from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
There is some proposal right now at the talk page of the Konknni Test.

Script usage largely corresponds to individual varieties of Konkani --
Kannada script is used for dialects in Karnataka, Devanagari is used
in Maharashtra, Roman script is used in Goa. However there are issues
here as well, although Goa only has one dialect (and even more
confusing, Hindus and Muslims in Goa may use Devanagri or Arabic
script respectively to write the Goanese Konkani, although majority of
Goans are, afaik, Catholics and prefer writing it in Roman alphabet).

Despite proposals on talkpage to have several parallel
dialect/script/article versions in one single Wikipedia edition, this
seems very unreasonable. To conver scripts (for example if we have
Goanese only, to convert from Roman to Devanagri and Arabic and, with
quite a bit more work perhaps vice-versa), that is certainly
reasonable, but I don't think it makes sense to try to house multiple
mutually unintelligible linguistic entities in one Wiki as was
propsoed by Deepak D'Souza. Goanese is the one that is official and
most spoken afaik, it should be able to get a Wiki sooner probably
because it seems most supporters now are from Goa.

Often in situations like this that have occurred with other test-Wikis
(for example North Frisian), proposers mention unity and content of
articles in various dialects in a unified Wiki exemplified by
nds-nl.wp, however before using such example it is important to note
that each case is different, dialect diversity in different places is
never equal, so nds-nl is not the exact same level of homogenous and
heterogeneity as will be Konkani varieties, nor North Frisian
varieties. Before implementing such a proposal to have a Wikipedia
which combines multiple varieties, it is important to have input from
native speakers of each variety who can testify that it will work, and
to leave the possibility open in the future for a split in case it
does not go as was planned.

In this situation I hope that we can hear maore from Frederick
Noronha, and if a unified Konknni Wikipedia is in fact proposed, it
will certainly be necessary to hear from speakers of ALL Konkani
varieties to prove that it is feasible so we do not end up with a
nother Lombard deb?cle from the start.

Mark

On 10/03/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> I think it is best to indicate opposition as soon as possible. Even with
> thirty people on a kok wikipedia there are now sufficient reasons to
> deny the project. Without a good write up explaining how a kok wikipedia
> would respect the seven languages that are now split off from this code,
> I am against the creation of this project
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> Mark Williamson schreef:
> > Isn't it also better if we wait for the required 5 users? Right now it
> > seems there are only two.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 10/03/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hoi,
> >> It is that simply a matter of picking and choosing. This project was
> >> "voted" into being, It proved to be fractious for good reason; there
> >> being more than one language behind the kok ISO-639-2 language code.
> >> There is already a fight over the script, I think it best when we have a
> >> proposal on how this is to be settled.
> >>
> >> Without such a proposal I am dead against it moving to a full WMF language.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>     GerardM
> >>
> >>
> >> Mark Williamson schreef:
> >>
> >>> GOM, if not KNN. As Frederick is Goan and that is (afaik) the major
> >>> variety, I can but assume that is the one they will use.
> >>>
> >>> Mark
> >>>
> >>> On 09/03/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Frederick Noronha schreef:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Yeah, I'm trying... but it has not been very easy convincing others
> >>>>> about what seems to be a "counter-intuitive" idea ... ("anyone being
> >>>>> able to edit me writing... whaaat?")
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We're also having a script war going on here amidst Kok. But I think
> >>>>> it will happen one day, hopefully sooner rather than later. FN
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 10/03/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Well, you could certainly take the lead by writing good articles for
> >>>>>> http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok/ . It is currently empty
> >>>>>> because of lack of participation.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>> Hoi,
> >>>> I have had a look at Konkani, the code currently in use on the Incubator
> >>>> will not necessarily lead to new project. Konkani is in ISO-639-3 no
> >>>> longer considered to be a single language. There are currently seven
> >>>> languages that all make up Konkani; they are
> >>>>
> >>>>     Katkari  [kfu
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kfu>] (India
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
> >>>>
> >>>>     Konkani  [knn
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=knn>] (India
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
> >>>>
> >>>>     Konkani, Goanese  [gom
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gom>] (India
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
> >>>>
> >>>>     Kukna  [kex <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kex>]
> >>>>     (India <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
> >>>>
> >>>>     Phudagi  [phd
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=phd>] (India
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
> >>>>
> >>>>     Samvedi  [smv
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=smv>] (India
> >>>>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
> >>>>
> >>>>     Varli  [vav <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=vav>]
> >>>>     (India <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
> >>>>
> >>>> This means that you can forget about a script war; the paricipant of
> >>>> these script wars will probably belong to one of these seven. The first
> >>>> battle you will have to fight is the clarification of what it is that
> >>>> you want.
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] BitTorrent Downloads of enwiki Images

body:
On 3/10/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >There also a very
> > short time period someone can bring legal action under the DMCA (10 days
> > I think), after which, use
> > of the images becomes legal for anyone.
>
> That sounds unlikely. I imagine there is more to it than that. Not
> noticing a copyright violation for 10 days doesn't release your work
> into the public domain - that would be crazy, even by legal standards.
>
If a copyright holder submits a valid takedown notice, and then the
uploader submits a valid counter-notice, then the copyright holder has
10 days to sue to uploader.  After 10 days, if there was no lawsuit,
the ISP may restore the content and is indemnified from lawsuit.

Check out the DMCA, section 512(g), for the nitty gritty details.
This is not legal advice.

Anthony


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ian Tresman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Running MediaWiki under PHP v5 binary?

body:
The latest version of MediaWiki v. 1.9.3 requires PHP v5 and mySQL v5.

However, my server runs PHP Version 4.3.11 and mySQL v3.23.58, and
they won't upgrade since it affects other customers.

But my Web hosting company says I could run PHP v5 and MySQL v4 as
binaries, but would MediaWiki work in  this way?

Regards,
Ian Tresman


subject: [Wikitech-l] Image slideshow extension wanted

body:
I hope this request is admissible for the list.

I'm after a MediaWiki slideshow extension, and found a Javascript
version under the GNU license at http://www.barelyfitz.com/projects/slideshow/

But my knowledge of extensions is not good enough to convert this
into an extension.

Would someone else oblige... I'm willing to pay, and the resulting
extension would remain under GNU and freely available to everyone.

The extension would create a new <slideshow> tag. It would not need
the "Slideshow Wizard" (described on the Web site above) that creates
the slideshow, as it is quite easy to do this manually.

And the one main improvement to the extension would be to be able to
specify images either as a URL, or as a Wiki image, eg;.
Image:picture.jpg (using the modest sized image, rather than the
uploaded larger sized image. The option to restrict URLs to certain
domains would prevent the use of inappropriate off-size images.

I think this extension would be a useful additional.

Regards,
Ian Tresman


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Checkered background (from [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
 [20065] trunk/phase3)

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

Platonides wrote:
> Jeremy Cushman wrote:
>> On 3/10/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>> This change seems to be targeted at editors, rather than users of the
>>> wiki. For a user, the behavior of seeing a checkered background on a
>>> full size view serves no purpose and, indeed, obscures the content of
>>> the image. What is the justification for putting this in the default
>>> skin?
>> I agree with Erik.  I've added the checkered background to my personal
>> monobook, because it's great for working on images images, but the
>> majority of users not into image editing and such do not want to see
>> the checkered background.
>> --Mets501
>
> Wasn't this already available at image pages?

It's been in the local stylesheets for I believe at least English
Wikipedia and Commons for a year or so.

> If this is problematic, make it a flag on user preferences, so it's easy
> for everybody to have/avoid it.

Nooooooo :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF8wyhwRnhpk1wk44RAnXMAKCrKH+kl2eiCUIXe/UiAvmrYTroCACdE53s
7om1uw9cCkMVOJf8g8oHQuQ=
=AKmW
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


list: wikien-l

from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Almeda University paying for positive Wikipedia edits

body:
For those wondering why allowing paid editing might not be such a good
idea, take a look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Almeda_University#Paying_freelancers_to_revert_this_article_daily

It's a long-term contract for a 7-days-a-week effort  to replace
negative edits with positive ones. Full marks to [[User:Randywombat]]
for finding this.

Note in particular the endless self-justification in the Almeda
approach. I think that will undermine any attempt to find clever rules
that allow paid editing where there is even the slightest possibility of
conflict of interest. I'm sure any of us could rewrite that job
description to make full use of Wikipedia jargon. And if somebody's
income depends on them not getting the essential meaning behind our
words, they may be able to keep it up for quite a while.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal for simplified credentials model

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>>From: <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
>>
>>William Pietri wrote
>>
>>
>>>As the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote, "But the incident is
>>>clearly
>>>damaging to Wikipedia's credibility -- especially with professors who
>>>will now note that one of the site's most visible academics has
>>>turned
>>>out to be a fraud."
>>>
>>>
>>I'm going to sound like a snob. Why would anyone think tenure at a
>>private college in the mid-West in theology was any kind of high
>>academic profile? Academics would know how to rate this (i.e. there
>>are thousands of middle-aged guys in this general category).
>>
>>
>It's not a _high_ academic profile, but I heard a relevant joke on "A
>Prairie Home Companion" a few weeks ago:
>
>Q: "What do you call a doctor who graduated at the bottom of his class?"
>A: "Doctor."
>
Custer became a general despite finishing last in his class at West Point.

