from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD A7 and software programs

body:
On 1/15/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/14/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > 2) people sometimes forget.
>
>
> True, but you indicated you did it because it was easier. That's why I had a
> problem with it.
>
> Mgm

I don't remember saying that, and it's not really true.  I would have
gladly stuck http://robogeo.com/ into a box which said "Enter your
source here:" if it was required.  Of course, if I had put it in the
original article, that would have just made it look like an ad (as it
is some people already thought it looked like an ad, even though if
anything I meant the article as a warning for others not to bother
downloading the crippled software like I had).

Now, did I know that there was a way to add those fancy schmancy
reference tags to an article.  Yes.  I didn't know the syntax of the
tags, but I did know they existed.  In the end I did finally figure
out how to add the sources, which was done 41 minutes later.  But
someone else who knew the syntax could have added those same sources a
lot faster and more easily.

IMO wikis are supposed to be about collaboration, not about figuring
out all the rules you have to follow to keep your contributions from
being removed.  My little contribution to the sum of human knowledge
was supposed to be that the demo for RoboGEO "intentionally adds
errors of around a kilometer into the data".  As far as I'm concerned,
once you know that about it, nothing else matters.

Anthony


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Nina Stratton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exposure of magic on Wikipedia

body:
People don't pay for the "magic" per se, they pay for the showmanship. In my
opinion, revealing the mechanics of a magic act in no way detracts from that
particular act's commercial viability. Struggling magicians, on the other
hand, might be of another opinion.

On 1/15/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In a previous discussion it was determined that most magic tricks aren't
> patented (for fear of revealing the method) or copyrighted (only the way
> it's written down in a book or recorded on a DVD or video is copyrighted).
> However, isn't exposure of commercially available effects considered
> [[piracy]] then?
>
> Mgm
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Sincerely,

Nina
"Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and
conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work." - Abdul Kalam


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Reliability" and "usefulness"

body:
On Sun, 14 Jan 2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> >And to tell you the truth, I don't think unreliable info is useful to begin
> >with.
> Precisely.  If you want unreliable info, uncyclopaedia has much which
> is authoritatively unreliable.

This ignores the fact that reliability is a continuum.  People are not
really saying "we'd rather have a lot of articles that are unreliable
instead of 10% as many articles which are reliable".  They're saying "we'd
rather have a lot of articles instead of 10% of articles which are *somewhat
more* reliable".  Unsourced material is less reliable than sourced material,
but it's not so much less reliable that its reliability may as well be zero.

It's a tradeoff between reliability and usefulness.  And even if we *don't*
allow unsourced articles, we still must make that tradeoff.  Allowing unsourced
articles just pushes over a tradeoff that we are already making anyway.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page

body:
> > I am amazed people fall over themselves to comply with constraints
> > that simply don't matter.

Because if constraints don't apply to everyone, it's possible to make a
constraint, pawn off the inconvenience from the constraint on someone else,
and not care about the inconvenience yourself because you've exempted
yourself from it.


list: foundation-l

from_name: teun spaans

subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

body:
> The biggest error I see here is that people are trying to limit language
> versions of Wikipedia so that they comply with the laws of the country
> where the language is primarily spoken. But that's fruitless. The
> Italian Wikipedia (hosted in Florida) isn't under Italian law just
> because it's in Italian. Nor are Italian citizens liable for something
> on the Italian Wikipedia just because the page is in Italian.

I politely disagree. When the person doing something has the Italian
nationality, and the person commits the act from italian territory,
and the claiment is italian, an italian judge might well decide to
consider the claim, despite the servers being in the us.


list: wikimedia-l


body:
David,

how should that answer my objections?

teun

On 1/15/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> teun spaans wrote:
> >> The biggest error I see here is that people are trying to limit language
> >> versions of Wikipedia so that they comply with the laws of the country
> >> where the language is primarily spoken. But that's fruitless. The
> >> Italian Wikipedia (hosted in Florida) isn't under Italian law just
> >> because it's in Italian. Nor are Italian citizens liable for something
> >> on the Italian Wikipedia just because the page is in Italian.
> >
> > I politely disagree. When the person doing something has the Italian
> > nationality, and the person commits the act from italian territory,
> > and the claiment is italian, an italian judge might well decide to
> > consider the claim, despite the servers being in the us.
>
> Please read the following two paragraphs from that post; they directly
> address your objection:
>
> "There seems to be a plausible argument that Italian citizens cannot
> upload normally copyrighted material under the fair use exception. But
> there's a huge difference between what the Italian Wikipedia can host
> and what Italian citizens may post to it.
>
> "And if you think that you can fix the problem by making the Italian
> Wikipedia have policies that fit within Italian law, what about Italians
> who edit the English or other Wikipedias? They're not suddenly exempt
> from Italian law because they're working in another language."
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: K P

body:
On 1/15/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> > Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:40:25 -0800
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?
> >
> > Marc Riddell wrote:
> >
> >> A least one problem I envision with such MH Articles in WP is the fact
> that
> >> you would, in some cases, have patients writing the textbook. There are
> many
> >> aspects of mental, emotional, and behavioral conditions that are beyond
> some
> >> persons? ability to accept. In the very first month that I signed on as
> a WP
> >> editor I encountered such a problem. I wanted to upgrade an existing
> Article
> >> on a chemical dependency-related subject, and immediately encountered
> strong
> >> resistance from another editor. I was attempting to emphasize the
> disease
> >> component of the condition, but the editor refused to acknowledge this
> fact.
> >> Being very new to WP, after a least a week of back and forth with this
> >> editor, of endless diatribes by them, and every one on my edits being
> >> changed, I finally gave up, left the Article, and haven?t looked back
> since.
> >>
> > One emotion that this will not evoke in me is surprise.  ;-)
> >
> >> I have practiced (one day I may get it right :-) ) in the fields of
> Clinical
> >> Psychology and Psychotherapy for 42 years now. I wanted to bring some
> >> expertise to the Articles in WP related to my fields, but have backed
> away.
> >>
> >> I would love to see more, well-written Articles on all aspects of MH in
> the
> >> encyclopedia. I believe they should be written by persons schooled in
> the
> >> fields, and should be written so that any sentient person could
> understand
> >> it. For me, the true measure of an ?expert? in something is his or her
> >> ability to explain it to someone who isn?t.
> >>
> > I'm just glad that I'm not writing in this field.  While most fields
> > already have the dynamic tension between well-meaning but unschooled
> > amateurs and professionals the inertia of whose schooling may have
> > involved accepting certain assumptions withut question, mental health
> > can also involve people who refuse to accept reality on a more personal
> > level.  They can too easily show the respect level of a scientologist.
>
> Scientology: the denial system for the ages.
> >
> > Still, some amateurs are careful in their research, and some
> > professionals do not feel offended when their assumptions are
> questioned.
>
> The only assumption I ever make in my work is: if the person is
> experiencing
> pain it is a signal there is something wrong. My role is to locate the
> source of that pain and try to eliminate it. If a person presents with a
> knife sticking out of their belly, or a bone is protruding though their
> skin, the diagnosis of the source is rather simple. In Mental Health (MH)
> which needs to be distinguished from Emotional Health (EH) [another
> subject
> for another time] the search for the source can (and is) much more
> complex.
> It also carries with it a factor not present in most med/surg conditions ?
> cultural stigma.
>
> ?Assumption? is a slippery word in my field. In the field of physics, if I
> drop an object from a height in our atmosphere, one can reasonably assume
> it
> is going to end up on the ground. This ?assumption? becomes a fact by
> doing
> it. And, there are zillions of incidents in the past that can be pointed
> to
> as verification of that fact. ?Facts? (such as they are) in the field of
> Clinical Psychology are based on countless case histories of persons who
> have presented with similar symptoms and behaviors, and have responded
> well
> to similar therapies resulting in wellness. And this is not absolute. The
> one vital ingredient necessary to consider here are the instincts the
> professional caregiver.
>
> The important issue in our context here, as I see it, is that we are
> trying
> to write an encyclopedia of fact, not opinion. If an expert (ouch, yes, I
> used the word) in a field writes facts in that field as they know them to
> be, I believe it presents a problem when a non-expert (there I did it
> again)
> edits out those facts, and substitutes their opinion.

Yes, this is problematic, but if the "experts" use so much jargon that the
lay reader cannot use the article, which is often the case, then it's as
good as no article, because experts probably aren't consulting Wikipedia for
information in their field.  This is another area where it is hard to get
some Wikipedia editors to see the problem, that using jargon, first isn't
necessary, and that second, blue-linking jargon doesn't make it acceptable,
and that third, if you can't explain it without the jargon maybe someone
else should be writing it.

KP

If the above constitutes a diatribe, so be it. If you don?t want to hear the
> bell, don?t push the button :-).
>
> >
> >> I would also like to see links to biographies of persons in the
> encyclopedia
> >> who have suffered from these conditions.
> >>
> > I think this last point would run into Wikipedia's verifiability
> > meat-grinder.
>
> My intent here was to enable persons suffering from these conditions to
> understand they are not alone. However, I agree it would create a citation
> as well as confidentiality nightmare. Oh well, nice thought.
> >
> > Ec
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

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

MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record:
> But it's still making material freely available that should be paid for to
> start with.

