrong with "fancruft"
>> before trying to come up with arbitrary limitations intended to reduce it.
>>
>> For quite a while now I've been using Wikipedia first before IMDB when I
>> want to know whether a movie or TV show is worth watching, a synopsis is
>> rather important in that regard.
>
> /me stabs Bryan

Would stabbing count as a "personal attack?" At least it's not a legal
threat... :)

> Unless you happen to read the entirety of Wikipedia (or at least the
> what links here on the movie page) you're not going to see these
> things... so I doubt that you're talking about the same thing.

I do believe we're talking at cross-purposes, yes. My main argument in
this thread is against the IMO very strange notion that one cannot use a
work of fiction as a source when writing an article about it. Anthony's
most recent response also implied that he considered a simple plot
synopsis to be "fancruft", which was what the post you're responding to
was in disagreement with.

I wasn't talking about what you're talking about in this response at
all. I think we'd likely even agree about it. Fortunately I'm about to
leave on a week-long vacation in a few hours, so the thread can continue
without the risk of finding consensus in that area. :)

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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] about global variables

body:
Hallo all,

I am trying to write a webservice about installation of Mediawiki (just
rewrite config/index.php).
During the implementation i found it is very difficult to find when and
where a global variable
is initialized (e.g. $wgContLang). And there are a lot of global
variables in Mediawiki.
Because of these global variable it is difficult to read and understand
the code of mediawiki.
Is there a way, i can easily work with these global variable.
I use the mediawiki 1.5.7.

Any Suggestion is appreciated

Ting Wang


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>
>We have people that work on submitting photos of cars? Where?  I
>didn't even think we were doing so well as to have dedicated subject
>area photographers, with only a few exceptions.
>
There's been a whole slew on commons recently, I'm sure some haven't
made it to en: articles yet. It's still pretty easy to go through a
random commons gallery or category and find dozens of en: articles
not using the pictures already there.

>>An unfriendly culture? Hadn't noticed that myself.
>>
>
>There can be no doubt after you've submitted a free photo only to have
>it replaced with an unfree photo that someone likes better... and
>being left to battle it out. :)
>
I don't recall that ever happening to me - it would be infuriating.
"Oops sorry, just a coincidence that I permablocked you and
reverted all your edits right after you replaced my image..." :-)

>I don't disagree about the resource challenges... But the fact remains
>that there are many thousands of people submitting photos to flikr or
>contest sites like dpchallenge
>(http://www.dpchallenge.com/challenge_archive.php).  Obviously there
>are folks out there who *are* taking pictures, we need to pull them
>into the fold and get them taking pictures we need licensed in a way
>that we can use. :)
>
Good point! Have we ever actually asked? Perhaps we could start by
making a public statement - it's only very recently that Google has
even indexed any of our images, so I imagine that few people even
know we have a free image repository, let alone that they can
contribute to it.

Stan


body:
geni schrieb:
> On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>> Mark Wagner wrote:
>>
>>
>>> By making image uploading a privilege to be earned rather than a right
>>> conferred by registering an account, we can relax the policy and deal
>>> with uploaders individually, rather than automated notification of
>>> problems and nearly-automated deletion of problematic images.
>>>
>>>
>> Amen. It seems like it would be easy to only grant uploading privs
>> to accounts active for, say, a month, and with at least 100 edits.
>>
>
> Can't be done. Mediawiki doesn't keep track of edit counts.
>
Ahem.

SELECT COUNT, anyone?

Yes, slow, but maybe OK for a button "Grant me upload privileges", which
would be rarely pressed?

Magnus

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body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have already stripped new users and anons of far too many rights.
[snip]
> It is clear that we have completely lost sight of the original aims of
> Wikipedia.

(As an aside, it is bad form to reply to *me* to oppose someone elses
position which I don't share)

I'd really like to find out where you got this bizarre notion that
Wikipedia's orignal aim was to provide "rights" to new users and
"anons".

Wikipedia exists to make a Free Content Encyclopedia. It turns out
that being promiscuous about who we allow to edit helps that goal
rather well.  That does not imply that all forms of promiscuity are
beneficial. I expect you agree with this, or do you think we should
post our root passwords on the website too?   Once you have admitted
that there must be limitations,  it simply becomes a matter of
discussing what those limits should be.

I'd like to think that such discussions should be allowed to continue
dispassionately and without attracting hysterical cries about
"destroying the project" or "stripping rights".


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > There are two problems with letting just anybody upload images:
> > > > 1) Copyright law is very complex.  Most people don't understand it.
> > > > 2) Most people *aren't aware* that they don't understand it.
> > > >
> > > Isn't that a problem with letting just anybody add text, too?
> >
> > Not really.  I think it's a product of the public school system, but
> > people generally understand that taking somebody else's writing and
> > passing it off as their own is wrong, even if they don't understand
> > that it's a copyright violation.  The same can't be said of images.
> >
> Wait a second, are we talking about copyright infringement,
> plagiarism, or legal use of non-free content?  These are three
> separate problems.  I thought the original post was talking about
> copyright infringement, but this new post talks about "taking somebody
> else's writing and passing it off as their own".

Most people don't distinguish between "plagiarism" and "copyright
infringement" when it comes to writing: the school system is very
effective at training people that simply copying the contents of the
Encyclopedia Britannica isn't an acceptable way of writing a report,
which is why we don't get very many instances of copyright violations
with text.

Images are a different matter.  The most common use of pictures in
school is the collage, where students are encouraged to use pictures
from many different sources.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


body:
On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > If you have a suggestion that doesn't involve large numbers of
> > nonexistent volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of
> > legal peril, feel free to enlighten us.
> >
> Here's one: when people send in a DMCA takedown notice, remove the
> material, notify the uploader that her materials have been removed
> (via their talk page and email if the address is known), and provide
> them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service
> provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed.  If the
> uploader provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material
> does not infringe copyrights, then promptly notify the claiming party
> of the individual's objection.  However, only restore the image if
> there is also a consensus that the image is "free enough" within the
> project's guidelines.

