subject: [WikiEN-l] Removing personal information

body:
--- "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com> wrote:

> This is not a copyright issue. If someone places
> material on Wikipedia, they
> do so, they have the right to do so and as long as
> that information is not
> defamatory or breaking any laws there should be no
> prohibition against
> posting any such information. The persons posting
> information is responsible
> for posting it, not the volunteers nor Jimbo. It is
> the person who has
> posted the information who is responsible for it,
> not the OSP, this seems to
> be the case law that you and I  have been reviewing
> lately James.

Should'nt WP take an stand and defend its users from
prosecution?  There is a movement now dealing with
security issues (since it was recently shown how
invasive profiling can be done with hacking cookies
and web server logs) that websites simply wipe their
ip server logs. (There generally is no good reason not
to) but does WP? And would a legal defense require WP
to keep these logs?

What I mean is: since WP enables the publishing of
stuff --
and then says "this user who did the posting is
responsible, for any infringement not us" (forgeting
about shielding the user for now) -- is WP under some
obligation to keep its ip logs just in case, to
deflect liability?  If these are insufficient-- ( in
the case that some violators may use decent enough
proxies) -- might a court say that WP (since its in
the business of "publishing") must also be in the
business of ID-ing its "users" -- and not simply give
them free reign to pubish?

This was kind of the argument against the centralized
filesharing hubs (ie Napster) wasnt it?  In this case,
might WP run into an eventuality where its existence
as a "Wiki" is a simple contradiction to the
responsibilities demanded by US legal liability?

~S~

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list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Alex R.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Removing personal information was: RE: Copyrighted

body:
 From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
> Alex wrote:
> >...
> >Can I make a complaint to the arbitration committee about that?
>
> As our pro-bono lawyer, why don't you set up a PayPal account so that
people
> can send a few bucks your way in appreciation of your effort? I would if I
> could, but I'm slatted to be laid off by the end of the year so money is
> tight (I work for the state of California and our current governor is a
> moron! I can't wait until Larry Flynt takes office. Even Gary Coleman
would
> be better than Grey Davis. ;).

I have a paypal account, but really it wouldn't be right for me to accept
money for pro bono work. Anyone can give it  to Wikimedia instead and start
the Al My Pal Legal Fund. ;-)

The complaint thing was meant as a joke,  I don't mind lending my expertise
to Wikipedia, really. It's a great place to hang out (a shingle).

Alex756


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Get it working first

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> >Now that the server upgrades are complete and
> >wikimedia.org is up, should we send out Wikimedia's
> >first press release?

Actually, the upgrades are not complete.  There were some installation
issues with some of the hardware that I bought, and larousse (the
upgraded webserver) is now completely dead for reasons that we don't
know yet.

Jason will be headed to San Diego tomorrow or Wednesday to install
some more parts that I'm buying.

So, I agree with Ed -- we need to have the upgraded system in place
for a week or so of reliability before we ask the media to inundate
us with more traffic.  :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brion's notebook

body:
http://leuksman.com/misc/donate

I've made a donation here, and I hope that others will as well.

It is no exagerration to say that everything would have collapsed a
long time ago were it not for Brion's tireless dedication.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] User:Jimbo_Wales/Pushing_To_1.0

body:
No, to clarify, I didn't write that part.  I do think that some things
should not be included in the 1.0 version, but the bulk of the things
listed *should* be included.

--Jimbo


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wording on WikimediaFoundation.org

body:
I think that's a nice change.

Chris Seaton wrote:

> I would suggest
>
> "Although software is free hardware is not, and with just two servers
> donated by Wikimedia founder Jimbo Wales we simply cannot maintain the
> reliability and speed that our projects need."
>
> There's no need to include a copy of the GNU manifesto :)
>
> On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 16:48, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> > Chris, that's a good point: it does LOOK as if running free software is
> > some sort of disadvantage.
> >
> > Please suggest an alternative phrasing which
> > * explains succintly why all our software is "free", and
> > * explains why this is an advantage
> >
> > Feel free to take more than 16 words to do this. ^_^
> >
> > Ed Poor
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> --
> Chris Seaton
>
> chris at chrisseaton.com
> http://www.chrisseaton.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Suspension vs. Ban

body:
There's a difference between a "suspension" and a "ban".

When Erik (aka user:Eloquence) blocked RK from editing, he may or may
not have intended the block to be permanent. However, like all good
sysops he immediately reported the block to the mailing list.

After a brief discussion, the block was lifted. Axelboldt un-blocked RK
less than 24 hours after the original block.

Thus I would say that the blocking had the effect of a "supension": RK's
privilege of editing at www.wikipedia.org was suspended temporarily,
while:

1. He cooled off; and
2. The community discussed whether and how long the block should last.

Ed Poor, aka 'Uncle Ed'


subject: [WikiEN-l] Get it working first

body:
LittleDan suggested:

>Now that the server upgrades are complete and
>wikimedia.org is up, should we send out Wikimedia's
>first press release?

As an software professional I recommend postponing the press release
until:

* the 'upgrade' has been fully tested
* the developers and users are equally impressed with its speed and
reliability

Often new hardware or software works great for a few days before the
first glitch appears. Microsoft is famous (notorious?) for the "Service
Pack 3" phenomenon: they've gotten the reputation that no new software
version is considered reliable until the 3rd "service pack" (i.e., set
of bug fixes) is delivered to customers.

Now our tiny gang of volunteer developers may be more dedicated and
selfless than Microsoft's salaried horde -- but "rush to market" tends
to cause errors. So, I think we should wait a bit.

Ed Poor
Developer, Sysop & Wet Blanket


subject: [Wikitech-l] Get it working first


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: AW: [WikiFR-l] Plantage

body:
Just a forward of a french mail :-)

Vincent was willing to make a donation, but could not.
PayPal apparently requested an American Express (I do
not think many french/Swiss/Belgian people own an
american express).

Ideas ?

> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Vincent Ramos
> [mailto:siva-nataraja at alussinan.org]
> Gesendet: Montag, 6. Oktober 2003 18:41
> An: Liste de diffusion de la Wikip?dia francophone
> Betreff: Re: [WikiFR-l] Plantage
>
>
> Tu, "Dufrenoy, Alexis" <ADufrenoy at mos-ch.com>, de
> profundis clamavisti
> h?c :
>
> > C'est plant?, l?, non ? Je re?ois ?a :
> > Forbidden
> > You don't have permission to access / on this
> server.
>
> 	C'est revenu depuis. La situation semble devenir
> critique. J'ai
> tent? une donation via Paypal, mais ils ne veulent
> plus rien savoir si
> l'on ne poss?de pas une American Express. Damned !
>
> 	Vincent

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from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

body:
> Should'nt WP take an stand and defend its users from
> prosecution?  There is a movement now dealing with
> security issues (since it was recently shown how
> invasive profiling can be done with hacking cookies
> and web server logs) that websites simply wipe their
> ip server logs. (There generally is no good reason
> not
> to) but does WP? And would a legal defense require
> WP
> to keep these logs?
>
Why should we defend our users from procecution? If
they're criminals, why does that matter to us? Why
should we be responsible?

> What I mean is: since WP enables the publishing of
> stuff --
> and then says "this user who did the posting is
> responsible, for any infringement not us" (forgeting
> about shielding the user for now) -- is WP under
> some
> obligation to keep its ip logs just in case, to
> deflect liability?  If these are insufficient-- ( in
> the case that some violators may use decent enough
> proxies) -- might a court say that WP (since its in
> the business of "publishing") must also be in the
> business of ID-ing its "users" -- and not simply
> give
> them free reign to pubish?
>
> This was kind of the argument against the
> centralized
> filesharing hubs (ie Napster) wasnt it?  In this
> case,
> might WP run into an eventuality where its existence
> as a "Wiki" is a simple contradiction to the
> responsibilities demanded by US legal liability?
>
> ~S~

IMHO, we non-lawyers shouldn't question the legal
expertice of a lawyer. He went to law school for three
years; you read one article about Napster in 5
minutes. I'm not saying all lawyers are always right,
there are some lawyers that are corrupt or wrong, but
Alex definitely isn't one of them.

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from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Times They are a'Changin'

body:
"Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com> writes:

> Ray wrote:
>
> "In the cold war era when both sides were ponting nuclear missiles at the
> other it was MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) :-)"
>
> Yes, and didn?t it work?

No it didn't work.  There was no nuclear war, but there were plenty of fair
sizable non-nuclear wars -- the US in Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan
spring to mind -- and the number of civilian casualties (sorry, "collateral
damage") runs into millions.

--
Gareth Owen
"It's not a human or civic right to edit wikipedia."
                                 -- kq cuts to the core of the banning debate


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Copyrighted material on Wikipedia

body:
> To see how Google handles this, take a look at
>
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=kazaa&btnG=Google+Search
> and follow the convenient link they provide to the
> takedown notice, which includes the content they
> have been asked to take down, effectively making it
> available again. That's approximately what the
> history pages here do, though I agree with your
> archive argument and suggest also that the history
> is a working document and not part of the current
> publication, which is the Wikipedia itself, not the
> history of every page in every version. That's well
> illustrated by the many sites making the Wikipedia
> but not the history available.