"Should be"?  Objection: assumes facts not in evidence.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Our strength is as the strength of
 sean at epoptic.com | ten because there are fourteen of us.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFq65R/SVOiq2uhHMRAsKcAJ9GCL8Ymm4noIGI+4f46C41baCfCwCfUgJp
c8+cbeXhalfDSK2tRZjOIr4=
=mi6N
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


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

MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record:
> You pay for the secret when you buy a magic effect.
> Revealing it on Wikipedia certainly detracts from the product's commercial
> viability .
>
> Mgm

Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of business models.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Our strength is as the strength of
 sean at epoptic.com | ten because there are fourteen of us.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFq68i/SVOiq2uhHMRAosrAKCdb7uoYQ27BvXbx7zfs0IjemAIMACfdsHC
lZsYA69fLiXTtkzisIbWhiM=
=bKjy
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Navigation popups (was: Re: Wikipedia with,
	geo-browsing and AJAX)

body:
On 1/14/07, S?ren Auer <soeren at pediax.org> wrote:
>
> > Why not opt-out? If it's a good feature, we should take the step of
> > giving it to people by default. If it's too intrusive, perhaps we can
> > finetune it?
>
> I guess the intrusiveness will be the least problem. If you add this
> feature to Wikipedia per default, Wikipedia servers would have to be
> doubled, at least (each such preview counts on the server side like
> accessing a complete article).
>
> S?ren

If you make it opt-out you will simply lose a lot of editors who aren't
tech-savvy.  The reason Wikipedia has a plethora of tech articles compared
to other areas may be that the majority of Wiki editors are people who spend
a lot of time on-line.  There are other editors, plugging away in non-tech
subject areas who aren't that tech-savvy, who would simply bow out if faced
with pop-ups on their first edit.  It's the tech-savvy who are most likely
to understand that they have options and opt-in, and the non tech-savvy who
would be least able to figure out how to opt-out.  Given that it doesn't
make sense to make it opt-out.  Also, the whole world isn't on-line at the
rate of the Western-world.  I used a friend's clunker machine, with a
stone-age modem, and I think the pop-ups would crash the system.  So, it's
also those with the lease capacity to opt-out (namely because their machine
crashes when they log in), who could be most impacted.  Again, opt-out of
the heavy tech requirements is not the sensible option.  Opt-in for the tech
savvy who will always look for it, is sensible.  My siblings, all of whom
are uber tech-savvy, can't sign up for a web site without spending the
first few minutes configuring the site for their preferences--I realize now,
for the first time,  that adding things like this pop-ups program are what
they are doing.

KP


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Falcon

body:
On 1/15/07, Alex Powell <alexp at exscien.com> wrote:
> I didn't mean for text, though that was the logical conclusion. I mean for
> the image and media repositories. SVN seems to be quite good and managing
> deltas between binaries these days...

I suspect that for most MediaWiki applications, binary deltas are not
very useful for media content.  Revised versions of images tend not to
have much binary similarity to prior or subsequent versions; it's more
common for a revised version to be subjected to a global change (such
as resizing, recropping, or a global color balance) than to a local
change.  The same is probably true of most audio media.

In my experience doing enterprise disaster recovery and backup,
subfile incrementals are usually only useful for uncompressed,
unencrypted, segmented files updated in a chunky manner (most database
systems), and obviously for logfiles which are always appended to or
used in a circular manner.  None of these file types is likely to be
frequently uploaded to a MediaWiki installation in most applications I
can envision. Any file which is completely rewritten every time it is
touched (which includes virtually all media formats other than pure,
uncompressed raw formats) will not benefit from incremental subfile
versioning.
Kelly


from_name: senpai

body:
Answer:
 No, You can't modify a "fair use" image.

Senpai

----- Original Message -----
From: <rfrangi a libero.it>
To: "foundation-l" <foundation-l a lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 11:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Diversity and NC images - Board meet

>> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> So even though our non-profit status may allow us to use NC image, others
>> who use our content for
>> commercial purposes would need to constantly remove non-free images. And
>> *that* makes it
>> needlessly difficult for others to use and enjoy our work.
>
> If I take the contents of the english Wikipedia and I want to reuse them
> commercially in Italy, I have to remove all fair use images. And *that*
> makes it needlessly difficult (?) for me to use and enjoy our work. So for
> me the use of fair use images goes against the spirit if not the letter of
> the FDL.
>
> Also (IANAL too) GFDL allows me to create derivative works, I don't know
> if I can take an image that is fair use and modify it. I think it's not
> possible and if this is the case, this as well goes against the spirit if
> not the letter of the FDL.
>
> And to state it clearly once again, I'm against fair use *AND * NC's.
>
> But if the point is that only US subjects should not have the problem of
> removing the bits of content that are not in accord with thier laws,
> please state it clearly.
>
> Roberto (Snowdog)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom
> http://click.libero.it/infostrada14gen07
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l a lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


body:
Answer:
 No, You can't modify a "fair use" image.

Senpai

----- Original Message -----
From: <rfrangi at libero.it>
To: "foundation-l" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 11:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Diversity and NC images - Board meet

>> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> So even though our non-profit status may allow us to use NC image, others
>> who use our content for
>> commercial purposes would need to constantly remove non-free images. And
>> *that* makes it
>> needlessly difficult for others to use and enjoy our work.
>
> If I take the contents of the english Wikipedia and I want to reuse them
> commercially in Italy, I have to remove all fair use images. And *that*
> makes it needlessly difficult (?) for me to use and enjoy our work. So for
> me the use of fair use images goes against the spirit if not the letter of
> the FDL.
>
> Also (IANAL too) GFDL allows me to create derivative works, I don't know
> if I can take an image that is fair use and modify it. I think it's not
> possible and if this is the case, this as well goes against the spirit if
> not the letter of the FDL.
>
> And to state it clearly once again, I'm against fair use *AND * NC's.
>
> But if the point is that only US subjects should not have the problem of
> removing the bits of content that are not in accord with thier laws,
> please state it clearly.
>
> Roberto (Snowdog)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom
> http://click.libero.it/infostrada14gen07
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Diversity and NC images - Board meet


body:
Also if an italian citizien make something by (for example) Florida
territory on en.wiki, the italian law have Jurisdiction.

Senpai

----- Original Message -----
From: "teun spaans" <teun.spaans a gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l a lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

>> The biggest error I see here is that people are trying to limit language
>> versions of Wikipedia so that they comply with the laws of the country
>> where the language is primarily spoken. But that's fruitless. The
>> Italian Wikipedia (hosted in Florida) isn't under Italian law just
>> because it's in Italian. Nor are Italian citizens liable for something
>> on the Italian Wikipedia just because the page is in Italian.
>
> I politely disagree. When the person doing something has the Italian
> nationality, and the person commits the act from italian territory,
> and the claiment is italian, an italian judge might well decide to
> consider the claim, despite the servers being in the us.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l a lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


body:
Also if an italian citizien make something by (for example) Florida
territory on en.wiki, the italian law have Jurisdiction.

Senpai

----- Original Message -----
From: "teun spaans" <teun.spaans at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

>> The biggest error I see here is that people are trying to limit language
>> versions of Wikipedia so that they comply with the laws of the country
>> where the language is primarily spoken. But that's fruitless. The
>> Italian Wikipedia (hosted in Florida) isn't under Italian law just
>> because it's in Italian. Nor are Italian citizens liable for something
>> on the Italian Wikipedia just because the page is in Italian.
>
> I politely disagree. When the person doing something has the Italian
> nationality, and the person commits the act from italian territory,
> and the claiment is italian, an italian judge might well decide to
> consider the claim, despite the servers being in the us.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


body:
The problem is, that, some people here in ML, said that we can't use not
free images. A picture that is PD only in the italian territory is, for some
persons that have writed here, not free. The only thing that is important to
me is the equity by the different language projects. If en.wiki can use the
fair use images (that are not free) we must can use the "authorized" images
and the CC-NC.