Or in other words, stick our heads in the ground and pray that
everyone opens fire with a takedown notice rather than a lawsuit.
Even if the law protects Wikipedia from liability when a user
infringes copyright, that still needs to be proven in front of a
judge, and even an immediate dismissal requires thousands of dollars
in lawyers' fees.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia as a gazetteer

body:
Hello,

I'm doing some work at the moment, informally using the English
Wikipedia to help me identify and disambiguate toponyms (placenames).
Unsurprisingly, it's bloody brilliant. Much better coverage than the
"actual" gazetteer I'm using ( [[Getty Thesaurus of Geographic
Names]]). (Although Getty has canals aplenty, it doesn't seem to have
too many streets.) Unfortunately the use of geographic co-ordinates is
too spotty to only rely on Wikipedia. I wonder if we could find a
suitable gazetteer, whether it might not be worth getting a bot to
import those co-ordinates, if that's even possible...

Working with co-ordinates has made me wonder about their use. It seems
a bit bizarre to represent a huge country (or ocean, river, etc) with
one random dot. Is there any neat, standardised way to refer to
geographic areas? I can't think of one...any ideas?

cheers
Brianna
en.wp:User:pfctdayelise


body:
On 7/21/06, Nathan <lists at home.nathanr.com> wrote:
> Ok, give me the list again please.
> What codec of AVI do you need it converted to?

Not AVI, AVI is propritary and most of the codecs for it (including
all of the good ones) are patented to hell and back.

The final target needs to be Ogg/Theora.   ffmpeg2theora is a nice
tool for taking other video formats and spitting out Theora. Your avi
should be encoded as losslessly as possible, ideally YUV 4:2:2 (which
most windows apps will read but most don't offer to let you write),
RAW frames (which most windows apps will not read or write), or
failing those options 20+mbit/sec MPEG2 (which, yes, you can encap in
AVI).

If your toolchain doesn't support Ogg/Theora, feel free to send me an
AVI (encoded as per above).


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 7/21/06, Eric R. Meyers <ermeyers at adelphia.net> wrote:
> Hi Cormac and Anthere,
>
> First, I'd like to amplify what I wrote earlier:
> > ... bring this good thing to fruition, or just kill it outright, so that it
> , KNOWLEDGE,
> > can find a better home in this world.
>

Yes, that's what we're doing right now, and have been doing all along.
I believe we're close to actually setting it up now - bringing it to
fruition.

[snip]

> I'm truly fighting with myself to find the right way to get what is in my
> brain into your brains, most efficiently, and vice versa.

If you find a way of doing that, it may be an addition to Wikiversity,
or possibly even a way of making you rich :-)

> I began editing
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ermeyers last night to try to begin
> informing you of what I'm actually trying to do with The Perl Wiki, in
> "particular."
>
> This "particular" wiki is going to be the central wiki for the "particular"
> community (a global community), and it's "particular" system and it's
> "particular" methods are going to fully integrate with everything "generally"
> available from Wikimedia to the fullest extent possible.  The "particular"
> community is going to be the main source of "particular" Expertise, Data,
> Information and Knowledge, and the "particular" community will have its
> Teachers and its Learners at its "particular" University tied right into
> Wikiversity and its extremely valuable "general" Educational Resources.  If
> this "particular" University manages to get itself accredited (etc.), in the
> future, on its own, then that will be an absolutely great thing to happen for
> that "particular" community.
>
> About The Perl Wiki, or "The Glue Wiki":
>
> This central Wiki is going to be like "The Free Encyclopedia" of Perl.
>
> This central Wiki is going to be like "The Free Dictionary" of Perl.
>
> This central Wiki is going to be like "The Free Library" of Perl.
>
> This central Wiki is going to be like "The Free Debate Forum" of Perl.
>
> PAST:           This central Wiki is going to tell "The Perl Legacy."
>
> PRESENT:        This central Wiki is going to tell "The Perl Story."
>
> FUTURE:         This central Wiki is going to lead "The Perl Future."
>
> This central Wiki has an free and open Steering Committee forum.
>
> How will a "particular" community work everyone?  That's why I originally came
> here to ask my "particular" questions to the Wikimedia experts on
> foundation-l, just so that I begin prototyping one for my own "particular"
> community interests.
>
> I hope this helps you Cormac.:)
>
> Eric
>

It does help somewhat, yes. I wish you all the best with your
community on Wikia, and look forward to seeing how you can collaborate
with Wikiversity. We will need to draw from many strands of expertise
(not _only_ university professors) to make this work - and your
community should be able to contribute. I would also like to see
Wikiversity facilitating and entering into mutually beneficial
collaborations with people and institutions not connected with
Wikimedia. However, as you can imagine, my focus right now is on what
we need to do in order to build Wikiversity itself to the best it can
possibly be.

Thanks,
Cormac


body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wikipedia already carries out tasks which require large numbers of
> volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of legal peril. I'm saying
> it is worth working a little harder to keep our values alive.

[[Category:Promotional images]]

By 22:00 UTC tomorrow, I expect you to have checked every image on the
first page of that category.  For the images that did not actually
come from a [[press kit]], I expect you to remove the license tag from
the image, retag it as {{subst:nld}}, and explain to the uploader why
their image is not really a promotional image.  If the image also
doesn't have proper source information, add the {{subst:nsd}} tag as
well, and explain why images need source information.  You don't need
to remove the images from articles using them, since OrphanBot will
get around to it in a few days, but you do need to watchlist all the
images to make sure nobody puts an incorrect license tag on before the
image is deleted.

Congratulations, you will have reduced the total number of improper
{{promophoto}} claims by 0.1%!

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
Anthony wrote:
> Wikipedians shouldn't be the ones doing the research, Wikipedians
> should be making an article which organizes the research done by
> others.

NOR policy appears to explicitly disagree with this statement. It reads,
in part:

"Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However,
research that consists of collecting and organizing information from
existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly
encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information
collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not
"original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is
fundamental to writing an encyclopedia."