>I am certain that _any_ of those "thousands of middle-aged guys" have
>read more books about theology than I ever have. Probably 90% of them
>have read and remember, not only more than I, but more than a
>software engineer of my acquaintance who teaches Sunday school, the
>one whom I call whenever I want to know things like what "the TULIP
>of Calvinism" is.
>
[[John Calvin]] enterred university at age 14, and was 23 when he
received his Doctor of Law.  One wonders how such credentials would be
regarded today.  Would they be recognized here in Wikipedia. :-)

>A "tenured professor at a private college in the mid-West" is an
>excellent source of knowledge for anything that a) _within_ the area
>of the coursework he did as an undergraduate and grad student, and b)
>_not_ within his area of deep expertise--the area in which he has
>written his thesis or published research. Those are exactly the areas
>in which he may have a strong point of view and/or bees in his
>bonnet, and feel that his credentials entitle him to speak ex cathedra.
>
That also opens up the question of what that small college may consider
to be appropriate credentials.  Would someone with a formation in
pastoral theology at a fundamentalist college be capable of handling
doctrinal subtleties.

>On the other hand, he's a great person to ask about material from
>that course he hated and got the "C" in twenty years ago, because
>he'll feel insecure and check his facts. The point is, he'll know
>exactly what facts to check and where to go to check them, and he'll
>be able to find them quickly and easily.
>
Maybe he's still convinced that the professors were wrong in giving him
that "C" for heretical views.  Jaycee's early reputation was founded in
[[Imprimatur]].  It's conceivable that those facts might be checked in a
work without an imprimatur. ;-)

>Academic credentials are easily verified, represent disinterested
>third-party testimony, and are an imprecise but _valid_ indicator
>that the degree-holder had at one point in one's life mastered a
>certain body of knowledge for long enough to pass an exam.
>
And nothing more.

>Of course, there could many basic areas in which a layperson, writing
>with "Catholicism for Dummies" at hand and consulting it while
>writing, could do better than a tenured professor speaking off the
>top of his head.
>
"Catholicism for Dummies" is certainly more readable than "Summa theologica".

>But somewhere between "credentials mean nothing" and "credentials
>mean everything" is The Truth, which is: "credentials mean _something._"
>
Indeed.  I still find the truth more satisfying than The Truth.

Ec


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with juvenile vandalism

body:
On 3/10/07, stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> I dont know how diffs could actually be made more concise in order to best
> fit, but it seems that we can at least indicate whether text has been added
> or removed
> and what text that is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EnhanceHistory-ShowerJuggling.png

Steve


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: GerardM

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
Hoi,
A regulatory body can only regulate within its sphere of influence. What is
called "Moldovan" does not necessarily relate to the Moldovan country and
thereby the relation does not necessarily exist. This has been explained to
you before.

There are plenty of languages that do not have a regulatory body associated
with them. It is therefore not really necessary to differentiate languages
based on the fact if such a body exists or not. This has been explained to
you before.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/10/07, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> My constructive position (made clear a long time ago
> in a discussion here, and in other discussions on
> various Wikipedia fora) is the following:
> * Given that no Cyrillic script Moldovan editor exists
> on Wikipedia, it is only important *for the time
> being* that reading capability is provided for
> Cyrillic readers.
> * This reading capability can already be provided
> using the transliteration script of
> :en:User:Bogdangiusca. I have tried it, and it
> provides decent results. This script should be the
> only content of a mo-cyr.wiki, transliterating pages
> of ro.wiki. For the script, please contact its author.
> * When/if Cyrillic-script Moldovan editors ask for
> their wikipedia, then (and only then) the mo-cyr.wiki
> should be given to them.
> * Why mo-cyr? Because there are 2 Moldovan languages
> at the time being:
>    - the guys that declared themselves Moldovan in
>    the Moldovan census are a very large majority,
>    and their Latin-scripted version of Moldovan is
>    regulated by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences.
>    - the guys that (are forced to) use the Cyrillic
>    script in Transnistria probably use the last
>    language standard of the Soviet times (I know
>    of no existent regulating body).
> You see that you just can't let a minority take
> exclusive use of the ISO code mo/mol. OTOH, the
> Latin-scripted language is identical with Romanian,
> as stated by its regulatory body.
>
> As you see, this *is* constructive, and the elements
> of the solution (and the agreement of Romanians) are
> here for a very long time now.
>
> Dpotop1
>
> --- GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > In what the WMF aims to do it reserves no place on
> > what wikipedia editors do
> > and do not do. It says that we aim to provide
> > information to people. For the
> > language committee it is nor necessarily relevant
> > what language people
> > identify with as it has brought us an un-ending
> > amount of people who do not
> > want to communicate with others and create new
> > "languages" for political
> > reasons.
> >
> > If you are so happy denying the use of Moldovan, be
> > constructive and promote
> > the use of the ro.wikipedia with the Cyrillic
> > script. If all you can do is
> > deny this option as well as deny the existence of a
> > mo.wikipedia, please
> > refrain from posting unless you have something
> > positive to say.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> > On 3/10/07, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > --- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I think this is a big misunderstanding on your
> > part.
> > > > The existance of
> > > > a Wikipedia in a linguistic entity does not
> > indicate
> > > > any level of
> > > > difference from other Wikipedias' languages. It
> > does
> > > > not claim that it
> > > > is a "language" or a "dialect".
> > >
> > > I think there's no misunderstanding here.
> > > You do have Wikipedia editors identifying their
> > > linguistic identity as Bosniac, Croatian, Sebian,
> > or
> > > Serbo-Croatian. You don't have Wikipedia editors
> > > identifying their linguistic identity as Moldovan.
> > > That makes all the difference.
> > >
> > > :en:Dpotop
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > We have Wikipedias in Bosnian, Croatian,
> > Serbian,
> > > > and Serbo-Croatian.
> > > > It's a bit of a paradox, if we have Wikipedias
> > in
> > > > the first 3, we
> > > > shouldn't have one in the fourth logically.
> > > >
> > > > But this problem is non-existant from a
> > linguistic
> > > > standpoint
> > > > precisely for the reason I stated above. All
> > four
> > > > are linguistic
> > > > entities, despite the fact that Serbo-Croatian
> > is an
> > > > "umbrella" entity
> > > > that allows for the use of the other three. As
> > long
> > > > as there is a
> > > > reason to have these Wikis separate (ie, unless
> > BCS
> > > > people can agree
> > > > to a merger), they will be separate.
> > > >
> > > > Now, I think everybody here knows by now that
> > you
> > > > would be willing to
> > > > merge mo and ro Wikipedias with a script
> > conversion
> > > > system on
> > > > ro.wikipedia. That is fine. Nobody here objects
> > to
> > > > such a system. What
> > > > we do object to is that at this very moment, the
> > > > proposal has very
> > > > little support from the Romanian Wikipedian
> > > > community. You have been
> > > > told many times that you are welcome to try to
> > test
> > > > the waters,
> > > > organize a poll at ro.wp, try to convince people
> > of
> > > > the utility and
> > > > validity of such a system, but you keep
> > complaining
> > > > to this list about
> > > > how it's not your responsibility and about how
> > WE
> > > > need to do
> > > > something.
> > > >
> > > > How can you have not figured out by now that
> > with
> > > > hundreds of e-mails
> > > > repeating the exact same thing in so many words,
> > you
> > > > are not only
> > > > failing to change anything, you are actually
> > making
> > > > people more and
> > > > more firmly against the position you represent?
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > On 09/03/07, Liviu Andronic
> > <landronimirc at gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > On 3/5/07, Gerard Meijssen
> > > > <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Verbosity is a prerequisite for my
> > arguments
> > > > to be understood. Otherwise
> > > > > > > these are simply skipped.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > .... Really ? ...
> > > > >
> > > > > At times, this is the feeling that I have. At
> > any
> > > > rate, verbosity is
> > > > > necessary to make my arguments clear.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >  > 2. According to the recently adopted
> > Language
> > > > proposal
> > > > > > >
> > policy<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP>-
> > > > that I suppose can be
> > > > > > > applied to existing wikipedias to
> > determine
> > > > their
> > > > > > > "validity" - there are three "essential"
> > > > requisites that can be
> > > > > > verified: a
> > > > > > > valid ISO-639 code, language singularity
> > and a
> > > > viable community and
> > > > > > > audience.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > Hoi,
> > > > > > You are plain wrong. You are also wrong in
> > > > applying the policy in this
> > > > > > way. The policy determines how new languages
> > are
> > > > to be accepted. The
> > > > > > Moldovan Wikipedia already exists and it
> > does
> > > > have a valid ISO 639 code.
> > > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > >     GerardM
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Hello,
> > > > >
> > > > > I have no intent to renew this
> > > > > debate. This is simply to say that my view
> > over
> > > > > the entire issue has not radically changed.
> > For
> > > > the following (same)
> > > > > reasons:
> > > > >
> > > > > From what I know, the tiny wikipedias (like
> > the
> > > > Moldovan one) were created ?
> > > > > partir de a "list" with no formal voting and
> > > > without following any specific
> > > > > guidelines or policy. On this basis, I believe
> > > > that the newly adopted policy
> > > > > could be used  for determining the
> > "correctness"
> > > > of wikipedias that  were
> > > > > created in "obscure" ways. In any case, it  is
> > not
> > > > up to me to decide such a
> > > > > usage.
> > > > >
> > > > > As to the valid ISO 639 code.. It is valid
> > indeed
> > > > in the eyes of the ISO,
> > > > > but also according to the official POV of the
> > > > Party of Communists in RM (I
> > > > > suspect), of the Transnistrian authorities and
> > > > might have been in the eyes
> >
> === message truncated ===
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Don't get soaked.  Take a quick peek at the forecast
> with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut.
> http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
At 16:31 10/03/2007, you wrote:
>On Sat, Mar 10, 2007 at 02:19:34PM +0000, Ian Tresman wrote:
> > The latest version of MediaWiki v. 1.9.3 requires PHP v5 and mySQL v5.
> >
> > However, my server runs PHP Version 4.3.11 and mySQL v3.23.58, and
> > they won't upgrade since it affects other customers.
> >
> > But my Web hosting company says I could run PHP v5 and MySQL v4 as
> > binaries, but would MediaWiki work in  this way?
>
>MediaWiki works in this environment, if you configure everything correctly.