Senpai

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge a telus.net>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l a lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

> senpai wrote:
>
>>May be they cant' be so much thing in other country... but they can be in
>>italy. I don't know if u know well or not the basics rules of procedural
>>penal "civil law" system. In genral... if an italian people upload some
>>images (like the one that u have take for the example) on commons, and
>>that
>>images must have an authorization, is not important if the commons servers
>>are in florida or in italy or in another country, the italian people is
>>under the italian penal law. Idem if an american people upload that images
>>on commons and an italian people use this images.... U can't upload
>>somthing
>>with "PD" or CC-by (for example), on commons if not in all states u can
>>use
>>that materials. Commons, for that reason, had deleted all images that was
>>tagged with "PD-Italy"... than... wich is the difference ?
>>
> Commons is a different project, and there is some sense to their
> stricter rules.  Unless I misunderstand something "PD-Italy" means that
> it is in the public domain in Italy.  (Has Italy accepted for copyrights
> to last for life + 70 years, like the rest of the EU, or is it still
> life + 50?)  If it is in the public domain in Italy I don't see why you
> can't just upload it directly to it:wp instead of putting it into
> commons.  If Italian law does not allow you to photograph a painting by
> Botticelli in the museum in Florence this has nothing to do with
> copyright, but is something else.
>
>>For other thing... i qoute Snowdog, if u want a free wikipedia, REALLY
>>free... ok  u have to abandon the fair use, and we will abandon all not
>>free
>>images.
>>
>>
> I think that many people will not accept that because they see it as
> some kind of blackmail.  What the Italian language project does, and
> what the English project does have nothing to do with each other.  In
> Mexico copyrights last for 100 years after a person's death.  Keeping
> everyone back because one country has such a longer term makes no sense.
>
> Ec
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l a lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


body:
The problem is, that, some people here in ML, said that we can't use not
free images. A picture that is PD only in the italian territory is, for some
persons that have writed here, not free. The only thing that is important to
me is the equity by the different language projects. If en.wiki can use the
fair use images (that are not free) we must can use the "authorized" images
and the CC-NC.

Senpai

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

> senpai wrote:
>
>>May be they cant' be so much thing in other country... but they can be in
>>italy. I don't know if u know well or not the basics rules of procedural
>>penal "civil law" system. In genral... if an italian people upload some
>>images (like the one that u have take for the example) on commons, and
>>that
>>images must have an authorization, is not important if the commons servers
>>are in florida or in italy or in another country, the italian people is
>>under the italian penal law. Idem if an american people upload that images
>>on commons and an italian people use this images.... U can't upload
>>somthing
>>with "PD" or CC-by (for example), on commons if not in all states u can
>>use
>>that materials. Commons, for that reason, had deleted all images that was
>>tagged with "PD-Italy"... than... wich is the difference ?
>>
> Commons is a different project, and there is some sense to their
> stricter rules.  Unless I misunderstand something "PD-Italy" means that
> it is in the public domain in Italy.  (Has Italy accepted for copyrights
> to last for life + 70 years, like the rest of the EU, or is it still
> life + 50?)  If it is in the public domain in Italy I don't see why you
> can't just upload it directly to it:wp instead of putting it into
> commons.  If Italian law does not allow you to photograph a painting by
> Botticelli in the museum in Florence this has nothing to do with
> copyright, but is something else.
>
>>For other thing... i qoute Snowdog, if u want a free wikipedia, REALLY
>>free... ok  u have to abandon the fair use, and we will abandon all not
>>free
>>images.
>>
>>
> I think that many people will not accept that because they see it as
> some kind of blackmail.  What the Italian language project does, and
> what the English project does have nothing to do with each other.  In
> Mexico copyrights last for 100 years after a person's death.  Keeping
> everyone back because one country has such a longer term makes no sense.
>
> Ec
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


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

MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record:
> In a previous discussion it was determined that most magic tricks aren't
> patented (for fear of revealing the method) or copyrighted (only the way
> it's written down in a book or recorded on a DVD or video is copyrighted).
> However, isn't exposure of commercially available effects considered
> [[piracy]] then?
>
> Mgm

Dear All:

Do we have a WP: page discussing this issue?  Wikipedia's policy is
clear, but the question still comes up periodically, and it would be
nice to be able to point people to a concise explanation.

If there isn't one, I may try to pull something together.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Our strength is as the strength of
 sean at epoptic.com | ten because there are fourteen of us.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFq7iP/SVOiq2uhHMRAhwCAJoDgOcd3l+TWrJ47WxWNFDFVJRZBwCfQIRu
6SqhS/yqMuOABKyiqcUcGcU=
=LmZC
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-01-13

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

Rob Church wrote:
>> at the end of the run if any tests have failed.  I bet it'd be red and
>> blinking too, if it could only be made so.  :-)
>
> Couple of klaxons in there, too...

WEll, it totally depends on the culture you've made regarding unit
tests. Here, it's "Oh, it's unreasonable to think that all the
parsertests will pass" but in other places its "Unit tests are super
important and no development goes forward until all tests pass". I
myself fall into the latter camp.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFq5O0qTO+fYacSNoRAjxvAKCCnWhWfsEzdCCsdgoYIEarZmZh8wCfdOLj
oEBA3gJOjjRNGjnyDq2+mEU=
=c1dq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
I do recognise that there is a difference between the italian
wikipedia and the what italian citizens are allowed to post to it.

You as a US citizen, working from the US, may write in italian on the
itialian wiki.

All I say is that there migh well be a difference for Italians working
on the italian wiki, doing so from italian territory. We may say on
every page that we are only bound by florida law because the
foundation is registered in florida and the servers are hosted there.
But an italian judge may very well decide to disagree, especially if
the claiment is also italian, and the readers are likely to be in
italy as well. He may decide to take up a case, and the italian
volunteer might be sued despite all our florida claims.

Your edits on the german wiki are probably safe, as you are a us
citizen working from the us. Still, german justice might decide to
pick you up if you should ever decide to visiti germany (not likely,
though)

You do well to separate languages from nationalities. German is also
spoken in Switzerland, Austria, and parts of France and Belgium.
But you cannot say: Because wel claim Florida law apllies to all wiki
projects, Florida law is all an italian wikipedian has to reccon with.

teun

On 1/15/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> You said:
> "...and the person commits the act from italian territory, and the
> claiment is italian, an italian judge might well decide to consider the
> claim..."
>
> I said in my earlier post:
> "But there's a huge difference between what the Italian Wikipedia can
> host and what Italian citizens may post to it."
>
> You're not recognizing that difference. You are treating the Italian
> Wikipedia as if it has an exclusive relationship to people in Italy. Not
> only do people in Italy edit other Wikipedias in abundance, people
> outside Italy edit the Italian Wikipedia.
>
> Now, I've personally tinkered around on the German Wikipedia. It makes
> little sense to have my edits confined by policies assuming German
> authorship. I'm a U.S. citizen publishing information to a U.S.-hosted
> site. People in Germany may be the primary readers, but plenty of
> Germans read the English Wikipedia, too.
>
> Likewise, many people in Germany edit the English Wikipedia. If the
> German Wikipedia is the only place where policy considers the needs of
> German editors, German editors of the English Wikipedia may be at risk.
>
> Policies involving legal concepts need to be separated from languages.
>
> teun spaans wrote:
> > David,
> >
> > how should that answer my objections?
> >
> > teun
> >
> > On 1/15/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> >> teun spaans wrote:
> >>>> The biggest error I see here is that people are trying to limit language
> >>>> versions of Wikipedia so that they comply with the laws of the country
> >>>> where the language is primarily spoken. But that's fruitless. The
> >>>> Italian Wikipedia (hosted in Florida) isn't under Italian law just
> >>>> because it's in Italian. Nor are Italian citizens liable for something
> >>>> on the Italian Wikipedia just because the page is in Italian.
> >>> I politely disagree. When the person doing something has the Italian
> >>> nationality, and the person commits the act from italian territory,
> >>> and the claiment is italian, an italian judge might well decide to
> >>> consider the claim, despite the servers being in the us.
> >> Please read the following two paragraphs from that post; they directly
> >> address your objection:
> >>
> >> "There seems to be a plausible argument that Italian citizens cannot
> >> upload normally copyrighted material under the fair use exception. But
> >> there's a huge difference between what the Italian Wikipedia can host
> >> and what Italian citizens may post to it.
> >>
> >> "And if you think that you can fix the problem by making the Italian
> >> Wikipedia have policies that fit within Italian law, what about Italians
> >> who edit the English or other Wikipedias? They're not suddenly exempt
> >> from Italian law because they're working in another language."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: Mr. B.B.C.

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Somehow survey: interactive graphics,
	JavaScript in Wiki

body:
Platonides schrieb:
> So you want to mess even more the parser, isn't?
> Those clouds are very nice. I think instead of asking the parser to do
> the whole job and inserting JS, it would better be added by a JS (will
> only show to JS browsers anyway). It is even possible now... fulling the
> Monobook.js of almost-unused code. What about doing a
> MediaWiki:articlejs/<PAGENAME> include (if exists) for each article?

Well my graphic makes most sense if it's inside the article; silhouette
animations on the other hand might be better in a popup-window when you
click its "thumbnail" graphic. Especially when the animation is simply
much larger than a usual picture.

But again on the other hand you might also make such interactive
graphics nearly as broad as the article text, i.e. they are placed in
the middle and dividing the text. The disadvantage of them is that they
fairly increase the size of the HTML code.

Of course it would be also somehow nice if you might be able to store
interactive graphics as one file in the Wikimedia Commons as if they
were Flash animations; on the other hand in most cases you will have to
localize them, therefore you'd get a new file for each language
Wikipedia is available which is not very sensible-like, because in many
cases an interactive graphic would be used only once from a single
article...


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] How to reference Wikipedia? Add "possibly".

body:
Obviously I'm speculating a bit, but I noticed this sentence in a
recent article in The Age, about a death from the Eastern Brown Snake,
in Australia:

"It is possibly the second-most venomous land snake in the world after
the inland taipan, which is also an Australian snake."