You may make other arguments for why it's not appropriate to include a
detailed synopsis in some particular article or another, but as far as I
can see one based on NOR is simply not valid.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
Anthony wrote:
> As I explained in my other post, my comments were much more
> restrictive than that.  If you have to resort to original research in
> order to create a plot synopsis, *that* is what I have a problem with.

The only way I can see needing original research to come up with a plot
synopsis would be to go on set and observe the filming of the show, or
maybe personally interview the scriptwriter or something. Once the
show's been broadcast or put on DVD it's a published primary source.

I think we're at the point where we're just repeating ourselves at each
other, but I'm about to leave on vacation so someone else will have to
take over repeating for me here. :)

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list: commons-l

from_name: Nathaniel Sheetz

subject: [Commons-l] Wikisource uploading to Commons only?

body:
Earlier today I started a discussion at the village pump about whether or
not the English Wikisource should outsource all its image uploading
(including scanned texts for transcripting/proofreading) to Commons.  Sorry
for the email, but I know that many admins may not be frequently checking
the village pump.  If any of you have something to contribute to the
discussion, please do so.  Thanks.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Wikisoure:Image_use_policy
Nathaniel (User:Spangineer)
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body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We could always go the German way and prevent all non-copyleft images.
>
> PS. I just wanted to check I was accurate in making this statement. I
> decided Coca Cola would be a good article to use to check
> (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Cola) as they are presumably unable
> to display the logo. They do show the logo in the form of photographs
> of the side of lorries showing the logo and practically nothing else.
> Surely such a photo can't be claimed to be copyleft?

German copyright law has a clause that states that if you take a
picture of anything displayed in a public place, you've got a free and
clear copyright on that picture, and can license it however you want.
I suspect that's what they're using to justify the picture.  There's
no equivalent in US copyright law.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] help needed in reverting unsourced additions

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Limited-access_road&action=history
I've hit 3RR.


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 7/21/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> We have people that work on submitting photos of cars? Where?  I
> didn't even think we were doing so well as to have dedicated subject
> area photographers, with only a few exceptions.

I've taken photos of a great number of cars for Wikipedia, but frankly
I got a little burned out by it.  Partly because of the number of
times I've seen someone remove my picture or someone else's freely
licensed picture in favor of a dubiously 'fair use' manufacturer's
promo photo.

I've even been quite bitched out by some people for even suggesting
that we should prefer user-contributed and freely-licensed pictures -
because user photos are 'unprofessional-looking' and might represent
the vehicle in a poor light because they don't show it perfect and
factory new.

I'm an old-time editor, and know these people are wrong and full of
crap.  It just tires me.  But imagine how a newcomer might feel.

> > An unfriendly culture? Hadn't noticed that myself.
>
> There can be no doubt after you've submitted a free photo only to have
> it replaced with an unfree photo that someone likes better... and
> being left to battle it out. :)   We're too quick to acknowledge the
> work of someone who uploads a lot of found on the web, but too slow
> the recognize the work that goes into a quality piece of custom made
> work.

Exactly what I just said above ...  and it's a very valid and very
real problem ...

> Yes, photography represents a sharp upfront investment and we don't
> respect it accordingly because we're too oriented around folks who
> provide images by operating google image search.

<AOL>

> Today, we grab free images from sites like Flikr and don't even
> contact the photographer... What a tremendous opportunity to bring in
> more photographers. But it seems that, as a whole, Wikipedia is not
> that interested in attracting photographers.

Whenever I use a photographer's work from Flickr or anywhere else
(CC-licensed, etc) I try and leave a comment on their photo.
Generally it's much appreciated.

I think a big mistake in our Flickr-sifting efforts is that we provide
no feedback to those whose photos we use.  Perhaps just because it's
easier not to or something, but comments are encouragement, and people
who free-license stuff generally like to hear that stuff is
appreciated.

-Matt


body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/07/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This is a complex issue involving a lot of handwaving and bullshit.
> >
> > In germany they have a legal concept called "right of panorama" which
> > appears to be intended to address cases of incidental inclusion (as
> > we'd know them in the US).  The idea is that the fact that the
> > populated world is saturated with copyrighted works shouldn't inhibit
> > you from taking pictures in public...
> >
> > However, when you turn around and use such an image as a direct
> > replacement for the copyrighted work which you, presumably, couldn't
> > use there is no way that you'd be able to claim incidental inclusion
> > in the US.  I'm not qualified to say what the decision would be in
> > Germany, but I'd really be surprised if it were any different.
>
> Aren't the images are still stored in Florida so are covered by US
> law? Why is German law at all considered?

Because the photograph is taken on German soil by a German
photographer.  Consequently, whether or not it is legal to take the
photo is covered by German law.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


body:
On 7/21/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> And anyone notice Fir2000, one of our best photographers (brilliant in
> my opinion), has mentioned he's thinking about hanging it up?  Think
> we don't have enough photographers NOW?  :-(  --LV

D'oh... his actual user name is User:Fir0002.  I guess I got too
anxious to check my spelling. Sorry for any confusion. ;-)  --LV


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> The "more people" imbalance is what I meant. The great majority of
> editors work on what interests them personally, rather than taking
> guidance from somebody else, and that seems to extend to picture
> taking as well. Most of the WP photographers I know of tend to have
> an intense interest in one or a few areas, so for instance they'll
> upload photos of many kinds of cars, but no photos of the towns
> where they're finding the cars.

We have people that work on submitting photos of cars? Where?  I
didn't even think we were doing so well as to have dedicated subject
area photographers, with only a few exceptions.

I just checked the pages of several performance cars likely to be of
interest and mostly found a mixture of unfree, "my car", and a few
free snapshots.  I didn't see any evidence of a dedicated subject area
photographer on the few cars types I checked.

> An unfriendly culture? Hadn't noticed that myself.

There can be no doubt after you've submitted a free photo only to have
it replaced with an unfree photo that someone likes better... and
being left to battle it out. :)   We're too quick to acknowledge the
work of someone who uploads a lot of found on the web, but too slow
the recognize the work that goes into a quality piece of custom made
work.