So, you think that court documents like that should be
kept private?
LDan

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from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jerusalem

body:
On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Anthere wrote:

> Could someone knowledgeable try to have wik and ip
> reach a compromise ?
>
Well, I did step in & point out that they are in a dead lock.
While I tend to favor Wik's side of things, it's clear that he's
lost perspective. (The whole disagreement is over one sentence
that's 10 or 12 words in all, which may be POV & unnecessary
but is childish to fight so hard over.) I'm tempted to lock
the article in the anon's last edit, just to force them to talk.

Then again, my comment to the Talk: page may not be the most
diplomatic addition to this disagreement.

Geoff


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Is it worth getting uploads working on pliny?

body:
Does anyone know how long it will be before larousse comes back online?
Is it worth getting file uploads working on pliny? Is it just a matter
of re-enabling them in PHP, and then resynchronising the files after
larousse comes back on?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
Chris Seaton wrote:
>
>I would suggest
>
>"Although software is free hardware is not, and with
>just two servers donated by Wikimedia founder Jimbo
>Wales we simply cannot maintain the reliability and
>speed that our projects need."

Done - with a minor tweak.

http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikimedia_Fundraising_page&diff=0&oldid=18443

Any meta Admin can edit that page and the results are
instantly displayed at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising (when it
isn't giving a 404 error!). That page has to be
protected at all times due to credit card and other
security issues (full HTML allowed at the foundation's
website).

I think I'll work on getting several different
language versions up by the end of the week. Damn
PayPal, however, is only in English. Any chance of
setting up other similar, yet multi-language, services
that were suggested before, Jimbo?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
Chris Seaton said:
> I would suggest
>
> "Although software is free hardware is not, and with just two servers
> donated by Wikimedia founder Jimbo Wales we simply cannot maintain the
> reliability and speed that our projects need."
>
> There's no need to include a copy of the GNU manifesto :)
>
Well said! In both parts. :)

-- Jake


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool Off Ban

body:
Regarding temporary bans,

How much trouble would it be to create a timed ban?

I imagine such bans could be called Cool Off Periods of say 12, 24,
36, or 72 hours, both parties in an edit war being banned for the
same amount of time, so that neither feels the W has sided with the
other party?

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Header donation solicitation is a good idea for
	fundraising drive

body:
Alex wrote:
>The only worry I have is that practically every state

>in the US has charity registration rules about
>soliciting donations and as far as I know Wikimedia
>is only registered in Florida to "solicit" donations.

Whatever happened to full faith and credit? It would
be damn near impossible to only direct donation
solicitation to Florida residents even if we wanted
to. This simply doesn't seem to be fair. But I'm sure
other nations also have their own rules. Sigh...

>Can it say "donations" or "donation info." rather
>than Donate (a bit of a command)?

'Donations' would be better. Please change that
somebody. Oh, and the foundation's website says
"Donate Now", so that should be changed as well
(please put the template on meta somebody). You should
also review the donations page at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising to make
sure the "Why donate? section is OK. If not then edit
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fundraising_page
(if you are not a meta Admin, then you should be -
make it so developers!).

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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body:
Chris, that's a good point: it does LOOK as if running free software is
some sort of disadvantage.

Please suggest an alternative phrasing which
* explains succintly why all our software is "free", and
* explains why this is an advantage

Feel free to take more than 16 words to do this. ^_^

Ed Poor


from_name: Gutza

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sometimes, there is every reason to be

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Could not your wife write us a couple of article on
>Romania ?
>
>Look : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roumanie
>
>This is *absolutely* shameful given the long
>relationships between our two countries.
>
>Don't you think ?
>
>

Well, we reciprocate pretty well, unfortunately:
http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C5%A3a :)

I'll talk to her, but I'm not sure if she objectively has the time to
write, we're preparing our vacation these days and she's busy throughout
the day. Maybe at the end of the month, when we come back...

Gutza

P.S. Talk about coincidences, I had my first "real" conversation with a
"real" French person in "real" French yesterday, when some French
acquaintances of my wife called looking for her (and she wasn't at
home). Yes, that's hours after my sending you that e-mail complaining I
never had the opportunity to speak French.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What if?

body:
On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 07:01, Bj?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> Now that WP is once again down (which is bad cause I was in an editing
> mode) I'm getting a little worried about one thing. What if Bomis gets
> infected by an evil virus or there is a major power outage or one of the
> admins fuck up majorly or if the cia confiscates the servers or if there
> is a terrorist attack or if some other really bad thing happen. What
> will happen to my and thousands of other WP editors contributions?

http://downloads.wikipedia.org/

The databases are backed up weekly. I keep a copy of it all at home, and
so should you.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Interstate charitable solicitations

body:
http://www.charitychannel.com/forums/cyb-acc/resources/monaghan.html

Perhaps a bit old, since it's from 1996, but I found this overview
helpful.

We of course want to do everything right, but as a practical matter I
doubt we're the sort of entity that any aggressive attorney general
would want to pursue.  Likely they will have their hands full dealing
with new-formed 'charities' which are attempting to make use of the
'charity' loophole in the do-not-call anti-telemarketing law.  Or they
go after those pseudo-charities who pretend to represent the police or
whatever.

But, as I say, of course we want to do everything the right way.


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool Off Ban

body:
--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I imagine such bans could be called Cool Off Periods
> of say 12, 24,
> 36, or 72 hours, both parties in an edit war being
> banned for the
> same amount of time, so that neither feels the W has
> sided with the
> other party?

72 hours, by the way is what is called a "5150" in
California
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/appndxa/welfinst/welin5150.htm

I would say that cooling off periods, if they are too
short, will be used less seriously, and as such might
cause more problems than they solve-- look at how Axel
took it upon himself to reverse Erik's ban-- long
before any meaningful consensus had arrived onlist. In
light of the fact that this is a world wide operation,
a full day should not be unreasonable for a minimum
ban.

BTW, the only inappropriate thing done in that whole
ban thing was Axel's lifting of Erik's ban, done in
good faith, and with unquestionably good cause. My
last word on that.

~S~

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool Off Ban

body:
--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Regarding temporary bans,
>
> How much trouble would it be to create a timed ban?
>
> I imagine such bans could be called Cool Off Periods
> of say 12, 24,
> 36, or 72 hours, both parties in an edit war being
> banned for the
> same amount of time, so that neither feels the W has
> sided with the
> other party?

I don't think that's a good idea. Edit wars are
completely different than vandalism because it's just
one page. I think that our current policy of
protecting the page is sufficient. If it were possible
for developers to make it so that a particular sysop
couldn't edit a page, I think that would help, but a
situation where this would be needed hasn't come up
yet. Cool off bans for [multipage] trolls and vandals,
IMO, would be good.
LDan

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brion's notebook

body:
On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 08:29, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> http://leuksman.com/misc/donate
>
> I've made a donation here, and I hope that others will as well.
>
> It is no exagerration to say that everything would have collapsed a
> long time ago were it not for Brion's tireless dedication.

*blush*

Thanks, guys!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool Off Ban

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> This is an disingenous coming from one who regularly engages in
> aggressive
> reverting when it suits his purposes and sees Wikipedia as a medium
> for
> political struggle.

Not sure where that came from. Do you perhaps have me confused with
someone else?

> Bans ought not to become a weapon in edit wars.

I agree. It would be a means for admins to send a message, yet be a
light sentence (like a misdemeanor).

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool Off Ban

body:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't think that's a good idea. Edit wars are
> completely different than vandalism because it's just
> one page. I think that our current policy of
> protecting the page is sufficient. If it were possible
> for developers to make it so that a particular sysop
> couldn't edit a page, I think that would help, but a
> situation where this would be needed hasn't come up
> yet. Cool off bans for [multipage] trolls and vandals,
> IMO, would be good.

I was looking to what happens when the page in edit-war has been
locked yet the belligerent parties start mashing all over each other
in other pages, such as talk pages, user pages, etc.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] What if?

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> The databases are backed up weekly. I keep a copy of
> it all at home, and
> so should you.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Considering that en:wiki is up to {{CHANGESPERHOUR}},
it may be that a week's loss is too much to bear, and
would piss a lot of hard working contributors off, if
by some strange mishap it in fact was lost.  Perhaps a
different kind of "revisions dump" would be a good
idea-- of just changed articles for the day previous.
(Im not talking out of my ass am I?) Such a dump would
be way smaller, too meaning more people could make do.

Not that I think that BL's "what if" scare scenario
has much merit.
~S~

PS--  By the way, is there a timestamp we can use
besides our four tilde sigs? For Wikipedia:Cleanup.

>

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brion's notebook

body:
Brion wrote:
>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> http://leuksman.com/misc/donate
>>
>> I've made a donation here, and I hope that others
>> will as well.
>>
>> It is no exagerration to say that everything would
>> have collapsed a long time ago were it not for
>> Brion's tireless dedication.
>
>*blush*
>
>Thanks, guys!

Holly crap! You are almost at a $1000 already. Is the
bar updated by hand by you, or does it update
automatically? A similar bar on the Wikimedia
fundraising page would be nice (even if it has to be
updated by hand - I volunteer but I'll need access to
the account total info).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Header donation solicitation is a good idea
	forfundraising drive

body:
From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
...
> ...Also, a little annoyance
> works wonders in encouraging people to donate; The donation text in small
> font below "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (or corresponding other
> language/project message) is a great way to subtly nudge those with the
means
> to help us keep going.

The only worry I have is that practically every state in the US has charity
registration rules about soliciting donations and as far as I know Wikimedia
is only registered in Florida to "solicit" donations. There has been debate
in the online charity law community about this issue and it is not really
resolved
or settled.  As you know I feel an ounce of prevention is worth more than
a pound of potential litigation.  That is why I stated on the donations page
that the donation page is not a solicitation for donations. Posting a Donate
Now
link on every page however seems to be a solicitation.