Our article on the snake has this sentence:
"The Eastern Brown Snake is the second most venomous land snake in the
world after the Inland Taipan.[1] "

I wonder if the principle here is that if you don't want to admit
you're sourcing from Wikipedia, you just add "possibly" :) Even when,
interestingly enough, we actually had a source for that sentence:
Steve Irwin's website :)

Steve


body:
May I disagree with this reasoning?

That the italian law disapproves of fair use makes it only more
compelling to find truly free images.

On the Dutch wiki we abolished fair use over a year ago, and it is my
wish the english wiki would do so as well: they are basically not
free. Forbidding them makes people more anxious to go hunting for
them. Or creating them.

Replacing fair use with NC is no real solution. I hear people
complaining about the need for air use all the time. There may be a
few cases (screenshots of commercial programs, photos of people who
died recently) for which no free alternative can be created. But
mostly  free alternatives can potentially be created.

teun

On 1/15/07, senpai <wikisenpai at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem is, that, some people here in ML, said that we can't use not
> free images. A picture that is PD only in the italian territory is, for some
> persons that have writed here, not free. The only thing that is important to
> me is the equity by the different language projects. If en.wiki can use the
> fair use images (that are not free) we must can use the "authorized" images
> and the CC-NC.
>
> Senpai
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:23 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week
>
> > senpai wrote:
> >
> >>May be they cant' be so much thing in other country... but they can be in
> >>italy. I don't know if u know well or not the basics rules of procedural
> >>penal "civil law" system. In genral... if an italian people upload some
> >>images (like the one that u have take for the example) on commons, and
> >>that
> >>images must have an authorization, is not important if the commons servers
> >>are in florida or in italy or in another country, the italian people is
> >>under the italian penal law. Idem if an american people upload that images
> >>on commons and an italian people use this images.... U can't upload
> >>somthing
> >>with "PD" or CC-by (for example), on commons if not in all states u can
> >>use
> >>that materials. Commons, for that reason, had deleted all images that was
> >>tagged with "PD-Italy"... than... wich is the difference ?
> >>
> > Commons is a different project, and there is some sense to their
> > stricter rules.  Unless I misunderstand something "PD-Italy" means that
> > it is in the public domain in Italy.  (Has Italy accepted for copyrights
> > to last for life + 70 years, like the rest of the EU, or is it still
> > life + 50?)  If it is in the public domain in Italy I don't see why you
> > can't just upload it directly to it:wp instead of putting it into
> > commons.  If Italian law does not allow you to photograph a painting by
> > Botticelli in the museum in Florence this has nothing to do with
> > copyright, but is something else.
> >
> >>For other thing... i qoute Snowdog, if u want a free wikipedia, REALLY
> >>free... ok  u have to abandon the fair use, and we will abandon all not
> >>free
> >>images.
> >>
> >>
> > I think that many people will not accept that because they see it as
> > some kind of blackmail.  What the Italian language project does, and
> > what the English project does have nothing to do with each other.  In
> > Mexico copyrights last for 100 years after a person's death.  Keeping
> > everyone back because one country has such a longer term makes no sense.
> >
> > Ec
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Matthew Taylor entry mentioned in Daily Telegraph
	feature

body:
On 1/14/07, Jem Stone <jemstone66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Then he blinks in surprise at a blurred snapshot of
> him with his arms around two girls in a snow-covered Southampton
> street in 1982.
>

Hmm anyone belive the copyright status on that image?

--
geni


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant deletionism

body:
I'd agree with Stephen right now. Merge it for now and give it its own
article when it is actually named.

Mgm

On 1/15/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/15/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The right time for an article is when the object reaches notability
> > and is no longer a crystal-ball projection.  These ships, on order,
> > with plans agreed to between the builder and Carnival, are no longer
> > crystal ball projections, and are clearly big enough to be notable.
>
> It's also nice to have enough material to constitute a reasonable
> article, in the absence of which it's probably the right time for a
> merge and redirect.
>
> > If we take the flip side of this, we have large articles for the
> > [[Airbus A380]] and [[Boeing 787]] jets, and the [[Airbus A350]]...
>
> Those three things also have names, which I think is a pretty useful
> detail for an article to have. Readers looking for information on this
> subject are much more likely to find it if we put it at [[Carnival
> Cruise Lines]] than if we put it at [[Un-Named Carnival Ship]].
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:40:25 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>
>> A least one problem I envision with such MH Articles in WP is the fact that
>> you would, in some cases, have patients writing the textbook. There are many
>> aspects of mental, emotional, and behavioral conditions that are beyond some
>> persons? ability to accept. In the very first month that I signed on as a WP
>> editor I encountered such a problem. I wanted to upgrade an existing Article
>> on a chemical dependency-related subject, and immediately encountered strong
>> resistance from another editor. I was attempting to emphasize the disease
>> component of the condition, but the editor refused to acknowledge this fact.
>> Being very new to WP, after a least a week of back and forth with this
>> editor, of endless diatribes by them, and every one on my edits being
>> changed, I finally gave up, left the Article, and haven?t looked back since.
>>
> One emotion that this will not evoke in me is surprise.  ;-)
>
>> I have practiced (one day I may get it right :-) ) in the fields of Clinical
>> Psychology and Psychotherapy for 42 years now. I wanted to bring some
>> expertise to the Articles in WP related to my fields, but have backed away.
>>
>> I would love to see more, well-written Articles on all aspects of MH in the
>> encyclopedia. I believe they should be written by persons schooled in the
>> fields, and should be written so that any sentient person could understand
>> it. For me, the true measure of an ?expert? in something is his or her
>> ability to explain it to someone who isn?t.
>>
> I'm just glad that I'm not writing in this field.  While most fields
> already have the dynamic tension between well-meaning but unschooled
> amateurs and professionals the inertia of whose schooling may have
> involved accepting certain assumptions withut question, mental health
> can also involve people who refuse to accept reality on a more personal
> level.  They can too easily show the respect level of a scientologist.

Scientology: the denial system for the ages.
>
> Still, some amateurs are careful in their research, and some
> professionals do not feel offended when their assumptions are questioned.

The only assumption I ever make in my work is: if the person is experiencing
pain it is a signal there is something wrong. My role is to locate the
source of that pain and try to eliminate it. If a person presents with a
knife sticking out of their belly, or a bone is protruding though their
skin, the diagnosis of the source is rather simple. In Mental Health (MH)
which needs to be distinguished from Emotional Health (EH) [another subject
for another time] the search for the source can (and is) much more complex.
It also carries with it a factor not present in most med/surg conditions ?
cultural stigma.

?Assumption? is a slippery word in my field. In the field of physics, if I
drop an object from a height in our atmosphere, one can reasonably assume it
is going to end up on the ground. This ?assumption? becomes a fact by doing
it. And, there are zillions of incidents in the past that can be pointed to
as verification of that fact. ?Facts? (such as they are) in the field of
Clinical Psychology are based on countless case histories of persons who
have presented with similar symptoms and behaviors, and have responded well
to similar therapies resulting in wellness. And this is not absolute. The
one vital ingredient necessary to consider here are the instincts the
professional caregiver.

The important issue in our context here, as I see it, is that we are trying
to write an encyclopedia of fact, not opinion. If an expert (ouch, yes, I
used the word) in a field writes facts in that field as they know them to
be, I believe it presents a problem when a non-expert (there I did it again)
edits out those facts, and substitutes their opinion.

If the above constitutes a diatribe, so be it. If you don?t want to hear the
bell, don?t push the button :-).

>
>> I would also like to see links to biographies of persons in the encyclopedia
>> who have suffered from these conditions.
>>
> I think this last point would run into Wikipedia's verifiability
> meat-grinder.

My intent here was to enable persons suffering from these conditions to
understand they are not alone. However, I agree it would create a citation
as well as confidentiality nightmare. Oh well, nice thought.
>
> Ec
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> Excessively long plot summaries of films and books can constitute a
> copyright violation because while they're not an exact copy, they damage
> intellectual rights of the copyrighted material.

Could you back that up, please? As I understand it, this is way too
broad an interpretation of copyright law. It's only illegal to actually
_copy_ something that's copyrighted, not to merely do something that
reduces its "value."

> Can't the same apply to
> summarizing a magic trick manual to the point while the text is not a copy
> it still violates the copyright of the text?

I don't see how. Copyright covers a specific tangible expression, not
the underlying ideas contained within it. One can make a movie out of a
book and then have the book be in public domain while the movie remains
copyrighted, for example. I think the sort of IP protection you're
thinking of is more along the lines of trade secret or patent law, which
as far as I can tell don't apply here.

Wikipedia has no obligation to keep other people's secrets (possibly
with some exceptions in biographical articles, I guess). One need merely
take a glance through the Scientology articles to see that.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page (sic)

body:
It might be just me, but I don't think a movie or book titled "Main Page"
would actually get sold to a editor or studio representative. Titles are key
to drawing in an audience, and when someone came to me with that as a title,
I'd ask them to change it.