> My limiting factor
> is that it takes less than a minute to compose and shoot, but several
> minutes to crop and fix up, so I have a growing backlog...

Minutes? Haha.  Minutes is the same order of work as making a
non-minor article edit.
I'm happy when I'm able to pull off four quality images of a subject
with three hours work from start to finish.

Yes, photography represents a sharp upfront investment and we don't
respect it accordingly because we're too oriented around folks who
provide images by operating google image search.

> Another
> limiting factor is that taking "encyclopedic" rather than "art" pictures
> is a body of technique unto itself; for some things it can take major
> commitments of driving and/or walking around to get decent shot.

Yes, this is quite true... and it is the biggest reason why we need to
move away from relying on outside sources for illustrations.

> Perhaps more people can find a free hour between 9 and 10 pm to sort
> stubs :-) than the same hour during daylight to take pictures of
> downtown buildings.

I don't disagree about the resource challenges... But the fact remains
that there are many thousands of people submitting photos to flikr or
contest sites like dpchallenge
(http://www.dpchallenge.com/challenge_archive.php).  Obviously there
are folks out there who *are* taking pictures, we need to pull them
into the fold and get them taking pictures we need licensed in a way
that we can use. :)

Today, we grab free images from sites like Flikr and don't even
contact the photographer... What a tremendous opportunity to bring in
more photographers. But it seems that, as a whole, Wikipedia is not
that interested in attracting photographers.


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:43:38 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>"Limited access highway" means the same thing as "limited access road" -
>>in other words nowhere near the standards of a freeway in general.
>
> In your opinion.

In the opinion of some official bodies.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=468-58-010

   The following definitions shall designate limited access highways and
shall indicate the control of access to be exercised by each:

      (1) "Fully controlled limited access highway" is a highway where
the right of owner or occupants of abutting land or other persons to
access, light, air, or view in connection with the highway is controlled
to give preference to through traffic by providing access connections
with selected public roads only, and by prohibiting crossings or direct
private driveway connections at grade, with the exception of Type C and
F approaches, where no other reasonable means of access exists as solely
determined by the department.

      (2) "Partially controlled limited access highway" is a highway
where the right of owner or occupants of abutting land or other persons
to access, light, air, or view in connection with the highway is
controlled to give preference to through traffic to a degree that, in
addition to access connections with selected public roads, there may be
some crossings and some private driveway connections at grade.
Commercial approaches to partially controlled limited access highways
are allowed only to frontage roads or by means of public road
intersections. A partially controlled limited access highway may be
designed to provide for separation of a part or all road crossings and
the elimination of a part or all direct private driveway connections
under a stage plan of future construction.

Thus, a "partially controlled limited access highway", a type of limited
access highway, as defined in Washington, can have at-grade crossings.

http://www.shelbycountytn.gov/FirstPortal/dotShowDoc/dotContent/Government/OfficeoftheMayor/sfpat_glossary.htm

Limited-Access Highway: A highway that has access to it restricted to
designated points *such as* interchanges. See Access Control. (emphasis
added)

> Here, the Highways Agency looks after strategic routes and the local
> authorities look after local roads.  Highways vs. byways, as it were.
> It sounds to me as if you are arguing to keep a problem so you can
> solve it in your preferred (and incidentally highly US-centric) way.
> Do be aware that, like "auto makers of foo" which grates on the ears
> of nationals where the word auto is practically never used to describe
> cars, using "freeway" to describe an autobahn, autoroute, autostrada,
> motorway etc. is likely to sound like another dollop of cultural
> imperialism.

Should we separate [[Category:elevators]] and [[Category:lifts]]?


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>On 7/21/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>>We have people that work on submitting photos of cars? Where?  I
>>didn't even think we were doing so well as to have dedicated subject
>>area photographers, with only a few exceptions.
>>
>
>I've taken photos of a great number of cars for Wikipedia, but frankly
>I got a little burned out by it.  Partly because of the number of
>times I've seen someone remove my picture or someone else's freely
>licensed picture in favor of a dubiously 'fair use' manufacturer's
>promo photo.
>
Hmph, back when I was spending more time on fair use, I was
evaporating any unfree image that had a replacement, but
that doesn't prevent re-uploads I guess. Shouldn't be
*anybody* uploading unfree images to replace free ones,
sounds like some user spanking is in order.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
WAIT A SECOND.

How is summarizing a TV show any different than summarizing a book, or a
comic?  A TV show is just a book (transcript) with a bunch of pictures.  And
a comic is just a book with many pictures but less text.

I fail to see your point in any form.


from_name: Pat Felsted

subject: [Wikitech-l] hook call back not being called every time

body:
Hey,
I have written a hook but the only time it is getting called is if I do
a purge.  Any ideas?

file: extensions/myext.php
<?php
function testing() {
    printf("TESTING 1 2 3\n");
}

$wgExtensionFunctions[] = "wfMyExtension";
function wfMyExtension() {
    global $wgParser;
    $wgParser->setHook( "myextension", "testing" );
}

?>

Added to the end of LocalSettins.php

require("extensions/myext.php");

Its like the tag is ignored unless an action=purge is specified.
Thanks.

MedaiWiki 1.6.8
php 5.1.4


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> For quite a while now I've been using Wikipedia first before IMDB when I
> want to know whether a movie or TV show is worth watching, a synopsis is
> rather important in that regard.

No one, but no one, is claiming that synopsises of TV shows are
fancruft. Fancruft is the documenting of the entire fictional universe
in detail. Out of control fancruft is documenting not only the
official fictional universe, but subsequent fictional universes
created by fans (fan-fancruft).