> When the drive is over the header text should be removed but the new
"Donate"
> link in the side bar should remain. The cache, however, needs to be
updated
> before the month long drive starts (it will start as soon as the press
> release is distributed). Therefore I propose this, or a similar, message
be
> displayed:

Can it say "donations" or "donation info." rather than Donate (a bit of a
command)?

>    Help us buy a new database server. [Donate today!].
>
> [Donate today!] would be a link to
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising/

Learn about helping support [Wikipedia] (with the link to the fundraising
page).
Or "Learn about [donating] to support Wikipedia. "
Or "Learn about helping Wikimedia buy a new database server."
Or: Information about [donations] and helping to keep Wikipedia free,"

Something that just puts the initiative and choice on the person reading the
text (a very low key, soft sell approach).

"Donate today!" is more of a solicitation. I just worry that the Attorney
General's
of many states may decide that Wikipedia is reaching into their state. The
other option is a footnote  (i.e." † This is not a solicitation to
make a
donation.") But that kind of clutters up the page and I know people don't
like having a lot of legal boilerplate floating around.

Alex756


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Div tags -- what is 'policy'?

body:
I seem to rember "policy" on div tags was changed a
while ago from "dont use--breaks older browsers" to
"just go get yourself a new browser and come back"

Whats the deal?

~S~

__________________________________
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool Off Ban

body:
This is an disingenous coming from one who regularly engages in aggressive
reverting when it suits his purposes and sees Wikipedia as a medium for
political struggle.

Bans ought not to become a weapon in edit wars.

Fred

>Regarding temporary bans,
>
>How much trouble would it be to create a timed ban?
>
>I imagine such bans could be called Cool Off Periods of say 12, 24,
>36, or 72 hours, both parties in an edit war being banned for the
>same amount of time, so that neither feels the W has sided with the
>other party?
>
>
>
>
>=====
>Christopher Mahan
>chris_mahan at yahoo.com
>818.943.1850 cell
>http://www.christophermahan.com/
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
>http://shopping.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
From: "Stevertigo" <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>

> What I mean is: since WP enables the publishing of
> stuff --
> and then says "this user who did the posting is
> responsible, for any infringement not us" (forgeting
> about shielding the user for now) -- is WP under some
> obligation to keep its ip logs just in case, to
> deflect liability?  If these are insufficient-- ( in
> the case that some violators may use decent enough
> proxies) -- might a court say that WP (since its in
> the business of "publishing") must also be in the
> business of ID-ing its "users" -- and not simply give
> them free reign to pubish?
>
There is an argument that because of the GFDL that
requires WP to maintain any information that can
establish the identity of contributors.  The GFDL
is worthless if it is impossible to confirm that the
contributions being made by WP are original and
without infringing material.  How can one do that
without getting a statement from the contributor
that the materials are not copied from someone
else (people working at VfD/copyvio try to do
this, but they can only really check for online
copying, there are tonnes of text out there that
are not searchable over the internet but still
copyright).

Thus the ip logs can help to establish and confirm
identity.

I doubt that a court could order WP to register
its users. There is a strong freedom of speech
argument there. Also US copyright law specifically
protects pseudonymous authorship (though
it is not tied to the death of the individual,
it is actually the shortest copyright period
available, on of the reasons I don't post under
my full name).

> might WP run into an eventuality where its existence
> as a "Wiki" is a simple contradiction to the
> responsibilities demanded by US legal liability?

Someone will analyze it and figure out some way
to fit it in, but my intuitive response is that a
wiki is really a pass through that goes back to
the contributor/user. How can it be otherwise?

Of course the more institutionalized a wiki gets
the more it takes on the persona of the institution.
However it is not like a wiki used on an intranet,
it is a free and open wiki that anyone can contribute
to (even anonymously). For this reason it would
seem it could never become a shield.

All the more reason to warn users of their
potential liability if they post anything wrong.

Of course if someone has a good reason to take
off material about themselves I think that serious
consideration should be done to do so, but even
deleted pages are reviewable by sysops, so everything
is preserved and their is no destruction of evidence.

Alex756


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation header

body:
"We are trying to make Wikipedia faster and more
responsive. You can help by making a donation." --
"trying" is a trying word. ("Do or do not...") How
about:

"Help Wikipedia keep up with our community's growth by
making a [donation].

~Concerned Sitizen~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


body:
From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
>
> IMHO, we non-lawyers shouldn't question the legal
> expertice of a lawyer.

It is ok Dan, really the beauty of law is that anyone can
come up with a new argument and sometimes a fresh
perspective

 >...He went to law school for three years;

Actually I was in law school for four years, I have
two law degrees and every year take continuing
legal education courses required by the court
to keep up with developments in the law

>...you read one article about Napster in 5
> minutes. I'm not saying all lawyers are always right,
> there are some lawyers that are corrupt or wrong, but
> Alex definitely isn't one of them.

Thank you Dan, but SV does bring up some good
points now and then and they are thoughtful.
As a general rule lawyers do not dislike people
who enliven a debate, after all that is what we do
even amongst ourselves.

Alex756


from_name: Delirium

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

>I seem to rember "policy" on div tags was changed a
>while ago from "dont use--breaks older browsers" to
>"just go get yourself a new browser and come back"
>
>
Given that
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Markup suggests
using div tags to float images, it seems to be policy that div tags are
both allowed and encouraged.

Though on a somewhat tangentially related topic, it would be nice if
there were a way to just say "float left" in the wikitext, rather than
specifying the div element manually, which raises the barrier to editing
for people not HTML-savvy (and makes the wikitext less readable).

-Mark


body:
Alex R. wrote:
> http://www.nasconet.org/public.php?pubsec=4&curdoc=10
>
> In section III. B. 1. b. (1) will note that an charities that has
> an interactive web site for donations is considered to be
> subject to state charities registrations requirements if they
> are either targeting individuals in that state or have received
> donations from that state on a repeated or ongoing basis.

Well, we're certainly likely to meet that test soon enough for many
states.  As it stands, when Wikimedia Foundation gets donations via
PayPal I have no idea at all where the people live, because Paypal
doesn't give any personal information about the person.

> Eventually Wikimedia must register, but is doing so today
> absolutely necessary? I doubt it, but if Wikimedia starts getting
> donations from a specific state it should consider filing
> in that State and eventually filing in all states that have
> such a requirement (the Uniform Form will make it easier to
> do, but there are still the filing fees which would be a burden
> for Wikimedia right now until more people donate.

Yes, we have received just around $1,000 in donations so far.  I
notice that most (but not all) of those states have exemptions for
organizations that have raised less than $10,000-$25,000.

Judging from the typical fees of $25-50, registration in all 50 states
might cost as much as $1250-$2500.  That's a pretty absurd use of
funds for an organization that might be bringing in $10,000 in a year,
although I hope we grow beyond that level pretty quickly.

At least with the uniform filing, we can cover those states pretty
easily in terms of my time, which the above cost estimate of
$1250-$2500 assumes to be zero, not exactly true.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation header

body:
Alex R. wrote:

>Also, how about taking it off the printable version of the
>page. That is a printed publication and may be used
>to suggest that a donation is be solicited in the place
>that the page is printed (of course anyone can print
>a web page, but by removing it from the printable version
>it is making a statement that it is only an online solicitation
>that falls within the ambit of the "Charelston Principles"
>and not the more vigorious rules about in-state solicitations.)
>
>
Even without legal issues, I think it'd be better taken off the
printable version; when someone prints it from the "printable version",
it's usually because they want a semi-nice copy comparable to a standard
encyclopedia article, without the ancillary webpage stuff, and "please
donate" or even "we're upgrading our servers" doesn't really fit in that
context.

-Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation header

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Even without legal issues, I think it'd be better taken off the
> printable version; when someone prints it from the "printable version",
> it's usually because they want a semi-nice copy comparable to a
> standard encyclopedia article, without the ancillary webpage stuff, and
> "please donate" or even "we're upgrading our servers" doesn't really
> fit in that context.

That makes a lot of sense.  I'm cc'ing this to wikitech-l.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Donation header


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jerusalem

body:
Here is my comment on the "capital city" controversy. With Wikipedia so
slow today, I feel I'd better post here than not at all :-(

This sentence might not be true:

*All other states with diplomatic relations to Israel continue to regard
Tel Aviv as the Israeli capital...a gesture virtually unique in
diplomatic history.

Let's separate out fact from interpretation:
1. It is _true_ that all other states with diplomatic relations to
Israel maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.
2. It is an _interpretation_ that the placement of the embassy in a city
= regarding that city as the nation's capital.

Pending any documentation that even ONE country calls Tel Aviv the
capital of Israel, this sentence is best omitted from the article.

Ed Poor


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

> IMHO, we non-lawyers shouldn't question the legal
> expertice of a lawyer.

You can question my expertise and remember that I
am not really giving a legal advice here.  I am just
providing input. As far as I know as a lawyer I have
no greater voice than any other volunteer here,
Wikipedia operates on a consensus decisionmaking
model so that is why I try (though sometimes fail)
to put my legal knowledge in simple terms so that
everyone can make their own decision about it.

I am not about getting anyone to agree with me,
I just want to be informative and help the community
that contributes here to be better informed and
make better decisions.