Mgm

On 1/14/07, PeruvianLlama <peruvianllama at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Luna wrote:
> > Right. But since we're obviously going to need such a redirect, what do
> we
> > gain from moving Main Page? It's a lot of work for...?
> >
> The idea would be that such a redirect would be temporary. The problem
> of having Main_Page in the namespace wouldn't be solved overnight, or
> even in a matter of days. But at least it would be solved a year (or 6
> months, or whatever) down the road. That's a long time, but like I said,
> I haven't seen anyone claiming that this is really any kind of an
> immediate worry. It's just a good idea for the sake of long-term
> consistency.
>
> If we wait until the movie/book/etc. called "Main Page" is made and
> suddenly wants to be in that article page, then we no longer have the
> luxury of doing things at a reasonable pace. Then it really will be a
> big issue to update all of our internal links, and to hope that external
> links update quickly enough. If we're proactive about this, we might be
> saving ourselves a headache. At worst, like I said, we're at least being
> consistent.
>
>
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > And it still doesn't open up the page for any potential films, books or
> > articles on anything else, because leaving a redirect is what we need to
> not
> > kill incoming links from outside of Wikipedia.
> > Mgm
> Not immediately no, but it opens up the possibility of doing so in the
> future. After a year we can drop the redirect, since most/all of the
> external links will have updated. Those that haven't, well, a broken
> link or three isn't going to bring either Wikipedia or the internet at
> large to its knees. The reason I posted this idea was because the main
> three objections to moving appeared to be:
> 1) It will be too big a strain on the servers to move such a big page
> 2) It will be too much of a hassle to update internal links
> 3) It will be too much of a hassle to update external links
>
> I think that if it came to it, we could enlist the help of devs or other
> technical wizardry to eliminate the hurdles of objection #1. Objection
> #2 has already been rebutted. I was taking aim at objection #3.
>
> There isn't any wildly important reason to move Main_Page somewhere
> else, and I say again, it certainly isn't a terribly time-sensitive
> issue. But on the other hand, there don't seem to be any wildly
> important reasons to _not_ move Main_Page, other than things being too
> much of a hassle.
>
> Cheers,
> - PeruvianLlama
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Alex Powell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Falcon

body:
I didn't mean for text, though that was the logical conclusion. I mean for
the image and media repositories. SVN seems to be quite good and managing
deltas between binaries these days...

On 1/14/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Alex Powell escribi?:
> > Something that occured to me that might be a good idea (TM) is to link
> up to
> > subversion for the file repositories. This would have big space
> benefits, as
> > only deltas would be stored, and give a more powerful view to the data.
>
> Storing diffs was talked before. It wasn't an improve, as space would be
> similar to the compressed text it's used now. And using the deltas to
> the full article source could be large for some articles.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
geni wrote:
> You forget that there have been people who make their living comeing
> up with new tricks. You've also got the problem of the poor guy
> faceing a bunck of kids who know how the trick is done (kids are hard
> enough to deal with in any case).

Why does Wikipedia have an obligation to support the people who make
their living coming up with new tricks? And if we do, why doesn't that
obligation extend to supporting the people who make their living selling
commercial encyclopedias?


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

MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record:
> On 1/15/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> I don't see how. Copyright covers a specific tangible expression, not
>> the underlying ideas contained within it. One can make a movie out of a
>> book and then have the book be in public domain while the movie remains
>> copyrighted, for example. I think the sort of IP protection you're
>> thinking of is more along the lines of trade secret or patent law, which
>> as far as I can tell don't apply here.
>
>
> That's why I'm mentioning the instructional videos and/or manuals as the
> tangible expressed bit of the magic. The written instructions to magic trick
> are copyrighted - no doubt.
>
> Mgm

And as long as we don't copy "the instructional videos and/or manuals,"
revealing the trick is no more a violation of anything than revealing
that Zeus gets the girl is a violation of anything.

Oh, by the way: Beowulf kills Grendel.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Our strength is as the strength of
 sean at epoptic.com | ten because there are fourteen of us.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFq8o5/SVOiq2uhHMRAoIMAJ94L1QfS66x1YD9XI4+904VEy0OdwCggH3J
Uc7kefiu2L3BYp6QsYt49Ew=
=N1BZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD A7 and software programs

body:
On 1/14/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> 2) people sometimes forget.

True, but you indicated you did it because it was easier. That's why I had a
problem with it.

Mgm


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Navigation popups (was: Re: Wikipedia with
	geo-browsing and AJAX)

body:
On 1/15/07, en: Firefoxman <enwpmail at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why not make it an opt-in on your userprefs page?

Why not opt-out? If it's a good feature, we should take the step of
giving it to people by default. If it's too intrusive, perhaps we can
finetune it?

Steve


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to stop that gaping mouth of an edit box?

body:
2007/1/14, Dan Jacobson <jidanni at jidanni.org>:
>
> Is there any way I can stop that gaping mouth of an edit box on empty
> category pages??
>

Create the pages, but give them an empty content.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 1/15/07, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> WEll, it totally depends on the culture you've made regarding unit
> tests. Here, it's "Oh, it's unreasonable to think that all the
> parsertests will pass" but in other places its "Unit tests are super
> important and no development goes forward until all tests pass". I
> myself fall into the latter camp.

In case you didn't notice, though, 18 of the 19 failing tests are
actually unimplemented features, not regressions.  :)  Maybe it would
be best if we removed the TODOs altogether.  Then we would get,
appropriately, passes when we have no regressions, and failures on
regressions.  People might actually even notice when regressions crop
up!  (How long has that 1887 part 2 thing been regressed?)


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Little Napoleans

body:
On 1/13/07, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> > From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> >
> > On 1/13/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >> 'I've run afoul of the rules lawyers on Wikipedia many times. It's
> >> getting to the point where >you can't even say the sky is blue
> >> without one of these little Napoleans squawking, "Original
> >> >research! Need citation!"'
> >
> > Problem is whith that classic example is that the sky often isn't
> > blue. It spends a fair bit of time being black with white bits.
> > Depending on where you are grey may be popular and red/pink may appear
> > as much as twice a day.
>
> Yeah, and remember the song from South Pacific: "When the sky is a
> bright canary yellow/I forget every cloud I've ever seen./So they
> call me a cockeyed optimist,/Immature and incurably green..."
>
> Actually, I've been brooding about this topic since it came up last
> year, and I've been troubled by the meta-question:
>
> WHY is "the sky is blue" taken as the emblematic unchallengeable
> fact, since it's not even close to being true?
>
> I think the answer is that we've been brainwashed by being _told_ in
> elementary school that "the sky is blue," and we continue to believe
> it as having some quality of magical truth to it, even though we can
> see with our own eyes that it is false.

Or perhaps because when the sky *is* blue, it's so universally true: it
doesn't take any formal training or cultural reference or even particularly
sharp observation skills to determine that the sky is a particular color,
and to eventually figure out that color is associated with the absence of
clouds and storms. I'm reaching here, being no meteorologist, but I'd
imagine that every person everywhere who can see the sky has at some point
in their life seen it be a blue color. If true, this then is closer than
most things to being an universal shared external experience. Sky color is a
convenient reference (it's always there, after all), and thus a highly
convenient metaphor: it's not that anyone is literally talking about the
sky, any more than a child's drawing is a completely accurate portrait of
something. It's rather a good way to insert {{universally recognized
metaphor here so you have some idea of how I feel about this other thing
that I'm actually talking about}}, only in less words. Rather than wonder at
how children learn to view the world in colors, I'm amazed by how kids pick
up verbal metaphors and symbolism so easily.
-- phoebe

--
phoebe ayers | brassratgirl /at/ gmail.com |
"Reading, almost as much as breathing, is our essential function." --
Alberto Manguel


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page

body:
On 15/01/07, en: Firefoxman <enwpmail at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is in violation of [[WP:NAME]]
>
> Firefoxman

Which specific part of [[WP:NAME]] is it in violation of? Could you
please point us to it?

Even if there is such a provision in the naming conventions, the Main
Page is much too important for any such prior decision (by a handful
of people to institute such a convention) to stick without first
consulting a much broader cross-section of the project.

The Main Page has been at its current title since January 2002. Before
that it was called "HomePage", and was also in the main namespace, as
were all user pages (and all talk pages, as subpages). There were no
namespaces.

What is the rationale for shifting the Main Page out of the main
namespace? Is there something else called "Main Page" that deserves an
article that is currently missing out? Is there a technical inability
to produce main-namespace-only article dumps that do not include the
Main Page? Or is it just the same old pedantry?

I look eagerly forward to your response.