Steve


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >> For quite a while now I've been using Wikipedia first before IMDB when I
> >> want to know whether a movie or TV show is worth watching, a synopsis is
> >> rather important in that regard.
> >
> > No one, but no one, is claiming that synopsises of TV shows are
> > fancruft.
>
> Anthony apparently does. Here's what he wrote in the email this was a
> response to:
>
> > I think summarizing something directly (e.g. using a Friends episode
> > as a source for facts about itself) is, by its very definition,
> > original research.  The Friends episode isn't even a primary source in
> > this case - the Friends episode is the subject, and the summary would
> > be the primary source.
> >
> > There are a number of reasons to do this.  One is that it helps lessen
> > the amount of "fancruft".
>
> I was mainly disagreeing with the notion that the episode itself isn't
> an acceptable source for a description of the episode, but this other
> notion about the summary being fancruft seems implied as well.
>
*Some* synopses of TV shows are what I think Jimbo is referring to
when he uses the term "fancruft".  *Some* aren't.  One (reasonable, in
my opinion) way to draw the line is whether or not another respectable
source has talked about the episode.

This goes for Shakespeare as well as for Sopranos (*).  Both can be
the subject of perfectly acceptable scholarly research.  But
Wikipedians shouldn't be the ones doing the research, Wikipedians
should be making an article which organizes the research done by
others.

(*) I doubt you'd find a published work of Shakespeare that *hasn't*
been examined by multiple other sources, though.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> I do believe we're talking at cross-purposes, yes. My main argument in
> this thread is against the IMO very strange notion that one cannot use a
> work of fiction as a source when writing an article about it. Anthony's
> most recent response also implied that he considered a simple plot
> synopsis to be "fancruft", which was what the post you're responding to
> was in disagreement with.
>
As I explained in my other post, my comments were much more
restrictive than that.  If you have to resort to original research in
order to create a plot synopsis, *that* is what I have a problem with.

Anthony


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quackpotwatch AfD

body:
G'day geni,

> On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>>On 7/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 7/20/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Its notability derives from Quackwatch.
>>>
>>>Shouldn't it just be mentioned in the main quackwatch article then?
>>
>>Is AfD now required to change an article into a redirect?
>
> If you want the redirect to stick it may be a good option.

Funnily enough, there's a case on RfD of the inverse of that --- an
article was AfDed, and someone came along later and created a redirect
where the article used to be.  The redirect is now up before the full
panel of RfD, facing charges of ignoring consensus with malice
aforethought.  One hopes it'll receive a fair trial, but early reports
indicate that General Melchitt has already been approached to write the
majority opinion.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


body:
Thanks brion on irc told me that as well.

$parser->disableCache();

Did the trick.  Thanks.

>>> "Edward Z. Yang" <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> 7/21/2006 5:56 PM
>>>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Pat Felsted wrote:
> I have written a hook but the only time it is getting called is if I
do
> a purge.  Any ideas?

This is because MediaWiki has aggressive HTML caching and will avoid
re-parsing wikitext (unless told to do so, of course).  You can fix
this
by disabling caching, but expect a noticeable performance hit.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org (
http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ )

iD8DBQFEwWm4qTO+fYacSNoRAu9wAJ9bTaOAT54pNIyiEf+sFKR+XAgNCQCfbC9b
gffzP2fiutNP2mohJtCH+r8=
=Xf/P
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:44:02 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:

>Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited-access_highway .

So why not turn the redirect into limited access highways and leave
limited access roads as they are?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > Wikipedians shouldn't be the ones doing the research, Wikipedians
> > should be making an article which organizes the research done by
> > others.
>
> NOR policy appears to explicitly disagree with this statement. It reads,
> in part:
>
> "Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However,
> research that consists of collecting and organizing information from
> existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly
> encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information
> collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not
> "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is
> fundamental to writing an encyclopedia."
>
> You may make other arguments for why it's not appropriate to include a
> detailed synopsis in some particular article or another, but as far as I
> can see one based on NOR is simply not valid.

You are misreading NOR.  Watching a TV show and then writing about it
creates a primary source.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > As I explained in my other post, my comments were much more
> > restrictive than that.  If you have to resort to original research in
> > order to create a plot synopsis, *that* is what I have a problem with.
>
> The only way I can see needing original research to come up with a plot
> synopsis would be to go on set and observe the filming of the show, or
> maybe personally interview the scriptwriter or something. Once the
> show's been broadcast or put on DVD it's a published primary source.
>
It's a primary source on what?  Not on itself.

> I think we're at the point where we're just repeating ourselves at each
> other, but I'm about to leave on vacation so someone else will have to
> take over repeating for me here. :)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Angela wrote:

>On 7/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>* To what extent are we bound by local laws
>>
>>
>Every user is bound by their own local laws. Whether the project
>decides to adhere to any of those is more of a policy issue than a
>legal one.
>
Yes.  Every contributor should accept responsibility for his own actions.

>>* Flickr allows users to change the licenses on their images with no
>>external notice. So CC-BY or CC-BY-SA images uploaded to Commons might
>>later appear to be CC-BY-NC-ND or even "all rights reserved". This is
>>an increasing problem. Obviously Flickr needs a "history" tab, but
>>until then...? (current discussion at
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Flickr_allows_license_changes
>>)
>>
>>
>The problem here is whether to trust the user who originally added a
>tag that no longer matches what is on flickr.
>
I was looking at the Register discussuions on this as they relate to
YouTube.  They make an important point about this sort of situation:
Withdrawing the licence is not retroactive.  Those who used the material
before the licence was withdrawn were perfectly right to do so.  If
YouTube transfers all its materials to a new YouTube Two the withdrawal
may not have any effect on the new company.

>>I really feel distaste at the idea that the Foundation would avoid
>>involving itself in such questions in order to avoid legal
>>culpability.
>>
>>
>Has anyone said the avoid Foundation is refusing to answer questions
>for that reason? I'd assumed the problem was that no one knew the
>answers, not that they did but were purposefully withholding the
>information.
>
I don't think that it's a simple matter of answering questions or not.
That no-one knows the answers is exactly right.  At the same time there
are probably many Wikipedians who would feel more comfortable with a
wrong answer than no answer; that would give them an excuse to pass on
responsibility if the occasion ever demanded it.

The whole field of copyright law is so full of pitfalls and
uncertainties that almost any expression of legal opinion, whether by a
lawyer or layman, can be easily challenged to the point that either
opposite has an equal chance of prevailing.