Alex756


subject:
[WikiEN-l] RE: Removing personal information was: RE:
	Copyrightedmaterial on Wikipedia

body:
>>
 >Where I disagree is in cases like abuse or
 >personal information about themselves
This is not a copyright issue. If someone places material on Wikipedia, they do so, they have the right to do so and as long as that information is not defamatory or breaking any laws there should be no prohibition against posting any such information. <<

It is partially a copyright issue if it is asserted that it must remain available because it was released under the GFDL. That is misapplication of the intent of the GFDL here, though - it's not there to keep personal information available but to build the Wikipedia encyclopedia. We need to do what is right, even if there is a GFDL right to keep the information around. It's simply wrong to compel people to keep personal information around when they no longer want it around, or to assist others with harassment. Even if the project has the legal right to do so. This reasoning doesn't apply to things like "I don't want a user page at all" or similar silliness.

>>I think if a person posts information about themselves anywhere on the internet there is a reasonable expectation that it can be reposted by other people.<<

The internet includes password-protected communities and lots of other things regulated by contracts before access is granted, where access is conditional on accepting the contract. In those places, that information is not fully public. However, on to your real point: yes, it is expected that on an open access public site, if the information is there personal information like email addresses could be harvested and used for purposes like spamming or taken and used for harassment. However, that doesn't absolve those operating the sites from any social responsibility for helping people to manage their privacy, including allowing them to remove personal information if they change their mind (which is a legal right in Europe, though not the US). Since the Wikipedia wants broad contributions it should, where practical, accommodate those who expect European rights to remove their personal information, to the extent that it doesn't get in the way of the project. It's simply good for the project and socially responsible.

>> There is one fact that you do not seem to keep in mind, the user page creates a link to the person  in the world outside Wikipedia. This is important in terms of authorship. Each user has copyright to their contributions and if someone wants to relicense Wikipedia content they have some expectation that there will be some way to determine that a user has contributed. Otherwise such user can be submitting infringing content. <<

There is some merit there but it's not applicable to the personal information argument, assuming it's not in the articles themselves.

For the articles:
o there's the general right to contribute anonymously and the copyright and legal responsibility which anonymous contributors retain, even thought they are anonymous.

o there's the email address supplied to the Wikipedia for registration, which provides a contact route even in the absence of any information which used to be on user pages.

o at least one court has accepted the serving of a legal notice on an anonymous person via a public post on a public message board which had been frequented by the person and where the alleged infraction (share price manipulation accusations rather than copyright) had happened.

Can you think of any legal or rights negotiation purpose which can't be reasonably facilitated by those means and which isn't already redundant because of the very broad GFDL license grant? The most likely one which comes to my mind is a publication which doesn't want to use the GFDL. Such a publication is already in serious trouble when it comes to anonymous contributions.

>> I became part of Wikipedia because I liked making contributions to the encyclopedia I am finding that I am spending way too much of my available volunteer time responding to opinions about issues that are just plain wrong or misleading.
Can I make a complaint to the arbitration committee about that? <<

Absolutely! Can I make one as well?:) This is one reason why I'm trying to make the legal articles clear to normal people - I've had to correct so many errors over the years, even though I'm not a lawyer...:)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: RE: Copyrighted material on Wikipedia

body:
> > To see how Google handles this, take a look at
> So, you think that court documents like that should be kept private?

I want them to be public. I was using it to support an argument against deleting history, which would leave the history public.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Removing personal info

body:
The below is text from offlist discussion. This is my
version of a boilerplate-- NALO, but It hits on the
two central points we were talking (typing) about. -SV

----
>Alex: All the more reason to warn users of their
> potential liability if they post anything wrong.

Sure, but there should be a boilerplate at least:

"By clicking 'submit' you are contractually stating
that the material you submit is henceforth released
under GNU FDL.  Though this site is "anonymous", we
will log your ip addresses as a means to identify you,
and though we will not provide you ssl encryption to
protect your account and identity, you must know that
any edits made under your username are your
responsibilty, as provided under US law."

We might even mention the PATRIOT Act, as a way the US
might enforce such law.

----
~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Dufrenoy, Alexis

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem

body:
When I try to connect to www.wikipedia.org, I get this message :

Warning: session_start(): open(/tmp/sess_77505f5f82ca5d4e0903f3e0fcffcc6c,
O_RDWR) failed: Input/output error (5) in
/usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml on line 7

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent
by (output started at /usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml:7) in
/usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml on line 7

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter - headers
already sent (output started at /usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml:7)
in /usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml on line 7

Fatal error: input in flex scanner failed in
/usr/local/apache/common/php/FulltextStoplist.php on line 1

Warning: Unknown(): open(/tmp/sess_77505f5f82ca5d4e0903f3e0fcffcc6c, O_RDWR)
failed: Input/output error (5) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown(): Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that
the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/tmp) in Unknown on
line 0


from_name: Alex R.

subject:
[WikiEN-l] RE: Removing personal information was:
	RE:Copyrightedmaterial on Wikipedia

body:
From: "user_Jamesday" <user_Jamesday at myrealbox.com>

>  It is partially a copyright issue if it is asserted that it must remain
available because it was released under the GFDL.

There is nothing in the GFDL that states that someone must continue to
distribute material under the GFDL, it can
be withdrawn from publication. However, if there is a copy out there that
copy cannot be withdrawn. You have
not changed my mind. It is not a copyright issue for Wikipedia and once
someone grants a GFDL license no one
can force them to revoke it.  It is a perpetual license. That is why it is
important that people know this before
posting personal information.

>   It's simply good for the project and socially responsible.

I agree with you on that point, it makes sense to take down legitimate
personal information if requested it creates goodwill.
BTW Quebec has privacy laws similar to the EU.

> Can you think of any legal or rights negotiation purpose
> which can't be reasonably facilitated by those means
> and which isn't already redundant because of the very
> broad GFDL license grant? The most likely one which
> comes to my mind is a publication which doesn't want
>  to use the GFDL. Such a publication is already in
> serious trouble when it comes to anonymous
> contributions.

Why?  If someone wants to allow anonymous contributions that is perfectly
legal. Usually writers who wish to be anonymous appoint
someone as an agent (usually a lawyer because a lawyer cannot disclose the
identity of his/her client if the client wishes this information to be kept
confidential for a legal purpose) to certify that the work is the original
contribution of the copyright holder.
I think on the internet with anonymous contributions a site remains an OSP
and is not an information provider. Doesn't this solve your hypothetical?

>> Can I make a complaint to the arbitration committee about that? <<

> Absolutely! Can I make one as well?:) This is one reason why I'm trying to
make the legal articles clear to normal people - I've had to correct so many
errors over the years, even though I'm not a lawyer...:)

That was a joke on my part. I don't think anyone is envisioning the
arbitration committee to be something anyone bring any complaint
to, just potential baning issues.  ;-)

Alex756


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Header donation solicitation is a good
	ideaforfundraising drive

body:
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>

> It does say "Donations" now. The other text is "We are trying to make
> Wikipedia faster and more responsive. You can help by making a donation."
> I hope this satisfies your concerns.

"We are trying to make  Wikipedia faster and more responsive. "
That is fine.
The second sentence concerns me a bit. Here are some suggested
changes:

"Information about [donation]s. "
"Find out about making [donation]s.
 [Donation] information.

How about that? "You can help by making a donation"  might
be construed as a bit of a solicitation, no?

Alex756


from_name: Paul Ebermann

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Is a press release now a good idea?

body:
"Anthere" skribis:

> [Jackpot number]
> I try
>
> COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE : WIKIPEDIA atteint 300 000
> articles
>
> versus
>
> COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE : WIKIPEDIA atteint un tiers de
> million d'articles
>
> sorry, that is ugly

Try this one:

| COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE : WIKIPEDIA atteint 333 333
| articles

Paul


from_name: Thomas Luft

subject:
[Wikitech-l] 403 error on German,
	French & ... Wikipedia / PHP errors on English

body:
Hi,

it seems that something with the server is broken.
When invoking http://de.wikipedia.org/ I get a 403 error from Apache,
the same with fr.wikipedia.org.

Opening the English Wikipedia results in a lot of PHP errors:
*>Warning*: session_start():
open(/tmp/sess_fda39b1e85f8972aa71fb8cf2377dd05, O_RDWR) >failed:
Input/output error (5) in */usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml* on
line *7*
 >
*>Warning*: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers
already sent by (output started >at
/usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml:7) in
*/usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml* >on line *7*
 >
*>Warning*: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter - headers
already sent (output >started at
/usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml:7) in
*>/usr/local/apache/common/php/wiki.phtml* on line *7*
 >
*>Fatal error*: input in flex scanner failed in
*/usr/local/apache/common/php/FulltextStoplist.php* >on line *1*
 >
*>Warning*: Unknown(): open(/tmp/sess_fda39b1e85f8972aa71fb8cf2377dd05,
O_RDWR) >failed: Input/output error (5) in *Unknown* on line *0*
 >
*>Warning*: Unknown(): Failed to write session data (files). Please
verify that the current setting of >session.save_path is correct (/tmp)
in *Unknown* on line *0

Maybe this has something to do with a German radio report about
Wikipedia? Or are these just the "normal" server problems?
Regards

Thomas
*


from_name: Chris Seaton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wording on WikimediaFoundation.org

body:
Why does http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising say "With just two
servers, donated by Wikimedia founder Jimbo Wales and powered only by
free software", as if running free software is some sort of
disadvantage?
--
Chris Seaton

chris at chrisseaton.com
http://www.chrisseaton.com/


body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales at bomis.com

> http://www.charitychannel.com/forums/cyb-acc/resources/monaghan.html

This is a good historical legal essay, but there have been things
that have happened subsequent to that statement of the confusion
in the law.