~Mark Ryan


body:
> From: "K P" <kpbotany at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:34:32 -0800
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?
>
> On 1/15/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>>> Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:40:25 -0800
>>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?
>>>
>>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>
>>>> A least one problem I envision with such MH Articles in WP is the fact
>> that
>>>> you would, in some cases, have patients writing the textbook. There are
>> many
>>>> aspects of mental, emotional, and behavioral conditions that are beyond
>> some
>>>> persons? ability to accept. In the very first month that I signed on as
>> a WP
>>>> editor I encountered such a problem. I wanted to upgrade an existing
>> Article
>>>> on a chemical dependency-related subject, and immediately encountered
>> strong
>>>> resistance from another editor. I was attempting to emphasize the
>> disease
>>>> component of the condition, but the editor refused to acknowledge this
>> fact.
>>>> Being very new to WP, after a least a week of back and forth with this
>>>> editor, of endless diatribes by them, and every one on my edits being
>>>> changed, I finally gave up, left the Article, and haven?t looked back
>> since.
>>>>
>>> One emotion that this will not evoke in me is surprise.  ;-)
>>>
>>>> I have practiced (one day I may get it right :-) ) in the fields of
>> Clinical
>>>> Psychology and Psychotherapy for 42 years now. I wanted to bring some
>>>> expertise to the Articles in WP related to my fields, but have backed
>> away.
>>>>
>>>> I would love to see more, well-written Articles on all aspects of MH in
>> the
>>>> encyclopedia. I believe they should be written by persons schooled in
>> the
>>>> fields, and should be written so that any sentient person could
>> understand
>>>> it. For me, the true measure of an ?expert? in something is his or her
>>>> ability to explain it to someone who isn?t.
>>>>
>>> I'm just glad that I'm not writing in this field.  While most fields
>>> already have the dynamic tension between well-meaning but unschooled
>>> amateurs and professionals the inertia of whose schooling may have
>>> involved accepting certain assumptions withut question, mental health
>>> can also involve people who refuse to accept reality on a more personal
>>> level.  They can too easily show the respect level of a scientologist.
>>
>> Scientology: the denial system for the ages.
>>>
>>> Still, some amateurs are careful in their research, and some
>>> professionals do not feel offended when their assumptions are
>> questioned.
>>
>> The only assumption I ever make in my work is: if the person is
>> experiencing
>> pain it is a signal there is something wrong. My role is to locate the
>> source of that pain and try to eliminate it. If a person presents with a
>> knife sticking out of their belly, or a bone is protruding though their
>> skin, the diagnosis of the source is rather simple. In Mental Health (MH)
>> which needs to be distinguished from Emotional Health (EH) [another
>> subject
>> for another time] the search for the source can (and is) much more
>> complex.
>> It also carries with it a factor not present in most med/surg conditions ?
>> cultural stigma.
>>
>> ?Assumption? is a slippery word in my field. In the field of physics, if I
>> drop an object from a height in our atmosphere, one can reasonably assume
>> it
>> is going to end up on the ground. This ?assumption? becomes a fact by
>> doing
>> it. And, there are zillions of incidents in the past that can be pointed
>> to
>> as verification of that fact. ?Facts? (such as they are) in the field of
>> Clinical Psychology are based on countless case histories of persons who
>> have presented with similar symptoms and behaviors, and have responded
>> well
>> to similar therapies resulting in wellness. And this is not absolute. The
>> one vital ingredient necessary to consider here are the instincts the
>> professional caregiver.
>>
>> The important issue in our context here, as I see it, is that we are
>> trying
>> to write an encyclopedia of fact, not opinion. If an expert (ouch, yes, I
>> used the word) in a field writes facts in that field as they know them to
>> be, I believe it presents a problem when a non-expert (there I did it
>> again)
>> edits out those facts, and substitutes their opinion.
>
>
> Yes, this is problematic, but if the "experts" use so much jargon that the
> lay reader cannot use the article, which is often the case, then it's as
> good as no article, because experts probably aren't consulting Wikipedia for
> information in their field.  This is another area where it is hard to get
> some Wikipedia editors to see the problem, that using jargon, first isn't
> necessary, and that second, blue-linking jargon doesn't make it acceptable,
> and that third, if you can't explain it without the jargon maybe someone
> else should be writing it.
>
> KP

KP,

I absolutely agree with you. As I said somewhere else, the real test of an
"expert" is their ability to explain something to someone who isn't. There
are many, many fields I don't have a technical clue about, but I do have the
curiosity to want to know something about. Therefore, my questions are going
to be very basic ones, and it's a joy to come across a source that has the
ability to answer these basic question in terms I can understand.

In Wikipedia, if an Article is written by an "expert" in the field, and it
cannot be understood by someone who is not, it should be edited by another
"expert" in that field with the ability to make it understood.

MR
>
>
>
>
>
> If the above constitutes a diatribe, so be it. If you don?t want to hear the
>> bell, don?t push the button :-).
>>
>>>
>>>> I would also like to see links to biographies of persons in the
>> encyclopedia
>>>> who have suffered from these conditions.
>>>>
>>> I think this last point would run into Wikipedia's verifiability
>>> meat-grinder.
>>
>> My intent here was to enable persons suffering from these conditions to
>> understand they are not alone. However, I agree it would create a citation
>> as well as confidentiality nightmare. Oh well, nice thought.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page

body:
On 15/01/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> We are not a .com.

We used to be.

~Mark Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Merging policy

body:
On 1/14/07, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Our merging policy currently states that text-dump mergers are considered
> as
> acceptable progress, although this was met with criticism last time it was
> brought up on the mailing list. Is such procedure still acceptable? My
> thoughts are that if text dump mergers are acceptable, then perhaps
> significant headway could be made into the merge backlog with a semi-bot
> of
> some sort. Please comment.

If you read all of the paragaph that you quote, it says:

"Simply dumping the text from one page onto another *is* progress, because
it puts all of the information on the same topic on the same page. This,
however, seldom results in a smooth-flowing article. Fixing that may require
a great deal of time and rewriting. If you can do that, terrific! Future
readers will greatly benefit from your contribution. If you do not have the
time or expertise to do so, please tag the article for attention; select a
template from Wikipedia:Cleanup
resources<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup_resources>,
such as {{cleanup <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cleanup>}} or {{
cleanup <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cleanup>|January 2007}}
(using the current month and year as the parameter)."

In other words, you're only halfway there if you do a text dump merger: you
end up with one article, but it's worse than it was before, and it will need
further cleanup. Considering that the {{cleanup}} backlog is even worse than
the merge backlog, producing lots of merged pages that need to be cleaned up
seems like it would be going nowhere fast. True, it's work to do mergers by
hand (and we could certainly improve the instructions on how to do them) but
you do get everything done in one go, and often end up with a much better
article in the end (since obvious merge candidates are often not the best
quality to begin with).

So, I'd be inclined to take that entire paragraph out. I also wish that I
could invent a cluestick that would keep people from just redirecting pages
without making an attempt to merge in useful content, but sadly that's
probably not possible.

-- phoebe (brassratgirl)


from_name: gwern branwen

body:
On 1/15/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> In a previous discussion it was determined that most magic tricks aren't
> patented (for fear of revealing the method) or copyrighted (only the way
> it's written down in a book or recorded on a DVD or video is copyrighted).
> However, isn't exposure of commercially available effects considered
> [[piracy]] then?
>
> Mgm

Isn't the correct paradigm here not copyright law but rather [[Trade
secret]]s <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret>?

"A company can protect its confidential information through
non-compete non-disclosure contracts with its employees. The law of
protection of confidential information effectively allows a perpetual
monopoly in secret information - it does not expire as would a patent.
The lack of formal protection, however, means that a third party is
not prevented from independently duplicating and using the secret
information once it is discovered."

If it is appearing on Wikipedia, it seems to me that the third party
has manifestly discovered it; if they are complaining about it
appearing on Wikipedia, then they are crying over spilt milk/trying to
put the genie back into the bottle/cat into the bag, etc.

--Gwern


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 1/15/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Excessively long plot summaries of films and books can constitute a
> copyright violation because while they're not an exact copy, they damage
> intellectual rights of the copyrighted material.

In the US, plot summaries of films and books can constitute a
copyright violation because a plot is a copyrightable work.  Copyright
covers copying, not just making exact copies.  Most plot summaries are
fair use.  Some aren't.

Anthony


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is this valid on an userpage? is this other
	on	articles?

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

>Pedro Sanchez wrote:
>
>
>>See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mondrian_CompRYB.jpg
>>is it fair use?
>>
>>
>Fair use depends on what specific use it is being put to, so there's no
>one universal "yes" or "no" answer.
>
This is exactly why fair use presents us with such difficulties.  There
are many instances where uses that would likely be recognized as fair
use by the courts, are not acceptable as fair use in Wikipedia.  This is
a matter risk tolerance, and how much of a safety margin some of us feel
comfortable with.  Naturally, that varies with the individual.

>>it's used on a bazillion userpages
>>
>>
>Fair use of images on user pages is never permitted, in accordance with
>item number 9 at
>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use#Policy]. This image
>appears to be so widespread in userspace because it was in a userbox at
>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:1ne/Userboxes/User_abstractions] so
>I've removed it from there.
>
They are never permitted on the English Wikipedia.  The rule could be
different in the Portuguese Wikipedia.