WMF would probably do best to distance itself from these issues.  It has
too much to lose from a wrong decision.  The fundamental premise should
be that the uploader of material has the primary responsibility for
establishing the copyright status of what he provides.  At the same time
it needs to safeguard its founding principle that it is providing an
free access resource.  I certainly have ideas for attempting to
reconcile these concepts, but I'll save them for another time.

Ec


body:
On 7/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> * To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we
> bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers).
[snip]

1) Uploaders should obey their local laws.
2) Content on the site should obey laws in Florida.
3) As a project with international goals an impact our content should
be as widely useful world wide as possible and thus be as free as
possible in every place with sane laws.

The content commons should host should be only content which passes
under each of those three broad areas.

German "right of panorama" work obviously passes (1).
In the US material which is permitted under German right of panorama
would be okay because the inclusion of copyrighted works is in
incidental inclusion, making the content okay where our servers are
(2).
And most countries have some kind of established common sense
principal, furthermore almost no image of an urban public space is
possible withone some degree of incidental inclusion... So whatever
problems an image might have in some country no other simmlar image
would be free of them. (3)

> * There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM &
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing/ADRM  ).

I haven't yet read the discussion, but I can't see with a surfance
glance why we would forbid this license. Although the license appears
to be fairly poorly written it appears no more restrictive than the
GFDL.   The wording is a bit unclear since it doesn't disambiguate use
in DRM apps with DRM distribution, but the intent seems clear enough.
Have we attempted to contact the authors to get them to make the
license more clear?

A copyleft license is somewhat pointless if it doesn't prohibit people
from removing the freedom via technological measures.  I understand
that some people involved with Wikimedia are strongly against
copyleft, but their personal wishes shouldn't be setting our policy.

> * Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there
> is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we
> consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even
> possible? (

Yuck.  Cant we just leave these images for the projects to host locally for now?
We're not even near mastering copyright yet... Trademark is an even
more fun ball of yuck.

> * "Agencia Brasil" license  (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also
> has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a
> website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that
> as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus
> Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they
> intend to allow these specific rights?"

In American english "You may use this image" does not imply that you
can grant others unlimited redistribution rights, and the right to
make derivative works.  Perhaps if someone said "you may use" with the
full knoweldge of who we are and what we do...  but never as a general
permission on a website.

This isn't a new position.

> * Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star
> Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits
> of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this
> before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Archives10#Various_Star_Wars_pictures
> ) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily
> resolved.

Copyrighted sculptures are an issue... And in theory that includes
pokemon dolls and the like.

Sad as it is, if we want to be confident that our content is free we
must not include these things except incidentally.

However, I feel these are the least of our problems right now... our
effort would be better spent on other images.

> * US presidential portraits (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing#Portraits_with_unclear_copyright_status_from_the_U.S._Federal_Government
>  kind of got split up and was carried over from a debate on en.wp
> anyway).

> * Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD,
> is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any
> photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall  is not? (Because it
> is 3-D, not 2-D anymore)

Since I forgot to mention it before, I am not a lawyer. This is my
personal view. It has more to do with what I think our posisiton
should be irrespective of the law and what I worry the law might
become rather than what it is.

It depends.   If it is a mechnical reproduction, suchs works would be
free under US law due to Bridgeman v. Corel.

It's not clear to me that Bridgeman v. Corel would actually stand if
someone tried to apply it to, for example, works galleries publish of
because most of the time such works are not mere mechnical
reproduction  but require substantial artistic and technical decision
making (try getting cobalt containing watercolors to come out right on
normal film or a normal CCD sensor.. YUCK).

As much of a problem as the above may be for us, it's not the worst of
it:  Simmlar cases to Bridgeman v. Corel have come up in the UK and
the decision has been exactly the opposite.

I'd be much happier if we had people sneaking into galleries and
taking pictures (no flash please)... I don't have confidence that a
dependance on Bridgeman v. Corel will be good for us long term.

Like above I don't think this is (yet) the biggest of our problems.

> * Personality rights. What permission is required of people
> photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish
> your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is
> this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need
> to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can
> you decide that anyway?)? (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Kind_in_Nord.C3.A4thiopien.jpg
> is a current one, also some of the "visible thong" pictures on
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before)

This is something we need to do something about... We should at least
propose a standard model release for Wikipedian photographers to
use...

Without a releas photographs with identifyable people are not free
content in the US.

> * Stock xchange images (current:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it
> seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images
> (which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they
> might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order
> to use current images?

They are easy to identify by searching for the external links.
I'm in the process of trying to contact all the SXC authors, but keeps
blocking my IP. :)

> * Flickr allows users to change the licenses on their images with no
> external notice. So CC-BY or CC-BY-SA images uploaded to Commons might
> later appear to be CC-BY-NC-ND or even "all rights reserved". This is
> an increasing problem. Obviously Flickr needs a "history" tab, but
> until then...? (current discussion at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Flickr_allows_license_changes
> )

What is worse, is that uploaders on commons simply get them wrong
fairly often.. So it's hard to take a high ground on the subject.

When it comes down to it,  these people don't have a contract with
us.. we've compensated them not a lick... they are completely unaware
of our use.  As a result our position is weak.

It's simply not possible for a person to accidently free their work
(i.e. by making a wrong selection from a drop down, and not catching
it before a Wikimedia commons scavenger finds it).    If someone
protests we can, we do, and we must remove the work.  It is the only
ethical thing to do (or do we want a reputation as a bunch of jerks
trying to rip creators off), and it is quite possibly the only legal
thing to do.

This is just another reason that we should reduce our reliance on
image scavengers and instead ask people to upload their works directly
and with full knoweldge of the consiquences However, people seem far
more interested in running bots to scavange rather than sending out
email invitations to join our effort.  One pumps your contrib count
and makes you look good, the other brings you no positive attention
but helps the project more.

> I really feel distaste at the idea that the Foundation would avoid
> involving itself in such questions in order to avoid legal
> culpability.