> We of course want to do everything right, but as a practical matter I
> doubt we're the sort of entity that any aggressive attorney general
> would want to pursue.  Likely they will have their hands full dealing
> with new-formed 'charities' which are attempting to make use of the
> 'charity' loophole in the do-not-call anti-telemarketing law.  Or they
> go after those pseudo-charities who pretend to represent the police or
> whatever.

The AGs  do police online charities pretty agressively. It is easy to do in
the
internet context. they will ask you to file and also ask you to pay
a penalty fee (if they have one) if you don't do that, then they
might get ugly.

The National Association of Attorney Generals (NAAG) and
the National Association of State Charities Officials (NASCO)
have been working on a Uniform Registration scheme.

http://www.tdip.com/uniform_registration.PDF

This is the Mult-State Filer Project site that has the latest information
and the states that do and do not accept the URS (you will note
that Florida is one of the states that does NOT accept the URS):

http://www.multistatefiling.org/index.html#version

You will note that a lot of states have exemptions for small
organizations (some do not).

http://www.multistatefiling.org/n_appendix.htm

The Charleston Principles are informal but are still the last word
that was passed by their (NASCO)  board in 2001 as "Advisory Guidelines"

http://www.nasconet.org/public.php?pubsec=4&curdoc=10

In section III. B. 1. b. (1) will note that an charities that has
an interactive web site for donations is considered to be
subject to state charities registrations requirements if they
are either targeting individuals in that state or have received
donations from that state on a repeated or ongoing basis.

Eventually Wikimedia must register, but is doing so today
absolutely necessary? I doubt it, but if Wikimedia starts getting
donations from a specific state it should consider filing
in that State and eventually filing in all states that have
such a requirement (the Uniform Form will make it easier to
do, but there are still the filing fees which would be a burden
for Wikimedia right now until more people donate.

The Charleston Principles are NOT law, the problem is that
the law of each state applies and different courts have
set different standards for what is within and without state
jurisdiction but chances are, for now, if one follows the
Charleston Principles the AGs of the various states will
not give Wikimedia a hard time (that is of course until
Wikimedia's contributions start going up).

Alex756


body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>

>
> But, as I say, of course we want to do everything the right way.

Eventually Wikimedia should be posting the IRS 1023 form
and the annual 990 forms on a page somewhere.
As the Charleston Principles suggest
providing all this information on a charities web site shows that
the encourage public disclosure and transpancy.

Alex756


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation header

body:
From: "Stevertigo" <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>

> "We are trying to make Wikipedia faster and more
> responsive. You can help by making a donation." --
> "trying" is a trying word. ("Do or do not...") How
> about:
>
> "Help Wikipedia keep up with our community's growth by
> making a [donation].
>
> ~Concerned Sitizen~

I still think this is a little too much like a solicitation
even in the form stated by the above pseudonoymous
poster.

How about "Learn how you can help Wikipedia:
more information about [donation]s. "

The good thing about this is all it is doing is encouraging
one to read more about it.

Also, how about taking it off the printable version of the
page. That is a printed publication and may be used
to suggest that a donation is be solicited in the place
that the page is printed (of course anyone can print
a web page, but by removing it from the printable version
it is making a statement that it is only an online solicitation
that falls within the ambit of the "Charelston Principles"
and not the more vigorious rules about in-state solicitations.)

Alex756


body:
I would suggest

"Although software is free hardware is not, and with just two servers
donated by Wikimedia founder Jimbo Wales we simply cannot maintain the
reliability and speed that our projects need."

There's no need to include a copy of the GNU manifesto :)

On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 16:48, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Chris, that's a good point: it does LOOK as if running free software is
> some sort of disadvantage.
>
> Please suggest an alternative phrasing which
> * explains succintly why all our software is "free", and
> * explains why this is an advantage
>
> Feel free to take more than 16 words to do this. ^_^
>
> Ed Poor
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
--
Chris Seaton

chris at chrisseaton.com
http://www.chrisseaton.com/


body:
Just a question relating to all this: what subjects someone to these
registration requirements?  Are they only a condition of making
donations tax-deductible, or are they a blanket requirement?  There's
dozens of organizations that accept donations (including lots of
websites), of which I'm guessing very very few have registered in even
one state.  What about things like Brion's notebook fund-- is he
supposed to register that in all 50 states too?  The whole thing seems a
bit ridiculous, which is probably why most people just ignore it.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cool Off Ban

body:
>>> Regarding temporary bans
>
>As a dictator elsewhere I've found them to be very useful as a way of
>setting limits without the problems a long term ban causes. They are a
>useful reminder that the rules will be enforced, if necessary.
>
>The abuse problem can be handled by:
>o a five times as long ban for anyone who is found by a majority of some
>group to have acted in a partisan way, doubling each time it happens
>within a 30 day period.
>o a six month prohibition on editing the articles over which the first ban
>was inppropriately applied or any articles linking to them at the time of
>the ban.
>
>That should give partisans cause to think twice.

I think it just gives them a weapon.

Fred


subject: AW: [Wikitech-l] Wording on WikimediaFoundation.org

body:
I think the sense is : exclusively with free software

Traroth

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Chris Seaton [mailto:chris at chrisseaton.com]
Gesendet: Montag, 6. Oktober 2003 17:38
An: wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
Betreff: [Wikitech-l] Wording on WikimediaFoundation.org

Why does http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising say "With just two
servers, donated by Wikimedia founder Jimbo Wales and powered only by
free software", as if running free software is some sort of
disadvantage?
--
Chris Seaton

chris at chrisseaton.com
http://www.chrisseaton.com/

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Get it working first

body:
Kurt-
> Sending out a press release would be an awfully foolish thing to do. As long
> as I get the error message "Server not found" every other time (and I'm not
> exaggerating) I click on a page and as long as uploads, search function etc.
> etc. are disabled, drawing attention to Wikipedia would be enormously
> counter-productive.

Of course.

> Just imagine the same thing happened to the IMDb or
> similar sites!

Well, they have a lot more money than we do. And a lot more ads.

> Still hoping that Wikipedia will run properly one day,

You know where to go to help out:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising

Regards,

Erik


body:
Alex-
> Can it say "donations" or "donation info." rather than Donate (a bit of a
> command)?

It does say "Donations" now. The other text is "We are trying to make
Wikipedia faster and more responsive. You can help by making a donation."
I hope this satisfies your concerns.

Regards,

Erik


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Re: RE: Removing personal information was:
	RE:Copyrightedmaterial on Wikipedia

body:
(my words)>> It is partially a copyright issue if it is asserted that it must remain available because it was released under the GFDL. <<

>From the way you wrote, I don't need to change your mind - we agree: it's forever GFDL; that's not a reason for the Wikipedia to keep distributing it if somene wants it removed and it makes sense for the Wikipedia to do so; people need to be aware of this, even if the Wikipedia is as helpful as it can be about removing personal information. Please let me know if any of this doesn't also reflect your views.

Addressing the publication issue, it's problematic if a publication wants to release something from the Wikipedia and can't or doesn't want to do it under the GFDL license. It would be a major challenge to contact the anonymous editors and obtain their permission. Given that difficulty, there seems little point in using this possibility as a reason to oppose logged in contributors having their personal information removed.

On the joke, yes, I know. Expanding on the theme of joking, there's a reason there are two sets of lawyers in cases that get to the Supreme Court and it isn't that the lawyers are agreeing or just want to increase their fees.:) Working out how close to the line to go without taking too much of a risk of being sued for doing something legal is harder than knowing what the law and precedents say.


body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>

> Well, we're certainly likely to meet that test soon enough for many
> states.  As it stands, when Wikimedia Foundation gets donations via
> PayPal I have no idea at all where the people live, because Paypal
> doesn't give any personal information about the person.

That is a good point.

> > Eventually Wikimedia must register, but is doing so today
> > absolutely necessary? I doubt it, but if Wikimedia starts getting
> > donations from a specific state it should consider filing
> > in that State and eventually filing in all states that have
> > such a requirement (the Uniform Form will make it easier to
> > do, but there are still the filing fees which would be a burden
> > for Wikimedia right now until more people donate.
>
> Yes, we have received just around $1,000 in donations so far.  I
> notice that most (but not all) of those states have exemptions for
> organizations that have raised less than $10,000-$25,000.

I think DC's limitation is $1,500. but some states require that you
file a form that asks to be exempted. In any case most states require
that the form be filed within a certain period of time after the fiscal
year ends only some states require filing before any solicitations
are made.

> Judging from the typical fees of $25-50, registration in all 50 states
> might cost as much as $1250-$2500.  That's a pretty absurd use of
> funds for an organization that might be bringing in $10,000 in a year,

That is true and an argument that comes up when discussing national
registration exemptions, it is an undue burden, this is also the rationale
behind granting an automatic $5,000 exemption by the IRS.

> At least with the uniform filing, we can cover those states pretty
> easily in terms of my time, which the above cost estimate of
> $1250-$2500 assumes to be zero, not exactly true.
>
This is yet another argument that is brought up when talking about
uniform or national registration for small volunteer organizations.
The transaction costs are very high in volunteer time which is
often limited.