Thanks for that, most useful.

Any idea whether MediaWiki 1.6 will run under PHP v5 and MySQL v4, or
will I need to upgrade MediaWiki to version 1.9 immediately. It will
be easy to solve problems if I can do it in steps.

Regards,
Ian


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 10/03/07, Ian Tresman <it at knowledge.co.uk> wrote:
> Any idea whether MediaWiki 1.6 will run under PHP v5 and MySQL v4, or
> will I need to upgrade MediaWiki to version 1.9 immediately. It will
> be easy to solve problems if I can do it in steps.

MediaWiki 1.6.x shouldn't have problems running under PHP 5.

Note that MediaWiki doesn't require MySQL 5; we're still using 4.0.x
in production. MediaWiki 1.6.x and greater *do* require MySQL 4.0.x or
greater.

Rob Church


from_name: Gary Kirk

body:
I'm not a lawyer nor am I that familiar with it regards to fair use
etc (here in Britain) but what you seem to be saying is that what you
want to do is not strictly within the law but you'll do it anyway and
it's alright because the Wikimedia Foundation can deal with it.

You also didn't answer Anthere's question - or is the original message
of this thread you 'asking' for permission/approval?

On 10/03/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Rory Stolzenberg wrote:
>
> >On 3/9/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I have compiled the entire library of Wikipedia's images and have a
> >>bittorrent server ready to export this library on the internet.  I am
> >>awaiting
> >>word back from the Foundation for approval to enable the torrents.
> >>
> >>I have developed an automated C based server system which mirrors all
> >>Wikipedia images and compiles them into .bz2 archives as a library based
> >>on XML revision and dump.   When I get final approval, I will export
> >>these torrents to allow the images to be available from the internet.
> >>I will be in Arizona meeting with Dine (Navajo) folks next week on their
> >>projects, but will have email access.
> >>
> >>The torrents will be available at
> >>
> >>http://www.wikigadugi.org:2780
> >>
> >>At some point.  I will let folks know when and if the Foundation has
> >>approved this.
> >>
> >>:-)
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >The Foundation does not own the copyright to (almost) all of those
> pictures.
> >Why do you need approval from them? As long as they're distributed
> according
> >to the terms of their licenses (assuming you aren't using copyrighted
> images
> >that Wikipedia uses under a claim of fair use), you don't need any
> >permission.
> >
> >
> When I start distributing them, there WILL be DMCA takedown notices and
> legal threats from various folks out on the internet
> I am certain, along with possible litigation.
>
> That's fine. If someone wants to take me to Court for distributing
> Wikipedia images, I have both the legal background,
> and the resources to defend such actions.
>
> I need the Foundations permission because they are the source of the
> images on the internet. In the event there is a DMCA takedown
> notice, I will notify the Wikipedia contributor on their talk page who
> uploaded the image, wait for the response, then give the complaining
> party the time period to file suit if they really feel that strongly
> about it, or work out some reasonable compromise (which would be best)
> between the parties.
>
> Should someone want to file suit or really complain, then the Foundation
> can make the call on whether or not the image should also
> come off Wikipedia without exposing the Foundation to the same level of
> legal risks someone who is actively distributing the images
> would be. People who own copyrights may not have an issue with Fair use
> images on Wikipedia as a encyclopedia, but they may have a more serious
> view when someone is distributing full downloads and archives of images
> so people REALLY CAN host the encyclopedia. This will test that premise
> and I would expect to see more people coming forward on image use in
> general so the Foundation can more effectively identify images which
> may in fact be sources of conflict.
>
> In essence, the Foundation will have a "buffer" of sorts one level away
> from the forefront of these legal issues and at the same time be able
> to filter a lot of the conflict over image distribution. The other point
> is, technically under the law, WMF may be considered the source
> of the images in some cases, and in that case, they would be the
> responder to DMCA takedown notices. I think this would help
> clean up a lot of the images also (people would think twice about
> uploading fair use images if they knew they were being repacked
> and distributed and that they may receive DMCA notices about the images).
>
> At any rate, it would be impolite and a breach of loyalty to the
> foundation and community to go ahead with such a plan without permission
> and without giving the Foundation the opportunity to comment on the
> proposal and offer suggestions.
>
> Jeff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>What will be distributed?
>>
>>.tar.gz and .tar.bz2 syncrhonized archives of all images for each XML
>>dump published by Brion Vibber and the team
>>.tar.gz and .tar.bz2 syncrhonized archives of all images for each XML
>>dump with tagged fair use images removed published by Brion Vibber and
>>the team
>>
>>
>How is you distributing images that are only used in Wikipedia under
>fair use not completely illegal? Your use of them isn't fair.
>
We cannot presume that his usage is fair or not.

Ec


body:
christophe.henner at wikimedia.fr wrote:

>On 11/03/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The real issue is that when I receive DMCA notices, the "uploader" or
>>"provider" of the content is the Foundation if the author cannot be
>>identified or contacted. In response to Anthere, the real issue for the
>>foundation is this:
>>
>>
>The point is I don't see what the DMCA have to do with redistribution
>of free images. With Fair Use I can see but, in my opinion, the
>Foundation shall NOT give any autorization for redistribution of fair
>use image, or even help at it.
>
It's not that we "shall not"; it's that we cannot because it's not our
authorization to give.  It would be wrong to give such permission
because it leaves the impression that we can give it.  This has no
bearing on whether the requester uses it or not.  His and our fair use
derive independently of each other.  It's his own responsibility to
verify whether his uses qualify as fair use.

Ec


list: textbook-l

from_name: Martin Swift

subject: [Textbook-l] [Fwd: Wikibooks e-mail]Link spamming

body:
On Fri, Mar 09, 2007 at 07:57:17PM -0700, Robert Horning wrote:
> If you are talking about a server administrator, who might that be?

The administrator of the server used to deliver the message. In some
cases there may be several on the way, in which case any or all may be
considered.

> This was sent via the web interface on en.wikibooks, of which I'm an administrator there.

Oh, that would be you then.

Essentially, we can either send a barrage of emails in the hope of
intimidating him. Or we could send out a single one informing him that
his actions are ill taken and will lead to his access termintated. I'm
assuming that we can create some sort of block block file barring him
access from using the email interface.

The rationale for the second is two-fold. Firstly, we maintain our
moral high ground. Were we to send him flood of emails we'd
effectively be sanctioning that there may be justification for
unsolicited emails (granted, he started it, but we're not at
kindergarten any more).

Secondly, a threat of being cut off may have much greater effect than
mere annoyance. As this is hardly a main personal account, the spamer
will probably not mind deleting a couple of dozen emails.

I would suggest that we find whoever is in the technological position
to implement blocks to the interface (Robert?) and urge anyone who
receives an UCE to contact that person. Each trangression will then
receive an authorative warning, possibly followed by a block, rather
than an angry tirade that is easily deleted or filtered away.

> My main point is that I believe that this individual has likely spammed privately several individuals on not only Wikibooks but other Wikimedia projects as well.

Checking this shouldn't be too difficult. Surely it is logged?

> My experience with yahoo is that they don't really care when these things get sent, and shutting down the account will do little good, as least from their perspective.

Which is why we need to solve it from our end. Sending a report each
time might, however, get some response in the long run.

> This is a throw-away e-mail account that is here one day and gone the next.

I'm not too sure, he'll have to monitor it for a while for responses.
Again, the logs would tell us more. Not sure what exactly you'd be
allowed for search for before breaching privacy, though. I guess
that's why you're the admin. :-)

Cheers,
Martin


from_name: Berto 'd Sera

body:
Hoi!

> My constructive position
So... It was told to Liviu, it gets told to YOU. It will be duly copied to
all of you, as an auto answer.
1) WHO of you spammers has found the time to call up a regular vote on
RO.wiki on becoming fully bilingual and giving warranties of acceptance of
articles by the Transdnistrian minority?
2) Who of you will prove clever enough to do that BEFORE littering our
mailboxes with your carnival?

Until you answer to that ANY Moldavian position (pro
Cyrillic/anti-cyrillic/Acyrillic or whatever) will be just low quality
toilet paper for my house. Or do you guys seriously think that we want to
start a big internal war in RO.wiki just to please a couple of hysterical
kids?

You want to make a change in someone else's house. You go there and ask the
landlord for permission, before coming up here with your emotional scenes.
It's called "respect" and "private property" in case you aren't familiar
with the terms.

All the tears in the universe won't make a difference. GO TO WORK! No work,
no consideration.

B?rto ?d S?ra
Personagi dl?ann 2006 p?r l?arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti voj?otri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


list: commons-l

from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [Commons-l] Join us now and free the video

body:
On 10/03/07, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
> Something interesting in the UK is what Channel 4 are doing with their
> post-transmission "on demand" service which allows you to watch a program
> during the subsequent seven days.
>
> They are removing the ads themselves (and no, there is no charge to watch.)

Sadly, only Windows XP users have access to this service. How free can it be?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


references:
<45F1FB79.3000701@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<estvmk$jj4$1@sea.gmane.org> <45F2EFF2.6040003@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<esupmu$tnm$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Oh I see. Danny Wool. I missed that.