Why?  None of these are cut and dry.  If we limit ourselves to only
the images that are zero risk we would have a LOT less content... and
we'd have to reject a lot which will be free for all meaningful
purposes.     When it comes down to it, most of these things can only
be decided in a court, and courts rule in strage ways.    An official
statement by the foundation would be risky and without much gain...
after all, what would a statement really accomplish that we couldn't?


body:
On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > There are two problems with letting just anybody upload images:
> > > 1) Copyright law is very complex.  Most people don't understand it.
> > > 2) Most people *aren't aware* that they don't understand it.
> > >
> > Isn't that a problem with letting just anybody add text, too?
>
> Not really.  I think it's a product of the public school system, but
> people generally understand that taking somebody else's writing and
> passing it off as their own is wrong, even if they don't understand
> that it's a copyright violation.  The same can't be said of images.
>
Wait a second, are we talking about copyright infringement,
plagiarism, or legal use of non-free content?  These are three
separate problems.  I thought the original post was talking about
copyright infringement, but this new post talks about "taking somebody
else's writing and passing it off as their own".

Anthony


body:
G'day OQ,

> On 20/07/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>There are ten-lane surface roads and two-lane freeways. This is a
>>category of freeways - highways with full control of access and no cross
>>traffic. The bit about not all places using that term is not a problem,
>>as we have to choose a term, and no one has put forth an alternate term.
>>A Category:Elevators would include elevators where they are called lifts.
>
> Why don't you just call it "Category:Highways with full control of
> access and no cross traffic"? It sounds less Americanocentric than
> "Freeways".

Assuming the word "Freeways" is exclusive to America is even more
Americanocentric than not giving a damn whether it is nor not.

We foreigners have you coming and going on *this* one ;-)

(Personally, I don't object to [[Category:Freeways]] any more than I
would [[Category:Elevators]])

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: ScottL

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
Michael Hopcroft wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>> On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> For quite a while now I've been using Wikipedia first before IMDB when I
>>> want to know whether a movie or TV show is worth watching, a synopsis is
>>> rather important in that regard.
>>>
>> No one, but no one, is claiming that synopsises of TV shows are
>> fancruft. Fancruft is the documenting of the entire fictional universe
>> in detail. Out of control fancruft is documenting not only the
>> official fictional universe, but subsequent fictional universes
>> created by fans (fan-fancruft).
>>
> Which si no less relevant to the question I asked about: "Why does
> (subject of article) matter? Why are you even reading this article? Why
> did someone reasonably believe that it was worth his time and effort to
> write it?"

   The problem with fancruft** is one of distraction and dilution.  I
think the best way to sum this up is that in almost every case the
reader has come looking for something else and the fancruft gets in the
way.  For the enthusiastic fan it is likely that they already knew this
bit of trivia (or in the case of our Harry Potter articles actively
disagrees with the crufty bits added by someone else so they need to add
a crufty counter example).  It is rather like the Monty Python sketch
that gave unsolicited commercial email its name when it starts to spread
out into other articles.

   Now as to the articles about the fictional universe in question.  If
I am a big enough fan of stargate that I am entertained by reading about
all of the different kinds of space ships on the show.  Then (A) I am
better served by a single page to document them all. No one of them is
going to ever have enough information that meets the other inclusion
guidelines to have a full article. (B) I don't need to know every
episode that an instance of said craft was used.  If I am such a big fan
as this then I have all the DVDs and know of 3 or 4 places on the
Internet where such information is appropriate.

  Fancruft if about wishing everyone though the things you like are as
important as you think they are. In some cases this leads to a desire to
have an article on every little detail as proof of its importance.  But,
the results are bad for wikipedia and they are bad for the coverage of
the show or book.  The rounding up and merging of Harry Potter articles
that has been going on has had a very significant impact on the quality
of our HP coverage.

** I am using the term fancruft to mean the inclusion of specific
details of a fictional universe where they are not necessary or even
detract from the encyclopedic point being made.  Especially when found
in articles on unrelated subjects.

Dalf


body:
On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> If you have a suggestion that doesn't involve large numbers of
> nonexistent volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of
> legal peril, feel free to enlighten us.
>
Here's one: when people send in a DMCA takedown notice, remove the
material, notify the uploader that her materials have been removed
(via their talk page and email if the address is known), and provide
them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service
provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed.  If the
uploader provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material
does not infringe copyrights, then promptly notify the claiming party
of the individual's objection.  However, only restore the image if
there is also a consensus that the image is "free enough" within the
project's guidelines.

Anthony


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikipedia and books for African children

body:
I understand Wikipedia is considering publishing Wikipedia 1.0 cheaply
enough for those with little money. But would Wikimedia ever donate
money, and just money, to other charities to buy books published by
private organisations and other charities? Is this covered by the
charter of the Foundation?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 21/07/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Whereas the board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation regularly receives
> some complaints related to abuse of its privacy policy, associated to
> checkuser activity or not.
>
> It is hereby resolved that:
>
> The board creates an "ombudsman commission".
>
> The ombudsman commission will offer a sympathetic ear to those reporting
> an abuse of the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy on any of Wikimedia
> project.
>
> The ombudsman will take charge of investigating cases of privacy policy
> breach or checkuser abuse for the board in an official manner. He will
> mediate between the complainant and the respondant (checkuser, arbcom
> member, bureaucrat or sysop). When legally necessary, the ombudsman will
> assist the legal commmittee or the legal officer or the executive
> director to handle the case.
>
> When the case is litigious, the ombudsman will be in charge to educate
> checkusers or others about the Foundation privacy policy.
> When the privacy policy has been breached, the commission should report
> to the Executive Director and recommand a course of action (such as
> removal of checkuser status).
>
> Additionnaly, the commission might have a sort of "overview" over the
> way the checkuser system works and should offer suggestions of suitable
> modifications of policies or recommandations of software changes.
> An Ombudsman's Investigation shall be conducted in a manner determined
> by the Ombudsman and which will be fair and impartial .