>>how about using them in galleries?
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abstract_art&diff=100274330&oldid=99549887
>>
>>
>To be valid fair use the article should be about that specific image in
>some significant way. If there was a paragraph or section of the article
>addressing it, perhaps - though in that case it would make more sense to
>have the image presented individually in that paragraph or section. I'd
>say it's best to assume not when the case is in doubt.
>
This, of course, reflects the English Wikipedia subset of fair use rules.

>Some editors are hypersensitive about this sort of thing. I still can't
>figure out why the original image of the O RLY? owl isn't fair use in
>the article [[O RLY?]], but endless battle isn't worth it.
>
This photo may be in the public domain by abandonment.  This would
happen when an otherwise copyright item has been widely re-distributed
for a long time, and the copyright owner does nothing about it.  This
photo was taken by a professional wildlife photographer who should have
a basic understanding of the rules.  He uploaded the photo himself.  Is
there any record of his complaining about its general use?

This is an argument that I would use with extreme caution.  I would
define "long time" in this to be at least three years, that being the
U.S. statutory limitation period for launching copyright infringement
complaints in the courts.

Ec


from_name: Marco Chiesa

body:
David Strauss wrote:

>While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
>content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
>allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
>
>Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
>for fair-use media?
>
>
>
To be honest, I agree only to a certain point. Fair use means using a
copyrighted media without asking the permission to the owner, with the
justification that there's not much else you can do. Now, what is the
problem if, in order to illustrate the same thing, you use a NC media
because that's the freest you can get. You're using a NC material that
you think it qualifies as fair use. You put a fair use tag, I put a NC
tag because fair use is helpless to me.

I agree that if you can have a free media for something, then you
shouldn't use a non-free one. And I can understand the idea that if  you
need to illustrate something for which no free media is available, you
may consider using a non-free one using a fair use justification. What
is the problem if THAT media for which you claim fair use has a licence
which is not free enough (i.e. a NC tag)?

Marco


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> In a previous discussion it was determined that most magic tricks aren't
> patented (for fear of revealing the method) or copyrighted (only the way
> it's written down in a book or recorded on a DVD or video is copyrighted).
> However, isn't exposure of commercially available effects considered
> [[piracy]] then?

I don't see how. It's possible that stealing someone else's trick for
your magic show might be piracy, but describing a trick in an
encyclopedia article shouldn't be. We're not reproducing the trick,
just describing it.


body:
> Hmm anyone belive the copyright status on that image?

I'm doubtful... the uploader's only edits are to his user page and
that image... it looks like he didn't even add it to the article.
While it's possible he took the photo, I would expect some kind of
statement to that effect beyond the standard template...


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] pda extension ?

body:
On 12/27/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> And let me note here, as I so often do, that I read WP on my Blackberry
> quite frequently, and the combination of page layout and CSS (which my
> browser ignores) works quite well on that size screen, with the stock
> Blackberry browser.
>
> So I'm not sure how much extension it can be said actually to need....

Me too on the blackberry.. although it's very frustrating that some of
our pages are over the blackberry's maximum page size and it refuses
to load the page at all.


body:
teun spaans wrote:

>>The biggest error I see here is that people are trying to limit language
>>versions of Wikipedia so that they comply with the laws of the country
>>where the language is primarily spoken. But that's fruitless. The
>>Italian Wikipedia (hosted in Florida) isn't under Italian law just
>>because it's in Italian. Nor are Italian citizens liable for something
>>on the Italian Wikipedia just because the page is in Italian.
>>
>>
>I politely disagree. When the person doing something has the Italian
>nationality, and the person commits the act from italian territory,
>and the claiment is italian, an italian judge might well decide to
>consider the claim, despite the servers being in the us.
>
"Commits the act from italian territory" is the important one.  Italian
nationality should not matter; if a foreigner travelling in Italy with
his laptop uploads a copyvio image while he is there would he not be
liable?  An Italian claimant could even start a case against a foreigner
in an Italian court even if that foreigner had never set foot in Italy.
The judge might even convict him in absentia, but getting him to Italy
to face the punishment is another matter.  Similar things have happened
in English courts, and the United States has refused to honour
international orders on such things.  Also the cost of getting him to
Italy to collect a fine may be more than the fine itself.

We still need to distinguish between Italian language and Italian
nationality.  The language of the writing has nothing to do with this.
An Italian resident writing in English is still liable, and a foreign
resident writing in Italian (or a minor language of Italy) remains safe.

Ec


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia Day Art Contest

body:
Yay! It's Wikipedia Day again! Rejoice!

And just to give you a little help with that, Wikimedia Foundation and
deviantART.com bring you the Wikipedia Day Art Contest:

http://news.deviantart.com/article/25101/

We ask deviantART users to submit an artistic representation of "a
world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of
all knowledge." If you couldn't visualize the idea till now, the
entries in this contest are bound to change that!

You will see the entries shortly (I hope) under:
* http://browse.deviantart.com/projects/contests/2007/wikipediaday/wikipediaother/?order=5
(images)
* http://browse.deviantart.com/projects/contests/2007/wikipediaday/wikipedialit/?order=5
(literature)

Please, spread the word to your local Wikipedia communities and join
the fun if you have an account on deviantART (if you don't you can
easily create one for free).

Hope you have a blast out of this! Happy editing and keep on dreaming!

Questions? Ask away.

--
?ukasz 'TOR' Garczewski


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 15/01/07, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Strauss wrote:
>
> >While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
> >content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
> >allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
> >
> >Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
> >for fair-use media?
> >
> >
> >
> To be honest, I agree only to a certain point. Fair use means using a
> copyrighted media without asking the permission to the owner, with the
> justification that there's not much else you can do. Now, what is the
> problem if, in order to illustrate the same thing, you use a NC media
> because that's the freest you can get. You're using a NC material that
> you think it qualifies as fair use. You put a fair use tag, I put a NC
> tag because fair use is helpless to me.
>
> I agree that if you can have a free media for something, then you
> shouldn't use a non-free one. And I can understand the idea that if  you
> need to illustrate something for which no free media is available, you
> may consider using a non-free one using a fair use justification. What
> is the problem if THAT media for which you claim fair use has a licence
> which is not free enough (i.e. a NC tag)?

In theory, we require that material used under fair-use has full
source and copyright details. It would seems sensible to interpret
this to cover including a reference to any non-free license or
conditions, of whatever form, if there is one.

Are people removing NC tags and replacing them with fair-use, rather
than additionally qualifying them with fair-use? (I honestly don't
know) We should probably look into that.

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


body:
senpai wrote:

>No, You can't modify a "fair use" image.
>
Disagree.  U. S. rulings have allowed for parody.  You may wish to crop
an image to zoom into a detail that is important to your article.  You
may want to do an overlay to show the similarities between two people.
You may want to do colour separations.  I could probably find other
legitimate modifications.

Modifications have more to do with moral rights than copyrights in the
strict sense.  That aspect of the law is not particularly developed in
the U. S.

Ec


list: commons-l

from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] Wikipedia Day Art Contest

body:
For a short time it has been possible to license your art wok under a
CC license on DeviantArt. I therefore ask the artists from DeviantArt
to license the art they create for Wikipedia under the Creative
Commons Attribution or the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike, so
that they can be also shared on Wikimedia Commons.

Bryan, [[commons:User:Bryan]], ~bryan-t

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing

On 1/15/07, ?ukasz Garczewski <lgarczewski at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yay! It's Wikipedia Day again! Rejoice!
>
> And just to give you a little help with that, Wikimedia Foundation and
> deviantART.com bring you the Wikipedia Day Art Contest:
>
> http://news.deviantart.com/article/25101/
>
> We ask deviantART users to submit an artistic representation of "a
> world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of
> all knowledge." If you couldn't visualize the idea till now, the
> entries in this contest are bound to change that!
>
> You will see the entries shortly (I hope) under:
> * http://browse.deviantart.com/projects/contests/2007/wikipediaday/wikipediaother/?order=5
> (images)
> * http://browse.deviantart.com/projects/contests/2007/wikipediaday/wikipedialit/?order=5
> (literature)
>
> Please, spread the word to your local Wikipedia communities and join
> the fun if you have an account on deviantART (if you don't you can
> easily create one for free).
>
> Hope you have a blast out of this! Happy editing and keep on dreaming!
>
> Questions? Ask away.
>
> --
> ?ukasz 'TOR' Garczewski
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
In a previous discussion it was determined that most magic tricks aren't
patented (for fear of revealing the method) or copyrighted (only the way
it's written down in a book or recorded on a DVD or video is copyrighted).
However, isn't exposure of commercially available effects considered
[[piracy]] then?

Mgm


from_name: Ivan Lanin

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [19286]
	trunk/extensions/Contributors/Contributors.php

body:
Thanks for the explanation :)

I put the comments (and urls, if any) on the extensions that I use,
and I love seeing the Special:Version looks complete on my sites. And
since I always using the latest version from the SVN, I really don't
know how it looks on <1.9. I'm going to set up a test site using one
of the old versions to see how it looks.

IRL.