On 10/03/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> > Florence Devouard wrote:
> >
> >> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> I have compiled the entire library of Wikipedia's images and have a
> >>> bittorrent server ready to export this library on the internet.  I am
> >>> awaiting
> >>> word back from the Foundation for approval to enable the torrents.
> >>>
> >>> I have developed an automated C based server system which mirrors all
> >>> Wikipedia images and compiles them into .bz2 archives as a library based
> >>> on XML revision and dump.   When I get final approval, I will export
> >>> these torrents to allow the images to be available from the internet.
> >>> I will be in Arizona meeting with Dine (Navajo) folks next week on their
> >>> projects, but will have email access.
> >>>
> >>> The torrents will be available at
> >>>
> >>> http://www.wikigadugi.org:2780
> >>>
> >>> At some point.  I will let folks know when and if the Foundation has
> >>> approved this.
> >>>
> >>> :-)
> >>>
> >>> Jeff
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> Just to be sure... Who did you ask approval from ?
> >>
> >> ant
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > Danny,
> >
> > Jeff
>
>
> In which capacity ?
>
> ant
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
On Sat, Mar 10, 2007 at 02:19:34PM +0000, Ian Tresman wrote:
> The latest version of MediaWiki v. 1.9.3 requires PHP v5 and mySQL v5.
>
> However, my server runs PHP Version 4.3.11 and mySQL v3.23.58, and
> they won't upgrade since it affects other customers.
>
> But my Web hosting company says I could run PHP v5 and MySQL v4 as
> binaries, but would MediaWiki work in  this way?

MediaWiki works in this environment, if you configure everything correctly.

Regards,

	jens


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:34:23 -0500, "Daniel P. B. Smith"
<wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:

>Academic credentials are easily verified, represent disinterested
>third-party testimony, and are an imprecise but _valid_ indicator
>that the degree-holder had at one point in one's life mastered a
>certain body of knowledge for long enough to pass an exam.

Up to a point.  You'll also find that degree holders tend in the main
to be better versed in the methodology of research and citation,
although that can certainly be learned.

Looking at the average CVG article, I'd say that comp-sci students
would be an exception to that :o)

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


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:

>I still have not understood what you were asking the authorization for.
>Images are under a free licence, so do not need our authorization to be
>distributed.
>
>Can you provide the exact text of what you are asking authorization of ?
>
>ant
>
>
>
>
The real issue is that when I receive DMCA notices, the "uploader" or
"provider" of the content is the Foundation if the author cannot be
identified or contacted. In response to Anthere, the real issue for the
foundation is this:

1. I will need either the foundation to the notify users on Wikipedia
via their talk page I have received such a notice or I am required to
contact the users about an image they have uploaded.
2. 10 days after I contact the Foundation or the user, if the DMCA
submitter fails to file suit against me in US District Court for
Copyright Infringement, the Foundation and the provider of the image is
relieved of liablity for the distribution of the images forever under
the doctrine of esstoppell.
3. The Foundation needs to decide whether these notices should be sent
to the individual wikipedia users, or the Foundation directly. in any
event, it would be an extra layer shielding the foundation from claims
for distribution of fair use images in tarballs along with XML dumps.

What will be distributed?

.tar.gz and .tar.bz2 syncrhonized archives of all images for each XML
dump published by Brion Vibber and the team
.tar.gz and .tar.bz2 syncrhonized archives of all images for each XML
dump with tagged fair use images removed published by Brion Vibber and
the team

Respectfully,

Jeff


from_name: Philippe Beaudette

body:
Erik, the only thing I would add is that perhaps instead of simply saying "verified credentials on X date", it should say "Verified Masters Degree from FirstCollegeofWhateverState on X date".  I'd hate to see people adding degrees post-verification of their first one, and it not being immediately clear that THOSE degrees are not verified.  Of course, you can find that by checking diffs, but if the whole point is to make it immediately discernable...

Philippe

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Erik Moeller
  To: English Wikipedia ; wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org ; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
  Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 12:21 PM
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Accountability: bringing backa proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

  On 3/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
  > There are two parts to the suggestion: 1) marking some statements with
  > a "verified credentials" tag, and 2) a "policy of gentle (or firm)
  > discouragement for people to make claims like those that EssJay made,
  > unless they are willing to back them up".

  I'm cross-posting this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, because it may
  very well become a Foundation-level issue at some point.

  I would support the following:

  1) Any user can ask for his or her professional credentials to be verified.

  2) Making up professional credentials is prohibited, and may result in
  a ban. (This may or may not be covered by existing policy, but judging
  from the Essjay case, it is probably not sufficiently clear.) This is
  independent of whether or not the user asks for credentials to be
  verified. We may investigate claims that are dubious when they are
  pointed out to us.

  3) Any user trusted on admin level or higher who makes a statement of
  credentials on their user page must have them verified through a team
  of volunteers designated to this role by the Wikimedia Foundation (we
  may want to involve the chapters if this becomes international). The
  process of verification could be similar to what Citizendium uses,
  i.e.:
  a) have an existing, credentialed user vouch for the credentials to be
  correct based on personal knowledge,
  b) respond to an email associated with a reliable institution, and
  point us to a web page of that institution where their credentials are
  listed,
  c) point to someone associated with a reliable institution we can
  contact to verify the credentials.

  We may extend this to regular users if it proves to scale well.

  4) Users with verified credentials will get a little "Verified
  credentials on <date>" marker on their user page, nothing more. This
  marker would ideally be independent of the wikitext of the page, and
  set in the user table instead.

  I am opposed to any marker of edit contributions and such -- users who
  care about credentials can look them up, those who do not care should
  not be bothered by them in discussions or contributions.
  --
  Peace & Love,
  Erik

  DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
  the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

  "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
  free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic

  _______________________________________________
  Wikipedia-l mailing list
  Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
  http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
>There also a very
> short time period someone can bring legal action under the DMCA (10 days
> I think), after which, use
> of the images becomes legal for anyone.

That sounds unlikely. I imagine there is more to it than that. Not
noticing a copyright violation for 10 days doesn't release your work
into the public domain - that would be crazy, even by legal standards.


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Florence Devouard wrote:
>
>
>
>>I still have not understood what you were asking the authorization for.
>>Images are under a free licence, so do not need our authorization to be
>>distributed.
>>
>>Can you provide the exact text of what you are asking authorization of ?
>>
>>ant
>>
>>
>The real issue is that when I receive DMCA notices, the "uploader" or
>"provider" of the content is the Foundation if the author cannot be
>identified or contacted.
>
Just because the material came from a wmf project does not make it the
uploader or provider.  Whoever physically put the material on your site
is the uploader.  "Provider" is admittedly more ambiguous, but I think
that it must be a positive act of making it available to you in
particular.  Simply having the material there for anyone to take does
not make the grade.

>In response to Anthere, the real issue for the
>foundation is this:
>
>1. I will need either the foundation to the notify users on Wikipedia
>via their talk page I have received such a notice or I am required to
>contact the users about an image they have uploaded.
>
These people have not uploaded the material to your site.  You have.  If
you receive a _properly composed_ DMCA notice you must take down the
specified material   If you consider the Foundation to have uploaded the
material it is fair and proper that you notify the Foundation.  At that
point the foundation is free to agree with the takedown and take no
further steps.  That would certainly be the simplest way to go, and I
can imagine very few circumstances where the Foundation would do
anything else.

The takedown notice has nothing to do with who uploaded the material.
It's issued because the material is there.  If the rights owner wants to
go after the uploader that's a separate issue.  They can even initiate
legal procedings to find out who the uploader really is (but in most
cases this does not seem worthwhile).  If you datadumped from another
site it's you, and not the uploader to the other site.  You can, of
course, issue a counter-notice.  As I read the law, unlike the
restrictions put on the complaining rights owner, anybody can issue a
counter-notice; the right is not limited to the putative rights infringer.

>2. 10 days after I contact the Foundation or the user, if the DMCA
>submitter fails to file suit against me in US District Court for
>Copyright Infringement, the Foundation and the provider of the image is
>relieved of liablity for the distribution of the images forever under
>the doctrine of esstoppell.
>
No.  The material essentially needs to stay off until you have received
a counter-notice.  The 10-day period runs from the receipt of the
counter-notice, not the original notice.  If you notify the Foundation,
and the Foundation does nothing the 10-day period hasn't started.
Estopel or vexatious actions are only likely to come into play if a
person keeps re-initiating takedown orders for the same material instead
of responding to a counter-notice with a proper legal suit.

>3. The Foundation needs to decide whether these notices should be sent
>to the individual wikipedia users, or the Foundation directly. in any
>event, it would be an extra layer shielding the foundation from claims
>for distribution of fair use images in tarballs along with XML dumps.
>
Why should the Foundation pass them on if it was not the one receiving
the DMCA notice?  I very much believe, and have stated so in the past,
that when the Foundation receives such notices it should make them
public so that directly concerned individuals can take action if they
want in response to the material being taken down.  This need not be the
same when the notice goes to a mirror site.  If the rights owner wants
the material removed from any WMF project he should make his claim
directly rather than through your project.  I don't think that this
"extra layer shielding" has any meaning at all.

Ec


from_name: Florence Devouard

references:
<45F1FB79.3000701@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<estvmk$jj4$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<45F2EFF2.6040003@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> Florence Devouard wrote:
>
>> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I have compiled the entire library of Wikipedia's images and have a
>>> bittorrent server ready to export this library on the internet.  I am
>>> awaiting
>>> word back from the Foundation for approval to enable the torrents.
>>>
>>> I have developed an automated C based server system which mirrors all
>>> Wikipedia images and compiles them into .bz2 archives as a library based
>>> on XML revision and dump.   When I get final approval, I will export
>>> these torrents to allow the images to be available from the internet.
>>> I will be in Arizona meeting with Dine (Navajo) folks next week on their
>>> projects, but will have email access.
>>>
>>> The torrents will be available at
>>>
>>> http://www.wikigadugi.org:2780
>>>
>>> At some point.  I will let folks know when and if the Foundation has
>>> approved this.
>>>
>>> :-)
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Just to be sure... Who did you ask approval from ?
>>
>> ant
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
> Danny,
>
> Jeff

In which capacity ?

ant


body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>If a copyright holder submits a valid takedown notice, and then the
>>uploader submits a valid counter-notice, then the copyright holder has
>>10 days to sue to uploader.  After 10 days, if there was no lawsuit,
>>the ISP may restore the content and is indemnified from lawsuit.
>>
>>
>So the key thing missing was that the counter starts when the DMCA
>notice is issued, not when the work is first distributed, which is
>what was implied.
>
Not exactly.  The counter-notice rather than the notice.