Having read this description of the role, I would say the name
"Ombudsman" is wildly inaccurate. How about something approximating
"User Advocate"?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 21/07/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> considering the ongoing discussion about references in articles, I
> thought it might help if people less familiar with <ref> tags and our
> template system would have an easy way to generate the necessary wiki
> code for references.
>
> So, I wrote a tool:
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/makeref.php
>
> It offers a list of reference type choices (currently only two) and a
> standard form to fill in values for that type. Clicking a button will
> then generate the necessary wiki source, ready to paste into the article.
>
> The Really Cool Thing (tm) is that the reference types and their values
> (and if they're mandatory or not) can be configured by editing a page on
> meta (link is on the tool page). The syntax should be self-explanatory ;-)
>
> It can support other languages by adding "&language=XX" to the URL;
> however, there are no meta pages for other languages yet.
>
>
> If you like it, maybe we could link the tool from the edit page?
>
> Magnus

Very nice work Mr. Manske!

Sadly, I won't be using the tool as I find compiling the template in
text a lot of fun (for some reason). This will be of great use to
many, many users and will hopefully increase the number of references
per article.

Are you planning on expanding it to cover other cite templates such as
books and websites? Will you be introducing more fields (I notice that
the access date is lacking).

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > Anthony wrote:
> > > As I explained in my other post, my comments were much more
> > > restrictive than that.  If you have to resort to original research in
> > > order to create a plot synopsis, *that* is what I have a problem with.
> >
> > The only way I can see needing original research to come up with a plot
> > synopsis would be to go on set and observe the filming of the show, or
> > maybe personally interview the scriptwriter or something. Once the
> > show's been broadcast or put on DVD it's a published primary source.
> >
> It's a primary source on what?  Not on itself.
>
> > I think we're at the point where we're just repeating ourselves at each
> > other, but I'm about to leave on vacation so someone else will have to
> > take over repeating for me here. :)
>
This is somewhat confusing to me, because it seems so obvious to me
that watching a TV show and then writing about it is original
research.  Anyway, here's what I found about what is a primary source:

"The distinction between types of sources can get tricky, because a
secondary source may also be a primary source. Garry Wills' book about
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, for example, can looked at as both a
secondary and a primary source. The distinction may depend on how you
are using the source and the nature of your research. If you are
researching Abraham Lincoln, the book would be a secondary source
because WIlls is offering his opinions about Lincoln and the
Gettysburg Address. If your assignment is to write a book review of
Lincoln at  Gettysburg, the book becomes a primary source, because you
are commenting, evaluating, and discussing Garry Wills' ideas."

It seems to me, based on this paragraph, that using "Episode 5 of
Season 3 of Friends" in an article about that episode, would be the
*creation* of a primary source.

Anthony


body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > If you're not a lawyer why are you pushing these legal interpretations?
>
> Because that's what we're all doing. I don't think my conservative
> interpretation of the law is dangerous in any way.

Saying that photos of 3D pd works do not carry copyright is not a
conservative interpretation. :)

The only reason that we hold the position that (in the US) photographs
of PD 2D works don't gain the photographers copyright is because of
Bridgeman v. Corel.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia as a gazetteer

body:
On 21/07/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Working with co-ordinates has made me wonder about their use. It seems
> a bit bizarre to represent a huge country (or ocean, river, etc) with
> one random dot. Is there any neat, standardised way to refer to
> geographic areas? I can't think of one...any ideas?

One problem is that many users give the co-ordinates of a place to
fractions of arcseconds. Cities do not, and should not, have
co-ordinates given to the second. Tens of minutes (one minute is 1.86
km at sea level) should suffice.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Jesse W wrote:
>
> You prompted me to do some research - I looked at RC for the last few
> minutes, in the User_talk namespace, and clicked on various IPs talk
> pages to see what was on them.  Here are my results:
[.......]
> At least to me, "Take a look at the [[Wikipedia:Welcome,
> newcomers|welcome page]] if you would like to learn more about
> contributing.", " If the bot reverted a legitimate edit, please accept
> my humble creator's apologies", and "See the [[Wikipedia:Welcome,
> newcomers|welcome page]] to learn more.  Thanks." do not seem like
> assuming that new users are all bent on destroying Wikipedia.

Yep -- well selected. Now let *me* do *my* selections from *your*
samples (I've replaced boldface with capitals):

> unconstructive edits are considered vandalism, and if you continue in
> this manner you may be BLOCKED FROM EDITING WITHOUT FURTHER WARNING.

> Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the work of
> others.

> Your recent edit [...] was reverted by a BOT that attempts to
> recognize and repair vandalism.

> Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of
> external links.

Do these sound inviting or welcoming to you? To me, all of those sound
excessively hostile and suggestive of accusations.

> And as for linking to [[WP:XYZ]] - none of the above messages use any
> of the WP:WP shortcuts

Take a look at AfD if you're looking for those.

Timwi


body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> This wasn't done with malice, it was purely accidental.

Thats okay. :) No harm no foul. Just wanted to point it out.

> > I'd really like to find out where you got this bizarre notion that
> > Wikipedia's orignal aim was to provide "rights" to new users and
> > "anons".
>
> "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
> (from [[Wikipedia:About]]). The statement "anyone can edit" requires
> that editing rights are given to new users and anons.

No it doesn't. Anyone can still edit if you have to sign up and wait.
 Not that I'm proposing such a thing, but it doesn't remove the
'anyone can edit'.

> I would suggest we stop claiming that "anyone can edit" the project.
> It is a misleading and false.

I would suggest you stop blowing hot air. Your statement above is
exactly the sort of hysteria that is counter productive.   If you have
a material complaint related to how a proposed change would harm our
ability to make a free content encyclopedia, make it.. otherwise spare
us the drama of "misleading and false".

> I used these words because they match my perception of what is
> happening. I strive to avoid sensationalism at all costs.

Oh? Your recent posts (which I read but mostly do not respond to) have
caused me to conclude otherwise.

If you'd like to operate a fork where the ability to edit is placed
above all concerns of quality, stability, or morality, I'd be glad to
help you.  I'd offer to provide hosting too but I wouldn't want any
part of the legal liability for such a site. :)