On 1/15/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15/01/07, ivanlanin at svn.wikimedia.org <ivanlanin at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Note: Please revert if this breaks the backward compatibility of this extension.
>
> Ack! Sorry if my earlier mini-rant scared you off - it doesn't
> actually break anything, it just looks a bit peculiar in MediaWiki <
> 1.9.0.
>
> You'll typically know if you make a breaking change to some of my code
> because I'll get even more sarcastic and hideous than usual and
> probably revert you with something snide.
>
>
> Rob Church
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] African maps

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>geni wrote:
>
>
>>On 1/14/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>geni wrote:
>>>IOW you support indiscriminate inclusion.
>>>
>>>
>>Not exactly. I don't support say random party photos. However scans of
>>historic documents are worth includeing.
>>
>>
>Agreed. For a better explanation, see
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Project_scope
>
My position does not conflict with this.  The rules would allow us to do
this.  Similarly, the rules may allow us to data dump all of Project
Gutenberg into Wikisource.  I don't think that that would be the best
use of time and resources, and it could be seen by some as improperly
encroaching on their territory.

Ec


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> However, isn't exposure of commercially available effects considered
> [[piracy]] then?

and

> But it's still making material freely available that should be paid for to
> start with.

What did you mean by "should"? Making information freely available is part of
why Wikipedia exists and why Wikipedia is a good thing. Sharing information is
not normally termed "piracy" when it does not transgress IP law.[1]

As far as I'm aware, the only general argument against exposure on Wikipedia is
an ethical one (presuming we otherwise have reliable sources, don't copy and
paste text etc.) But Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of magicians.

-- Matt

[1] And you might not wish to term it "piracy" even when it does transgress IP
law, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Inbox full of unwanted email? Get leading protection and 1GB storage with All New Yahoo! Mail. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html


from_name: teun spaans

body:
Marco,

I understand your point of view.

But consider this question: if both the german and the dutch wiki can
do without fair use, or local equivalent, why would the italian wiki
need a NC substitute for fair use?

teun

On 1/15/07, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Strauss wrote:
>
> >While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
> >content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
> >allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
> >
> >Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
> >for fair-use media?
> >
> >
> >
> To be honest, I agree only to a certain point. Fair use means using a
> copyrighted media without asking the permission to the owner, with the
> justification that there's not much else you can do. Now, what is the
> problem if, in order to illustrate the same thing, you use a NC media
> because that's the freest you can get. You're using a NC material that
> you think it qualifies as fair use. You put a fair use tag, I put a NC
> tag because fair use is helpless to me.
>
> I agree that if you can have a free media for something, then you
> shouldn't use a non-free one. And I can understand the idea that if  you
> need to illustrate something for which no free media is available, you
> may consider using a non-free one using a fair use justification. What
> is the problem if THAT media for which you claim fair use has a licence
> which is not free enough (i.e. a NC tag)?
>
> Marco
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Pilotguy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page (sic)

body:
Indeed. Keep it the way it is now. There's no harm being done anyway.

On 1/15/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anyway, we can always create these articles as [[Main Page (book)]],
> [[Main Page (film)]] and so on. It really is a non-issue - there's no
> definite reason to move our Main Page.
>
> Jm2p...
>
> On 1/15/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It might be just me, but I don't think a movie or book titled "Main
> Page"
> > would actually get sold to a editor or studio representative. Titles are
> key
> > to drawing in an audience, and when someone came to me with that as a
> title,
> > I'd ask them to change it.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
> >
> > On 1/14/07, PeruvianLlama <peruvianllama at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Luna wrote:
> > > > Right. But since we're obviously going to need such a redirect, what
> do
> > > we
> > > > gain from moving Main Page? It's a lot of work for...?
> > > >
> > > The idea would be that such a redirect would be temporary. The problem
> > > of having Main_Page in the namespace wouldn't be solved overnight, or
> > > even in a matter of days. But at least it would be solved a year (or 6
> > > months, or whatever) down the road. That's a long time, but like I
> said,
> > > I haven't seen anyone claiming that this is really any kind of an
> > > immediate worry. It's just a good idea for the sake of long-term
> > > consistency.
> > >
> > > If we wait until the movie/book/etc. called "Main Page" is made and
> > > suddenly wants to be in that article page, then we no longer have the
> > > luxury of doing things at a reasonable pace. Then it really will be a
> > > big issue to update all of our internal links, and to hope that
> external
> > > links update quickly enough. If we're proactive about this, we might
> be
> > > saving ourselves a headache. At worst, like I said, we're at least
> being
> > > consistent.
> > >
> > >
> > > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > > > And it still doesn't open up the page for any potential films, books
> or
> > > > articles on anything else, because leaving a redirect is what we
> need to
> > > not
> > > > kill incoming links from outside of Wikipedia.
> > > > Mgm
> > > Not immediately no, but it opens up the possibility of doing so in the
> > > future. After a year we can drop the redirect, since most/all of the
> > > external links will have updated. Those that haven't, well, a broken
> > > link or three isn't going to bring either Wikipedia or the internet at
> > > large to its knees. The reason I posted this idea was because the main
> > > three objections to moving appeared to be:
> > > 1) It will be too big a strain on the servers to move such a big page
> > > 2) It will be too much of a hassle to update internal links
> > > 3) It will be too much of a hassle to update external links
> > >
> > > I think that if it came to it, we could enlist the help of devs or
> other
> > > technical wizardry to eliminate the hurdles of objection #1. Objection
> > > #2 has already been rebutted. I was taking aim at objection #3.
> > >
> > > There isn't any wildly important reason to move Main_Page somewhere
> > > else, and I say again, it certainly isn't a terribly time-sensitive
> > > issue. But on the other hand, there don't seem to be any wildly
> > > important reasons to _not_ move Main_Page, other than things being too
> > > much of a hassle.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > - PeruvianLlama
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Gary Kirk
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Pilotguy
pilotguy.wikipedia at gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pilotguy

http://pilotguy.wordpress.com


body:
On 1/15/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> For a short time it has been possible to license your art wok under a
> CC license on DeviantArt. I therefore ask the artists from DeviantArt
> to license the art they create for Wikipedia under the Creative
> Commons Attribution or the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike, so
> that they can be also shared on Wikimedia Commons.

Actually, that's an entry requirement. :) But thank you for that,
proves I was right adding that clause to the rules.

--
?ukasz 'TOR' Garczewski


body:
David Strauss wrote:

>While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
>content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
>allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
>
>Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
>for fair-use media?
>
Absolutely.  The two concepts depend on entirely different threads of
legal thinking.

I strongly support fair use/dealing, but fundamentally think that NC
licences are based on a misapprehension that injects a kind of political
statement into the licence.

Ec


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
"Fair use" is a construct that exists under the US-American law. It does
not exist in exactly the same way under another law. In the Netherlands
for instance there is the more restrictive "citaatrecht". When you
compare "fair use" with "non commercial", you are comparing two things
things that cannot be compared as they are so different.

The argument that "NC" is the freest that you can get makes no
difference really. It puts a restriction to the distribution to our
content. Distribution of our content is what we aim to do.

To me the argument would be different for "ND" or no deviations. This is
a restriction that does not prevent distribution of our content. The
purists will argue that it restricts what you can do with it. That is
true, however what they ignore is that there is content where it is not
possible to have it made to us available. Trademarked logos for instance
cannot be made available under anything but a ND restriction and
probably some other restrictions as well, doing otherwise would destroy
the rights of the trademark holder. At this moment logos are published
under "fair use" or something like this.

Personally I do think that the dogmatic way in which this issue is
ignored is ridiculous. I know of several organisations including the WMF
itself that would be helped with a license that would recognise this and
that would be acceptable on Commons.

Thanks,
     GerardM

Marco Chiesa schreef:
> David Strauss wrote:
>
>
>> While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
>> content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
>> allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
>>
>> Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
>> for fair-use media?
>>
>>
>>
>>
> To be honest, I agree only to a certain point. Fair use means using a
> copyrighted media without asking the permission to the owner, with the
> justification that there's not much else you can do. Now, what is the
> problem if, in order to illustrate the same thing, you use a NC media
> because that's the freest you can get. You're using a NC material that
> you think it qualifies as fair use. You put a fair use tag, I put a NC
> tag because fair use is helpless to me.
>
> I agree that if you can have a free media for something, then you
> shouldn't use a non-free one. And I can understand the idea that if  you
> need to illustrate something for which no free media is available, you
> may consider using a non-free one using a fair use justification. What
> is the problem if THAT media for which you claim fair use has a licence
> which is not free enough (i.e. a NC tag)?
>
> Marco


body:
But it's still making material freely available that should be paid for to
start with.

On 1/15/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In a previous discussion it was determined that most magic tricks aren't
> > patented (for fear of revealing the method) or copyrighted (only the way
> > it's written down in a book or recorded on a DVD or video is
> copyrighted).
> > However, isn't exposure of commercially available effects considered
> > [[piracy]] then?
>
> I don't see how. It's possible that stealing someone else's trick for
> your magic show might be piracy, but describing a trick in an
> encyclopedia article shouldn't be. We're not reproducing the trick,
> just describing it.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>