Ec


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/10/07, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Again, hinting as the possibility that the Wikimedia Foundation is the
> "source" (and here I understand it as "author" or "owning the rights
> to" of ANY image hosted on thier servers is hinting at something that
> is both, as far as I am concerned, wrong and dangerous as it furthers
> the misunderstanding of where responsibility lies and what the
> Foundation's role is (mainly owner of the servers that host ths
> content) .

That isn't quite true:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia

--
geni


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> Rory Stolzenberg wrote:
>
>> On 3/9/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I have compiled the entire library of Wikipedia's images and have a
>>> bittorrent server ready to export this library on the internet.  I am
>>> awaiting
>>> word back from the Foundation for approval to enable the torrents.
>>>
>>> I have developed an automated C based server system which mirrors all
>>> Wikipedia images and compiles them into .bz2 archives as a library based
>>> on XML revision and dump.   When I get final approval, I will export
>>> these torrents to allow the images to be available from the internet.
>>> I will be in Arizona meeting with Dine (Navajo) folks next week on their
>>> projects, but will have email access.
>>>
>>> The torrents will be available at
>>>
>>> http://www.wikigadugi.org:2780
>>>
>>> At some point.  I will let folks know when and if the Foundation has
>>> approved this.
>>>
>>> :-)
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>
>> The Foundation does not own the copyright to (almost) all of those pictures.
>> Why do you need approval from them? As long as they're distributed according
>> to the terms of their licenses (assuming you aren't using copyrighted images
>> that Wikipedia uses under a claim of fair use), you don't need any
>> permission.
>>
>>
> When I start distributing them, there WILL be DMCA takedown notices and
> legal threats from various folks out on the internet
> I am certain, along with possible litigation.
>
> That's fine. If someone wants to take me to Court for distributing
> Wikipedia images, I have both the legal background,
> and the resources to defend such actions.
>
> I need the Foundations permission because they are the source of the
> images on the internet. In the event there is a DMCA takedown
> notice, I will notify the Wikipedia contributor on their talk page who
> uploaded the image, wait for the response, then give the complaining
> party the time period to file suit if they really feel that strongly
> about it, or work out some reasonable compromise (which would be best)
> between the parties.
>
> Should someone want to file suit or really complain, then the Foundation
> can make the call on whether or not the image should also
> come off Wikipedia without exposing the Foundation to the same level of
> legal risks someone who is actively distributing the images
> would be. People who own copyrights may not have an issue with Fair use
> images on Wikipedia as a encyclopedia, but they may have a more serious
> view when someone is distributing full downloads and archives of images
> so people REALLY CAN host the encyclopedia. This will test that premise
> and I would expect to see more people coming forward on image use in
> general so the Foundation can more effectively identify images which
> may in fact be sources of conflict.
>
> In essence, the Foundation will have a "buffer" of sorts one level away
> from the forefront of these legal issues and at the same time be able
> to filter a lot of the conflict over image distribution. The other point
> is, technically under the law, WMF may be considered the source
> of the images in some cases, and in that case, they would be the
> responder to DMCA takedown notices. I think this would help
> clean up a lot of the images also (people would think twice about
> uploading fair use images if they knew they were being repacked
> and distributed and that they may receive DMCA notices about the images).
>
> At any rate, it would be impolite and a breach of loyalty to the
> foundation and community to go ahead with such a plan without permission
> and without giving the Foundation the opportunity to comment on the
> proposal and offer suggestions.
>
> Jeff

I still have not understood what you were asking the authorization for.
Images are under a free licence, so do not need our authorization to be
distributed.

Can you provide the exact text of what you are asking authorization of ?

ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
Rob Smith wrote:

>On 3/10/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>In these circumstances, where David is right in saying that they have
>>never been done before, it is too easy to be knocked off track by a
>>single unexpected issue like that of Essjay's credentials.  We have to
>>be careful not to attach too much unwarranted weight to these one-off
>>incidents.
>>
>>
>The Essjay affair can be summed up as: the guy was a victim of his own
>stupidity.
>
Absolutely!

>Now how did that attract international mainstream media
>attention?
>
Sensation hungry sharks on a feeding frenzy.  When they have nothing new
to say they go around in circles repeating themselves.  I'm surprised
they didn't send off a cadre of paparazzi to Louisville waiting for
Essjay to give them a juicy shot.  Lucky for him that he didn't have
Anna Nicole's chest. :-)

Ec


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Checkered background (from [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
	[20065] trunk/phase3)

body:
On 10/03/07, Jeremy Cushman <mets501wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/10/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > This change seems to be targeted at editors, rather than users of the
> > wiki. For a user, the behavior of seeing a checkered background on a
> > full size view serves no purpose and, indeed, obscures the content of
> > the image. What is the justification for putting this in the default
> > skin?
>
> I agree with Erik.  I've added the checkered background to my personal
> monobook, because it's great for working on images images, but the
> majority of users not into image editing and such do not want to see
> the checkered background.

but are the majority of people who arrive at image pages (that is,
bother to click images in articles) editors or "users" (presumably
non-editor users)? I would guess the former.

regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


subject: [Wikitech-l] one-click image republishing/Commons promotion

body:
Hello,

I recently exchanged email with a chap, Mark Thomson, from
http://yotophoto.com/ , an image search engine that indexes various
copyleft(ish) sources including Wikimedia projects. He mentioned this
plan of theirs:

--------
4) Yotophoto would like to enable one click republishing of images
found so people can repost to their own blogs etc. To do this we will
provide a copy and paste HTML code they can use. This code will link
back to the image source (ie. Commons) as well as to the image
license. Sites like Commons will get tons of back-links and exposure
in this way I think. I like to think of this as the "Flickerization of
Wikipedia" (and Commons).
--------

As someone trying to raise the profile of Commons, I would be
delighted to see this. However at the moment I haven't heard much
about something like this except for "don't hotlink".

I mentioned to Mark that this might be acceptable if they used the
150px or 250px thumbnails, but told him I would pass it on here for
further comment.

Thoughts? Would this be technically serverspeaking acceptable,
probably acceptable, probably not acceptable or definitely not
acceptable? :)

cheers,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20304] trunk/phase3

body:
On 3/9/07, raymond at svn.wikimedia.org <raymond at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 20304
> Author:   raymond
> Date:     2007-03-09 15:08:56 -0800 (Fri, 09 Mar 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * (bug 5619) Split statistics messages for brighter output if
> $wgDisableCounters or $wgMiserMode are true

Don't you think it would be a good idea to figure out some way to
*not* throw away the sitestatstext messages for every single language
other than German or English?  And is there any reason to break
backwards compatibility for userstats-text (as well as, again, the
slight issue of most of our supported languages reverting to the
English messages since you didn't change the names in all those
files), other than wanting to be tidy?


subject: [Commons-l] Yotophoto (free image search engine) developments

body:
See below.
My comments in reply summarised in square brackets.

http://yotophoto.com/

Play around, see what you like and don't like. I'll pass on any
comments given to me.

cheers,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 10-Mar-2007 07:51
Subject: Re: [Provide feedback] Wikimedia Commons photos

Brianna,

First, sorry for the delayed response and thanks for your comments. I
especially appreciate feedback from people in your position as I want
Yotophoto to be embraced by those contributing to  important projects
like Wikimedia Commons.

Right now, most of the links to go back to Wikipedia instead of the
Commons for the main reason that awareness of the Wikipedia project is
higher than that of Commons. It's just easier for people to get their
head around it if they are unfamiliar with Commons.  (As an aside, I
find it pretty tough  explaining how everything works with regards to
'free' licensing and how we index only third party sites and so on.
You wouldn't believe how often people write us to ask if they can use
one of "our" images or how they can upload their own images to us).

One thing I also like about linking to the Wikipedia page over the
Commons one is that the list of pages that link to the image seem to
be more accurate on Wikipedia than Commons. Is this your experience as
well? Any feedback on this would be helpful. See #3 below for a little
more on why this is relevant.

Having said that, I'm working a new version that will change a few
things. Here's an overview:

1) Every site we index will have it's own "about" page. Here we will
explain a bit about what each site is about, how to contribute, what
kind of licenses the site allows and so on. In the case of the
Wikipedia and Commons we intend to outline the relationship between
the two and how Wikipedia will often hold a 'fake' image for images
that come from Commons as you described.

[I told him about Check Usage.]

2) Most images will have an intermediate preview (probably in a pop-up
lightbox). From here we can provide a link to *both* the Commons and
Wikipedia pages for an image. What do you think?

3) Yotophoto will eventually index images using captions from the
various Wikipedia articles that include said image. So if an image
doesn't have a complete description on it's own page - we can still
index it based on all the captions used for that image throughout
Wikipedia. Commons tends to have decent image descriptions but for
images only on Wikipedia taken from third party sites (say a PD US-GOV
image), the descriptions are often lacking.

[I said:
On Commons we have enough trouble forcing people to annotate their
files with basic information like licensing and author, let alone a
decent content description. Many people when they submit files, are
submitting them with a specific purpose in mind and are focused on
that, not on the possibility that the file might be re-used in the
future for something else. Also when one is looking at an image, it is
often quite self-explanatory, so the user doesn't feel the need to
explain the purpose or background to the file beyond three words. Of
course that doesn't stack up well for searching since machines can't
"read" images well at all (or even, mostly, at all).
]

4) Yotophoto would like to enable one click republishing of images
found so people can repost to their own blogs etc. To do this we will
provide a copy and paste HTML code they can use. This code will link
back to the image source (ie. Commons) as well as to the image
license. Sites like Commons will get tons of back-links and exposure
in this way I think. I like to think of this as the "Flickerization of
Wikipedia" (and Commons).