Akex756


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cool Off Ban

body:
>> Regarding temporary bans

As a dictator elsewhere I've found them to be very useful as a way of setting limits without the problems a long term ban causes. They are a useful reminder that the rules will be enforced, if necessary.

The abuse problem can be handled by:
o a five times as long ban for anyone who is found by a majority of some group to have acted in a partisan way, doubling each time it happens within a 30 day period.
o a six month prohibition on editing the articles over which the first ban was inppropriately applied or any articles linking to them at the time of the ban.

That should give partisans cause to think twice.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Removing personal info

body:
>> We might even mention the PATRIOT Act, as a way the US might enforce such law. <<

Just remind people that it is against the user agreement of most ISPs to infringe copyright or vandalize sites and say that ISPs will be contacted if necessary. The prospect of having to explain to their parents why their family internet connection was cut off will worry most vandals more than a mention of the PATRIOT act.


body:
From: "Richard Grevers" <lists at dramatic.co.nz>

> Hmm, since the Wikimedia Foundation is actually supposed to be a global
> organisation, it is starting to sound as though it might have been better
> to register it somewhere beyond the reach of US beauraucracy. Do all world
> charities have to register in all 50 states, or only if their home base is
> in one of them?

If a foreign charity is soliciting donations in the US or maintaining
an office there it would come under the jurisdiction of US laws
just as if any person had come to the US they are subject to US laws.
You can't say, I am not guilty by reason of nationality, can you?

 Of course no foreign  government would recognize any such regulatory
 law outside the US as a matter of course, but they could recognize
a link between the US and some foreign law, for example there are
bilateral tax treaties that allows some Canadian, Mexican and
Israeli citizens/corporations  to take deductions from income for US
charities
and vis-a-versa.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf (at page 3, first col.)

There is nothing stopping anyone from creating
their own foundation or trust for the benefit of Wikipedia.
It is just that Jimbo beat the rest of us to it.

Alex756


from_name: K Forstner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Get it working first

body:
Sending out a press release would be an awfully foolish thing to do. As long
as I get the error message "Server not found" every other time (and I'm not
exaggerating) I click on a page and as long as uploads, search function etc.
etc. are disabled, drawing attention to Wikipedia would be enormously
counter-productive. Just imagine the same thing happened to the IMDb or
similar sites!

Still hoping that Wikipedia will run properly one day,

KF


subject: [Wikipedia-l] What if?

body:
On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 02:28, Richard Grevers wrote:
> If there are several people who pull a regular database dump (say, weekly)
> then they could coordinate with each other and assign set days/times on
> which they do it. If there are 7 of them we have a "daily" offsite backup.

Well the issue is more that it takes several hours to dump and compress
the database, which slows down the server all the while. However, I'll
go ahead and increase the backup frequency for safety's sake to every
other day until we get database replication set up (at which point a
secondary machine can churn out processed backups without slowing down
the main server).

> PS I hope we are keeping off-site backups of the system configuration each
> time it is changed, too!

That would ruin the fun, wouldn't it? ;)

My private backups should include most of that; I think Jimbo keeps some
backups of the misc files too.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation header

body:
Erik wrote:
>Mav, if you become treasurer (you have my vote),

Er, thanks. But I would like to reiterate that I don't want any special
Wikimedia office. However, I do understand that certain things simply need to
get done, so if nobody else who is qualified, motivated and trustworthy wants
it, then I'll be the treasurer (which is a very important, yet not very
sought after, officer postion).

>and you keep a time based record of all donations
>I might add a chart to the stats pages.

That would be neat, but just make sure it is clear that the money is for the
Wikimedia Foundation and not just for Wikipedia. It might also be neat to
think of ways to make your stats script Wikimedia wide, without confusing the
distinction between articles, entries, quote pages, and modules (not to
mention project-specific counts).

>It might serve as an extra reminder that donations
>are welcomed.

Every bit helps!

BTW, in the next update of the wonderful stats script you wrote, could you
change each use of "Phase III" to "MediaWiki" and maybe provide a link to
http://mediawiki.org ?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject:
Printable page GFDL compliance issues (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Donation
	header)

body:
Alex wrote:
>Shouldn't the printable version also have a URL to the
>GFDL rather than a wikilink? Also shouldn't there be a
>page history link as well (once again to the URL)?
>Whouldn't this be more in compliance with the terms of
>the GFDL which require that the GFDL go with the
>copyrighted material and at least the five most significant
>authors being acknowledged?

IMO, printable pages should have three things:

1) A clickable backlink to the article that also displays the full URL
2) A clickable backlink to our local GNU FDL copy (full URL, blah, blah)
3) Maybe even a "Revision history" link.

That way, downstream users who simply copy the source text of a printable page
and then use the page somewhere else on the Internet, will be in full
compliance with the GNU FDL (them having a local copy of the GNU FDL is not a
strict compliance term).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] PayPal from France

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

Hi Anthere and all,

Le Monday 06 October 2003 19:04, Anthere a ?crit :
> Just a forward of a french mail :-)
>
> Vincent was willing to make a donation, but could not.
> PayPal apparently requested an American Express (I do
> not think many french/Swiss/Belgian people own an
> american express).
>
> Ideas ?

Surprising !?!
I sent money to USA via PayPal last June with a French CB card. No problem for
me.

Yann

- --
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE/gcS4m4KYjQo0y9oRAkfSAKCBy3+hHyG6jBSawTgbH2sjqJcEmACgkaYX
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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is a radio release now a good idea now ?

body:
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 15:58:26 +0200
> From: "Paul Ebermann" <Paul-Ebermann at gmx.de>
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Is a press release now a
> good idea?

> "Anthere" skribis:
>
> > [Jackpot number]
> > I try
> >
> > COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE : WIKIPEDIA atteint 300 000
> > articles
> >
> > versus
> >
> > COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE : WIKIPEDIA atteint un tiers
> de
> > million d'articles
> >
> > sorry, that is ugly
>
> Try this one:
>
> | COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE : WIKIPEDIA atteint 333 333
> | articles
>
>
> Paul

The precision degree will have to be respected to the
letter then :-)))

----

"Say 33" asks the doctor to the sick one.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What if?

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

>--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The databases are backed up weekly. I keep a copy of
>>it all at home, and
>>so should you.
>>
>>
>
>Considering that en:wiki is up to {{CHANGESPERHOUR}},
>it may be that a week's loss is too much to bear, and
>would piss a lot of hard working contributors off
>
My advice, in particular to modem users who can't download the database:

if you are particularly proud of some articles you have worked on, save
a copy of the wikitext as a text document on your hard drive :)


from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Impossible to donate from Europe?

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Just a forward of a french mail :-)
>
> Vincent was willing to make a donation, but could not.
> PayPal apparently requested an American Express (I do
> not think many french/Swiss/Belgian people own an
> american express).
>
> Ideas ?

I tried with a Mastercard but if was also impossible!
The message was "TEMPLATE [] LOAD FAILED"; apparently because it refuse
to accept a belgian zipcode (only 4 digit).

-- Looxix


body:
From: "Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>

> Just a question relating to all this: what subjects someone to these
> registration requirements?  Are they only a condition of making
> donations tax-deductible, or are they a blanket requirement?  There's

It has nothing to do with the status of the donations, that is covered
by federal law, not state law.  It is to patrol the organizations
and make sure they are legitimate. It is more of an internal thing
that has to do with the Attorney General oversight power that
states have in their laws relating to charitable organizations.

If the organization closes down, the assets of the organization
are required by law to be distributed to another organization
with a similar purpose  (it is also necessary to recite this in
the corporate papers in order to get the exemption from the
IRS)  the organization's income cannot inure to the benefit of
any person. Also most state laws regarding NPOs and charitable
trusts have some provision that allows the AG to step in and
take steps to preserve the organization. They did that here in
NY with the Apollo Theater, that was in all the papers for a while.
It is a pretty rare thing though.

> dozens of organizations that accept donations (including lots of
> websites), of which I'm guessing very very few have registered in even
> one state.

If they have not registered, they are either not-for-profit (and the
word "donation" may be a misnomer) or they are not making enough
money to register.

Believe me any organization that has an accountant or administrator
will know about the registration requirements. They are minimal and
most NPOs do it as a matter of course at least in their own state.
Remember that the not-for-profit sector of the economy is very
large, Americans give more money to charitable causes than
the citizens of any other nation (this does not include government
contributions in socialist countries).

> What about things like Brion's notebook fund-- is he
>  supposed to register that in all 50 states too?  The whole thing seems a
> bit ridiculous, which is probably why most people just ignore it.

It does not apply to "people" only to trusts and not-for-profit
corporations. People like Brian are either receiving a gift or
are declaring it as income and paying tax on it (it does not seem
right that Brian should have to do that, perhaps Wikimedia can
bring the notebook fund under it's umbrella).

Alex756


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brion's notebook

body:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Holly crap! You are almost at a $1000 already.

Thanks to some very generous folks, I think I just broke it actually!
Big thanks to everyone! Don't let that stop y'all from sending me _more_
money ;) but don't forget the Foundation. Good intentions don't keep the
site running when we don't have working servers...

The problems with the current round of upgrades should hopefully be solved
this week; there were some mismatches between the old parts (server cases,
power supplies) and new parts (cooling fans for the processors) and such.
Once the new new bits are in Jason can get those installed and fix
whatever went wrong on Larousse. (Hopefully nothing permanent involving
smoke and sparks!)