[I forwarded this part to wikitech-l to see what they say.]

5) The depth of the index will increase massively. We intend to one
day have the entire Commons and Wikipeida image collections searchable
(right now it is only a fraction) including not only photos but other
types of images as well like maps, charts, flags and so on.

I'd love to know what you think, and if you have any further
suggestions. As well, feel free to invite anyone from the Commons to
submit their ideas to me as well. I hadn't seen the Mayflower tool
before but it looks quite nice -  I want to look into it more.

Regards,

On 2/26/07, brianna.laugher at gmail.com <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brianna Laugher sent a message using the contact form at
> http://yotophoto.com/feedback.
>
> Hi, I'm a volunteer on the Wikimedia Commons website. I just wanted to say
> how impressed I am with Yotophoto at the moment. Displaying the license
> and the image dimensions in the results is particularly awesome. A couple
> of comments:
>
> Is it possible to do domain-specific searches? (like in Google,
> site:commons.wikimedia.org) - doesn't seem like it, so far
>
> As you may or may not know, when projects like Wikipedia use images from
> Wikimedia Commons, it creates 'fake' image pages like this one:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Common_frog.jpg (note the red tab and
> the tag 'This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. The description on its
> description page there is shown below.'). To better promote Wikimedia
> Commons, it would be preferable if such images could be referred back to
> their Wikimedia Commons page, rather than the 'fake' page at Wikipedia.
> Would that be possible?
>
> Also, another Wikimedia editor has developed an image search engine
> specifically for Wikimedia Commons called 'Mayflower', which you might be
> interested in checking out:
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tangotango/mayflower/
>
> As the default wiki search engine for media performs very poorly, we tend
> to be very happy whenever we find out about nice products like these :)
>
> thanks!
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 3/10/07, christophe.henner at wikimedia.fr <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/03/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> > The real issue is that when I receive DMCA notices, the "uploader" or
> > "provider" of the content is the Foundation if the author cannot be
> > identified or contacted. In response to Anthere, the real issue for the
> > foundation is this:
> >
>
> The point is I don't see what the DMCA have to do with redistribution
> of free images. With Fair Use I can see but, in my opinion, the
> Foundation shall NOT give any autorization for redistribution of fair
> use image, or even help at it.

This entire thread is very disappointing.

Why is this is an issue with "Free images"?  Because images that we
clam are free are not infrequently copyright infringements.  I believe
that Jeff has first hand experience getting copyright complaints over
content which we claimed was okay. Static copies carry the additional
risk that they are not updated continually with the
instant-gratification removals that we are constantly performing on
our projects.

Jeff's issue is very simple.

Under US Law a service provider is protected from copyright claims
related to material they are hosting on behalf of their users, so long
as they meet a set of criteria and conform with a specific take down
procedure.

Users post material to Wikimedia projects and Wikimedia hosts it for
them. If there is a violation wikimedia will follow the mandated
procedure and take the material down, giving the upload the
opportunity to counter notice and take their issue up with the
copyright holder directly. All is good, and Wikimedia is protected
from liability for the actions of their users.

Now, Jeff downloads material from Wikimedia which we claim is free and
hosts it on his own servers.  Is he a service provider acting on
behalf of the original Wikimedia users? I do not think that it is at
all clear that he is. It could be easily argued that he is just a
user, hosting his own content, fully liable any any copyright
infringement he performs.

It would see, that Jeff thinks that having the foundation's explicit
approval puts him in a better position with respect to the DMCA safe
harbor, that by getting the foundation's approval he is in a strong
position to claim that he too is simply a service provider acting on
behalf of someone else.

I do not know if he is correct.. I do not know if this needed, or if
it's sufficient.  But it is not an unreasonable concern.


body:
> If a copyright holder submits a valid takedown notice, and then the
> uploader submits a valid counter-notice, then the copyright holder has
> 10 days to sue to uploader.  After 10 days, if there was no lawsuit,
> the ISP may restore the content and is indemnified from lawsuit.

So the key thing missing was that the counter starts when the DMCA
notice is issued, not when the work is first distributed, which is
what was implied.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 3/10/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> When I start distributing them, there WILL be DMCA takedown notices and
> legal threats from various folks out on the internet
> I am certain, along with possible litigation.
>
> That's fine. If someone wants to take me to Court for distributing
> Wikipedia images, I have both the legal background,
> and the resources to defend such actions.
>
> I need the Foundations permission because they are the source of the
> images on the internet. In the event there is a DMCA takedown
> notice, I will notify the Wikipedia contributor on their talk page who
> uploaded the image, wait for the response, then give the complaining
> party the time period to file suit if they really feel that strongly
> about it, or work out some reasonable compromise (which would be best)
> between the parties.

I am sorry Jeff, I still do not understand why you need the
Foundation's permission for these images. The Wikimedia Foundation
owns the servers that host those images to statr with. once you put
them on your server/computer/wheatever, the Wikimedia Foundation has
nothing to do whatsoever with those images and your torrent. ?you* or
whoever else hosts them, become the "host"; ie. subject to a DMCA
notice. If the people who send *you* a DMCA notice because they judge
that these images should not be on the internet to start with, they
might want to investigater further and see where else they can find
those images. In which case they might ask the Foundation, as the
owner of the servers that hosts those images to take them down as
well. End of the story.

[snip]

>
> In essence, the Foundation will have a "buffer" of sorts one level away
> from the forefront of these legal issues and at the same time be able
> to filter a lot of the conflict over image distribution. The other point
> is, technically under the law, WMF may be considered the source
> of the images in some cases, and in that case, they would be the
> responder to DMCA takedown notices. I think this would help
> clean up a lot of the images also (people would think twice about
> uploading fair use images if they knew they were being repacked
> and distributed and that they may receive DMCA notices about the images).

Again, hinting as the possibility that the Wikimedia Foundation is the
"source" (and here I understand it as "author" or "owning the rights
to" of ANY image hosted on thier servers is hinting at something that
is both, as far as I am concerned, wrong and dangerous as it furthers
the misunderstanding of where responsibility lies and what the
Foundation's role is (mainly owner of the servers that host ths
content) . Authors are responsible for the content they put on the
Wikimedia projects. Individually. You are responsible for putting
together those images. Individually.

In any case, if you had to seek an authorization (and I don't think
you do), it would be from every single author of those images you are
distributing, and never ever from the Foundation.

> At any rate, it would be impolite and a breach of loyalty to the
> foundation and community to go ahead with such a plan without permission
> and without giving the Foundation the opportunity to comment on the
> proposal and offer suggestions.

I do not agree :-). It is the whole point of freely licensed material
that it can be redistributed at will, and without asking permission.
You should just make sure that all photos are properly
sourced/attributed etc. in your archive and go on with it!

Announcing it on this list is about as polite as you need to get, I believe. ;-)

Delphine

--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
 > Florence Devouard wrote:
 >
 >> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
 >>
 >>
 >>> I have compiled the entire library of Wikipedia's images and have a
 >>> bittorrent server ready to export this library on the internet.  I am
 >>> awaiting
 >>> word back from the Foundation for approval to enable the torrents.
 >>>
 >>> I have developed an automated C based server system which mirrors all
 >>> Wikipedia images and compiles them into .bz2 archives as a library
based
 >>> on XML revision and dump.   When I get final approval, I will export
 >>> these torrents to allow the images to be available from the
internet.
 >>> I will be in Arizona meeting with Dine (Navajo) folks next week on
their
 >>> projects, but will have email access.
 >>>
 >>> The torrents will be available at
 >>>
 >>> http://www.wikigadugi.org:2780
 >>>
 >>> At some point.  I will let folks know when and if the Foundation has
 >>> approved this.
 >>>
 >>> :-)
 >>>
 >>> Jeff
 >>>
 >>>
 >>
 >> Just to be sure... Who did you ask approval from ?
 >>
 >> ant
 >>
 >>
 >> _______________________________________________
 >> foundation-l mailing list
 >> foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r at public.gmane.org
 >> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
 >>
 >>
 >>
 > Danny,
 >
 > Jeff

In which capacity ?

ant


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
> On 3/7/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator"
>> of Wikipedia is. It was a misnomer to begin with, and we've had
>> nothing but trouble with this name ever since. Users misunderstand it
>> (and ask admins to make editorial decisions). Media misunderstand it
>> (and either do not explain it, or connect it to power and influence).
>> And it's no wonder. "Administrator" could refer to a manager, or
>> someone appointed by a court; it typically describes someone in an
>> important official position.

I think this is a case of techies never stopping to worry about what
things are named.

"Administrator" is a piece of Wikipedia in-jargon. The only reason we
don't notice it is that it is also a piece of computer-related
technical jargon.

In an IT context, everybody understands that a computer's
"administrator" is something like a bus driver: someone who has the
ignition key and the technical capability to drive the bus. In a
sense he controls where the bus goes in a trivial way (lane changes)
or even a not-so-trivial-way (staying on a bridge or driving over the
side into a river), but he doesn't decide the schedule or the route
or what color the bus should be painted.

I'm not sure why techies use a word that usually means "manager of
other humans" to mean "operator of a machine;" perhaps it's a handy
analogy or perhaps it involves anthropomorphizing the machine.

Another example is "edit" and "editor." To a techie, an "editor"
means something like Notepad. To "edit" means "to perform the
technical task of changing a piece of text." An editor _really_ means
a bit of software, not a person, although by extension it can mean a
human being when he is using an editor... much as, circa 1900, the
people who sat at the keyboard of an L. C. Smith circa 1900 were
called "typewriters."

When we say "edit this page," all we mean is "you have the technical
capability of making a momentary change in what's on this page.
There's no guarantee it will stay that way for more than thirty
seconds."

To an average person, an editor is someone who supervises
publication... a person who gets to _decide+ what's going to be on
the page and have it stick. A person with a fairly high management or
(well) administrative position.

If you say "I edit the Wall Street Journal" it means something quite
different from "I edit Wikipedia."


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
 > Rory Stolzenberg wrote:
 >
 >> On 3/9/07, Jeff V. Merkey
<jmerkey-6KXTs3wnGaZTqo3+vT/QGPegYHeGw8Jk at public.gmane.org> wrote:
 >>
 >>
 >>> I have compiled the entire library of Wikipedia's images and have a
 >>> bittorrent server ready to export this library on the internet.  I am
 >>> awaiting
 >>> word back from the Foundation for approval to enable the torrents.
 >>>
 >>> I have developed an automated C based server system which mirrors all
 >>> Wikipedia images and compiles them into .bz2 archives as a library
based
 >>> on XML revision and dump.   When I get final approval, I will export
 >>> these torrents to allow the images to be available from the internet.
 >>> I will be in Arizona meeting with Dine (Navajo) folks next week on
their
 >>> projects, but will have email access.
 >>>
 >>> The torrents will be available at
 >>>
 >>> http://www.wikigadugi.org:2780
 >>>
 >>> At some point.  I will let folks know when and if the Foundation has
 >>> approved this.
 >>>
 >>> :-)
 >>>
 >>> Jeff
 >>>
 >>>
 >>
 >> The Foundation does not own the copyright to (almost) all of those
pictures.
 >> Why do you need approval from them? As long as they're distributed
according
 >> to the terms of their licenses (assuming you aren't using
copyrighted images
 >> that Wikipedia uses under a claim of fair use), you don't need any
 >> permission.
 >>
 >>
 > When I start distributing them, there WILL be DMCA takedown notices and
 > legal threats from various folks out on the internet
 > I am certain, along with possible litigation.
 >
 > That's fine. If someone wants to take me to Court for distributing
 > Wikipedia images, I have both the legal background,
 > and the resources to defend such actions.
 >
 > I need the Foundations permission because they are the source of the
 > images on the internet. In the event there is a DMCA takedown
 > notice, I will notify the Wikipedia contributor on their talk page who
 > uploaded the image, wait for the response, then give the complaining
 > party the time period to file suit if they really feel that strongly
 > about it, or work out some reasonable compromise (which would be best)
 > between the parties.
 >
 > Should someone want to file suit or really complain, then the Foundation
 > can make the call on whether or not the image should also
 > come off Wikipedia without exposing the Foundation to the same level of
 > legal risks someone who is actively distributing the images
 > would be. People who own copyrights may not have an issue with Fair use
 > images on Wikipedia as a encyclopedia, but they may have a more serious
 > view when someone is distributing full downloads and archives of images
 > so people REALLY CAN host the encyclopedia. This will test that premise
 > and I would expect to see more people coming forward on image use in
 > general so the Foundation can more effectively identify images which
 > may in fact be sources of conflict.
 >
 > In essence, the Foundation will have a "buffer" of sorts one level away
 > from the forefront of these legal issues and at the same time be able
 > to filter a lot of the conflict over image distribution. The other point
 > is, technically under the law, WMF may be considered the source
 > of the images in some cases, and in that case, they would be the
 > responder to DMCA takedown notices. I think this would help
 > clean up a lot of the images also (people would think twice about
 > uploading fair use images if they knew they were being repacked
 > and distributed and that they may receive DMCA notices about the images).
 >
 > At any rate, it would be impolite and a breach of loyalty to the
 > foundation and community to go ahead with such a plan without permission
 > and without giving the Foundation the opportunity to comment on the
 > proposal and offer suggestions.
 >
 > Jeff

I still have not understood what you were asking the authorization for.
Images are under a free licence, so do not need our authorization to be
distributed.

Can you provide the exact text of what you are asking authorization of ?

ant


body:
> > At any rate, it would be impolite and a breach of loyalty to the
> > foundation and community to go ahead with such a plan without permission
> > and without giving the Foundation the opportunity to comment on the
> > proposal and offer suggestions.
>
> I do not agree :-). It is the whole point of freely licensed material
> that it can be redistributed at will, and without asking permission.
> You should just make sure that all photos are properly
> sourced/attributed etc. in your archive and go on with it!
>
>
> Announcing it on this list is about as polite as you need to get, I believe. ;-)
>
> Delphine
>

I would like to know, will the archive contain freely licensed images
or Fair Use? If it's free images I don't see the point of the
autorization, if it's Fair Use image... the foundation has no right on
the images and can't give any autorizations

--
schiste


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> but are the majority of people who arrive at image pages (that is,
> bother to click images in articles) editors or "users" (presumably
> non-editor users)? I would guess the former.

Good question. With svg diagrams, there's probably a greater
likelihood than normal of a (non-editing) user clicking in order to
make the image actually readable, or wanting to print or something.

The chequerboard is definitely useful for editors. The question is, is
it harmful to non-editors?

Steve


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sorry, I know this is lame but I just had to


from_name: Platonides

body:
Ian Tresman wrote:
> The latest version of MediaWiki v. 1.9.3 requires PHP v5 and mySQL v5.
>
> However, my server runs PHP Version 4.3.11 and mySQL v3.23.58, and
> they won't upgrade since it affects other customers.
>
> But my Web hosting company says I could run PHP v5 and MySQL v4 as
> binaries, but would MediaWiki work in  this way?
>
> Regards,
> Ian Tresman

MediaWiki _should_ work, but efficiency will be poorer.


from_name: Ian Tresman

body:
At 18:40 10/03/2007, you wrote:
>Ian Tresman wrote:
> > The latest version of MediaWiki v. 1.9.3 requires PHP v5 and mySQL v5.
> >
> > However, my server runs PHP Version 4.3.11 and mySQL v3.23.58, and
> > they won't upgrade since it affects other customers.
> >
> > But my Web hosting company says I could run PHP v5 and MySQL v4 as
> > binaries, but would MediaWiki work in  this way?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ian Tresman
>
>MediaWiki _should_ work, but efficiency will be poorer.

My Wiki is expected to be low traffic, so it shouldn't be an issue,
and way offset by the improvements in MediaWiki v. 1.9.3 versus
MediaWiki v. 1.6.9.

Regards,
Ian


body:
> 2) Most images will have an intermediate preview (probably in a pop-up
> lightbox). From here we can provide a link to *both* the Commons and
> Wikipedia pages for an image. What do you think?

I don't think this is a good idea. I assume he said it thinking on
"articles linking here", a link to CheckUsage would be ok, but to
wikipedia...
1-Which wikipedia?
2-Why wikipedia and not Wiktionary or Wikibooks?

If that wikipedia has extra information about the image (not a
transcluded commons image & description), it's a local upload, so either:
a) The image is free and should be uploaded to commons.
b) The image is fair use. No good for a copyleft search engine.

That if you upload to commons (not local upload), your image will also
be on the image search engine, can also encourage some people for the
free licenses instead of the -nc, etc.

I have nothing against using wikipedia usage for gaining image
information, though.

A suggestion for them: What about making available a search from
image-hash (eg md5, sha1...) to allow a backwards search? (Where did
this free imjage came from?)

It is nice seeing this copyleft search engines :-)


body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:
> Something interesting in the UK is what Channel 4 are doing with their
> post-transmission "on demand" service which allows you to watch a program
> during the subsequent seven days.
>
> They are removing the ads themselves (and no, there is no charge to watch.)

4oD programming is only available to residents of the UK and the
Republic of Ireland. The programme rights we hold are limited to these
geographic regions and it is illegal for us to allow them to be
downloaded elsewhere.
http://help.channel4.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=72,E=0000000000012197015,K=3098,Sxi=0,CASE=1246,VARSET_PA=sa_VoD,VARSET_TITLE=4oD,PROBLEM=obj(292),VARSET_OBJECTID=292,VARSET_OBJECTNAME=Who%20can%20access%204oD?

If they only have publishing rights for some regions, they can't free
them :S


from_name: Garrett

subject:
[Textbook-l] NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policies on
	Wikibooks?

body:
The rules against OR and POV were first established on EN Wikipedia, and
other projects have since been inspired to inherit them (after all,
Wikipedia was originally the "Wikipedia Textbook project" or somesuch). Many
of our old policies were based on outdated forks of Wikipedia policies.

First I'll talk about OR. Writing a textbook is very different from a
Wikipedia article; while a Wikipedia article can only cover a topic that
already exists, a book is free to reveal an entirely new topic.

However, with both methods verifiability is still crucial; if any previous
works cover the topic in question it's very important to mention them; even
if they were not used to write the book it shows its authors have read
widely and really know their topic. If no traditional sources exist then it
is perhaps a topic a more trusted source should cover first (such as a real
professor with a real degree), rather than the semi-anonymous laymen of
Wikibooks. I'm hesitant to mention it, but the recent unfortunate events
involving Essjay on Wikipedia show the limited verifiability of a wiki
user's qualifications.

NPOV is a vaguer issue; since a textbook is covering the topic from a
particular angle, some degree of POV is often inevitable for the cause of
interesting prose. However there's a difference between POV and actual bias.
This is a matter better explored at a later date.

OR aside, (although references and NPOV are still preferable if possible),
hosting non-annotated fiction simply isn't within our scope. Our donations
and tax breaks have been generously and specifically given for the purposes
of running a non-profit source for copyleft textbooks. Even fiction focussed
on instruction such as Ardvark the Aardvark (
http://novelas.wikia.com/wiki/Ardvark_the_Aardvark ) had to be moved because
of these restrictions.