After that we've been talking about getting a new bigger database server;
this will give our sites room to grow and allow more slack for times of
hardware failure when other machines have to take over for the dead one.
Jimbo has mentioned the possibility of matching funds, where he would chip
in part and part would come from donations to the Foundation. (All hardware
so far has come from Jimbo's own generous pockets.)

(In case anyone's curious, I'm planning to get a 12" Apple PowerBook G4.
It's small and light, as a notebook computer is supposed to be, and my
home network needs some diversity. MacOS X is enough Unix-y under the
hood to be a comfortable web server testing environment, too, moreso
than trying to run Unix-based apps on Windows and without the troubles
that Linux often has with specialized laptop hardware.)

> Is the bar updated by hand by you, or does it update automatically? A
> similar bar on the Wikimedia fundraising page would be nice (even if it
> has to be updated by hand - I volunteer but I'll need access to the
> account total info).

Mine's done by hand, but hypothetically one could do it automatically by
filtering the confirmation e-mails paypal sends. (Those don't include the
amount of fees extracted by paypal, however.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>

> Delirium wrote:
> > Even without legal issues, I think it'd be better taken off the
> > printable version; when someone prints it from the "printable version",
> > it's usually because they want a semi-nice copy comparable to a
> > standard encyclopedia article, without the ancillary webpage stuff, and
> > "please donate" or even "we're upgrading our servers" doesn't really
> > fit in that context.
>
> That makes a lot of sense.  I'm cc'ing this to wikitech-l.

Shouldn't the printable version also have a URL to the GFDL rather than
a wikilink? Also shouldn't there be a page history link as well (once
again to the URL)? Whouldn't this be more in compliance with the
terms of the GFDL which require that the GFDL go with the copyrighted
material and at least the five most significant authors being acknowledged?

Alex756


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation header

body:
> A similar bar on the Wikimedia
> fundraising page would be nice (even if it has to be
> updated by hand - I volunteer but I'll need access to
> the account total info).

Mav, if you become treasurer (you have my vote), and you keep a time
based record of all donations I might add a chart to the stats pages. It
might serve as an extra reminder that donations are welcomed.

Erik Zachte


subject: [WikiEN-l] TeX fixed

body:
TeX should be working again on the English Wikipedia.

There were two problems:

* the code assumed that the rendered PNG files would be available if there
was an entry for an equation in the math table, but this assumption is
false when two web servers try to access one database. Some equations
therefore were rendered only on one server and missing on the other.

* the alias for the '/math' directory on pliny's www/en.wikipedia.org was
pointing towards the common math directory for the UTF-8 wikis, but it was
configured to dump rendered images into the Latin-1 common dir. So, new
equations that were rendered weren't being served out unless they were
also present on another non-Latin1 wiki.

I haven't checked in the code that checks for the image files to CVS just
yet, as I've got a couple of separate copies of the code to merge. It's
nothing real radical.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] TeX fixed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] TeX fixed

body:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Brion Vibber wrote:
> TeX should be working again on the English Wikipedia.

I should note a caveat: where images were missing due to the server split,
they won't be rerendered on a cached page view. You have to force a page
re-render. If not logged in, log in and reload the page. If logged in, see
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Clear_your_cache
(or edit the page, or look at it as a diff, or edit/preview, or several
other things that can force it to render.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] TeX fixed


body:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Delirium wrote:
>  What about things like Brion's notebook fund-- is he
> supposed to register that in all 50 states too?  The whole thing seems a
> bit ridiculous, which is probably why most people just ignore it.

Damfino, but I'm not a charity; I expect to pay income tax on it and
would consider it to be technically 'wages, tips, and other income'.

Yay taxes!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Alex R. wrote:

>From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
>
>>The idea of the panel's decisions being overthrown by an outside court
>>is unrealistic.  Such litigation is bound to be expensive, with little
>>chance of recovering costs.  Add to this the difficulties involving
>>jurisdiction or bringing witnesses from around the world, and you have
>>an effective deterrent against starting any such suit.
>>
>The cost would not be expensive and there are "summary" procedures
>that allow arbitration awards to be reviewed at very low cost. Reviewing
>arbitration awards is not a full blown law suit under the laws of most
>jurisdictions.
>
Expensive depends on what's involved.  For the possible consequences
that we have been discussing, of which a lifetime ban would be the most
severe, $200 would be expensive.  If the action were begun in a U.S.
court costs would not be recoverable, except perhaps by a different
suit.  Would something won in one jurisdiction be necessarily
enforceable in another?  Probably not.  Article I-3 of  the U.N.
Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards
allows a state to "declare that it will apply the Convention only to
differences arising out of legal relationships, whether contractual or
not, which are considered as commercial under the national law of the
State making such declaration."  British Columbia has so declared, and I
doubt that it is alone in that.  Wikipedia participation is not
commercial in nature.

Let's keep in mind that what we are trying to do is establish a
technique for dealing with difficult contributors.  We have introduced
the concepts of mediation and arbitration, but not the entire corpus of
world law relating to these.  The procedures of several jurisdictions
have been mentioned, but only to the extent that some of their ideas
might serve as models

>Stating over and over that no one is ever going to sue is not a good
>rational way to deal with the issue and then suddenly find the whole matter in front
>of a judge. It would be much more proactive to prevent the problem before
>it occurs.
>
The maxim that it is easier to get forgiveness than to get permission
should always be considered.  This is really a question of risk
analysis.  Trying to cover every possible eventuality isn't cost
effective.  Considering the probability of a suit is perfectly rational.
 Once you have determined that the probability is low, and that
opportunities for rectification may be available, so what if it ends up
in court.

>Regarding jurisdiction I don't think it is difficult to contemplate that the
>jurisdiction is anywhere anyone who is involved in the case may be (unless
>we clearly create a juridiction locus in the "contract" between users (and
>don not assume one already exists, it just needs to be codified).
>
Perhaps it's better not to create such a locus when doing so would only
make life easier for the potential complainant.  Also the absence of
consideration could be a basis for questioning any such contract.

>Regarding witnesses, usually they are not necessary in an arbitration.
>There is a writen record (it will be created by email, IM files, and
>wikipages). It is this record that will be presented to a court of competent
>jurisdiction (as opposed to exclusive jurisdiction). In other words
>reviewing arbitration  proceedings is often a type of "appeal"
>procedure, it is based on the record of the arbitration, though the scope
>of appeal is often limited
>
I can appreciate this point

I question the relevance of the mass of French law that you presented.

>There are always going to be ways that arbitration can be appealed,
>especially
>if it is done in a manner that is contrary to the principles of fundamental
>justice.
>
Of course, but nobody is suggesting that we ignore fundamental justice.

>I should point out that in France arbitration appeals are broadly
>entertained under article 1482:
>The arbitral award shall be appealable save where the parties have renounced
>to an appeal in the arbitration agreement. However, it is not open to appeal
>where the arbitrator has been appointed as an amicable compounder, save
>where the parties have expressly provided for this right in the arbitration
>agreement.
>
I'm not familiar with the term "amicable compounder"   I suspect that it
may cover the kind of amicable arbitration that we are trying to
establish, but I can't be sure of that.

Ec


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: AW: [WikiFR-l] Plantage

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Just a forward of a french mail :-)
>
>Vincent was willing to make a donation, but
>could not. PayPal apparently requested an
>American Express (I do not think many french
>/Swiss/Belgian people own an american express).
>
>Ideas ?

Choose Mastercard or Visa under "Card Type". If you still have problems then
tell PayPal about it here:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_contact-general

It might be a browser/version/OS issue so do forward that info.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Offsite server help

body:
JeLuF has kindly offered to let us use his server to host some Wikipedia
stuff. For the moment I've set up a very primitive proof-of-concept
read-only mirror of the Meta-wikipedia at
http://meta.wikipedia.mormo.org/

It's just the cache files copied over and served out by a copy of the
script with no database handy, so nothing too fancy. :)

It may be good to have an offsite mailserver to keep communication
channels open in case of downtime.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 02:11, Andre Engels wrote:
> >From an international perspective, could "Donations" be put in the
> Language.php please, so that it can be translated?

Certainly; if people can provide some translations, that's easy enough
to do.

It'll appear as the key string "sitesupport" just under "bugreports".

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Removing personal info

body:
> Sure, but there should be a boilerplate at least:
>
> "By clicking 'submit' you are contractually stating
> that the material you submit is henceforth released
> under GNU FDL.  Though this site is "anonymous", we
> will log your ip addresses as a means to identify
> you,
> and though we will not provide you ssl encryption to
> protect your account and identity, you must know
> that
> any edits made under your username are your
> responsibilty, as provided under US law."
>
> We might even mention the PATRIOT Act, as a way the
> US
> might enforce such law.
> ~S~

What's wrong with the current text. The only
difference between that and the current text is that
the current text sounds less like legalese and sounds
less threatening. The current text is posted below:

Please note that all contributions to Wikipedia are
considered to be released under the GNU Free
Documentation License (see Wikipedia:Copyrights for
details). If you don't want your writing to be edited
mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't
submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this
yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar
free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT
PERMISSION!

LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Cool Off Ban

body:
> I was looking to what happens when the page in
> edit-war has been
> locked yet the belligerent parties start mashing all
> over each other
> in other pages, such as talk pages, user pages, etc.