While in the past we have been lenient (some would say lax) about fiction
and other non-textbook content being on Wikibooks, continuing the errors of
the past doesn't help anything. Jimbo has stated we need to stick closer to
our goals, and he's right.

Anyway I hope I explained everything sufficiently.

Garrett

On 10/03/07, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I am wandering is it a local policy on en: (and some other Wikibooks)
> or, like on Wikipedia, it is a global policy?
>
> Yes, this is reasonable if we are talking only about manuals and
> school books. However, I would like to see, for example, a book about
> web servers comparison and I don't think that it is reasonable to stop
> people writing such kinds of books. Also, I'd like to see essays and
> even fiction books on Wikibooks, too. Of course, with defining what
> kind of books would be able not to be NPOV and NOR (for example, I
> don't think that a book about history may be POV) and with marking
> such books as OR and POV.
>
> If it is locally related to en:, projects in other languages may not
> follow such rules. However, it would be better to have a global policy
> with definitions what may and what may not be OR and/or POV.
>
> I think that it is better to have strong Wikibookian communities with
> a lot of fiction on Wikibooks then much smaller communities without
> fiction on Wikibooks.
>
> I know that it sounds hereticly :) However, I would like to see a good
> skilled (amateur) astronomer who prefer to write SF on Wikibooks. He
> may start to write a book about astronomy through some time.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>


body:
Jeremy Cushman wrote:
> On 3/10/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> This change seems to be targeted at editors, rather than users of the
>> wiki. For a user, the behavior of seeing a checkered background on a
>> full size view serves no purpose and, indeed, obscures the content of
>> the image. What is the justification for putting this in the default
>> skin?
>
> I agree with Erik.  I've added the checkered background to my personal
> monobook, because it's great for working on images images, but the
> majority of users not into image editing and such do not want to see
> the checkered background.
> --Mets501

Wasn't this already available at image pages?
If this is problematic, make it a flag on user preferences, so it's easy
for everybody to have/avoid it.


body:
On 3/10/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/10/07, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Again, hinting as the possibility that the Wikimedia Foundation is the
> > "source" (and here I understand it as "author" or "owning the rights
> > to" of ANY image hosted on thier servers is hinting at something that
> > is both, as far as I am concerned, wrong and dangerous as it furthers
> > the misunderstanding of where responsibility lies and what the
> > Foundation's role is (mainly owner of the servers that host ths
> > content) .
>
> That isn't quite true:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia

I'm not sure I get your point here. If theres even is one.

If you're trying to say that the Wikimedia Foundation *is* indeed
responsible for those logos that are copyrighted from the Wikimedia
Foundation, yeah, we agree.

But then Jeff should be asking the right to the Wikimedia Foundation
*as the copyright holder of those images* not as *the source of all
images*.

Delphine

--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


body:
On 3/10/07, christophe.henner at wikimedia.fr <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > At any rate, it would be impolite and a breach of loyalty to the
> > > foundation and community to go ahead with such a plan without permission
> > > and without giving the Foundation the opportunity to comment on the
> > > proposal and offer suggestions.
> >
> > I do not agree :-). It is the whole point of freely licensed material
> > that it can be redistributed at will, and without asking permission.
> > You should just make sure that all photos are properly
> > sourced/attributed etc. in your archive and go on with it!
> >
> >
> > Announcing it on this list is about as polite as you need to get, I believe. ;-)
> >
> > Delphine
> >
>
> I would like to know, will the archive contain freely licensed images
> or Fair Use? If it's free images I don't see the point of the
> autorization, if it's Fair Use image... the foundation has no right on
> the images and can't give any autorizations

Fully agree.

Delphine

--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
>
> MediaWiki _should_ work, but efficiency will be poorer.

why poorer? some tasks should be faster, some should use same
performance (with binary schema). performance overhead of utf8 schema
shouldn't be much bigger.

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic
	conflict of...

body:
In a message dated 3/7/2007 10:53:32 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
nobs03 at gmail.com writes:

On  3/7/07, Bartning at aol.com <Bartning at aol.com>  wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 3/5/2007 11:15:29 A.M.  Pacific Standard Time,
> michaeldavid86 at comcast.net  writes:
>
> This is  very much the way a hospital functions:  A combination of paid
> staff
> and  volunteers working  together to accomplish the same goal - the best
> patient  care  possible. How these two groups get along in there
> interactions
>  is what  a culture is all about. Acceptance of this culture  requires
> maturity
> on the  part of the individual  participants - and care and nurturing
> by   all.
>
>
>
> > to  mention
>  inappropriate because it's unfair.  We've got to think outside the   box -
> come up
> with something new.
>
> Granted I've  experienced a wannabe psychiatric-nurse admin, but the
> mental-health  system's not supposed to fold in on itself for every reason
> in  the
> book, Murphy's Law to the extreme where ignorance and knowledge  both lead
> to
> dysfunction.
>
> Many hospitals are  nonprofit, but non-profit organizations themselves also
> have  structures.  We're going to get regional biases besides, being an
>  international encyclopedia.  Has anyone suggested separating   Wikipedia by
> country
> rather than language, not that it would  help mind  you?>
>
> Vincent Bartning
> UN: John  Wallace Rich
>
>

**************************************
AOL now offers  free
> email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL  at
> http://www.aol.com.

The point here is paid employees  of a non-profit entity with an agenda
evidenced by initiating internal  processes of dispute resolution.  This is
something not addressed in  any policies anywhere.  ( 1 ) They are agents of
a non-profit entity;  ( 2 ) volunteers in dispute have no disclosure as to *
whom* they are in  dispute with; ( 3 ) the dispute may not be initiated for
the purposes of  improving articles or writing an encyclopedia; ( 4 ) what
protections do  volunteer editors, acting in good faith, have against being
targeted and  publicly defamed by a non-profit entity with a  political
agenda?

Nobs03:

We're talking about structure of Wikipedia, not those who contribute  here.
 _michaeldavid86 at comcast.net_ (mailto:michaeldavid86 at comcast.net)   suggested
a hospital analogy, and I responded.

Vincent

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from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 3/10/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> It's been in the local stylesheets for I believe at least English
> Wikipedia and Commons for a year or so.

I removed it from the en.wp stylesheets a while ago (after getting
consensus for doing so) and now did so again. IMHO it should be
removed from the default stylesheets as well. Those editors who work
with images and benefit from the transparency information can put it
in their own monobook.css.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally a problematic
	conflict...

body:
Nobs03:

Also, yes, it seems rules get arbitrary application, and it does not lead
for a comfortable environment.  On top of that, you have many editors of
articles who don't know what they're talking about or only care  about keeping the
last Monday in May a holiday in a sleepy-dog  fashion.

Vincent

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from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an
	oligarchy to a ...

body:
On Saturday 10 March 2007 20:28, Bartning at aol.com wrote:
> It's been a while since I read a good portion of Plato's book, _The
> Republic_, but I wouldn't say it ruled out democracy, only the problems
> with democracy, notably the lack of protection of minority factions
> including of  the individual.  Democracy and freedom are basically
> synonymous.   However, I may mix classical and modern-political thought.
>
> Please  remember that (if we are to believe the dialogue) Socrates
> could have fled,  but chose to drink the hemlock out of respect for
> the authority of Athenian  government.  Even where the state murders
> to censor critics, its  dictates are not to be resisted.  That is the
> mentality of  Plato.

Really, Volume 1 of Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" is a
must-read.
--
Kurt Weber
Owner/Systems Administrator
Outward Hosting
http://www.outwardhosting.com


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made
	nearly 2 years...

body:
In a message dated 3/7/2007 4:23:05 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
stvrtg at gmail.com writes:

>
> I wouldn't say academia should be the only criteria for  credibility.
> What
> about work in field or exposure to it?   Someone who fought in World  War
> II or
> a family member  who had their loved one being killed in action  provides
> exposure  to the topics involved.  Often, historians interview  those
>  involved.
> Slavery and the Civil War provide other   examples.

See  [[Nupedia]]

-Stevertigo

There's a difference between experience and credentials.  Nupedia  involved
only credentials, and I'm only saying that what seems over-the-top  stupid and
closed minded should not substitute for policy.

Vincent

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body:
In a message dated 3/7/2007 5:02:59 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
stvrtg at gmail.com writes:

On  3/7/07, Bartning at aol.com <Bartning at aol.com> wrote:

> I  disagree.  People do not use critical thinking in their ignoring
>  authority, and it's not just credentials, it's making a joke out of
>  something  serious
> with pseudonyms or using systemic ad hominems  such as WP:DICK, not  to
> mention the unfair application of  standards.

You are right in that WP:DICK is dickish to reference.  But that has little
to do with credentialism and much to do with sophomoric  immaturity.

As far as the trappings of credentialism, Wikipedia has a  fine line to dance
in wanting to appeal to experts, while staying true to  its core ethos of
openness. Some argue that Wikipedia's growth demands a  shift from
anti-credentalism toward credentialism to 'take it to the next  level'. But
its important to remember this view as only one in much larger  body of views
amongst contributors - many of whom don't participate in  meta-discussion
like this. Keep in mind that most edits are done  anonymously and by people
who aren't even logged in.

It must be nice  to dream of some exclusive process as being the panacea for
all of WP's  perceived ills. In reality WP has done well thus far without
them. Again,  see [[Nupedia]] before making additional credentialist
proposals. ( I think  it wound up costing something like 10,000 USD per
article.  )

-Stevertigo

Stevertigo:

Thanks for the response.  I have at least three problems I can mention  right
now.  One, it's hard to get into an article and keep it well  centered.  Two,
it's hard to keep things fair, and three, rules get  arbitrarily and unfairly
applied.

Vincent

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