> =====
> Christopher Mahan

It's possible to protect user pages and talk pages
too, isn't it? I think that's a much better solution
than banning the user.
LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyrighted material on Wikipedia

body:
--- user_Jamesday <user_Jamesday at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > > To see how Google handles this, take a look at
> > So, you think that court documents like that
> should be kept private?
>
> I want them to be public. I was using it to support
> an argument against deleting history, which would
> leave the history public.

How can you be using that argument if you don't
believe that the court documents should be private?
LDan

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] What if?

body:
On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 06:30, Gutza wrote:
> Here's what I get at http://downloads.wikipedia.org/:

Sorry, should be http://download.wikipedia.org/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: What if?

in_reply_to:
<3F81D5F8.9040707@planetunreal.com> (tarquin@planetunreal.com's
	message of "Mon, 06 Oct 2003 21:52:08 +0100")

body:
tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:

> if you are particularly proud of some articles you have worked on,
> save a copy of the wikitext as a text document on your hard drive :)

Exactly.  That's what I do and I put them into my local CVS and some of
my local articles are more up-to-date then those I submitted to the
wikipedia.org ;)  The reasons:

    Sometimes the server is down and I simply forgot that I have
    edits pending.

    Some of my changes seem to confuse other editors ;)

    Some of my changes are not ready to go official.

Now I'm looking for parser which is able to convert wikitexts (my
local articles) to very simple HTML output.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikitech-l] Offsite server help

body:
Brion wisely observed:

> It may be good to have an offsite mailserver
> to keep communication channels open
> in case of downtime.

YES!! We can't "talk" about downtime problems when the mail server is
down, so let's by all means keep "mail" and "wikipedia" on separate
servers!!!!

Ed Poor


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What if?

body:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2003 13:02:30 -0700 (PDT), Stevertigo
<utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com> gave utterance to the following:

>
> --- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> The databases are backed up weekly. I keep a copy of
>> it all at home, and
>> so should you.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> Considering that en:wiki is up to {{CHANGESPERHOUR}},
> it may be that a week's loss is too much to bear, and
> would piss a lot of hard working contributors off, if
> by some strange mishap it in fact was lost.

If there are several people who pull a regular database dump (say, weekly)
then they could coordinate with each other and assign set days/times on
which they do it. If there are 7 of them we have a "daily" offsite backup.
So if the data centre burned down on a Thursday morning and Tim, got his
backup on Wednesday night, we simply restore to new servers from Tim's
copy and lose less than 24 hours.
PS I hope we are keeping off-site backups of the system configuration each
time it is changed, too!
--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


subject: [WikiEN-l] Removing personal info

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

>We might even mention the PATRIOT Act, as a way the US
>might enforce such law.
>
That's enough to leave the impression that we're a front organization
for Homeland Security. :-)

Ec


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
> Alex R. wrote:
> >From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
> >
> >>The idea of the panel's decisions being overthrown by an outside court
> >>is unrealistic.  Such litigation is bound to be expensive, with little
> >>chance of recovering costs.  Add to this the difficulties involving
> >>jurisdiction or bringing witnesses from around the world, and you have
> >>an effective deterrent against starting any such suit.
> >>
> >The cost would not be expensive and there are "summary" procedures
> >that allow arbitration awards to be reviewed at very low cost. Reviewing
> >arbitration awards is not a full blown law suit under the laws of most
> >jurisdictions.
> >
> Expensive depends on what's involved.  For the possible consequences
> that we have been discussing, of which a lifetime ban would be the most
> severe, $200 would be expensive.  If the action were begun in a U.S.

In NYS the cost for filing is $210.

> court costs would not be recoverable, except perhaps by a different

What we call court costs are recoverable. What are not recoverable
are legal fees. But someone could easily file a suit "pro se" and would
not have legal fees.  Of course, if legal fees were included in the
arbitration agreement, that would be recoverable. Regarding the
costs, someone may be doing it to prove a point, and what is
the cost of a plane ticket to Florida. Filing the petition to uphold
the arbitration could be done by mail. Only the appearance at
the actual hearing would be in person. The petitioner could even
hire a lawyer to appear for that one occasion. Someone spending
a few thousand dollars to prove a point? Highly likely if they
feel they have been wronged.

> suit.  Would something won in one jurisdiction be necessarily
> enforceable in another?  Probably not.  Article I-3 of  the U.N.
> Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards
> allows a state to "declare that it will apply the Convention only to
> differences arising out of legal relationships, whether contractual or
> not, which are considered as commercial under the national law of the
> State making such declaration."  British Columbia has so declared, and I
> doubt that it is alone in that.  Wikipedia participation is not
> commercial in nature.

One way around that is to have a choice of venue clause in the arbitation
agreement. Wikipedia could set the arbitration jurisdiction to be in
the County Court in St. Petersburg Florida. Thererfore anyone would
have to go that court to get the arbitration overturned. That would be
prohibitively expensive for the banned user and these jurisdiction/venue
provisions are routinely upheld by US courts. If someone goes to a
foreign court they might get a decision but only a decision that is
made in the "home" jurisdiction of Wikipedia would be binding.

> Let's keep in mind that what we are trying to do is establish a
> technique for dealing with difficult contributors.  We have introduced
> the concepts of mediation and arbitration, but not the entire corpus of
> world law relating to these.  The procedures of several jurisdictions
> have been mentioned, but only to the extent that some of their ideas
> might serve as models

Unfortunately the entire corpus of world law relating to arbitration
does apply, it is not like copyright law. If someone wants to
limit the law that applies then that should be done in a properly
drafted arbitration agreement. That is one reason that it needs to
be done properly.

> >Stating over and over that no one is ever going to sue is not a good
> >rational way to deal with the issue and then suddenly find the whole
matter in front
> >of a judge. It would be much more proactive to prevent the problem before
> >it occurs.
> >
> The maxim that it is easier to get forgiveness than to get permission
> should always be considered.  This is really a question of risk
> analysis.  Trying to cover every possible eventuality isn't cost
> effective.  Considering the probability of a suit is perfectly rational.

The probability of knowing if someone will sue is _unknown_. No one
can ever predict that. It is not "trying to cover every possible
eventuality"
it is just being reasonably prepared.  Why is it not cost effective?
What is the cost? I don't see any cost involved. It is just a matter
of good sense to organize it in a way that minimizes any potential
exposure to the courts. That is what I am suggesting, keeping out
of the courts. Thinking that you can ignore the legal systems that
are out there is naive.

>  Once you have determined that the probability is low, and that
> opportunities for rectification may be available, so what if it ends up
> in court.

So what? If you could have taken fairly simple and straightforward
steps either to make sure any arbital award is upheld in court or
is only enforceable in a certain court, then you have minimized the
cost of dealing with this problem. I for one would not want Wikimedia
donations to go to pay the cost of some litigator $300 per hour for
50 hours to defend a petition to vacate an arbitration award when
it could have been avoided by some simple straightforward policies
that could have been easily understood by non-legally trained individuals.

> >Regarding jurisdiction I don't think it is difficult to contemplate that
the
> >jurisdiction is anywhere anyone who is involved in the case may be
(unless
> >we clearly create a juridiction locus in the "contract" between users
(and
> >don not assume one already exists, it just needs to be codified).
> >
> Perhaps it's better not to create such a locus when doing so would only
> make life easier for the potential complainant.  Also the absence of
> consideration could be a basis for questioning any such contract.

Absence of consideration?  How can you say that? Of course there is
consideration in the contract between any contributor and Wikipedia.

Thre is a bargained for exchange. You get
to use Wikipedia and make contributions Wikipedia gets to release
your contributions over the internet. Consideration is a bit of an
old fashioned idea. Remember in civil law systems the concept of
consideration has never been recognized and that in most common
law systems there are lots of ways around this "conisderation" problem.
There are all kinds of estoppel arguments that could be used.
Anyway the terms of use of an internet site have been upheld as
being enforceable. You present the site and allow individuals to use
it.  It is a two way bargain, definitely a contract. Money does not
have to exchange hands for there to be a contract.

> >Regarding witnesses, usually they are not necessary in an arbitration.
> >There is a writen record (it will be created by email, IM files, and
> >wikipages). It is this record that will be presented to a court of
competent
> >jurisdiction (as opposed to exclusive jurisdiction). In other words
> >reviewing arbitration  proceedings is often a type of "appeal"
> >procedure, it is based on the record of the arbitration, though the scope
> >of appeal is often limited
> >
> I can appreciate this point
>
> I question the relevance of the mass of French law that you presented.

It was also presesnted with US law; by reading these laws in comparison
you can see that there are underlying similarities. Even in civil law
countries
arbitration is dealt with in the same manner. This is to show that the
principles
are the same and can be applied across jurisdictions. It is not a complex
jumble of conflicting laws, it was a system that has been used in ancient
Roman
times, by the "law merchant" and in internatinonal trade contracts.
Arbitration
is one of the most settled areas of law that there is because of that
history.

> >There are always going to be ways that arbitration can be appealed,
> >especially
> >if it is done in a manner that is contrary to the principles of
fundamental
> >justice.
> >
> Of course, but nobody is suggesting that we ignore fundamental justice.

That is all I have been suggesting. Create a simple straightforward system
of arbitration in line with the principles of fundamental justice or due
process or fairness (different names in different contexts for essentially
the same thing), make the arbitration hard to appeal or overturn by
limiting these rights by agreement and that will make the decisions of
the committee final.

Alex756